JoeCanuck

Aaaah, darn you. I'd been raking over the coals trying to think of the perfect parts combo to make a modern era Black Ice. I finally thought I had some progress when I picked up a casted Crimson Horseman head, and then you guys reveal this...
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

So what's left now...

Vehicle: Cycle Armor, most likely.

Figure parts: Rampage's lower legs, Ashiko's torso, arms and upper legs, HISS Scout's head and the entirety of whoever provided the vest for Traction.

I am genuinely curious what the crew's going to come up with using that.

Aside from the head I don't think anything is from Ashiko or Flash.

Lower legs are Ashiko's as well.

I wanted to say the head was Flash's or Skydive's because Ashiko's has a darker skin tone in the eye holes, but the lower legs being Ashiko's/Wraith's makes an occam's razor straight to Ashiko being the source of the head.

Torso and arms seem to be from ROC Rampage (Mutt chest/Hawk arms). With the dye, it's a bit harder to pinpoint the exact source of the upper legs and vest.
I wonder if the Rampages were acquired via Chinese sellers, or if the RHINO is going to be part of the con set.

And this is where the age difference shows. When the original cartoons (Transformers an G.I. Joe) were on the air and we were all running home after school and talking about "last nights cool show" with our grade school friends, you were still a twinkle in your parents eye.  :wink:

You were born around '84, correct? So by the time you could really understand these shows and appreciate things like characters would put you around 89 -90 (give or take). So of course the shows you grew up with were the best in your opinion.

Age schmage. I grew up on the Generation One and GIJoe cartoons same as you. Syndicated reruns and all that. Also the Generation 2 re-airings of Transformers. Plus there was that Transformers: The Movie videocassette that was an incredibly common rental of mine.

I work with a guy who is 22. Dude is very smart and all around fun guy, but he loves the Beast Wars over the original Transformers show. We've compared the two a few times and what it all comes down to is it's personal connection to each of us in relation to out childhood memories.

Except I was no longer a child when Beast Wars debuted. I was 12.
Still managed to hook me.

Either way, I don't judge anything by nostalgia filter. I never saw any third-season episodes of Transformers as a child. But when asked which episodes are the best, I always end up plucking them out of the third. Webworld, Dark Awakening, The Burden Hardest To Bear... You know, that season all the "True and Honest G1 Fans" hate?

There is no way you are ever going to convince me that Beast Wars is better then the original Transformers. It won't happen. Just like I won't be able to change your opinion either. We could banter back and forth on different points and both of us could easily strip down the other guy favorite character. Nothing will change because it's how we related to them when we grew up.

Except, again, it's not. Maybe it is for you, but it's not for me.

That being said, this is my final defense of G1 over Beast Wars:

No matter what you say about Beast Wars it will always be lacking to the original show for one glaring absence as far as characters goes: Starscream (with Chris Latta). That little cameo he did when he possessed Waspinator was the second best thing about Beast Wars and far too short lived. The best thing about Beast Wars was when they found the arc and all the Autobots asleep. Then there was that Ravage angle. Funny how all the best episodes of that show were about G1.

Huh. I won't deny the merits of the episodes you mentionned, because they are indeed solid episodes. The entire show was a solid show. All it took for you to realize it was for it to refer to that thing your nostalgia filter adores.
Besides, the best moment of The Agenda isn't Ravage or seeing a bunch of Transformers sleeping. No. It's...
"Say goodbye to the universe, Maximals! The future has changed. Yessssss. The Autobots lose! Evil triumphs! And you...YOU NO LONGER EXIST!"

And last time I checked, Code of Hero had nothing to do with G1, and it is the single best Transformers episode ever written in the history of forever.
Oh yeah, and this episode, for some reason, was one of the few BW eps I didn't catch during its run. Going into subsequent episodes all I knew was "Dinobot died". I didn't get to see it till I was 20. And it was still more moving than Optimus Prime's death in the movie had ever been for me.

But, hey...





Back on the topic of Renegades, I just found another reason to get hyped.
Marty Isenberg is the story editor.
And he happens to be the genius that gave us the greatness of fiction that is Transformers Animated.
I'm now expecting great action, great characters and great fun. This show is going to rock.

As of right now... I guess I have two issues with Renegades, and they are ridiculously minor.
One is the faces. The animation style is nice and dynamic but the faces will take some getting used to. Hardly something for me to get worked up over.
The other is that Tomax and Xamot are voiced by the same person. That feels... I dunno, just lazy. I was always impressed by the fact that in the old Sunbow toon (OMG YES, it had some good points in its favor!), Corey Burton and Michael Bell each did one voice, and managed to match each other like that. Having one guy for the two just doesn't feel as impressive. Again, still hardly something significant enough to condemn the whole show over.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this.

I will give you Batman but that cartoon was closer to the 1980s style in terms of a visual perception.   Anime and computer animated stuff is garbage to me.  

You're welcome to think that but Reboot and Beast Wars were absolutely fantastic thanks to the sheer amount of body language 3D-animated characters could give us.

And Batman was totally not 80s in visual perception. It pretty much pioneered a simplistic, stylish visual style that made for fluid animation (something that would be carried out throughout the DCAU, as well as Teen Titans, Transformers Animated, Spectacular Spider-Man, etc), something that was completely absent from the cartoons of the 80s.

Also, what do you qualify as "anime"? Because I'm certain you grew up on a metric ton of anime in the 80s.
Robotech, Voltron, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Battle of the Planets/G-Force...
(not to mention that a lot of 1980s cartoons, including GIJoe and Transformers, were animated by Japanese animation studios like Toei!)

Nothing has beaten the 1980s style of cartoons. 

Ugh. Everything's beaten the 1980s style of cartoon, especially in the action genre. They were plagued with animation errors, had childish plots that at times failed to even make sense and they never even tried to make their villains menacing.

The 90s was when cartoons started being cool. Batman: The Animated Series, Beast Wars, ReBoot... mature storytelling that could be thoroughly enjoyed by child and adult alike. (Sadly, GIJoe was too busy trying to emulate Rob Liefeld with GIJoe Extreme to benefit from any of it)

As for Renegades... I'm not big on the faces but the style definitely looks to be lending itself nicely to action sequences... And the plot is definitely being kicked off in an interesting direction.
I'm looking forward to the debut!