Human Alliance Sideswipe

[Jhiaxus]

That is true: millions of people did see a silver car transform into a robot and decapitate some other silver robot. However, I'm pretty sure that well over 99% of these viewers have no emotional attachment to this robot (or remember that his name is Sideswipe), owing to the fact that all they can possibly know about him is that he likes to drive around, kill other robots and cut things. My main gripe with this is that I'm sure this franchise would not have lasted twenty-five years if people hadn't cared about the characters as well as the 'cool' toys. Take a character like Gears. We know he likes complaining, he's Spider-Man's friend, he sells potatoes to buy provisions for the Autobots and he's cranky because he has some sort of solar needle circuit stuck up his driveshaft. He's interesting. And yet he's had one toy in the 25 years since his first appearance. (Yes, I know there's now a second toy called 'Gears' potentially coming out for ROTF). Although ROTF Sideswipe may have over half a dozen toys in a couple of months (one of which was more-than-capably reviewed here by Stompy), he is still little more than a mindless cypher who likes to cut things. And that makes me sad.

I gotta call you up here. If we're talking MOVIE appearances, Gears is even worse off than Sideswipe! He didn't appear in the original TF movie at all!!

Gears had one major appearance in the cartoon (A great episode, to be sure) and one major appearance in the comics (A great little tale for him, to be sure), and a character profile. You're mining ALL OF THOSE to get your information.

You know what? Sideswipe appears in story books, movie profile books, the movie itself, comics, and has character profiles attached to every single one of his toys. That's nearly as much fiction as Gears has ever had.

--Jhiaxus
(The G1 characters were often just as much ciphers as any Movie guys -- often worse. Skywarp and Thundercracker, despite appearing again and again had like 1 character moment between them throughout all their appearances... and apart from that all we have is their profiles. Yes, you've built the G1 guys up over time, but that doesn't make them any less "nobodies who appeared once or twice" than movie guys. It's just the way TF fiction WORKS.)

[Sky Shadow]

I gotta call you up here. If we're talking MOVIE appearances, Gears is even worse off than Sideswipe! He didn't appear in the original TF movie at all!!

I wasn't actually talking about movie appearances (and Gears was just meant to be a random example) but if I was, then Gears was in Transformers: The Movie on Moonbase One, doing about as little as ROTF Sideswipe does. And then he may have been dropped in Unicron's stomach acid at the end (or that may just be some generic robot who looks like Gears.)

Gears had one major appearance in the cartoon (A great episode, to be sure) and one major appearance in the comics (A great little tale for him, to be sure), and a character profile. You're mining ALL OF THOSE to get your information.

I don't remember any references to Gears taking potatoes to the market in any of those instances... although his Tech Specs profile would have been even more awesome if it did.

You know what? Sideswipe appears in story books, movie profile books, the movie itself, comics, and has character profiles attached to every single one of his toys. That's nearly as much fiction as Gears has ever had.

Yes, Gears was in the cartoon, a movie, Marvel comics, Dreamwave comics, Devils Due comics, IDW comics, picture books and colouring books. Which is why - like Gears - ROTF Sideswipe deserves maybe one toy. And then perhaps some sort of homage toy in 2034.