Combiner Wars

The modern comics universe has had such a different take on G1, one that's significantly represented by the Generations toys, so they share a forum. A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero. Currently starring Generations toys, IDW "The Transformers" comics, MTMTE, TF vs GI Joe, and Windblade. Oh wait, and now Skybound, wheee!
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JediTricks
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by JediTricks »

BWprowl wrote:Weren't the ones on display resin prototypes that had been painted and (badly) hot-glued together? There's a high probability they simply weren't assembled right at the time, they looked pretty derpy in the pics I saw. The 'official' pics, despite also being of prototypes, looked a lot better.
The ones on display were hot-glued, but not resin prototypes - you can see production-mold-level plastic and assembly and cavities - I think it was a test-shot that was hand-painted.
And wasn't Geewun Menasor's chestplate formed from a little car-thing? Turning that into its own Legends figure AND making it an homage to a Micromaster is pretty nifty, in my opinion.
I forgot about that G1 car-accessory thing.
Believe me, I know I'm dreaming when I ask for anything related to the Pretender Monsters. On the other hand, we just got a subline full of monsters in Beast Hunters half a year ago, so maybe it's not that long a shot. Though they'd probably take another stab at Abominus before they did Monstructor.
That Beast Hunters line didn't fare well though, all of it ended up liquidating or on clearance.
I know that was done a fair bit with the Enercombiners, since they had similarly-staggered, hard-to-find-'em-all release schedule. Them promoting the scrambling aspect so heavily might tie into this (despite that being one reason I tend to dislike Scramble City-style Combiners; what makes Menasor a distinct entity unto himself if all he 'really' is is Motormaster in a third mode with four random limbs slapped on?). Like a lot of people we've already seen, I'm probably just going in for solid cases on this.
Yeah, like the Energon limbs, that's a good example, that was so annoying back in the day but it probably sold extra limbs.

I am pretty sure the way they described the combiners made them not swappable around a central character a la the Power Core Combiners, they pointed to Superion from RID which isn't just Silverbolt with 4 other guys but a new gestalt character.
It doesn't look too much like EnerPrime to me, proportions aside (and hell, I liked the proportions on Fatimus more than this thing).
Vehicle mode looks very similar to me.
There's a reason I said 'supposedly hinted', I was getting this stuff third-hand through message board posts. Swear I saw something about it on TFW or something though, might check when I get home. Stands to reason that they have to repaint these new molds as 'something' though, and Optimus is 1/5 of the way there already. Though the new-guy SUV and helicopter hint to me that Hasbro might be hedging their bets at reusing some molds to fill out future Combaticon and Protectobot lineups.
So it's not hinted at, it's just random chatter.

Shockwave wrote:It was reported over on TFW by someone who was there that one of the designers made a remark referrencing the G1 Episode "Masquerade", which in turn now leads us to speculate on an Autobot version of Menasor. I honestly wouldn't put it past them, especially after they recolored Bruticus into the Wreckers.
This wasn't something that came up in the panel or in public during the breakfast, perhaps they said it during a private conversation or it was taken out of context, I dunno. Maybe it'll happen, but in public there wasn't anything I saw that even remotely hinted at it.
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BWprowl
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by BWprowl »

JediTricks wrote:I am pretty sure the way they described the combiners made them not swappable around a central character a la the Power Core Combiners, they pointed to Superion from RID which isn't just Silverbolt with 4 other guys but a new gestalt character.
That's my point though, with regards to how the scrambling aspect ties into this. If Superion definitively *is* Silverbolt combined with all four other Aerialbots, then what the fuck do you call the Silverbolt torso with, say, a couple of Stunticons and Protectobots slapped on? Is that anything? And if Hasbro's promoting that you can *do* that, and even *should* as a way to get a 'full' combiner without buying all of just one team, shouldn't it be something?
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138 Scourge
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by 138 Scourge »

This is probably why the old comics and cartoons didnt go into the scramble aspect of the combiners. So like if Superion had Drag Strip attached, you'd have Superion with a violently competitive streak? And if he had Drag Strip and First Aid, you'd have Superion who was gonna save the hell out of way more lives than you! Something like that, probably?

How about if the four Stunticon limb dudes combined with Silverbolt. Which combiner would you have then?

Dumb as hell, but fun things to think about.
Dominic wrote: too many people likely would have enjoyed it as....well a house-elf gang-bang.
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Re: Combiner Wars

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138 Scourge wrote:This is probably why the old comics and cartoons didnt go into the scramble aspect of the combiners. So like if Superion had Drag Strip attached, you'd have Superion with a violently competitive streak? And if he had Drag Strip and First Aid, you'd have Superion who was gonna save the hell out of way more lives than you! Something like that, probably?

How about if the four Stunticon limb dudes combined with Silverbolt. Which combiner would you have then?

Dumb as hell, but fun things to think about.
Y'know, I could see that probably yielding the most mentally stable combiner. I mean, any situation that would necessitate Autobot and Decepticons combining into a single merge form would have to have a goal that is so obvious that all of the separate parts would be single minded on that goal. Of course, we're kind of seeing a glimpse into this concept with Prowlistator in RID.
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Re: Combiner Wars

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BWprowl wrote:That's my point though, with regards to how the scrambling aspect ties into this. If Superion definitively *is* Silverbolt combined with all four other Aerialbots, then what the fuck do you call the Silverbolt torso with, say, a couple of Stunticons and Protectobots slapped on? Is that anything? And if Hasbro's promoting that you can *do* that, and even *should* as a way to get a 'full' combiner without buying all of just one team, shouldn't it be something?
It's just toys, fans know what to call it when the Aerialbots are combined, kids will enjoy the swappable limbs, it's not worth using the word "fuck" over; it's a play pattern, not a definitive canon issue.
138 Scourge wrote:This is probably why the old comics and cartoons didnt go into the scramble aspect of the combiners. So like if Superion had Drag Strip attached, you'd have Superion with a violently competitive streak? And if he had Drag Strip and First Aid, you'd have Superion who was gonna save the hell out of way more lives than you! Something like that, probably?

How about if the four Stunticon limb dudes combined with Silverbolt. Which combiner would you have then?

Dumb as hell, but fun things to think about.
That's fun, and it can exist in one's personal imagination without tarnishing the whole brand. Hasbro doesn't have to do all the playing for us.
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by BWprowl »

Shockwave wrote:Y'know, I could see that probably yielding the most mentally stable combiner. I mean, any situation that would necessitate Autobot and Decepticons combining into a single merge form would have to have a goal that is so obvious that all of the separate parts would be single minded on that goal. Of course, we're kind of seeing a glimpse into this concept with Prowlistator in RID.
Which is even weirder (that idiotic plot twist being one reason I dropped the book notwithstanding) given that Devastator isn't *supposed* to be a Scamble-City-type Combiner, so whether he can be the 'same' guy while made up of different individual components wouldn't generally be an issue. However, in the comics, the merged form remains 'Devastator' regardless of whether Scrapper or Prowl is the 'leader' they combine with. Hell, that plot point revolved around the Constructicons being retrofitted as near-Scramble-City-types that could combine around *anyone* (Megatron and Prowl being the two examples in the story) and still form Devastator. With that in mind, and with IDW's tie-in event placing these re-made versions of Menasor and Superion in that continuity, it would come off like it's the *limbs* that determine what entity they combine into. So would all four limb Aerialbots combining with, say, Optimus still be Superion? Would Silverbolt combining with the Stunticons be Menasor? And this still doesn't take into account complete scrambles, with each component coming from a different team.

Scourge, it may be fun on some level, but these are still the questions that keep me up at night. :|
JT wrote:It's just toys, fans know what to call it when the Aerialbots are combined, kids will enjoy the swappable limbs, it's not worth using the word "fuck" over; it's a play pattern, not a definitive canon issue.
I'm just saying, this has always been my big hang-up with Scramble City-style combos (aside from the fact that it's uninteresting from an engineering/transformation complexity standpoint): It makes each Combiner less 'special' when they're all formed the same way to the point that you can swap different parts around (and are encouraged to do so) and it hardly makes a difference. Are we really going to go "Nuh uh, that's not Menasor!" if one of his legs is a white police car instead of a yellow race car? And if it's not Menasor...then who is it?
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by Shockwave »

i kind of think you're way overthinking this. Sort of. With Prowlistator, Devastator is different than regular Devastator. Prowl's addition to the group mind significantly changes both the personality of the merged bot and it's effectiveness. Also, I think what you end up with depends on the combiner in question. With Bruticus for example, as long as Onslaught is the center piece, he'd still be Bruticus since Onslaught rules the others with an iron fist (at least according to the bio). So anyone that merges with Onslaught is going to be under his leadership and that would come out in the merged personality. With menasor, who knows? He has split personalities because the other Stunticons hate Motormaster so much. But what if the other bots who merge with him don't care then there could be a new, more single minded Menasor. Or in the case if Devastator, Devastator is only comprised of what the six can agree on. But, but swapping one out for another, that changes that dynamic. In the comic, it seems the other Constructicons are kind of like Prowl's groupies, they do whatever he wants and that again comes out in the merged form personality, since Prowl can basically dictate what they do and the others will just go along with it. I actually think this is what made the merge groups interesting as characters to begin with because you really had examples of the full range of what could happen with fusing 5-6 individuals into a single being.

Alright, maybe you're not overthinking this at all :?
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by Sparky Prime »

BWprowl wrote:Hell, that plot point revolved around the Constructicons being retrofitted as near-Scramble-City-types that could combine around *anyone* (Megatron and Prowl being the two examples in the story) and still form Devastator. With that in mind, and with IDW's tie-in event placing these re-made versions of Menasor and Superion in that continuity, it would come off like it's the *limbs* that determine what entity they combine into. So would all four limb Aerialbots combining with, say, Optimus still be Superion? Would Silverbolt combining with the Stunticons be Menasor? And this still doesn't take into account complete scrambles, with each component coming from a different team.
I wouldn't go so far as to say IDW Devastator is a near-Scramble-City type. Certainly he's modified to be more modular as a means to replace Scrapper, but Prowl isn't replacing a whole limb or the torso. He only makes up the head while the rest of Devastator's body is still made up of the 5 remaining Constructicons. With that in mind, and like Shockwave pointed out with Onslaught, I tend to think the main body of the Gestalt is what determines the combine entities identity.
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by Onslaught Six »

Since we know for a fact there'll be a corresponding comic book (ala Dark Cybertron) I would venture a guess that Roberts or Barber will cover this type of thing.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: Combiner Wars

Post by Dominic »

This is probably why the old comics and cartoons didnt go into the scramble aspect of the combiners. So like if Superion had Drag Strip attached, you'd have Superion with a violently competitive streak? And if he had Drag Strip and First Aid, you'd have Superion who was gonna save the hell out of way more lives than you! Something like that, probably?
The only precedent for mixed-teams that I know of is the (not very good single episode)"Scramble City" cartoon. In that case, having a non-team limb seemed to hurt/weaken the combiner. No indication was given (based on the raw footage I have seen) of any mental effect.

In "The Ultimate Weapon", Defensor did not seem mentally diminished by First-Aid being awol.

(Make what you will of the cartoon's writing and internal logic.)

Which is even weirder (that idiotic plot twist being one reason I dropped the book notwithstanding) given that Devastator isn't *supposed* to be a Scamble-City-type Combiner, so whether he can be the 'same' guy while made up of different individual components wouldn't generally be an issue.
For somebody who usually complains about TF being too stuck in the 80s, you seem really hung up on Devastator's "rules" being changed.
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