The really interesting thing about Lio Kaiser isn't just his canonical appearance, but the engineering turning point that he represents for Transformers toys. Lio Kaiser was the first Transformers gestalt to have self contained gestalt parts. On the 1989 G1 toy, the head is the only detachable accessory on Lio Kaiser. Everything else on the gestalt robot - thighs, hands, feet etc. are all built into the toys. This means that the head was the sole accessory that you had to keep track of and try not to lose. This was a massive leap in design/engineering. If you think of any other G1 gestalt; Devastator, Superion, Menasor, Predaking etc. -- they were all highly dependent on accessories to complete the gestalt robot. Fists, feet, chest plates, groin plates, heads etc. were all detachable (except for Defensor's head).Originally Posted by Autobot1995
No other G1 or G2 gestalt matched this level of engineering. It wouldn't be until 1997 when Hasbro/Kenner produced the first Transformers gestalts with fully self-contained parts (Beast Wars' Magnaboss and Tripredacus); and of course, the BW gestalts were fully articulated, so they were a big step up from Lio Kaiser, but Lio Kaiser was the starting point. Other gestalts with fully self contained parts since then have been:
* Car Robot (RiD2001)'s JRX (Rail Racer) & Buildking (Landfill)
* Fall of Cybertron's Bruticus & Ruination
Combiner Wars have taken a step back in having detachable hands and feet, although this was done to improve the core design of the individual toys (as they don't have to incorporate and cater for built in hands and feet). If you compare any CW gestalt with their G1 counterpart, you can see that the CW version has more self-contained components and places little reliance on detachable accessories. This innovation started in 1989 with Lio Kaiser. So I think that it'd really awesome to see Lio Kaiser made into a modern gestalt, as it would feel like the journey of developing the modern gestalt has come full circle.α & Ω
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