Is a Generations Astrotrain Voyager toy needed? I think so..

[Gomess]

Sure, I understood your point, I just think Bulkhead and Lugnut are drops in the bucket, almost like token gestures. Lugnut wasn't even that prominent a character in Animated, relatively.

I know Optimus Prime and Megatron aren't going away, but I'd at least like to see new guys in the Bumblebee/Starscream spots is all...

[Tigermegatron]

Sure, I understood your point, I just think Bulkhead and Lugnut are drops in the bucket, almost like token gestures. Lugnut wasn't even that prominent a character in Animated, relatively.

I know Optimus Prime and Megatron aren't going away, but I'd at least like to see new guys in the Bumblebee/Starscream spots is all...

I agree,If Hasbro is willing to replace there current cast of TF Characters toys/media. The replacements should be core characters that fans cared about in the past & had 3-d fleshed out persona's. Examaples below:
1- Replace starcream with Cyclonus
2- Replace Bumblebee with either Hotshot or Hotrod.
3- Replace Ratchet with First Aid.
4- Replace arcee with either Blackaracnia or Elita-1
5- Replace Megatron with Galvatron
6-Replace Optimus Prime with either Rodimus Prime,Ultra Magnus or Fortress Maximus.
7- Replace Soundwave with Shockwave
8- Replace Bulkhead with Ironhide

[Gomess]

Sure, bringing slightly more obscure characters to the fore is a good step, but I'd much rather see original ones.

...Actually a mainline of mostly original characters, supplemented by a more collector-oriented one which focuses on reviving those who tread the line between classic and obscure- and with the Big Names taking a back seat- would probably be enough to catch even my attention. Unlikely though, eh?

[Onslaught Six]

Sure, bringing slightly more obscure characters to the fore is a good step, but I'd much rather see original ones.

...Actually a mainline of mostly original characters, supplemented by a more collector-oriented one which focuses on reviving those who tread the line between classic and obscure- and with the Big Names taking a back seat- would probably be enough to catch even my attention. Unlikely though, eh?

Why aren't you reading MTMTE? It is exactly what you described. It's not a toyline, but what is?

[Shockwave]

Power Core Combiners was a line that consisted completely of new characters with Huffer being the only that could sort of be considered a rehash of a previous character. Some of the designs were pretty good too, except for the limbs, I didn't like the limbs. Mostly because they weren't separate characters. But still... just sayin'.

[Gomess]

Why aren't you reading MTMTE? It is exactly what you described.

Because I don't know what that is. Is it a comic? I'm not very good with comics as a medium. It'd be cool to hear about, though.

It's not a toyline, but what is?

A toyline.

Power Core Combiners was a line that consisted completely of new characters

Yeah, but I'm talking about that practise becoming the norm. PCC was like.. a subline.

[Onslaught Six]

Yeah. MTMTE is one of the new comics, it's been going for about a year now. No Prime, no Megatron, and dudes like Tailgate and Swerve and Chromedome and Rewind are main characters.

[Gomess]

It's so strange to me that new stories about these old characters are being published. Had they come out when I was a kid, and Chromedome was still a relatively fresh character, I'm sure I would've gone nuts for them, but now they just boggle my mind a little. That might sound hypocritical, but bear in mind I'm talking about fiction, not toys. AHM was kind of a disappointment in that regard. G1's story has been told, IMO, let's move on.

It might be interesting to read a story which attempted to reconcile the American and Japanese depictions of Chromedome, which are equally prominent in my mind, but I'm guessing MTMTE adheres solely to his US tech spec / The Rebirth?

More on topic, new Headmasters toys might be fun, though.

[Onslaught Six]

Not really. IDW doesn't adhere to anything. It's G1 pretty much in name only--and IDW doesn't even call it that. Chromedome is a dude who can look at what other dudes see before they died, and read read people's memories and shit. Except he's addicted to it, and it's starting to screw with his head. It's awesome.

The thing is, you have to kind of examine this stuff over a long-term period. Chromedome may have "had his time" to you, but to me he's a dude who was in a short-lived Japanese cartoon and a few issues of a comic book, all created years before I was born. In those intervening 25 years or whatever, very little has been done with him. He's a blank slate. Chromedome can be anything you want him to be. He's not like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, who're over-exposed to all hell.

The same goes for RID, the companion book, which is bringing in a bunch of cool guys too. Metalhawk is a main character. Did you ever think you'd see Metalhawk as the main character in a US TF book? (And before you ask, no, he isn't a Pretender, at least not that we've seen. But Pretenders in IDW are all created by Thunderwing. Besiding that, he's a neutral guy in RID. It's complicated.) And Sky-Byte showed up for an issue. Fucking Sky-Byte!

That aside, there's plenty of entirely new guys in MTMTE too. (Which is sometimes a complaint against it, and sometimes a high point. It kind of depends.) Like Ambulon! And Rung! And, uh, other dudes who I can't remember right now. I mean, sure, there's other dudes in the book who kind of anchor it to Being Transformers--because in a lot of ways, if you go too far, you lose sight of it.

I know you'd like a series that was Entirely New Guys All The Time, and for small stories, that'd be awesome. RID and MTMTE have both given us really important and cool storylines about new dudes, and used old dudes in refreshing and legitimately interesting new ways. (Just read some of the RID thread. This fucking book makes PROWL interesting to read about!) You gotta have a balance.

[Gomess]

But with the Chromedome example.. it's like.. why not just give that personality to a new character? What does it have to do with Chromedome? Surely you'd only use Chromedome at all for relatively obscure name recognition, so then why go out of your way to distance him from what little established identity he has?

But as you said, they're probably trying to pull off a balancing act. It's probably incredibly tense working on a creative team for a franchise like TF, because you KNOW some people are gonna *love* your output but plenty are gonna *hate* it. Tough position to be in, and probably a thankless one.

I mean, the sheer amount of "I wish there was this toy of this Transformer" discourse online is mind-staggering.