Here’s Japan’s IDW Ultra Magnus. I guess they thought Minimus Ambus would be a hard sell so he’s been repainted into Alpha Trion? Alpha Trion in a muscle shirt, judging by those bare arms?
Anyway, the robot mode’s much more accurate to the comics, with the blue around the shins and the yellow highlights and whatnot, plus I like the red legs (which are accurate to “season 1″ but not “season 2″), so…. I think I’m going to get both the Japanese one and the American one, so I can get the Magnus deco I want and Minimus Ambus. Plus I get free bonus Muscle Shirt Alpha Trion and um some extra Ultra Magnus I’m not sure what to do with.
Just to be clear, the overall design of the toy was already done, based heavily on Nick Roche’s design for the book. What I was asked to do was to sketch up what the interior cockpit could look like within the confines of the space they had available for it. I worked with Hasbro to develop it, and they sent my art along to Takara-Tomy to use for the sculpt for the final product.
The cockpit for Minimus Ambus inside Ultra Magnus functions a bit different than James Roberts and Alex Milne worked out for MTMTE, but personally I think it’s pretty cool that Hasbro took inspiration from the comics and even went to the trouble of using the concept of Minimus “driving” Ambus at all to be pretty darn cool.
I was thrilled to work on this particular project.
A big ole’ crowd scene from the Transformers Animated episode “Decepticon Air” - HD version! Featuring, L-R, front to back: Beachcomber, Mainframe, Flareup; Wheeljack, Warpath, an Autotrooper, Rosanna, the then-unnamed Lightbright (blue femme); Rattletrap, Tracks, Cosmos, Huffer, and the then-unnamed Lickety-Split (orange femme).
Wheeljack and Lickety-Split were barely visible in the SD version of this scene, and Rattletrap and Lightbright were cut out entirely. I had to partly rebuild Flareup’s leg from other screenshots so she wouldn’t be covered by the Hub logo.
March 8 isInternational Women’s Day, so we’re going to count down our top ten landmark moments in the history of Female Transformers!
1) 1985 - “THE SEARCH FOR ALPHA TRION”
There were efforts to include female characters in the Transformers brand from its outset - Ratchet, believe it or not, was originally intended by Bob Budiansky to be a female character, which is why he’s named after Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest! Likewise, during the very early development of the Generation 1 cartoon, writer Jeffrey Scott produced a pitch that included newly-invented female characters who weren’t part of the toyline. But Hasbro didn’t go for either writer’s suggestions, and it took until November 12, 1985, and the broadcast of the seminal Generation 1 episode “The Search for Alpha Trion,” before the female Cybertronians would take their first bow. This episode introduces Elita One, Chromia, Moonracer, and Firestar, who have all inspired action figures, and starred in IDW Publishing’s current run of comic books!
2) 1986 - INTRODUCING ARCEE
While Elita and her crew were only one-episode guest stars, the August 8, 1986 release of The Transformers: The Movie introduced audiences to Arcee, who would go on to become part of the cartoon’s core cast, and the go-to female Autobot character in future series like Energon, Animated, and Prime. Arcee was created for the movie by writer Ron Friedman, who insisted on her inclusion when others were hesitant, citing his own daughter’s love for the robots as proof that there were a female audience to be tapped. In fact, Friedman’s believes it was this insistence that inspired the production of “The Search for Alpha Trion,” and given that Arcee existed in drafts of the film as early as March 1985, he might just be right!
3) 1988 - THE FIRST FEMALE TRANSFORMER TOY
Although a prototype design exists that proves Arcee was considered for release as a toy in 1986, this ultimately did not come to pass. It would take until 1988 before a female Transformers toy existed, and it came in the form of Minerva. A redeco of Nightbeat available as part of the Japanese Transformers: Super-God Masterforce toyline, this young medic was one the main characters in the accompanying animated series.
4) 1990 - DECEPTICON LADIES
As few female Transformers as there were by this stage, they were still all Autobots! That changed in January 1990, when the final issue of the Transformers: Victory manga introduced Esmeral, wife of Deathsaurus, and Lyzack, sister of Leozack - the first ever female Decepticons!
5) 1995 - BOTCON’S BAD GIRL
While Minerva brought a little diversity to Japanese toy store shelves, in America, there were no ladies to be seen until BotCon 1995, which offered as its exclusive toy the first female Transformer available in North America, a redeco of Generation 2 Autobot High Beam as the Decepticon sharpshooter Nightracer!
6) 1997-1998 - BEASTIE GIRLS
Female Transformers finally made it to American shelves in 1997 when the Beast Wars series brought us Airazor and Blackarachnia, the latter of whom was the first evil female Transformer to appear in animation. There was just one trick - their toys weren’t designed with them being female characters in mind! Like Minerva and Nightracer before her, Blackarachnia was just a redeco of a male ‘bot (Tarantulas, in her case), and Airazor’s pronouns were only changed to female when Beast Wars cartoon writers Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio requested it, so they could have a bigger female presence in the series. But this change paved the way for 1998′s big moment - the release of Transmetal Airazor, the very first Transformers toy that was designed to be a female character from the outset!
7) 2000 - DOUBLING UP
While Airazor was phased out of the Beast Wars cartoon during its second season, Blackarachnia remained a major character throughout the show, and on into its sequel, Beast Machines. It was in the second season of Beast Machines in 2000 that another benchmark was finally reached with embarrassing lateness - with the introduction of “plantformer” Botanica, a Transformers animated series how had two female heroes as part of its regular cast, a feat that would not be repeated until 2016′s Robots in Disguise!
8) 2005 - GENDER OVERRIDEN
Female Transformers were in short supply during the “anime” years of Transformers, and it was Cartoon Network’s demand for some representation that saw “Nitro Convoy,” a male character in the Transformers: Galaxy Force anime, gender-flipped to become the female Override, leader of Velocitron, the Speed Planet, when the series was dubbed into English as Transformers: Cybetron!
9) 2013 - THE FANS HAVE SPOKEN
April 2013 saw the launch of Hasbro’s first “Fan-Built Bot” poll, in which fans would be able to vote on the attributes of a brand new Transformers character that would be come a new toy. The character’s gender was not one of the original choices on the poll, but the fan’s voices were loud and clear on the matter - when a second set of questions were added in May, a choice of gender was one of them, and the votes started pouring in for the new ‘bot to be female. The end result was the Autobot Windblade, who went on to become a major player in IDW Publishing’s comics, and eventually headlined her own self-titled mini-series, created by the first ever all-female creative team in Transformers comics, Mairghread Scott and Sarah Stone! From there, she made the leap to television, and now stars as a regular cast member in the second season of Robots in Disguise!
10) 2015 - SIX FEMMES ARE BETTER THAN ONE
The fans’ desire for more female ‘bots didn’t diminish when it came time for the second Fan-Built Poll poll in 2015, which offered the chance to create not just a single Transformer, but an entire six-strong Combiner team! The winner of this poll was Victorion, the first ever female “Scramble City” combiner, made up of Pyra Magna, Rust Dust, Jumpstream, Dustup, Skyburst, and Stormclash! Like Windblade before them, this new team also appear in IDW’s comic, and the giftset of their toys is set for release soon!
That’s OUR top ten - what are some of YOUR favourite Female Transformer moments?
"In 2015, Hasbro will make an Ultra Magnus figure that matches the character seen in MTMTE, right down to a tiny, removable Minimus Ambus. It will homage Animated Magnus by having parts that combine into a giant hammer. it will be perfect."
Director of Publishing Matt Moylan is a ComicsGate-style annoying reactionary nerd who complains about how everything isn’t exactly the same as how it was in the ‘80s, and that seems to be the main audience he wants to court. Transformers fans know him as the guy who made “LilFormers,” a comic strip he often used to complain about every little change in the Transformers franchise and call new female characters Mary Sues and stuff like that
It also bugs me how flagrantly horny a lot of Udon’s output is, like the Street Fighter Swimsuit Special that is quite literally just softcore hentai. Believe me when I say I am not anti-horny. If this was a fan zine I wouldn’t bat an eye. But when you’ve got an official Capcom-licensed Street Fighter book out where the cover is literally just a closeup of a sunbathing Chun-Li’s boobs and thighs with her face cropped out… yeah, that rubs me the wrong way. Especially when juxtaposed with Moylan’s personal views, it paints a bad picture
siphersaysstuff
