All this is heralding in a new Cartoon, Comic, and Toy line: Transformers:Armada. August 23 the show begins, along with the new Masters of the Universe...The comic is already out, from Dreamwave, and the toys have just hit the market...
That there is Optimus Prime. In addittion to looking really cool he has lights and sounds, and his trailer can of course form a cool base as always, and he can also combine with it to form a really big robot...but the big thing is this new IR technology. When you transform the cab of the truck into Optimus's body...the Trailer KNOWS and Automatically transforms into a Base! The same goes for all the transformations...the base does all the work for you. Sweet.
Armada starts off on Cybertron, the TF homeworld, a million years ago before the Great Wars. The Autobots, Decepticons, and Mini-Cons all live together until the Decepticons figure out the Minis can boost there power, so they start collecting them...the mini's escape somehow into space and crash on earth...million years later they wake up and send out a signal, and the Autobots and Decepticons come calling.
The big new feature of the toys is that although very nifty on their own, they have a bunch of hidden secret features that only work when you plug mini-cons into them...it can be missiles, weapons, sounds, lights, whatever. Each Autobot and Decepticon includes a Mini-Con, and there are a few packs of 3 you can get too. The neatest thing is that the Mini-Cons toys actually don't suck, as I expected! They're poseable, have cool transformations, and are well-made...and they connect to the larger toys quite well, some of them even have special features like combining into a larger robot or shooting missiles.
Megatron is a giant killer tank this time around, and he seems pretty cool. Although Optimus can house a lot of Mini-Cons in his trailer/base...Megatron has about ten billion places to plug Mini-Cons in...unlockign all sorts of things; apparently he even talks. He is joined initially by a smaller tank named Demolisher, a Helicopter called Cyclonus, and oh hell yeah, king cool, Starscream. Optimus is joined by a yellow sports car named HotShot, an SUV type thing called Red Alert, and a spy camera/stun gun/bird of prey triple changer called Lazerbeak. Any similarities between characters in this series and those who had their name in the past is yet to be seen, though Optimus, Megatron, and Starscream appear to be the same. Another line is already scheduled with a bunch of cool-sounding toys, but I can't find any Bloody pictures of em. Hmph.
But regardless of that, things are looking good. I almost hate that so much cool stuff is out now because I'm gonna be broke for years. Armada toys are a bit pricy, as are the new He-Man...but it's all worth it. I suggest you go out and get all of these, but just not all the special rare collector's edition comics and toys because there aren't many and I WANT THEM DAMMIT.
Oh, and check out the official Armada Site for lots of stuff on it, or go to the great fan-sites Seibertron, BigBot, or Transfandom for LOTS of cool stuff.
Back Home