Diecast brings back the full Hasbro Toy Fair 2014 presentation. Hasbro promises 73 fan-focused Generations items and shows Leader Class Jetfire and Sky-Byte. He also interviews Hasbro’s Mark Weber about the Titan Class and Activision about Rise of the Dark Spark. The crew recaps the show’s surprises, from the Masterpiece Grimlock reissue to the missing Arcee. Brian remembers JD Church, and Aimee Morgan covers April’s comic solicitations.
Remembering JD Church
Brian repeats the news that co-host JD Church died the week before at only 34. He is survived by his wife, Amanda. In 2009, JD urged Brian to revive Radio Free Cybertron. Brian agreed to do it if a Facebook page reached 50 fans, and it took four hours.
This Week in History
In 1999, the Beast Wars episode Go With the Flow premiered in the US. The crew also recalls the KB Toys exclusive Robots in Disguise repaints, such as Bludgeon and Megabolt Megatron. In 2004, the Energon episode Megatron’s Sword premiered, and nobody has much good to say about Energon.
News
Toy Fair 2014 Recap
Diecast says the Leader Class Jetfire leak spared him from losing it during the presentation, and the chrome looks good in person. A guest who joined him at Toy Fair loved seeing the Masterpiece Grimlock reissue on display. A fan in the room let out a loud gasp at Legends Gears, which Brian loves. Roadbuster and Sky-Byte were the big surprises, and Nightbeat works much better on the Goldfire mold.
The crew finds the Age of Extinction Generations Dinobots surprisingly good and closer to Beast Hunters than past movie toys. Toy Fair also confirmed the gray truck is Galvatron and showed a half-G1 Evasion Mode Optimus Prime. Arcee was missing. One of the Toy Fair attendees asked about a Headmaster Arcee and got no answer, though Hasbro said she is IDW-based. Don jokes that he has been making Hasbro acutely aware of the demand.
Hasbro counts 74 Generations items this year, but the crew notes that total includes movie figures. One host worries that splitting collector and kid lines could let big retailers skip the collector figures. Others say Generations already outsells everything else. The crew loves the Hero Mashers and wonders why the movie’s flyer is Strafe instead of Swoop.
Rise of the Dark Spark blends the movie and War for Cybertron universes, and the crew is split on the mix. Kre-O continues and may become a Toys R Us exclusive. One host reports that the Loyal Subjects’ second wave adds Prowl, the Coneheads and Dinobots with swappable heads, plus a talking Optimus Prime.
Interview: Mark Weber of Hasbro
Diecast asks Hasbro’s Mark Weber how Titan Class Metroplex sold. Mark says it did very well and was the right homerun character to launch a new scale, just as Jetfire is for Leader Class. The San Diego Comic-Con exclusive helped cover the tooling. Hasbro plans more Titans, but one now and then rather than a full lineup.
Comic News with Aimee Morgan
The Monstrosity motion comic ends with issue #12 on the Madefire app. Upcoming trades include ReGeneration One volume 4 in May, Dark Cybertron volume 2 in June and a paperback Movie Collection volume 2 in July. Dark Cybertron volume 1 arrives in April with Phil Jimenez’s cover.
April’s Dawn of the Autobots solicits bring Optimus Prime back to Earth in Robots in Disguise #28 by John Barber and Andrew Griffith. In More Than Meets the Eye #28, by James Roberts and Alex Milne, Megatron takes over the quest for the Knights of Cybertron. Windblade #1 by Mairghread Scott and Sarah Stone and the Transformers Legacy book also arrive in April.
The Hasbro Toy Fair 2014 Presentation
Hasbro’s team opens by insisting that Hasbro loves Transformers fans and is not leaving them behind. They lay out Rescue Bots for preschoolers, a main line built on easy ‘magical transformation’ for young kids, and Generations for collectors. Generations grows from 54 fan releases in 2013 to 73 in 2014, with both a movie line and a classic line.
Movie Generations deluxes include Bumblebee, Crosshairs, Slug, Scorn, Drift, Strafe and Slash. Voyagers include Optimus Prime, Grimlock and Hound with seven weapons. Leader Optimus Prime and Grimlock round out about 20 movie figures, all new tooling, and every movie Dinobot gets a toy.
For the 30th anniversary, Legends adds Gears and Acid Storm. Deluxes add Nightbeat, Jhiaxus and Windblade, the Fan’s Choice character, and Voyagers add Sky-Byte. The new Leader Class launches in fall 2014 with Jetfire and continues into 2015.
For young kids, the presenters admit Transformers got too complex and show an original 1984 Optimus Prime as the standard. The one-step line includes a 22-inch Grimlock, Construct-Bots adds Dinobots, and the games area debuts Battle Masters. The presentation ends with the world premiere of the Rise of the Dark Spark trailer.
Interview: Activision on Rise of the Dark Spark
An Activision representative tells Diecast that Rise of the Dark Spark blends the Michael Bay movie universe with Fall of Cybertron. Players fight for a relic called the Dark Spark as both Autobots and Decepticons. Escalation mode returns with over 40 playable characters, and progress carries between modes. Edge of Reality is developing it, and the 3DS version is a separate strategy RPG by WayForward.
Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.
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