ToyFair 2008 Review and Analysis – Transformers

Zac posted a listing of some of the various galleries from this year’s ToyFair in New York. This is one of the big events each year where toy companies like to reveal new product offerings for the coming year. Many rumors are confirmed. Others are quashed. Every once in a while there is also a pleasant surprise. Lets take a deeper look at what this year has to offer toy collectors .

TRANSFORMERS
There are pretty much three categories of Transformers that we’ll be seeing over the next year.
Animated, Movie, and Universe.

Before I go into those categories I just want to note that it seems Hasbro is looking to bring Alternators back to shelves, but are not clear on when or how they are going to make that happen just yet.

Movie
Hasbro has already started work on toy designs for Transformers 2 several weeks ago.

Premium Edition
While we probably won’t see any completely new molds for the movie figures aside from Stockade (Sector 7 Escalade) and Incinerator (Osprey Helicopter), we will be treated to a sub-line of movie figures called Premium Edition. In some cases, there will be some remolding on a figure, in other cases it will just be a repaint. The Best Buy Ratchet and Megatron repaints were really the first two figures in that line and are rumored at being offered again. I think the rumor was that they’d be on HasbroToyShop.com, but thats just a rumor.

The premium figures are supposed to kick off next with:
Premium Leader Class Optimus Prime w/ Energy Axe
Premium Leader Class Megatron

Not only does Prime feature his energy axe from the movie instead of the blaster the first figure came with, he also has a resculpted head. Megatron has a significantly improved color scheme that resembles the Best Buy Exclusive Voyager Class Megatron, sans ice effects.

You can see more of the Premium line here.

Also of note are the forthcoming Voyager class figures. In addition to Incinerator, there will be two store exclusive repaints:
Incinerator (Osprey Helicopter from the very beginning of the film)
Jetstorm (TRU Exclusive – Cybertron Jetfire repaint)
Wingblade (TRU Exclusive – Cybertron WingSaber repaint)

Animated
The Transformers:Animated display was a treat. Not only did we get to see all the characters we already knew we’re getting in June (even though we’ll have already had the cartoon for 6 months), we also got to see a couple figiures we hadn’t seen before.

Animated Jazz and Oilslick:

   
Images of OilSlick are from: ASM.

Animated Soundwave was also a very nice treat to see again, though his hands look a little questionable:

 
Images of Soundwave from: ASM.

I’m not sure if this was the first time we’ve seen the Leader class figures for the Animated line, but they were there and looking quite nice. Also on display with the Leader class figures was the strange Headmaster attachment that will fit over any Leader class figure’s head.
The Leader class figures on display were Earth Mode Megatron and Bulkhead.

  

Images of Megatron, Headmaster and Bulkhead from: ASM.

There was also a Prime figure that could have been a Leader or Voyager class figure, but it seemed that he had a gimmick that set him aside. The gimmick was actually pretty cool in that, as you rolled him along in truck mode, the cab would rotate and transform. He was called Roll Out Command Optimus Prime.

    

Images of Roll Out Command Optimus Prime from: ASM

Universe/Classics 2.0
I still can’t bring myself to call this line just Universe yet, but the line probably drew the most attention for Transformers fans. For fans not in the club, this was the first opportunity anyone had to see actual painted versions of these new molds. Some unpainted test shots had been posted on transformers.com with some notes by one of the designers, but no paint apps were shown.

The biggest surprise of the line was the appearance of Galvatron and a new alt mode of a tank. Unfortunately, he appears to be class deluxe figure. That means Onslaught and Powerglide, or Powetglide as we like to call him, will be quite a big larger than him.

 

For better or worse, Universe will see many repaints of older molds from other lines. We’ll also see Robot Heroes and the Legends class of figures continuing under this line.

Among the repaints, we were shown a repaint of Cybertron Soundwave as Blaster and a repaint of Cybertron QuickMix as Decepticon Heavy Load.

  

Images of Heavy Load and Blaster from: ASM.

For the Legends size class, I only saw three new repaints and no new molds. Cybertron Thundercracker as Starscream, Cybertron Hot Shot as Ratchet or Red Alert (name wasn’t clear), and Cybertron Defense Red Alert as Onslaught (?).

 

There were quite a few Robot Heroes on display. Here’s what I saw:
G1 Blitzwing & G1 Hound
G1 Arcee & G1 (Red) Rumble/Frenzy
G1 Sunstreaker & G1 Galvatron
BW Cheetor & BW Blackarachnia
BW Megatron & BW Optimus Primal
BW Waspinator & BW Rhinox
BW Rattrap & BW Tarantulas

  
Robot Heroes Images from: ASM