TF Views

Dominic wrote:I was actually making reference to that awful Furman idea from the pack-in comic about 5 years ago. Remember, "The Beast"? Scourge is the only person I know who likes the "Energon" Dinobots.

The combined form is a freakish mess, so it has some kind of appeal, but it's definitely about half-finished, and barely holds together. It's kind of irritating. Grimlock and Swoop individually are all right, certainly not the best representations of either of those guys, but the Grimlock, at least, works as an almost chibi dinosaur and an extremely simplified version of Grimlock's robot mode. And I'm a sucker for Dinobots, it's true. Grimstone's about a million times better than "The Beast". A million.

Dominic wrote:

andersonh1 wrote:I like the idea myself. So, will they show up in IDW's comics, I wonder?

Honestly, I hope not.

Do not misunderstand me, I like PCC. And, you damned well know I like the current IDW comics. But, the minute PCC shows up in some kind of established context, the line arguably loses some of its charm.

I'm of two minds here. On one hand, like I said, the fanboyish part of my mind wants context for 'em. But I'm also pretty sure that having 'em as full-on characters in the G1 series, or anywhere else, would kind of lessen the appeal. Now, if they could just show up everywhere at once, just to piss off people that gotta catagorize everything, that'd be a different thing. You know what these guys need? Decent pack-in comics. Short little stories that depict the characters in no context but their own. That'd be fun, wouldn't it?

I could get behind something like pack-ins.

Scourge, we should confer this weekend. Perhaps...a series of "Mosaic" strips?


Dom
-realized that Minicon limbs are sort of interchangable.

It worked for He-Man.

Yeah, but "He-Man" also had a cartoon along with comics from both of the big 2.

True, but in most cases the mini comic packed with the figure was the first fiction context with the character that fans had. And that would also count as another "continuity"

True. But, it was not the only, let alone dominant, context for the characters. What Scourge is proposing would be the only real context PCC gets.

What does other context have to do with it? My point was that it worked for another toy line and could also work for this one. Come to think of it, even Hasbro has done that with Armada.

But, those early "He-Man" and "Armada" comics did not carry their respective lines. For the record, I really like the "Armada" comics, (what with the tri-lingual sound effects and all). But, they would have been thin gruel as the primary context for a line.

Dom
-we should at least put together a Mosaic or something. Artists...contact me!

Initially the He-Man ones were the only context, the others came later. But they still had them and if nothing else it meant that all of the characters at least had "a" context that they were set in, especially since many didn't make it to the show or other comics.

I just jumped in to alert you guys to a correction that Hasbro just sent out regarding another site's answer:
http://www.tfviews.com/news/main/hasbro-q-and-a/1170

and surprisingly enough, I see it fits with the continued conversation we were having.

138 Scourge wrote: I dunno, the Dinobot thing would be pretty easy to explain. Autobot gets to Earth, figures he's got something to prove, wants to show he's pretty tough, he just decides "Screw a car, I'm scannin' a damn dinosaur!" Anyway, I do kind of like putting 'em in unexplored areas of new G1, it still brings in new characters but gives 'em a backdrop to work with. I still also kind of like the idea of "Just chuck 'em anywhere you need 'em", though.

Well, there's a continuity disparity between the cartoon - where Wheeljack and Ratchet create the Dinobots based on fossils - and the G1 comics - where the Dinobots are on the Ark and scan live dinosaurs who existed at the Savage Land. The problems with the former are that then you clearly don't have Wheeljack and Ratchet creating a whole bunch of other Dinobots after the first 5. The problems with the latter are that all of them would need to scan actual living dinos while training on Cybertron, and the only place to find them is in the Marvel universe's Savage Land.

Yeah, but PCC's Dinobot combiner just beats the holy bejesus out of Energon's dino-combiner.

I wouldn't know, as I have neither, and pics of both have their own problems. But that Energon Mega-Dinobot combiner was intended for Universe anyway.

andersonh1 wrote:I like the idea myself. So, will they show up in IDW's comics, I wonder?

Yeah, it's not bad, right? I have no idea, I would guess only if it were organic to the story, so probably not. Or at least, not right now. Hasbro should have come up with a comic tie-in though, heck, a pack-in comic series with each set would have been pretty boss, actually, even if it weren't top-drawer. Just so long as it wasn't like the Armada ones.

138 Scourge wrote:You know what, too? As I fiddle with Steamhammer, I think that tossing these guys in with G1 would be appropriate because they just seem sort of Geewunny. The drones are bigger than Micromasters, but non-transforming combining drones seems like something that could have come out of the same school of thought as, say, "Pretenders" or "Whatever-Masters". Plus, y'know, the articulation of the combined modes...it's about on par with G1 gestalt articulation. They actually do sort of remind me of the Micromaster combiners, in a way. A good way.

Do I smell... traction for PCCs?

Dominic wrote:Part of me wonders if Hasbro is being intentionally contradictory when fans ask what the deal with the line is as a way to keep it more kid friendly, and out fo the baggage laden realm of fan-friendly hobby=ism.

It looks to me like A) you're paranoid and B) the fact that Hasbro sent out a fansite-wide correction about a different, but similar, answer says that the last round was written without intent to confuse, but just mistakes.

The minute PCC shows up in the comics, PCC is bound to G1. And, the minute PCC shows up in any media, the albatross shows up. As it stands now, there is no way PCC is going to be ruined by some hack writer doing something "kewl" with Searchlight and company. (As much as I like my "Timelines" Breakdown figure, it is unavoidably sullied by the character showing up in that damned "Generation 2: Redux" comic.)

This is somewhat true, tying it too tightly to the current G1 narrative takes it out of the New Continuity.

138 Scourge wrote:I'm of two minds here. On one hand, like I said, the fanboyish part of my mind wants context for 'em. But I'm also pretty sure that having 'em as full-on characters in the G1 series, or anywhere else, would kind of lessen the appeal. Now, if they could just show up everywhere at once, just to piss off people that gotta catagorize everything, that'd be a different thing. You know what these guys need? Decent pack-in comics. Short little stories that depict the characters in no context but their own. That'd be fun, wouldn't it?

I'm of a similar mind.

Dominic wrote:But, those early "He-Man" and "Armada" comics did not carry their respective lines. For the record, I really like the "Armada" comics, (what with the tri-lingual sound effects and all). But, they would have been thin gruel as the primary context for a line.

Don't be so pedantic about it. BTW, MOTU and Armada were far from the only lines with pack-in comics, MASK was another one that springs to my mind, and there were tons in the '80s, back when you could just print 'em on pulp.