Hey, look!  Slash got a retool!  The lady Dinobot got a new head and is now the 1988 Firecon character Cindersaur!  

Okay, first of all, Slash is a great toy.  So Cindersaur is still a great toy.  So, like, that's still a recommend.  The new head doesn't alter the transformation at all, and though the new colors are a little monotonous in raptor mode (without the robot mode's green face and touches of gray), it's still a vibrant-looking thing.  So thumbs up just based on that.  

But there's more!  All of the Power of the Primes toys come packed randomly with one of 12 different cards that give a different Prime-based power.  Ten of these cards are irrelevant to the rest of this paragraph, but of the final two, one uses male pronouns and the other uses female pronouns.  (the female card was discovered before the male card, and for that day and a half or so, the toy was known affectionately as "Cindysaur")  Maybe someone got their wires crossed and accidentally used Slash's pronouns on one of the cards, but the new Cindersaur head is sculpted the way Hasbro tends to sculpt their women characters: there's lips and a smile and some softened features.  



Or, we could just take the text as given and determine that Cindersaur is genderfluid.  They're male sometimes, female sometimes, and, heck, maybe it changes depending on which Prime Master is plugged in.  That's my take-away, anyway.

Look... *throws the pack-in cards down on the table* ... it's canon.

I've been complaining (sort of) about the lack of Transformers to buy over the past few months.  Well, that's certainly over.  Between the ten new guys I got at BotCon and the buttload of stuff that's starting to show up at Toys "R" Us, I officially have Too Much.  So much that I probably should have started blogging these guys days ago, or I'll never ever get through them!  I have to be at a convention in just about a week!

(Speaking of which, come see me at ConnectiCon!)

But first, lemme remind you to pick up the AllSpark Almanac II, which came out yesterday.  The first volume was like a veritable Transformers orgasm, and the second one is like a whole sexy evening of Transformers orgasms.  Even better, I have some contributions within it!  The back cover illustration is mine, plus I'm the guy who put together the Ninja Gladiator game sprites.  A few of the character selections were my own, and you can probably tell.  You'll know what I'm talking about.  Also, co-author Jim Sorenson kept me around to make sure he wasn't going too far off the edge on some things.  He does kinda need to be reigned in sometimes!  Unchecked, he's a monster!

Anyway, BotCon toys.  I think I'll talk about Cindersaur first, because conceptually I think he's the most high-concept BotCon figure in a while.  Back in Generation 2, they put out redecoes of both Flamefeather and Sparkstalker, but not the third and final dude Cindersaur.  Well, let's fix that!  And so BotCon gives us a G2 Cindersaur 15 years after the fact.  That's only really part of it.

I also like how they arrived at Cindersaur's color scheme.  They extrapolated it from the other two dudes!  See, both G2 Flamefeather and Sparkstalker had bright green and purple robot parts, but were mostly a third translucent color.  Flamefeather was green, purple, and translucent orange, while Sparkstalker was green, purple, and translucent red.  Well, clearly Cindersaur has to have green and purple robot parts, plus they gotta choose a third, dominant color.  And that's just what we got.

Unfortunately, plastic tolerance issues being what they were, BotCon Cindersaur was unable to make all of its blue translucent.  But it's the thought that counts.  And, hey, the toy won't split into pieces in a few years, so that's good.

I really like him 'cuz at this point anybody can throw an existing character's colors on a toy and call it a day.  That's done all the time!  It's old hat.  But how often do we see potential color schemes extrapolated from other toys?  Plus, hey, it's the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Megatron mold, which is like the best Tyrannosaurus rex Transformer ever.  Hot damn.

Hmm.  Who should I do next?  Who from this set haven't I given enough love?  ... on the other hand, I also just got Leader Starscream today, so...