Decepticons

Whether or not this summer’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts brings the franchise back to its glory days, the robots in disguise will be back in theaters next year. That’s when a long-in-development animated film will head to theaters,and now we finally know a bit more about its plot.The Woman Who Would Be PhotonThe film, which is officially untitled at the moment, is being directed by Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) and will take place on Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. That much has been known since 2015.…

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's weekly roundup of the latest merch mania. This week, Kang conquers Hot Toys’ Marvel movie lineup, Mega Construx gives you a He-Man sword of your own, and it’s a Spider-Verse special as Mezco and Hasbro swing in with new toys. Check it out!Hot Toys Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Kang Sixth Scale FigureNot even the age-defying charm of Paul Rudd was enough to save Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania from box office mediocrity, but at least the film got the chance to introduce non comic book…

Image: Hot Toys, Japan Trend Shop, and HasbroWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the latest in toy news. This week: Jen Walters’ paramour gets the Hot Toys treatment in more ways than one, Star Wars’ Micro Galaxy ships come back for another round, and Hasbro rolls out the Dinobots in two new Transformers releases. Check it out!Image: Hot ToysHot Toys Marvel She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Daredevil Sixth-Scale FigureCharlie Cox’s Daredevil returned to the MCU with She-Hulk, and with him, a new updated and…

Image: HasbroThe phrase, “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” comes to mind with Hasbro’s latest addition to its Transformers toy line, as longtime Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, is now tradinghis alternate truck mode for a dart-firing Nerf blaster.Megatron, the leader of the opposing Decepticons in the Transformers world, is now best known for transforming into tanks, spaceships, and various other vehicles of war. But the original Megatron toy, which debuted in the US in 1984 as…

Image: Hasbro, Beast Kingdom, and NECAWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular roundup of all the coolest nerdy toy news—now on Mondays! This week, we’re taking a look at Michelle Yeoh’s plastic Transformers debut. Also, the perfect collector action figure comes witha Toy Story twist, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’s coolest rides get very tiny.Hasbro Transformers Studio Series Deluxe 97 AirazorAfter securing a Golden Globe win for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, it’s almost certain that…

Image: Shutterstock (Shutterstock)A new study provides a reality check about your chances of surviving a nuclear explosion. It suggests that, even if you’re hiding indoors and far away enough to avoid immediate disintegration, the high-speed winds created from the blast could still be enough to kill or seriously injure you. But the findings also indicate the best locations within a building to take shelter, should the worst-case scenario ever occur.The research comes from scientists from the University of Nicosia in…

Begun, the Beast Wars have.Gif: ParamountIt’s been almost five years since one of the biggest film franchises in modern history graced the big screen—but it’s back, and this time it’s a beast. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is coming on June 9, 2023, and Paramount just released the first teaser trailer.Adapting the popular Beast Wars section of the toy/cartoon franchise, Rise of the Beasts is a 1990s period film set between the events of Bumblebee and the Michael Bay films. It’s directed by Steven Caple Jr. and stars…

Screenshot: ParamountThe new Transformers animated series, Earthspark, is doing a lot of things that might make dyed-in-the-wool fans wary at first. It’s a family show, in that its primary focus is on its robotic heroes as they sit hand-in-hand with two young kids and their parents. It’s also not about Autobot/Decepticon conflict, in so much as it is about a new generation of Earth-born Terran Transformers. But it is also this: a kind of fascinating sequel to the classic cartoon.Earthspark is set in contemporary Witwicky,…

Fueled by morning cartoons that were nothing more than thinly veiled commercials, the 1980s were arguably the golden era of toys, with iconic lines like Transformers, G.I. Joe, and the Masters of the Universe debuting that are still popular today—and maybe even moreso, based on a toy-filled auction that ends tomorrow.The problem with growing up with many of these toy lines is that when you’re a kid, you don’t give a second thought to preserving the packaging as you tear open a new toy, nor do you play with it gently,…

It’s no secret that despite the massive boon in online shopping and packages needing delivery, traditional mail service is struggling. No one writes nice letters to each other any more, but that could soon change as the Royal Mail in the UK is about to introduce some truly amazing postage stamps featuring heroes that pre-date email, texting, and Facetime.Everything ‘80s is cool and lucrative again, and while companies like Hasbro are making another mass fortune by re-releasing Transformers toys, the Royal Mail is instead…