Takara-Tomy have posted up a new chapter of their ongoing Transformers Legends web manga. In this chapter Black Zarak’s Headmaster summons forth the monstrous Majin Zarak – villain of the Beast Wars Second movie Lioconvoy’s Crisis – who wreaks havoc in the modern era. Facing him are a host of characters including a Brave Maximus who looks a lot like a certain Titan Class toy.
What might get fans excited though is one of the final panels where Autobot Targetmasters Pointblank, Sureshot and Crosshairs turn up to help, each sporting a body that is reused from an existing Titans Return toy. Pointblank is a recolored Hot Rod, Crosshairs a reuse of Kup, and Sureshot looks to be Full-Tilt from Trypticon.
This in all likelyhood is just the artist having some fun, but as a previous exclusive demonstrated, that being Million Publishing Artfire, sometimes there is truth in what we see in the panels of an illustration. As a counter, other manga-only creations like a Bludgeon from Hardhead have not materialised. Time will tell what comes of it all.
Windsweeper II
Might be some time, since Big Powered will only be released in march.
I hope they do them someday.
Quintessential Prime
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When will Takara decide to give their Legends Target Masters their counterpart Autobots?! Takara Legends: Pointblank, Sureshot, and Crosshairs anyone?
I love my Legends collection and I think Takara did a great job with topspin and twintwist (not so impressed with windblade, partly due my not-knowing where, when, or how this character even fits into G1 Transformers history… she? looks like a splice between Thrust and Nijika), but I just think these guys deserve their true, original companions!!!
stad
Hasbro is not worried about the relative handful of sales they're losing to Takara – they might finally be acknowledging the collector part of their market, but they're still focused on mass selling to children.
Not going above and beyond Hasbro's offerings has allowed TT to price Transformers at a lower price (it appears to be about a 25% drop) which is probably a good thing in their home market, where TFs face a lot of competition.
Fenrys
thanks to the brand unification takara is getting stuff like potp nemesis prime, sdcc18 primal, repugnus and grotusque etc etc, these would have been regional exclusives under the old system, when i meant access i meant as in not having to import them
Windsweeper II
didn't they before? Weren't Takara exclusives available via BBTS, TFsource, Kapow and others?
WishfulThinking
I don't think brand unification would prevent TT from producing the Targetmasters as TTMall exclusives. The point of these repaints would be to make them Headmasters, consistent with the Decepticons. WfC Autobot Targetmasters would probably NOT be Headmasters, be greebly and therefore would not fit in with the previous aesthetic. Chances are, most collectors would buy both, not one or the other, thanks to the fact that both sets of figures would serve two different purposes.
Fenrys
exactly. regional exclusives were pretty cool (usa alpha trion, takara leo prime etc) but its a bit better when everyone has access to everything, even if it reduces the total number of characters
Digger
Agreed. And also with masterpiece prowl+ getting a release and also possible other mp’s as well.
Fenrys
agreed, i did like the differences, but i get why they stopped. one definite benefit of the brand unification is the availability of exclusives. even the sdcc throne is getting released by takara and thats pretty awesome
Digger
And it was all a cool and worthwhile addition. We got some amazing sculpt and paint work. I will miss it though.
Fenrys
i mean, takara develops the engineering in the first place, developing a single version of the mold + built in retool is cheaper than taking said mold + built in retool and remaking parts. example would be kup, takara spent extra money redoing not just the face (as was typical with their releases) but also the arms and the added targetmaster. it would have been cheaper for them to just use the hasbro mold. titans return is the first line to have major mold differences from hasbro on a consistent basis, nearly every figure had something different so nearly every figure had takara putting at least a little extra money into it
Digger
I don’t quite believe it or know if it’s true but I’ll take it as a reason.
[Wing_Saber-X]
This. Do you think Hasbro was scared to lose their sales to Takara?
Fenrys
On the flip side it also does benefit takara in that production is cheaper if they aren’t reengineering molds left and right so it’s not all hasbro
Digger
To interject I also believe hasbro believed that people were buying out takara stuff over the hasbro stuff which I think was another cause for the brand unification.
Fenrys
personally i think part of the decision for brand unification comes down to the targetmasters. if hasbro was already planning them for siege during titans return (which seems likely) but takara went ahead and made their own, then that is loss of sales for hasbro due to the two companies not communicating, if that makes sense
RodimusZero
Lol don’t drink the Kool-Aid, brotha!
JK, but also there is definitely more to the Takara “decision” that’s not public—it’s technically a business “win-win” for both companies to use the same packaging/spec as it really reduces costs and streamlines the factory operations, but TT has always been more of a “fans-first” company, so it’s still a very uncharacteristic decision. Anyway, that’s all water over the dam, & as you said, they’re going back to paint, I just happen to feel (as a fan) that if we can get more varieties and more options seeing as there are two different companies making Transformers, then why wouldn’t we want that??
samisham
Rodimus Prime
I've got an extra HR TM for a Pointblank repaint. If they do it for me, heck yeah.