Transformers Hall of Fame 2024 voting now open - until Sept 9

[lastmaximal]

Hasbro has officially opened voting for the 2024 TF HOF.
Let your voice be heard! Click here: Google Forms link

And cast a vote for:

• Favorite of the Thirteen Primes (interesting...)
• Legacy United toy of the year
• Studio Series toy of the year
• Exclusive toy of the year

Voting remains open until September 9 at 11:59 PM ET.

 

[Superomegaprime]

My choices are:
For the Thirteen: Vector Prime
Legacy United: Tidalwave
Studio Series: Swoop
Exclusive: Origins Wheeljack

In all honestly, I am just not a fan of this system of voting, simply because there is a lot of good figures to chose from and limiting to one option per a poll segment is just infuring, is very unfair, but looking at the exclusives, reminded me of one that has yet to come out, but listed, Straxus, I pre-ordered him a while ago from Hasbro Pulse and then forgot all about him! I would rather the polls be more of narrowing down options over a course of a bunch of rounds as it would be more favourable, besides, they simply lump all class sizes for each line into one poll which is just not fair, because its hard to compare a core class to the titan class as they are built differently!

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Favorite of the 13 primes is a weird one given most of the 13 haven't had more than a more than passing appearance in fiction, outside of the Covenant of Primus.

Like, I'd want to vote for Solus, but her "big thing" is getting murdered by Megatronus.

I feel like this is a toss-up between Alpha Trion (Multiple incarnations), Vector Prime (Cybertron), Alchemist (Cyberverse), Liege Maximo (IDW) and Megatronus (Multiiple incarnations)

Micronus, Solus, Quintus and Nexus get honorable mentions for showing up and having speaking lines, but they don't do much (I could be wrong about Nexus). I'm not counting the 13th Prime for obvious reasons. Onyx Prime would get a mention for IDW, but anyone who's read that knows why I'm not counting that. Prima is more talked about than shown and Amalgamous is probably the least shown for all of the Primes.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Favorite of the Thirteen Primes

Alpha Trion

Legacy United toy of the year

Cybertron Starscream

Studio Series toy of the year

Concept Art Megatron

Exclusive toy of the year

Flame and Emirate Xaaron

 

[ZacWilliam1]

The 13 question in the survey is probably a little because they feature in TF:One and a little because they are one of the big focuses of next years Toyline.


Out of curiousity let's see how much I can say about each without looking anything up.

1) Prima - The first. The archetypal hero/leader. Drawn like an ornate knight in the Covenant. He used the Star Saber sword and the matrix was the jewel in its handle.

2) Megatronus - The Fallen. I think some source mentioned him purposely having darkness in him to better let him understand Unicron the 13's foe. He was in love with Solus and she him until Leige Maximo manipulated him Othelo-style into a fit of rage (was it over one of her weapons, I can't recall off the top of my head) where he accidentally killed her. In some versions of the story he betrays his brothers to Unicron. He was connected to the requiem blaster.

3) Alpha Trion - The chronicler. He writes the history of Cybertron with The Quill and what he writes in the covenant becomes true. And then Eventually he guides the Transformers and Optimus.

4) Leige Maximo - The Loki of the 13. Manipulative and tricky and not to be trusted.

5) Solus Prime - The forger. Made all the 13s weapons and artifacts. The Ancestor of female TFs? A great creator. Had a relationship with Megatronus until he killed her accidentally. Her body sank into cybertron and became the well of all sparks.

6) Onyx Prime - Ancestor of Beast Form TFs. A centaur. Proud and wild. Had a mask that let him see the future and past I think. Something like that. I think I remember him being friends with Micronus.

7) Micronus Prime - The Ancestor of Minicons. Small but powerful. Floated around in a little ball of energy.

8) Quintus Prime - Interested in organic life and experimenting with it. Created the Quintessons who hate and often hunt him. Also created the Terrans in Earthspark.

9) Nexus Prime - Ancestor of Combiners. His artifact was the Enigma of Combination.

10) Alchemist Prime - Into chemical experiments. Sometimes he's Maccadam.

11) Vector Prime - Master of Time. Time Traveller/Sage

12) Amalgamus Prime - Is this the one that created the transforming cog? I kinda get him and Alchemist mixed up. He's the ever changing body one that is related to Shifters, right?

13) The Risen. One who died and would come back? Or was yet to come? Anyway it turns out to be Optimus. Or Optimus is his reincarnation? Or whoever holds the Matrix is? It's kinda confusing and probably wasn't the best idea.


-ZacWilliam, cool. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do them all without looking them up.

 

[Magnusblitz]

Thirteen: Yeah, tough vote since most of them are kinda nothings. Vector Prime and Alpha Trion are cool since they've actually shown up and done stuff before. The G2er in me was tempted for Liege Maximo but I know they just think of him as Loki now because of his horns. In the end I went for Solus hoping if she wins maybe they'll give her more to do than just getting fridged.

Legacy United Toy: Geez, this makes me realize how behind I am in toys, I think I only have a couple, and Cybertron Starscream edges out BW Silverbolt for me.

Studio Series: Commander OP will probably win, but I went with BB Concept Art Megatron since I actually have him and he's pretty cool.

Exclusive: Ended up going with Marvel Shockwave even though I actually never bought it.

 

[Sabrblade]

Yeah, I'm probably gonna be backing off the voting this year since the choices are kinda... meh.

For the Thirteen, the odds are pretty heavily skewed in favor of only a small few since so many of them are real non-entities, while for the different toy options several of them haven't even been released yet while others have been hard to find due to very poor distribution at brick-and-mortar retail.

And we know that these Hall of Fame polls never result in the winners receiving any new toys anyway, and it's made even more moot when we know from leaks that a bunch of the Thirteen are set to be getting toys next year regardless.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Where's the "Please never mention the Thirteen ever again" option?

 

[unluckiness]

They couldn’t even be bothered to have it on their website or something. Literally google forms lol.

 

[NovaSaber]

Can I just say again how dumb it is that the version of the Thirteen that's stuck doesn't even have thirteen real members?

The idea of "The Thirteenth Prime" being either Optimus Prime specifically or "whoever has the Matrix" is just...dumb.
The dumbest idea in an entire dumb book that was full of dumb ideas.
Dumber than fridging the first female Transformer.
Dumber than Megatronus not being really evil.
Dumber than the names "Megatronus" and "Amalgamous Prime".

 

[Sabrblade]

They couldn’t even be bothered to have it on their website or something. Literally google forms lol.

Just like the last few years.

 

[unluckiness]

Jesus this hall of fame thing really went to the dumps fast.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Vector Prime, Rescue Bots Chase, SS '86 Optimus Prime, and Party Wallop.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

They couldn’t even be bothered to have it on their website or something. Literally google forms lol.

Not really that unusual. The could convince higher-ups for the budget to hire and pay someone to develop the functionality on their website, or they can just use freely available software that already does what they want.

Can I just say again how dumb it is that the version of the Thirteen that's stuck doesn't even have thirteen real members?

The idea of "The Thirteenth Prime" being either Optimus Prime specifically or "whoever has the Matrix" is just...dumb.
The dumbest idea in an entire dumb book that was full of dumb ideas.
Dumber than fridging the first female Transformer.
Dumber than Megatronus not being really evil.
Dumber than the names "Megatronus" and "Amalgamous Prime".

We've been doing dumb prime names since 1986 with Rodimus Prime.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Can I just say again how dumb it is that the version of the Thirteen that's stuck doesn't even have thirteen real members?

The idea of "The Thirteenth Prime" being either Optimus Prime specifically or "whoever has the Matrix" is just...dumb.
The dumbest idea in an entire dumb book that was full of dumb ideas.
Dumber than fridging the first female Transformer.
Dumber than Megatronus not being really evil.
Dumber than the names "Megatronus" and "Amalgamous Prime".

I don't dislike the concept of the Thirteen... I think it's a perfectly fine way to flesh out the mythology. I just... have issues with the final list we got.

Alpha Trion- I love the guy but there was nothing special about him in the G1 show aside from being so old he remembered the Quintesson occupation. He was a mentor but he never seemed mythical. I suppose if you take his slave name literally he was one of the first sentient Cybertronians but ehhhh

Solus Prime- I like Solus Prime... in theory. She has a cool gimmick- blacksmith- and a cool motif- fire- and for a franchise that once said "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" to have a female character be the one who forged the Star Sabre and Matrix is pretty nifty.
What I don't like about her is 1) making her the "descendent" of all female Transformers and 2) having her get fridged for the sake of conflict.
The good thing is that this is fixable with future media. Don't make her the progenitor of all female Transformers, just make her one who happened to be a girl. Simple. I swear Transformers overthinks this stuff.
As for the fridging... I'd just rewrite the whole War of the Primes thing to get rid of that. There's no saving it.

Megatronus Prime- Good G-d I hate Megatronus Prime. The Fallen as a concept? Great. Love it. I'd just... kinda prefer it if we never knew his name. Like he was such a black mark on early Cybertronian history that they scrubbed EVERY reference to his name and he's just The Fallen.
If they must reveal his identity... Liege Maximo. Maximo is one I don't take issue with as a member of the Thirteen but he and Megatronus kind of share space as "the baddie" and muddle things. Like if the Thirteen shattered because Liege Maximo manipulated Megatronus why did Megatronus get the HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED treatment but Liege Maximo didn't?
It just seems easier to have Liege Maximo be The Fallen and just have him play the general Satan/betrayer role.
Also the name "Megatronus" is dumb. It's like... bad fanfic levels of dumb.

Optimus/Arisen- No. Do better Hasbro.

The rest of them are fine honestly. Underdeveloped and not really characters (outside of Vector Prime who got to do stuff), sure, but fine. They don't bother me.
Alpha Trion doesn't really work for me, Solus is a neat idea executed poorly, everything about "Megatronus Prime" is dumb and embarrassing, and the decision to make Optimus a literal Messiah figure and reincarnation of a god is somehow worse.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

They couldn’t even be bothered to have it on their website or something. Literally google forms lol.

I wasn't paying attention when I filled out the form, but that just makes it all the more annoying. They're insisting on only one response per answer, but chose the checkbox feature (which allows you to choose more than one before they tell you not to) rather than the radio buttons (which default to only being able to choose one). They're using Google Forms without even understanding how it works!

 

[LordGigaIce]

We've been doing dumb prime names since 1986 with Rodimus Prime.

Rodimus Prime sounds like a Transformers porn name, granted, but there's a sort of narmy charm to it.
Thing is there have been other Primes from G1 who managed to avoid "just tack -us on the end" laziness.
Sentinel Prime, Prime Nova/Nova Prime, and Prima got name dropped for the first time in Marvel G1. Guardian Prime and Alpha Prime were mentioned as a past Primes in Dreamwave G1. Cybertron gave us Vector Prime. And Japanese exclusive fiction gave us Logos Prime, who was hinted at being a member of the Thirteen before he got kicked out for Rik Alvarez's fanfiction. IDW gave us Nominus Prime, true, but they also gave us Zeta Prime.
So it seemed liked Rodimus was just sort of this goofy relic from the 80s movie that was acceptable because of 80s nostalgia and also just generally the feel of that movie. It's cheesy and embraces it.

side note- I love how IDW1 had Hot Rod adopt "Rodimus" himself because he noticed a pattern with "Nominus Prime" and "Optimus Prime" and just wanted to feel important.

Then Hasbro did their big reveal of the Official We Mean It Thirteen and not only did they start tacking "-us" on the end of everyone but they did "Megatronus." Which just hurts. It's so bad. It takes a convention- adding "-us" to make a Prime name, which the franchise had actually managed to avoid doing too often before then- and tacks it onto Megatron's name, like it was lifted out of a LiveJournal fanfic about Megatron getting the Matrix.

I don't like Megatronus Prime is what I'm saying

 

[Undead Scottsman]

IIRC, Alpha Trion was mentioned as being a "first generation" product of Vector Sigma in the G1 cartoon, so he might actually have more bona-fide credentials at being a member of the 13 than any of the other ones who got retconned into being members of the 13.

His "key," however, was his own life force: as a first generation product of Vector Sigma, his computation matrix could interface with the computer and bring it back online, at the cost of his own continued existence.

 

[Sciflyer]

I cast my vote for Alpha Trion because I like him and crucially, I know who he is (I never got into the lore of The Thirteen, so ). I also voted for Leader G1 Sandstorm because he is really fun and looks the part in all three modes.

For SS, I voted for Commander Optimus even though he hasn't yet made it into my hands. But from the way that he was "revealed" to then seeing better pictures, to finally seeing a video, I can safely say that no other Studio Series release from this year got into my brain the way that Optimus did. Looking forward to getting him!

Lastly, I voted for Origin Wheeljack as the best exclusive. He is chunky and kibbly for sure, but he represents something that I have wanted since first laying eyes on Transformers, and I still can't believe that he exists.

 

[LordGigaIce]

IIRC, Alpha Trion was mentioned as being a "first generation" product of Vector Sigma in the G1 cartoon, so he might actually have more bona-fide credentials at being a member of the 13 than any of the other ones who got retconned into being members of the 13.

Valid!