BotCon 2025 - June 12th-15th at Grand Wayne Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana (Again)

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BotCon 2025 report


From June 12 to June 15, BotCon 2025 was held at the Grand Wayne Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was in attendance this year and, boy howdy, was this year a busy BotCon for me. There was so much to do, so much to see, so many people to talk to, so many guests to meet, and so many panels to go to, that I just didn't have time to fit it all in. I was running around all over this place this year trying to get as much of a full experience out of this event as I could.

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Thursday, June 12

The convention started Thursday morning at 9:00am with the the first customization class. This year, there were two custom class toys available, both made from G1 toy reissues. The first custom class was for the Autobot espionage duo of Toaster and Blackcat. Toaster was made from the G1 Blaster mold, while Blackcat was made from G1 Ravage, using the recent Walmart reissues of each.

I, however, did not take this class.

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Also at 9:00am were the submissions for the Art Contest. I also did not participate in this.

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At 10:30am, Vendor Registration opened and set-up for the dealer room began.

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At 2:00pm was the sign up and practice time for the Energon Toss Tournament, a bean bag toss competition. Another event I didn't partake in.

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Finally, 4:00pm started the first event of the weekend that was actually relevant to me, registration package pick-up for Premium and Premium+ attendees. This year, I decided to splurge a little and went for Premium+ for the first time. Premium registration includes all of the following:

• Lanyard and badge
• The BotCon 2025 exclusive Yolopark 2-pack "The Sound of Science"
• Priority access to the BotCon Store on Thursday night
• Priority entry to the dealer room on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
• BotCon Unlimited #4 convention program
• Exclusive cloisonné pin and trading card
• Priority entry and front-row seating for all panels
• Priority access to all guest autographs
• Three raffle tickets for daily prizes
• Access to custom classes

Premium+ registration included all of the above plus the following additions:

• The BotCon 2025 exclusive Yolopark Cliffjumper figure w/ bonus chase variant collector card (this card was a Premium+ exclusive)
• A blank sketch cover version of the BotCon Unlimited #4 convention program
• 1 Grand Prize raffle ticket

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At 4:15pm, the BotCon Store opened for Premium and Premium+ attendees. The main new exclusive for this year that was available to purchase at the store was the aforementioned Yolopark Cliffjumper set. Premium+ attendees received this figure with their registration package pick-up, while Premium, Weekend, and General Admission attendees could instead purchase it from the BotCon Store as a souvenir figure.

The rest of the items at the store were largely more of the same items that were available for purchase in previous years, which could also be bought online from Agabyss's website.

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At 5:30pm was the registration package pick-up for Weekend attendees. Weekend registration included only the following:

• Lanyard and badge
• Access to the BotCon Store on Thursday night (only after the Premium and Premium+ attendees)
• Entry to the dealer room on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (after the Premium and Premium+ attendees)
• Access to all panels (seated after the Premium and Premium+ attendees)
• Two raffle tickets for daily prizes
• Access to custom classes

Overall, the total number of preregistered attendees wasn't a huge crowd, but nobody seemed to mind. It made for a comfortable event that didn't feel overwhelming, and the general admission attendees more than made up for the numbers throughout the weekend. It was more quality over quantity.

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Registration packaging pick-up and the BotCon Store remained open until 9:00pm, when the first of several evening events began for this year. Everyone gathered together in a room with a giant-screen TV set to watch a screening of Transformers One on Paramount+.

This room would be used throughout the entire weekend to play other Transformers movies and episodes from various Transformers cartoon series. Occasionally, I would walk past this room and get a glimpse of such things as the Bumblebee movie, the G1 cartoon, and the Armada cartoon playing at different times throughout the weekend.

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The night ended at 11:00pm, but room-to-room shopping at parts parties were still underway. I popped into one room and hung out there for while (I believe it was the parts party hosted by MegaToyFan) and got a few small items purchased from there.

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Friday, June 13

The convention kicked off properly on Friday starting bright and early at 10:00am. Before that, though, registration package pick-up for those who couldn't make it the previous day opened at 8:00am, while Walk-Up registration started at 9:00am.

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At 10:00am, the dealer room opened to Premium and Premium+ attendees, while Weekend attendees were let in at 10:30am. 10:00am was also the final sign-up for the Energon Toss Tournament and final submissions for the Art Contest.

The dealer room was a full house this year with a massive Artist Alley running down the middle of the room, while the guests' booths were back to the far-left corner of the room. At the very back of the room was an area where a stage was set up. This is where the Cosplay Contest was to be held later on Saturday, which would be the first time said contest was to be held inside the dealer room.

In the back right corner of the room was an area set aside for practice for the Energon Toss Tournament, while at the very front of the room near the entrance was Agabyss's booth. To the far left of that was the BotCon Store, and right next to the store was a booth for Korean company SAMG Entertainment, who were there to promote their line of Metal Cardbot toys.

Throughout the rest of the room were all the other vendors, including official Hasbro licensees Blokees and Robosen, BotCon longtimers Tony Preto and Harold Tietjens, and the likes of Transformerland, Stylin Online, Artfire2000, Alpha Prime Toys, Toy Dojo, Tempting Toys & Collectibles, MegaToyFan, and more.

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11:00am opened the convention to General Admission and started the qualifying rounds for the Energon Toss Tournament out in the lobby area.

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12:00pm was the first panel of the day, hosted by representatives from SAMG Entertainment and Agabyss. This panel introduced its attendees to the world of Metal Cardbot, a Korean toyline of cool transforming robot toys similar to Transformers but with its own original lore and more Super Robot designs that are evocative of Brave instead. It was announced that Metal Cardbot is coming to America with Agabyss serving as the line's primary distributor, with plans for the line to also eventually be carried by the likes of Amazon, Big Bad Toy Store, Entertainment Earth, and even Walmart Marketplace.

Also played at the panel was the first episode of the Metal Cardbot animated series. Though, when playing the episode, the reps from SAMG first realized only then how mediocre the English dubbing quality was and promised that Season 2's dub would be a dramatic improvement, since they've already completed the dub for Season 1.

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After the Metal Cardbot panel was an hour break until the next panel at 2:00pm, which was the cosplay panel. I skipped out on this one to spend more time in the dealer room.

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3:00pm was the "Transformers University: BotCon Exclusives - 1" panel, hosted by Joe Moore. There wasn't much to cover about this one, as Moore basically just talked about the concept of exclusive Transformers toys in general.

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Also at 3:00pm was the second customization class of the weekend. The custom class figure for this class was "Action Bombshell", redeco of the Retro TFTM reissue of G1 Bombshell in colors based on his 1991 European-only Action Master toy.

Like the first custom class, I did not take this class either, as I was at all the panels that were happening at the same time as the class.

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At 4:00pm was the G1 cartoon voice actors panel with Dan Gilvezan and Michael Bell. As a surprise, G1 cartoon writer and story editor Flint Dille joined the two at the panel. This panel was mostly just a Q&A session with the three, and only a couple of things of noteworthiness were mentioned:

• Dan's favorite episode of the G1 cartoon is "Transport to Oblivion", since it was the first time Bumblebee was teamed up with Spike as a real duo of best friends.
• According to Flint, one of the reasons so many charaters were killed off in TFTM wasn't just because of the need to clear out characters of old toys for make room for new ones, but in relation to that, The Transformers at the time was viewed by its creators like a sports team where the roster would change over time like with sports teams in real life.

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5:00pm was the panel hosted by former Hasbro designers Aaron Archer and Joe Kyde. Compared to the previous panel, this one had quite a few points of interest mentioned:

• Joe is currently with LEGO and he got to design the LEGO Optimus Prime set because of his background with Transformers at Hasbro. When the collaboration on the set between Hasbro and LEGO first started, Joe was immediately offered to work on the project.
• Joe dislikes fake parts, so he made it a point for LEGO Optimus to have no fake parts in its transformation.
• The original Cyberverse line from 2011–2013 was Joe's attempt to bring back the play pattern of Micromasters. However, Hasbro's marketing department never really let the original Cyberverse line reach its full potential as its own fully realized line. Marketing instead saw it more as the "low entry" toys for younger ages.
• Joe is confident that LEGO will not be doing a Megatron, even as a tank.
• Joe really wanted to do Armada Scavenger back in Generations Thrilling 30. They had a slot open for a construction vehicle in the Deluxe range, but they went with Scoop instead because Scavenger wouldn't have been done justice as a Deluxe (no stomping gimmick, for instance).
• Generations Straxus (Darkmount) and Black Shadow (Sky Shadow) happened because Joe had been pushing for both for a while back then, but both of them didn't quite turn out how he would have liked, though.
• Aaron confirmed that the Aligned designs of the Thirteen were never meant to be made into toys.
• Aaron spoke of how Transformers: Super Cross (the preliminary version of Armada's sequel that ultimately got split into Energon and Universe) inspired Vector Prime's creation as a character. Super Cross would have originally had a character with the kind of powers Vector has who helped the other characters get around the different worlds of the multiverse.
• Aaron stated that Micronus Prime's face was originally based on that of Hideaki Yoke (a statement he would later correct himself on; more on this later in the report). He's a little disappointed that the Age of the Primes toy's face doesn't resemble Micronus's original design, but also understands that the current folks at Hasbro wouldn't have known about that.
• The one design Joe wishes he could have seen realized was a Cyberverse playset of Fall of Cybertron Broadside (the Optimus Maximus playset was the only big Cyberverse playset like this that got made).
• Aaron once pitched a figure that transformed between Optimus and Megatron. That obviously didn't happen.

This was the last panel of the afternoon before the evening events began at 8:00pm.

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The dealer room remained open until 6:00pm, leaving some down time until 8:00pm.

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8:00pm was the big panel of the weekend, the most anticipated one for many. This was the "Transformers University: BotCon Exclusives -2" panel, at which we finally got the answers we had been waiting for regarding the new Yolopark Cliffjumper figure. Originally, this figure was supposed to be a new female Decepticon character named "Ladybug", but something had happened behind the scenes that forced the name and faction to be changed. Surprising to everything, it was not a Trademark issue.

I took thorough documentation of this panel and wrote up a full report of its own for TFWiki.Net. See here for the full fascinating story.

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9:00pm was Game Night, full of various board games and other activities for everyone to participate in and enjoy. There were puzzles, Jenga, Monopoly, and more. The video room also screened Transformers: The Movie (1986). While most played the games, others (like myself) simply used this time to hang out and chat with everyone and generally enjoy each other's company.

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The night ended at 11:00pm.

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Saturday, June 14

The day began in earnest at 10:00am with not only the dealer room opening to Premium, Premium+, and Weekend attendees, but also Round 2 of the Energon Toss Tournament and the Art Room opening up drawing classes and other activities for children.

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At 10:30am, the dealer room opened to General Admission.

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The first panel of the day began at 11:00am, which was a YouTube panel hosted by Captain Kyle of Toy Spotlite and other YouTubers. I did not go to this panel because I instead wanted to do some shopping around the dealer room.

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The first panel I did go to was the next one at 12:00pm, which was the G1 cartoon writers panel with Flint Dille and Michael Charles Hill. There were a few noteworthy points discussed in this one:

• Flint was asked what a proper fourth season of the G1 cartoon could have been like had it continued beyond "The Rebirth". Flint suggested it could have been like a postwar story looking at what became of these old soldiers after the war was over, but it didn't sound like a super serious answer, though. More like just Flint thinking what he might have done in hindsight rather than what it actually would have been. After all, he really wasn't involved with the G1 cartoon that much anymore by the time "The Rebirth" was in preproduction.
• Talking of Transformers: The Movie, Flint brought up the lost script draft of "The Secret of Cybertron". He took the Matrix from Ron Friedman's original "incomprehensible" first draft and got the idea of inserting it into Cybertron to make the planet transform to fight Unicron in "The Secret of Cybertron". He'd love to turn "The Secret of Cybertron" into a graphic novel or a movie, but can't find the old script for it anywhere. He wrote the script on two different computer systems, one half on each, and thinks there were only seven or eight copies of it ever, but it remains completely lost.
• Flint likened the Matrix in Friedman's first draft to the sword Excalibur from the tales of King Arthur.
• Michael Charles Hill (who wrote the G1 episode "The Gambler", which introduced the Autobot bounty hunter Devcon) never thought of ever bringing back Devcon because he wasn't a toy and thought of him as a throwaway character at the time, having no idea how much the character was liked. But if given the chance, he'd love to get to do more with the character again.

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The next panel at 1:00pm was a big event, as it was a Transformers One panel hosted by director Josh Cooley and voice actors Jon Bailey (Soundwave) and Jinny Chung (Arcee and Chromia). This panel was fully recorded by multiple people, and has been put on YouTube by Captain Kyle of Toy Spotlite:

Right off the bat came the biggest news of the whole panel: Josh confirmed that Paramount Animation is currently not interested in making a sequel to TF One.

He also refused to tell us anything about any sequel ideas he has if he were to make one.

Other points of interest from the panel:

• There was a deleted scene in which Orion Pax and D-16 were to have played a game on the arcade machine that Orion later throws Darkwing into in the actual movie. The game played was like Street Fighter with the characters being the Primes.
• When asked if he read the Covenant of Primus book when working on the movie, a confused Josh was sure that he did not read the Covenant of Primus. What he had read was a large PDF file that was more like the Binder of Revelation instead.
• Jon asked Josh if Cybertron has oxygen since there appears to be biological life on surface. Josh's answer: "Next question!"
• There was at one point a gladiator fight in reference to Megatron's usual gladiator backstory. It would have been in the High Guard scene. The reason D-16 was not made a gladiator and Otion Pax was not a data clerk in the movie is because they wanted and needed the two to start off as friends and equals in the same place in their life, for more smoother storytelling.
• Soundwave's minions didn't appear in the movie because they had no reason to. Josh seemed to be not a fan of doing fanservice for the sheer sake of it, which is ironic considering how many fanservice nods and references were crammed into this movie.
• Cybertron's surface was designed the way it was (in a constant state of transformation and gorgeous colors) because Josh wanted it to look amazing and worth fighting for, rather than the dead world it's so often depicted as in other media.

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Also at 1:00pm was the Top 16 of the Energon Toss Tournament.

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Right after the panel, Josh Cooley's autograph session began at 2:00pm. I got in line for this one and had him sign my blank-cover version of the convention program. I also got to ask him two quick questions regarding the movie:

• In the movie, the words "transform", "transformation", "transformer", etc. are used frequently, when Hasbro has recently been reluctant to use those terms out of a desire to keep them from becoming genericized (example, Hasbro's frequent use of the word "convert" instead of "transform" in a lot of their livestreams and other promotional material). I asked Josh if there was any pushback on the use of these terms, and he said that he didn't know about any of the rules regarding the word "transform", and basically nobody told him "No".
• My other question was about the identity of a mysterious green and orange member of the High Guard, as seen in this concept artwork. Every one of those High Guard members is recognizable except for the green/orange one. Josh's answer: "I have no idea."

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Also at 2:00pm was the Cosplay Contest, held this year in the dealer room. As I was perusing the room for more purchases and talks with other people, the host of the contest was particularly loud this year, as the volume on his microphone was turned way up to the point that no one else in the room could hear themselves speak whenever the host was speaking. This was a criticism taken to heart by the organizers and should not be repeated next year.

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At 3:00pm was the Top 8 of Energon Toss Tournament.

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Because Josh Cooley's autograph session ran long, the next panel was delayed to start at 3:30pm instead of 3:00pm. This panel was the "Transformers University: BotCon Exclusives - 3" panel, hosted by Jesse Wittenrich and Dan Khanna. The pair went over the exclusive Yolopark Soundblaster and Glyph 2-pack and the comic included with the set. This panel had to be truncated and cut down in time in order to finish by 4:00pm.

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At 4:00pm was the live script reading titled "Transformers Season 5: Unpaid Bounty". It featured voice performances by Dan Gilvezan, Michael Bell, Jon Bailey, Jinny Chung, and Agabyss member Derek Bigesby. Written with consultation from Flint Dille and Michael Charles Hill, it was a silly story full of tongue-in-cheek humor set in a version of the G1 cartoon universe in the year 2010, four years after "The Rebirth", during the time of a hypothetical fifth season of the cartoon that featured characters from the 1988 toy range (like Doubledealer and the Firecons) interacting with preexisting characters from the cartoon (like Goldbug, Sideswipe, and Swoop). While the actual cartoon did get a "Best Of" kind of fifth season with new live-action segments featuring Powermaster Optimus Prime and the human boy Tommy Kennedy, those segments weren't referenced or acknowledged in this script reading.

The script reading was fully recorded and is supposed to be released online at some later point.

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After the script reading, three things happened at 5:00pm. One was the final four of the Energon Toss Tournament. Another was a Blokees building competition. I didn't participate in either because of the third thing, which was something that happened to me personally: I got to have a 30-minute-long sit-down one-on-one conversation with Flint Dille. The man is a fascinating person and it was a treat getting to chat with him for that long. And it was he, rather than me, who kept the conversation going.

What started the conversation was my asking him about the fact that Ron Friedman and Bob Budiansky both came up with their own independent concepts called "the Matrix" for TFTM and Marvel G1 respectively. Flint talked about how the word "Matrix" was very common in both its use in new technology of the time and in science fiction pop culture of the time. But, he also got speculating about if there really could have been a possible connection between the two (this was all him, I personally am inclined to believe what Bob Budiansky told me back in 2023, that this was all just a big coincidence). Flint thinks that if there could have been any cross pollination between Ron and Bob both coming up with their own "Matrix" concepts, that the link between the two would have most likely been Jay Bacal, whom Flint said was the go-between for the cartoon and the comics in those days. I personally think the Jay Bacal connection is a long shot and that Flint was just getting over-enthusiastic about the possibility, as Bob told me he never saw anything the cartoon people were doing at the time and had no knowledge of Friedman's script back then.

He also revealed what the name of the restaurant was that inspired the name of the Quintessons. The name is really obvious when you think about it: "Quintessence".

The conversation with Flint ultimately led to him looking over Wikipedia's articles for Visionaries and TMS Entertainment (on my phone) and reminiscing about both. But I concluded the talk by showing him a TFCon video of Ron Friedman telling a funny, non-TF-related story about Orson Welles and Desi Arnaz that Lucille Ball had once told him. Flint had never heard this story and thought it was hilarious.

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The dealer room closed at 6:00pm. I managed to get some more shopping before then.

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At 6:30pm was the awards ceremony for the winners of both the Energon Toss Tournament and the Art Contest. I missed out on this since I went to get some dinner before the next panel. I also stopped in another hotel room's TF sale and got a few more figures from there.

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7:00pm was the Josh Cooley panel, for registered attendees only. This was a special NDA-type panel with no phones or cameras allowed. We were shown a private presentation Cooley gave at a VFX event in Italy. It showed a ton of behind the scenes footage, recordings, and other materials not included in the movie or its Blu-Ray bonus features. Among the things he showed us in the presentation were some behind-the-scenes recordings from the movie's production. The two I could best remember were a clip of Brian Tyler conducting his orchestra scoring the final pre-credits scene of the movie, and an absolutely chilling clip of Josh recording lines from Brian Tyree Henry that ultimately never made it into the movie.

These deleted lines included such moments as D-16 revealing to Orion (whose lines Josh read since this was a solo recording) his personal life goals and dreams that he had before finding out that his life was a lie: D-16 was happy being a miner, he had hoped to get promoted and work his way into upper management, and maybe even someday lead an expedition out to the surface (the way Brian Tyree Henry spoke this line made it sound like it was a pipe dream for D-16). But now that D-16 knows that his life was a lie, none of those dreams matter anymore and now he doesn't know what to do with his life. All he knows is that he wants to kill Sentinel, and that's the only thing keeping him going. As Orion continues to try to talk him out of it, D-16 comes to the dark conclusion that Orion is the reason D-16 has become what he is, and Brian Tyree Henry gave multiple chilling recordings of the words "You made me this. You... made me... this..."

And all of that D-16 dialogue was left on the cutting room floor because Josh realized that the whole speech had been overwritten, as in too long and too wordly. The scene needed to be more succinct and to the point, resulting in the much shorter version we got in the final movie (this speech was during the scene where D-16 has Sentinel at his mercy and Orion tries to stop him from killing him; some of Orion's dialogue from this made it in, like "This isn't you, D," and his line about a new world can't be built on an execution).

Cooley also confirmed something very important about the Trackers: They're "soulless". He described them as wanting to come across as robotic as possible, which from our more in-the-sauce perspective would strongly suggest that they're drone soldiers without Sparks.

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After the panel, Josh Cooley did a photo ops session at 8:00pm with everyone who was at his panel. Naturally, I got myself a photo with him.

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At 9:00pm, Transformers One was played a second time. However, not a lot of folks went to this screening because of a surprise panel not on the schedule that was sprung on everyone without warning: Jon Bailey hosted a late-night panel that was another "no phones, no cameras" panel.

He showed us a bunch of unlisted videos from his YouTube channel and one from his personal files. The unlisted videos included a brief demo reel of his many Transformers-related voice works (including official things like the Combiner Wars cartoon, the Bumblebee movie, TF One, and a plethora of mobile games and other odds and ends, as well as other things like How It Should Have Ended videos), and old fan works from his early YouTube days (for which he had various legitimate reasons for unlisting each of these).

But probably the most interesting video he played was the one from his personal files. It was a commercial for an official Transformers event that was held in China back during the latter era of the Michael Bay movies. This commercial was a fully CG animation of Bayverse Optimus (voiced by Jon) and Bumblebee in a human military base breaking the fourth wall to address the Chinese viewers watching and advertise the event to them. Jon even briefly had Optimus speaking in Mandarin before switching to English for the rest of it.

But what was really cool about this Chinese advert were two cameo appearances Jon pointed out at the beginning of the commercial: a Bayverse version of the Autobot Blurr, and a small group of human Army soldiers that included Flint from G.I. Joe. However, this commercial cannot be found anywhere online because it was never actually released, and Jon isn't allowed to upload it to the public online. This is the main reason why no phones were allowed at the panel, as it was a limited private screening.

Something else revealed at this panel was that Jon did voice work for a Dave and Busters exclusive Transformers VR Experience, in which he provided the voices of Swoop, Ironhide, and Scrapper, and which Dave and Busters got rid of some time ago. John screened some footage he had recorded of this, in which we heard Gregg Berger as Grimlock and witnessed the Dinobots fight Devastator. And luckily, this video is actually not unlisted:

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The evening events ended after that panel and everything shut down at 11:00pm, but there was more to come for me. Late into the night, I got talking with Derek Bigesby and he formally introduced me to the showrunner of the Agabyss BotCons, Hany Agaby. We had a loooooong conversation that went on well into the night, talking about a lot of various things.

One of the things we talked about during the conversation was last year's Yolopark two-pack, and Hany gave me a much more straightforward and sensible reason (compared to what was said last year on Facebook) for why the Delta Magnus toy was Delta Magnus instead of Magna Convoy. From Hany's perspective, the toy was Delta Magnus instead of Magna Convoy simply because Delta Magnus is the Transformers character version of Diaclone Powered Convoy that Hany was more familiar with and it did not matter to him that the toy represented an armorless version of Delta.

What's more, Hany had simply never heard of Magna Convoy until that very conversation we that last night. I learned much later in our conversation that he's not as familiar with Japanese Transformers lore, as he's never seen any of Hayato Sakamoto's Japanese-only works. So then I briefly explained to him that Magna Convoy was a Japanese TakaraTomy recolor of the Classics Optimus Prime mold that was a similar homage to the Diaclone Powered Convoy toy's cab as Delta Magnus's truck cab was.

I even told him about what was said last year on the BotCon Facebook, how someone on there tried to justify it being Delta Magnus by saying Magna Convoy was the Classics body version instead of the G1 body version. I even told Hany about the Hasbro Pulse livestream where it was said that the Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus toy's cab robot could double as a Magna Convoy toy. Hany had no idea anyone had given that answer on the Facebook, and when I told him about it, he chuckled upon hearing it and felt that answer was silly.

It was simply that Hany knew of Delta Magnus, wasn't aware of Magna Convoy, and that that "Classics vs. G1" body difference answer given on Facebook was dumb. The toy can be called whatever anyone wants to call it. I got the distinct impression that he felt that whoever had given that answer on Facebook last year probably shouldn't have said that.

I also found out from Hany that Agabyss actually had reached out to Hasbro to talk about what it would take for Hasbro to let them sell normal Transformers toys as BotCon exclusives again, and what Hasbro said in response is the main reason why BotCon cannot and will not have normal Transformers toys as exclusives anymore. What Hany was told by Hasbro was that, in order for this to happen, Hasbro would want BotCon to order the same number of pieces that a standard retail order from Target would have, somewhere in the range of 50,000-55,000 pieces (I can't remember the exact number he said, but it was something like that), which is waaaaaaaaay too much for BotCon in its current form to be able to sell.

The total amount of figures produced would be too numerous to be considered limited editions, as those from past BotCons and the Transformers Collectors Club had nowhere near that many produced. Out of both the 3H and Fun Publications eras, the exclusive with the highest known production quantity was 2013 Depth Charge at 7000 pieces, and that itself was an unusually high number since there were both the bagged and special carded versions of the figure, and there were so many leftover Depth Charges all the way up to the end of Fun Pub's existence.

BotCon in its current state would never be able to get their full money's worth from an exclusive produced in the same quantity of a standard-retail figure, which again is Hasbro's bottom line. Therefore, so long as Hasbro remains uninterested in producing limited-run exclusives of normal Transformers figures again, BotCon itself remains perfectly content in not trying to acquire any such figures from Hasbro. Yolopark, on the other hand, are A-OK with limited-run exclusives of their model kits, so that's where we're at now.

As for why BotCon is even trying to carry officially-licensed Transformers exclusive of any kind again, well that's easy for me to see without even needing to speak to Hany or anyone else on BotCon's staff: Because the attendees kept asking for a return of BotCon Transformers exclusives. Both online in the BotCon-chat channel of the Allspark Discord server and in-person at the 2022 and 2023 conventions, fans bemoaned BotCon for going with 52Toys's BeastBox and BeastDrive toys for the convention exclusives for those years.

Various reactions ranged from sensible comments about how, while those toys are a neat novelty, they just aren't the same as Transformers and you can only get so much mileage out of playing with them in Cube Mode... to outlandish criticisms that accused BotCon of "going third-party", which is ludicrous because 52Toys is its own legit first-party company that has even done official collabs with the likes of DC, Marvel, and Disney, and has never attempted to infringe on Hasbro's Transformers IP.

The 2022/2023 toys were merely deco homages to certain Transformers characters, but they were never meant to represent those characters whose decos they were homaging, not in the same way items produced by Fans Toys or TransArt or other well-known third party companies are meant to be the Transformers characters whose likenesses they are illegally modeled after. Thus, the attendees' demand for a return of actual-factual Transformers exclusives from BotCon eventually led to the current arrangement that Agabyss has with Yolopark.

And something else that I did glean from talking with Hany was the notion that he himself was actually very critical of how expensive the old exclusives became during Fun Pub's era. Even if the current BotCon could get normal Transformers from Hasbro as exclusives again, Hany does not want them to be so overpriced. In his opinion, the prices of Fun Pub's big boxed sets got ridiculous, so whether it be Hasbro or Yolopark, he wants to make the current BotCon exclusives more reasonably affordable, which is probably why they're now two-packs or single-packs instead of large sets. It reminds me more of the 3H years when the number of exclusives per year was far smaller, which made each one feel more special since they weren't just one piece in a crowd of exclusives.

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Sunday, June 15

The final day of the convention started at 10:00am, with the dealer room opening to all attendees.

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The first panel of the day was another Jon Bailey panel at 11:00am. Unlike the one from the night before, this one was on the schedule and didn't have any recording restrictions. The only bit on information mentioned at this panel that I found to be interesting was the fact that, back when working on the Bumblebee movie, Jon was actually pushing for Travis Knight to get David Warner to voice Shockwave in the movie as a voice cameo. Unfortunately, Warner was more than likely out of their price range and not in the best health at the time, so Jon voiced Shockwave instead.

Jon ended his panel with a fun Q&A session that had an interesting twist: He asked us questions instead of vice versa. Jon asked questions about his voice acting history, and anyone who answered correctly received one of several free art prints that he was giving away. Also hosting the panel was his significant other (I'm ashamed that I cannot remember her name), and when she asked questions, they were all Beast Wars questions since she's a big Beast Wars fan. It was one of her questions that I answered, and it was a question that only I raised my hand to answer: "Who voiced Ravage in Beast Wars?" The answer was Lee Tokar, and I received a TF One art print as my prize.

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Also at 11:00am was a special Father's Day Energon Toss. Moving on.

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At 12:00pm was the "BotCon University: Graduation" held out in the lobby. It was originally going to involve a written exam with questions from the previous three "Transformers University" panels, but it instead involved a friendly Q&A where everyone who answered a question correctly received a graduation certificate with their name written on it. And they made sure that everyone did correctly answer a question so that everyone could get a certificate. I answered the question about which of the Thirteen was originally created by Fun Publications, that being Nexus Prime.

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Also at 12:00pm was a panel hosted by Robby Musso, about his original IP called "Divine Circuits", which had a short preview comic in this year's convention program. It's a series about giant transforming robots that turn into race cars and partake in human-driven racing sports set in an anime-looking world after these robots had previously fought in a large war against a great evil force that had been banished away.

I was originally going to go to this panel, but decided not to because I wanted to talk to several of the guests at their booths in the dealer room (more on this later) since time was short on this day.

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At 1:00pm was the final panel of the weekend, a BotCon 2025 Q&A panel hosted by Hany Agaby and Derek Bigesby, at which they took feedback on the weekend from the attendees. The feedback seemed to be the most positive this year of the four Agabyss BotCons thus far. No major issues or complaints.

• The only thing that was really criticized about the weekend was the volume of the Cosplay Contest. Hany and Derek took that feedback to heart and will make sure that things are done differently next year. Speaking of next year, the date and location are set to be revealed at some point in July. They weren't able to get the date and location set before the convention because the person they were talking to went into surgery right before the convention.
• Although, it was hinted by Hany and Derek that next year could possibly be in a different month, and they asked us how we would feel about BotCon being held in, say, May or September? Like on Memorial Day Weekend or Labor Day Weekend. The reception to this suggestion was mixed since both of those are heavy travel weekends. We'll just have to wait and see what next year ends up looking like.
• Hany was also asked at the panel about the possibility of BotCon getting proper Transformers toy exclusives again like in the old days, and he basically reiterated what he had told me during own long talk the night before: That Hasbro would only let BotCon carry any kind of normal Transformers toys as exclusives if BotCon ordered the same quantity as Target orders for mass retail, which is way too much for BotCon. In other words, Hasbro would be treating BotCon exclusives like any other store exclusives, produced in the same mass numbers instead of limited production runs.
• Another reason given for why Hasbro won't budge on smaller production runs is because of the changes in management that have occurred over the years: "The numbers they used to OK back in the day are not the same as now. They have different CEOs in place, different brand managers in place, and... the numbers they asked for are essentially what a run Target would get." Although, Hany did say that the only way BotCon could carry an exclusive at 50,000 pieces would be if BotCon were to grow to an enormous size (like, as big an event as San Diego Comic Con), which I'm sure he'd love to see happen but his tone made sound like he knows that's likely just a pipe dream.
• One of the biggest complements received this year was how BotCon set up the video room for screening Transformers cartoons and movies during the convention, as it provided a safe space and a cool-down area for many of the attendees, particularly those with autism. It was even suggested if BotCon could maybe implement some sort of quiet time or moment of silence on the schedule to let attendees with autism have an opportunity to explore the dealer room without too much noise or too many people crowding the room. Hany and Derek were very receptive to the idea and very open to considering such accomodations, since they know very well how big Transformers is with the autism community.

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[Sabrblade]

The convention ended at 3:00pm, but in the time before that, I managed to get some moments of time to talk with some of the guests.

I had a brief talk with Michael Bell. While most other guests talked with him about voicing Prowl or Sideswipe in the G1 cartoon, or voicing Lance in the original Voltron cartoon, I did something quite different. I walked right up to his booth and gave him all my appreciation for his returning to Transformers ten years ago as the voice of High Tide in Transformers: Rescue Bots. He said that I was the only person at the event who talked to him about Rescue Bots and was glad that someone gave him recognition for that role. He had a great time on that show and revealed that he never even auditioned for the part. He got the role of High Tide because Ginny McSwain personally gave him the role.

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Next I got to approach Dan Gilvezan and ask him something. During the previous day's script reading, Dan provided the voice of Slizardo, the little green alien from the G1 cartoon who featured in "The Gambler" and "Grimlock's New Brain". It is currently unknown who voiced Slizardo back in those episodes, but Dan's voicing him in the script reading got me curious if maybe it really was Dan who voiced him back then all along. Alas, Dan confirmed that he had been unfamiliar with the character until the script reading and had to be shown a sample of the character's voice in order to do it himself in the script reading, and he has no idea who it was who voiced him back then. His best guesses were between John Stephenson and Frank Welker, though he also thinks Corey Burton is a possibility. Nothing concrete, sadly.

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I also had a very interesting chat with Dan Khanna, who actually showed me a line art sketch of a page from the unpublished fourth chapter of "Transformers: The Wreckers", the old BotCon comic storyline from the early 2000s. Recalling what I had read in the script for the issue (which has been available to read online since 2007), the sketch was for the confrontation scene between the Wreckers and Cryotek right when the latter blasts Primal Prime and Apelinq with energy from the Divine Light, right before the two get reborn as Sentinel Maximus. He also confirmed that the prose story written by Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop was VERY different from how the actual final chapter would have played out. He didn't go into details, just that the fifth chapter was very different from the prose story.

Dan also shared with me a few details from the unrealized final chapter of "Primeval Dawn". He confirmed some of the things we already knew, that Primal Prime and Tarantulas would have had a big epic fight, that Airazor would have been abducted by Unicron, and that Ramulus would have brought reinforcements to help defeat the Predacons.

But he also revealed new information: that none of the Predacons would have been destroyed. Rather, they all would have been captured by Primal Prime's team (except for Spittor, who would have switched sides) and taken back to Cybertron as prisoners. Upon their arrival, Megatron's Vehicons would have stolen the sparks Ravage, Iguanus, and Razorclaw, while Tarantulas would have escaped and gotten away (tying into his later-set appearances in the Universe comics where he is shown to already be with Unicron).

Dan also said that the ship described in both "Apelinq's War Journals" and "VEHICON ALERT!" (both of which he remembers fondly) as crash-landing on Cybertron and bringing Primal Prime's team to the planet would have likely been retconned away and swept under the rug, with the characters from "Primeval Dawn" simply going back to Cybertron via the transwarp portal Tarantulas built (but since this final chapter ultimately never got made, the ship's existence can remain as is).

He also confirmed that he wrote the Optimus Primal profile printed in TCC magazine #9 that summarized the rest of the Universe War. He also revealed that he had written a production bible for "Primeval Dawn" way back when, and that he actually ghost wrote the first chapter. While Bob Forward was credited as that chapter's writer, he simply went by what Dan had written for the first chapter in that production bible.

He also revealed that Primal Prime and Cryotek were created by Andrew Frankel, and that Frankel was most likely the one who had written Cryotek's bio that was originally written for the Hasbro toy but ultimately went unpublished, and wound up being first released on BotCon Beyond instead. He also confirmed that BotCon 2001 Transmetal Tigatron was his (Dan's) idea, with "Primeval Dawn" having been writing to give a proper backstory to that Tigatron toy.

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Besides Dan Khanna, I had a very big conversation with Aaron Archer. We mostly talked about the Thirteen and the Binder of Revelation. He revealed that the one who actually wrote the Binder's lore was not the often-speculated Rik Alvarez, but actually Fabian Nicieza. He did the actual writing of the text. And the act of bringing together all the past TF lore to create a singular, more concise and streamlined master lore was done by a company called Starlight Runner, who specialize in that kind of thing for media that have expanded-universe material (Aaron cited Pirates of the Caribbean as a notable example, as the first movie was supposed to just be a one-and-done before it got four sequels and a host of other non-movie fiction).

Regarding what he said about Micronus Prime at his panel the other day, Aaron actually regretted saying Micronus's face was meant to resemble that of Hideaki Yoke, as he used the wrong words when he said that. He actually meant that Micronus's face was meant to evoke a sense of Zen-like calmness, as if Micronus was always in a state of meditation. Micronus's face didn't physically resemble Yoke-san's facial feature, it instead was merely inspired by the kind of vibes one familiar with Yoke-san gets from his easygoing, Zen-like personality.

Aaron also clarified that he was not referring to the Covenant of Primus art of Micronus by Ken Christiansen, but rather to conceptual sketch art that was made much earlier than than the Christiansen art. Aaron found this early concept art on his phone and showed it to me, which did have a face that had more Zen-like spiritual vibes to its appearance. The RID2015 cartoon's design for Micronus that the Age of the Primes toy used as a base had no resemblance to this concept art design. I asked Aaron if he might put this sketch art online at some point like in one of his YouTube videos. He said he might but would actually really want to publish an art book of some kind that could compile a lot of this early concept art in it instead. Wishful thinking on his part, though, rather than anything definite.

I also asked him about back when these new designs for the Thirteen were first shown off in a panel back at BotCon 2010 and told him about The Fallen's artwork that was shown at that panel currently being lost media, since The Fallen had had two art pieces: A pre-Fallen piece of him as Megatronus, and a post-Fallen piece of him on fire. The former was featured in the Binder, while the latter hasn't been seen since a similar panel at BotCon 2011. Aaron suspects Ken Christiansen might have it, as he's sure Christiansen worked on all of those then-new designs for the Thirteen, even though the one published in the Covenant book wasn't the same piece as either of the ones shown back then.

However, a few days after the convention, I found out the Binder's art of Megatronus had actually been made by Don Figueroa, so it's possible he might have the missing Fallen art.

I did also talk to Aaron about the idea of making the 13th Prime be Optimus and how unpopular that decision ultimately was. He said that that actually wasn't supposed to be the case. The original plan was to deliberately lean into the mystery and ambiguity of the 13th's identity and make him just some vague, legendary figure destined to appear when the time is right according to an ancient prophecy that may or may never come true. He also emphasized that the art they produced for the 13th was deliberately faceless and vague in shape. The decision to make Optimus Prime the reincarnation of this nameless, faceless figure came much later, and it was one of those things that just happened to come about when there's a bunch of cooks all working in the same kitchen.

I even brought up to him the idea of how the Last Autobot from Marvel G1 would have been a perfect fit for the 13th since the Last Autobot's whole thing was being the final original creation of Primus before the rest of the Cybertronian race came about, and Aaron said that he simply didn't think of the Last Autobot at the time when he was working on the definitive roster of the Thirteen. His research at the time simply hadn't been thorough enough.

I did actually ask him about the possibility of whether it was ever considered to make Rodimus Prime be the 13th reincarnated, since the Binder described the 13th in a very similar way to the Matrix's Chosen One prophecy from TFTM. Aaron said that he's not certain but did say that it might have been something that they may have possibly considered at one point. But I do recognize that that's a vague enough answer to not have any real weight to say either way.

We also talked about how the Thirteen originally weren't Primes and how Alpha Trion being made one came as a surprise to many (I avoided mentioning anything from Fun Pub like SG Alpha Trion in this case). As originally described in Transformers: The Ultimate Guide from 2004, the Primes were said to be specifically the Autobot leaders chosen to bear the Matrix, with the "Prime" title derived from the first Matrix-bearer, Prima. Aaron explained the decision to make all of the Thirteen be Primes was simply to make them seem extra special, but agreed that by making them all Primes without all of them being Matrix-bearers did thus beg the question of what it now meant to be a Prime if not being a Matrix-bearing Autobot leader (but he also chuckled at the fact that that's no longera concern of his).

As for Alpha Trion, the idea behind making him one of the Thirteen was simply because the dude was just so old. He figured that it made since for Alpha Trion to have been one of the Thirteen if he was the oldest living Autobot. This is when I brought up how Simon Furman originally established in The Ultimate Guide that the Thirteen Original Transformers all died in the ancient battle with Unicron (minus The Fallen) while Alpha Trion was alive and well in the present day. Said book and Dreamwave's profile for Alpha Trion both strongly implied that he was among the first generation of normal Cybertronians born after the Thirteen, which Aaron honestly didn't know about. So it was all simply a result of Alpha Trion being known for being old as dirt that promoted him to Thirteen status.

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Overall, this was a very productive BotCon for me with lots to do and see, many people to meet and talk to, and so many panels and events to attend. I got a nice-sized toy haul from the dealer room and hotel rooms this year, making for another satisfying experience.

FIN

 

[PJ Sinclair]

Our resident cosplayer/interviewer/TikTok video maker will be getting a bunch up over the next month. Lots of great content will be available throughout July!