For the final panel of the weekend, live blogging is not allowed so after snagging some final deals off the dealer room floor (completed my Slugslinger!) I’ve done a writeup of what Aaron and Rik discussed in the final panel talking about the Hasbro Transformers IP. Keypoints include:
The 13
– Two new members revealed, Solus Prime and Nexus Prime. Another look at some of the others including Alpha Trion[/B], Liege Maximo, Vector Prime and Megatronus aka The Fallen. Liege Maximo looks kind of like Marvel Comic’s Loki with similar horns on his head, Vector Prime has a starry cape that he seems to vanish into.
– Solus Prime is female, a pinkish purple lavender color with hair and a scepter. She is the archetype of all female Transformers. She looks like she has a Greek warrior goddess look, or possibly a blacksmith look with the apron. She is also the creator of many of the artefacts of the 13.
– The 13 are not being conceived as toys.
– Nexus Prime has a very different look to what he had previously, he’s also a combiner. Nexus Prime will play some kind of part in Exiles.
– The 13 will embody key elements of the Transformers mythos, so you have a combiner, a beat, a female, a hero, a dark hero, a Mini-Con…
Exiles Book
– Follows on from Exodus, and is set against the backdrop of the search for the Allspark.
– There will be some exploration of lost colonies of Transformers hinted at in Exodus. There will also be some more information on the 13 within the book.
– A new, major threat to the Transformers Universe will be introduced in Exodus. Concept art of their faction symbol is a variation on the Decepticon symbol which looks like a skull and crossbones.
– Concept artwork (Prime style) of these characters was shown and includes Brimstone, the Transformers Cybertron character reimagined, Cannonball again of Transformers Cybertron, and Axor, based on the Action Master. Axor will apparently play a major role in the conclusion of Exodus.
Vault Book
– Some material that did not make it into the Vault Book was shown including concepts of unmade Action Master versions of Mirage, Smokescreen and Cliffjumper. Artwork for what I assume would have been AM versions of Blurr and Rumble were also shown.
Transformers Prime, Exodus and War for Cybertron
– The final word was given on the aligned continuity.
– Each platform has its own story needs in order to be dynamic and successful. Therefore, not every detail will line up perfectly. Aaron talked about the “squint test” whereby everything can be seen to be one family of stories, but fans like us will see differences. The emphasis is on telling good, solid stories, not on making each version line up perfectly at the expense of the quality of the final product.
Universal Studios Ride
– Full 3D experience, it is like you are in the movie, with the robots next to you.
– It is directed by Michael Bay himself.
– Team responsible also did King Kong 3D, which I went on earlier this weekend. Imagining that with Transformers, based on the footage shown in the trailer… It’s going to be an awesome ride.
Generations
– Was brought up in the Q&A. Eric joined the panel and stated that as a model, Classics is not going away, although they cannot talk about future plans too much.
Prime
– Just a short note. Prime Ironhide concept was shown, he is red and white with Generation 1 styled head, a similar build to Bulkhead and Movieverse arm cannons. He looks very good, definitively the distillation of Ironhide’s best elements across the generations.
Hall of Fame
– Erector! They showed some artwork from the Hall of Fame presentation last night.
– Aaron did say he wants the Hall of Fame to be taken seriously. They enjoyed the joke and liked the laughs it gave them, but please keep it to the characters who changed the dynamic of the story. Aaron says tier C-E characters, not tier Z.
– On that note I’d like to say Sky Byte for 2012!
Ezilla82
"a beat" What's a beat? Oh wait…my bad a "beast" must be a minor typo. I'm good, but still no toys of them, man that kinda bites. Hopefully that will change if not I'm cool with it.
videriant
Using she for the fembots are fine. Lots of languages outside of english assign gender to everthing from cars, windows, etc. "We" a group of male is male, "we" a group of females is female, & "we" a group of mix females and male is male.
artoni
This. I'm going to tell myself forever that the pronouns we use (or they use, when speaking English) don't exactly match Cybertronian, which is more gender-neutral. And that 'brother' basically means 'sibling'.
-still gonna use 'she/he' when writing them, though, just for my own ease. Because I'm human and I do that.
videriant
Some people just whine whine whine. . . we got spoiled last year with the Generations reveal and so it hurt worse with less toy reveals this year. Plus after revealing all the toys last year and getting the rug pulled out from under them from the retailers you can understand Hasbro's attempt to try something new this year. As an attendee I really appreciated that they were showing us a lot of news that in years past would have been hush-hush.
As for their explanation of Solus Prime, they said that transformers do not have a gender per se but archetypes. Female or girl transformers are a result of us humans forcing our limited gender view of man/woman boy/girl onto the transformers.
Paxtin
To be honest, I'm not completely sure how I feel about the whole O-13 concept just yet. There are some ideas I like, some I don't. I'll have to wait and see where it goes.
That's pretty much how I took it. The only difference being that they're all going to be using the same origin concept.
Much, like someone pointed out, like the G1 cartoon was to the G1 comics.
Alienbot
Better. Lucas's treatment was two pages; this is 354 pages and has artwork. I reckon it's more like the stories Tolkien wrote in the trenches (which were completed as The Silmarillion by his son) which were heavily referenced by The Hobbit (Gondolin, Elrond, the Necromancer) and then informed The Lord of the Rings ("the story was irresistibly drawn towards the older world, and became an account, as it were, of its end and passing away before its beginning and middle had been told").
The Transformers Vault has scans of its pages about Optimus, the art of Prima and apparently a map of Cybertron detailing where the characters come from (which is why Exodus mentions Prowl and Ironhide lived in Praxus). Now that I think about it, perhaps I would prefer to flip through rather than read the binder; I wouldn't want to spoil too much of the surprises about the Thirteen now. "Enemies of brothers, murderers of lovers, heroes of the insignificant, and cowards of the mighty." I'd prefer the novels, games and cartoons to reveal more in their own time: how ironic that stories that are familiar myths to Transformers are such prized secrets to humans.
bellpeppers
Black Oracle
Bringing Nova Prime in would be awesome! And I too would like to see illustrations in Exiles!
You and me both, buddy!
Agreed. Having a female member amongst the 13 makes female Cybertronians perhaps more a 'type/'make/model' rather than a 'gender' amongst Cybertronians. As there are mini-cons, combiners and animalistic beast-type TFs, there are female-types as well. They could make for different types of early tribes on Cybertron: the mini-con tribe created by the original mini-con, the beast tribe created by the first beast Cybertronian, the combiner tribe coming from the first combiner Prime, the female tribe descending from Solus, etc.
artoni
re; continuity errors – I'm locked on the 'Star Wars' tier system, sort of. Though for me the movies/cartoon would be top canon, then the comics, then the novel, then the video game. Though with Aligned I may have to switch novel and video game, but eh. Toys & tech specs are subsidiary/bottom tier canon, and used only for support/thoughts, a la, "I WONDER WHAT WEAPONS HE HAS…"
(because otherwise Rosanna the Kiss Player is a hell of a powerhouse. you have no idea.)
Yes I wish it ~ALL MADE SENSE~. Yes I wish there were less plotholes/"WTFs" than IDW during Andy Schmidt's run. Yes I'm leery of what they're doing.
But I'm also going to give the Hasbro guys a chance to show me what they've done before I scream ruined forever. Even then, there's always me saying 'screw it' and just pulling out the fanfic files to make my own fix. I'll probably blame Unicron.
Greyley
I'm feeling good about the explanation they came up with for the small number of females, where Solus was 1/13th of the original 13, therefore female TFs will only make up 1/13th of the total population. That idea manages to explain the gender imbalance in-story in a logical and non-insulting way, which is a nice change. Infinitely better than Furman's "angry transvestite" explanation.
YES! That was my favorite thing in the panel. They confirmed that from now on the fiction will be developed first and the toys will be dependent on that, instead of the other way around like it has been in the past. Fiction first, toys second, just as it should be! Hopefully that means we'll never have to watch the fiction sacrifice its quality just to introduce the next new gimmick. I am LOVING Hasbro's new focus on Transformers as intellectual property instead of just a toy product!
Wheeljack_Prime
A cast of characters to build over various media platforms.
DJW107PRIME
Yeah no generations news is just a downer.
Kaijumaster
I'm slightly confused…. so the 13 a book? A comic? an online text story? Or just a cast of characters to finally build?
DJCHARTERS
It's a shame really, the back story to the transformers is epic. If you are going for one big continuity it really spoils it when none of the media ties in fully. There isn't much point in going for one big back story and a big over arching story if your not going to do i right and make sure it flows and that everything like books, games and tv shows all match up. If they ain't going to do it properly they might as well have just kept on with the old multi-verse way of telling the story. Just my opinion, I will still buy the books and games and watch the show I just wish the back story was more cohesive
Ash from Carolina
Personally I'd rather each thing was it's own continuity instead of this crazy idea that with enough duct tape you could somehow hold it all together into one big happy universe.
Sort of like it just worked better to have G1 and Animated two different universes. Plenty of nods to G1 to make an old fan feel at home, but by not having to make it all fit into G1 they could try interesting things like what if Blitzwing had multiple personality disorder or what if Prime was young and still wet behind the ears as a leader.
Plus it seems to me like continuity can be more of a break than the gas for interesting story telling. If GI Joe was a slave to continuity like Star Wars is then they never could have done series like Resolute or Renegades.
Looking back at the old days of G1 cartoon vs G1 Marvel comics I'm thinking different continuity to tell very different stories is a good thing.
Alienbot
Thanks for your efforts! I sincerely hope Exiles or the third novel has illustrations in it! Also, I really hope this new threat in Exiles will be Hasbro incorporating Nova Prime and the Darkness.
Meanwhile, Seibertron's coverage managed to jot down the name of Hasbro's story bible for the Aligned continuity: the Binder of Revelation. Oh, how I wish to read this document…
Johnator
So there was basically nothing on Generations? Wow I am glad I didn't go…….
Star Saber
It would've been just easier to say the shows, games, books and comics are independent of each other, much like, you know, how they've operated ever since
The_Black_Sheep
& hence the part of Botcon I was looking forward to the most gets the brush off… :/
bellpeppers
Well, the book Exodus doesn't really line up with itself if that's any indication. Aaron says it just doesn't pass the "squint" test; I disagree: neither does it pass the "sniff test" or the "blind taste test".
Again, if others accept it then God bless them; just don't expect me to just because HASBRO said to.