Well, the nights are getting shorter, leaves are falling, the year's beginning to draw towards the winter months, and to a close. Now then, over the past year we've seen big upheavals in the way the toys are released round here. While in the past we could all rely on the fact that the Beast Wars transformers toys came out a year after those in the US, all this has been thrown out the window. This time last year, Rampage, Depth Charge and Optimal Optimus were just beginning to arrive on the shelves here. After that, it all went a bit odd. Transmetal 2 deluxes Cheetor, Ramulus and Dinobot and basics, Sonar, Scarem and Optimus Minor all arrived on time at the beginning of the year, but with them came the mega sized Cybershark, arriving a bit earlier than a year after the US. And it all stopped there. The summer came, and instead of seeing the latter wave of Transmetal 2s, we saw some of the early Beast Machines toys, less than half a year after their arrival in the US, and with them, a solitary Transmetal 2, Megatron. By the later summer, some more Beast Machine toys came out, only a matter of around 2 months after the US. Now then, it would appear that Hasbro are doing their best to get the Beast Machines line all out at a time nearer to the US. The reasoning behind this is unclear, but I have brought up a couple of theories.

1) Because of the dwindling popularity of the Beast Wars line in the UK, due to the disappearance of the TV show from UK screens, Hasbro has decided to cut their losses with the Beast Wars line in the UK. The sight of Beast Wars toys just groing dust on shelves and the lack of children buying them (throughout the entire year, I can only remember seeing one kid looking at the BW toys) would seem to support this theory.

2) The toy release schedules were previously synchronised with the TV show, with the coincidental result of them coming out a year after the US releases. Without the TV show, the release dates have gone haywire. The fact that a toy would usually be on the shelves as soon as the introductory episode for that character aired here would support this theory, although this would not explain Depth Charge's UK arrival in around August, despite the absence of his introductory episode in the UK.

But whatever the reason, things are looking grim for the prospect of seeing the rest of the Transmetal 2s on UK shelves. Currently missing are:

Basics: Nightglider Spittor Stinkbomb

Deluxes: Jawbreaker Scourge Iguanus Prowl

Megas: Blackarachnia

Ultras: Tigerhawk

The earlier arrival of toys in the UK can only be good, but it would appear that others are being pushed out in favour of them.

[update: Since writing this editorial it has come to my attenion that Tigerhawk is actually available in the UK, but sparsely distributed]

-Aardvarktron