Men in Black

Selling Onyx Primal since 1996!

Men in Black Productions, headed by Dennis Barger, was the company that organized BotCon 1996.

MiB quickly became infamous for its (mis)management of the con, with gaffes such as a very late-opening dealer room, no lanyards for attendees, and a rather pitiful "party" to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie.

TransCon '97

Needless to say, Men in Black was not brought back to participate in BotCon 1997. However, MiB did go on to organize the unofficial TransCon '97 in Chicago, Illinois, at which Onyx Primal was again offered to attendees, due to the fact that they had a significant number of unsold Onyx Primal toys left over from BotCon '96. Hasbro was not present as they felt it was better for their image to support a single convention and BotCon (which was a scant two weeks later) was their choice.

A pair of exclusive figures, an 'albino' redeco of Beast Wars Alligator Megatron, and a redeco of Terrorsaur as Swoop were advertised, but never made available.

TransCon 2 1/2

While not really a convention, Dennis rented a hotel room for the weekend of BotCon 2000 and put a sign on their door that read "TransCon 2 1/2". Naturally, this meant lots of Onyx Primals, overpriced toys, and free (stale) pretzels and water. He also had an entire case of Beast Wars Metals Ravage that were not for sale. Instead, he was willing to exchange one of these for both Shokaract and Apelinq since 3H had forever banned him from BotCon due to his mishandling of BotCon 1996,a string of online negative comments directed at them, and culminating with Dennis revealing the identities of both BotCon exclusives on ATT a week before the convention. According to Dennis's own statements, he was unaware that he had been banned until a friend and fellow dealer tried to register him as a helper. Saturday morning, a MiB representative stood outside the line for the BotCon 2000 Dealer's Room and tossed leftover TransCon shirts on the heads of unsuspecting fans.

TransCon III

TransCon III, which was held in Toledo, Ohio ("Keepin' it affordable and in the Midwest") in September 1998, was the MiB's final Transformers-related convention. It shared billing with MicroCon, a MicroMan/Micronauts convention, and MegoCon, which celebrated the Mego dolls from the 1970's and 1980's. The dealer room was largely empty, and the MicroMan & Mego portions of the show were little more than nice displays of personal collections. In their internet ads, they claimed their exclusive would be "the largest transformable toy exclusive" yet. Instead, there were more Onyx Primal toys that had gone unsold from their previous two conventions. Additionally, they claimed that the script for the unproduced Beast Wars episode "Dark Glass" would be offered to fans provided they signed a non-disclosure agreement to prevent spoilers for the as-yet-unaired Season Three from leaking out to the public. Although the author, Christy Marx, was OK with the idea, Mainframe and Hasbro were not. Needless to say, that didn't happen either.

TransCon III was so named, according to Question #1 in the FAQ, because MiB considered BotCon 1996 as "the First Transcon" and this was their third Transformers convention. This would retroactively rename BotCon 1996 as TransCon I. At least in their view.