Product Placement (Mild IDW Spoilers.)
http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/7067/hbj6.jpg
At some point, we went from a time where few contemporary Transformers comics characters had modern toys. Now, as in the splash from Robots in Disguise #27 above, most of the characters seem to be subliminally whispering, 'buy my toy now!' In late Marvel, all Dreamwave and early IDW we went through a decade of Hasbro basically paying no attention to the comics, but now that IDW issues are actually packaged with the Generations toys and toys are even based on comic designs, I'm trying to figure out to what extent the characters being selected for the stories are suggested by Hasbro. Back when - say - Scoop, Waspinator and Rattrap first appeared in Spotlight: Thundercracker/Robots in Disguise, I saw them as interesting choices by John Barber. Now - considering the time it takes to create a toy - I'm assuming it was in fact a case of Hasbro back in 2012 telling him - this is a list of the toys we're planning to make - work them into your comics. Now that we're conscious of this, the toy placement has become hilariously obvious - I'm looking at you Sky-Byte, Crosscut and Tankor. So... judging by any new (and particularly leftfield) character selections in MTMTE and RiD at the moment, I'm thinking we can possibly work out which G1* toys might be in the pipeline for release in 2015-16. To what extent do you think I'm right or wrong about this, and does anyone think there are some characters who look suspiciously like they may have a toy on the way?
(*Yes, I know it's weird that I'm talking about Waspinator, Rattrap, Sky-Byte and Tankor and calling them G1 characters.)
