Transformers Timelines (fiction)

The name or term "Timeline" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Timeline (disambiguation).

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You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil: just one calorie, not evil enough.

Transformers Timelines is the franchise under which much of Fun Publications' Transformers fiction was published from 2005 to 2016. The stories were told in a variety of media and set in a variety of continuities - some pre-existing, others created from scratch. Roughly half of the content was published in the club's magazine, not under the Timelines banner, and half was published as online prose stories and BotCon-exclusive comics.

Unlike the lengthy stories with complex ties to existing fiction published by the previous convention organizers, 3H Productions, Fun Publications promised more standalone stories starting with a short comic accompanying the BotCon 2005 boxed set. While the BotCon issues would traditionally prove to be very self-contained, the vast majority of content that the club produced ended up being just as convoluted and referential as 3H's work ever was.

Alongside the main fiction sources, every Timelines figure released by the club came with a bio card. Many characters would receive full profiles in the style of Marvel's The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye series. The main stories were also supplemented with short online comics and the convention's live script readings. The release order and chronology of all these sources is uniquely complicated, with many plot threads and characters across a multitude of universes being suddenly dropped only to get picked up again years later. Fun Publications lost their fan club and convention license in 2016. Remarkably, they managed to resolve most of their stories by midnight on December 31st that year.

Combined cover of the five limited collected editions of the TFCC magazine.

An attempt has been made here to include every source in an understandable manner which doesn't stick rigidly to either chronology or release date but rather attempts to demonstrate the connections between stories (both in and out of universe) - by necessity, this means including all of the content released in the magazine even though those were not explicitly Timelines stories.

BotCon issues

The only stories released under that banner to receive any kind of numbering system were the hard-copy-published comic book issues. Ironically, these were the stories that probably benefited least from such a system; the individual issues were almost all self-contained stories with no continuity from one to the next. The BotCon issues were each around 22 pages along, and were usually released in two versions: a convention edition, and a mass-retail Diamond Edition which included additional profiles. They always featured the characters available as exclusive toys at the convention.

	Transformers Timelines issues:
Vol. 1: #1 Vol. 2: #1 #2 #3 TCC Special #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 Combiner Wars: "Dawn of the Predacus"

Text stories

Thirty-six illustrated online prose stories were published by the club. They varied in length, with the longest reaching a whopping 179 pages but most in the region of 10-30. Like the BotCon issues, these stories usually starred characters with exclusive toys being sold by the club.

	Transformers Timelines text stories:
2007: "The Dark Heart of Sandokan" "The Razor's Edge" "The New World" "Wreckers: Finale Part II" 2008: "Gone Too Far" "Force of Habit" "Withered Hope" "I, Lowtech" "Dungeons & Dinobots" 2009: "Do Over" "Eye in the Sky" "Blitzwing Bop" "At Fight's End" 2010: "Flames of Yesterday" "A Team Effort" 2011: "Transhuman" 2015: "Broken Windshields" "Head Games" "Burning Bridges" 2016: Spatiotemporal Challengers Part 1: "Sunrise" Spatiotemporal Challengers Chapter 2: "High Noon" "Micro-Aggressions" "The Truth We Make" "Life Finds a Way" "The Toxic Transformer" "Foundation and Wreckage Part 1: Deadly Aim" "Intersectionality" "Trigger Warnings" "Identity Politics" "Lively Pursuit" "Not All Megatrons" "A Brush With Infamy–Prologue" Spatiotemporal Challengers Part 3: "Journey's Eve" "Cultural Appropriation" "Safe Spaces" "Derailment" "Coalescence" "The Inexorable March" Spatiotemporal Challengers Part 4: "Last Sunset"

Magazine

A bi-monthly magazine titled the Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club was published throughout the club's tenure. It included comics, profiles, interviews, previews of upcoming toys, fan art, and other features. Each issue of the magazine contained at least six comic pages, adding up to a complete 36-odd page story over the course of each year. Some issues also included a one-page tie-in prologue or comic to upcoming Timelines text stories.

The first two years' worth of comics were produced for the club by IDW Publishing, and as such received a trade paperback release once complete. Beginning in 2007, the magazine comics were taken in-house under the "Fun Pub Comics" brand, first introduced the previous year on BotCon 2006's Timelines vol. 2 #1

Other stories

The rest of the content produced by the club came in the form of script readings, online mini-comics, YouTube videos, and Facebook pages. Most BotCons featured a panel in which the voice actors present would perform a brand-new story (except the two readings at BotCon 2011, which were adaptations of other stories). These stories often, but not always, tied into the rest of the club's main continuities but always took on a more comedic tone. "The Return of Blurr" was later adapted as an illustrated storybook. The mini-comics were up to seven pages in length and were occasionally printed as back-up features in the magazine and BotCon issues which they tied into ("Legacy" was only released as a pack-in one-page comic art print; "Epilogue Two" was released in the Diamond Edition of the GIJoeCon 2016 comic). The videos were generally comedic in tone, breaking the fourth wall to advertise the convention ("Theft of the Golden Disk" was an exception to this rule). Finally, the Facebook pages often directly interacted with readers and responded to events in other ongoing fiction.

	Other Transformers Timelines stories:
Script readings: "Intimidation Game" "Bee in the City" "The Stunti-Con Job" "Shadowzone" "Bee in the City 2: Electric Boogaloo" "Unreliable Narratives" "Prevenge" "The Return of Blurr" "The Hot Rod" Mini-comics: "Shattered Expectations" "The Desert Heat!" "Moving Violations" "Invasion Prologue" "Invasion: Epilogue" "Interlude..." "Timeless" "Collections" "The Brick List: Earth's Most Wanted" Armada Volume 5 "Legacy" "Epilogue Two" YouTube videos: "Theft of the Golden Disk" BotCon 2009: Join the Elite Guard! BotCon 2009! BotCon 2010 - Generation 2: Redux BotCon 2010 Promo Mega Spice -- The Transformer Your Fan Could Be Like Who is the Greatest Starscream Of All Time? BotCon 2012: Figure Reveal! Blaster VS Soundwave 2013 BotCon 2016 featuring Megatron! Facebook pages: Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter Rook - Axiom Nexus News: Investigative Journalist Axiom Nexus News Editor Ask Vector Prime Spacewarp's Log Renegade Rhetoric

Continuities

Universe and Cybertron

The club's first year saw a smattering of fiction to be released. The first two years/arcs of the magazine comic were "Balancing Act" and "Revelations", twelve parts tying into the Cybertron cartoon and wrapping up loose ends from 3H Productions' Universe and Dreamwave Productions' Energon storylines. 2007's "The Dark Heart of Sandokan" (advertising Timelines Astrotrain) and 2008's "Force of Habit" prose stories were also set in this continuity. These stories all mainly focused on characters and toys with very limited roles in fiction so far; this would become a major theme throughout Fun Publications' tenure. The last part of the cancelled The Wreckers comic was finally published, with the four-page "The Wreckers: Finale Part 1" appearing in issue #16 and the prose story "Wreckers: Finale Part II" being released online.

The magazine soon started including profiles for the characters appearing in the comic, which further filled the gaps between storylines. Skyfall, Vector Prime, Ramjet, Nemesis Prime, Sentinel Maximus, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Optimus Primal, Soundwave, Downshift, Unicron, the Mini-Con Council of Sages (Anti-Blaze, Scythe and Checkpoint), Landquake and the Street Action Mini-Con Team all recieved full-size profiles by issue #12. A bio for Quickslinger was included in issue #6. Short profiles for the Giant Planet Mini-Con Team (Deepdive, Longarm and Overcast), Rapid Run's partners and their combined form, Heavy Load, Stripmine and Drill Bit were published in issues #13, #14 and #15.

A large amount of short profiles for various other Mini-Cons were released in the members-only section of the club website: these included a load of Mini-Cons from the Transformers PlayStation 2 video game (Aftershock, Jumpstart, Buildup, Flashbang, Hawkeye, Highgear, Kickback, Smackdown, Claymore, Overwatch, Covert, Highjump and Lookout) and their combined Matrix Cannon form, the Extreme Competition Team and their combined form Heavy Metal, the unreleased Attacktix Mini-Con Bunker-Buster, the four Classics Mini-Cons to be re-released with a Walmart exclusive Cybertron Primus (Strongarm, Offshoot, Knockdown and Nightscream), the Apocalypse Brigade Mini-Con Team, the Dead End General/Drones, Drop-Test, the Noble Force Mini-Con Team, the Steel Reinforcement Team, Starcatcher, the Aerial Extermination Mini-Con Team and their Vorpal Saber combiner form, the Sabotage Team, Flashbox (a generic seen in an episode of the Armada cartoon), Heavy Barrel, and Road Rebel. Finally, profiles for Cop-Tur, Snowblind and Liftor were published in issues #31, #32 and #33 respectively.

Beast Wars

BotCon 2005's comic, "Descent into Evil" and its follow-up script reading "Intimidation Game" were set between Generation 1 and the Beast Era, in a new continuity. BotCon 2006's comic, "Dawn of Future's Past", and its immediate prequel (BotCon 2007's exclusive short animated film, "Theft of the Golden Disk") were also immediate prequels to the Beast Wars cartoon. The 2007 prose story "The Razor's Edge" (advertising the club's exclusive Airazor figure) was intended to bridge between these two pairs of stories, but Pete Sinclair would state that "Dawn of Future's Past" stood apart as the definitive Beast Wars prequel and "The Razor's Edge" was brushed under the carpet. Despite all this, there are no major contradictions between these five stories.

MTMTE-style profiles for Optimus Primal and Megatron were released in the Diamond Edition of "Dawn of Future's Past" along with short bios for Cheetor and the Maximal Command Security Force. The individual MCSF members 9K, Overshoot, Switchblade, High Beam, Shatterpoint and Getout would get similar bios in issues #13 and #14 while Stopgap would get one on the Club website. MTMTE-style profiles were also published online for Cryotek and his minions Backslash, Dirge and Buzzbomb.

Classics

The third year/arc of the club storyline, "Crossing Over", was the first in a series of Classics stories set after the end of the Marvel US The Transformers comics (but ignoring the UK continuity, Generation 2 and Regeneration One). The third prose story, "The New World", focused on the Classics Mini-Cons on Cybertron while BotCon 2007's comic "Games of Deception" brought more characters to Earth. A "Spring Special" Classics comic ("Cheap Shots") was released in 2008 with Timelines Nightbeat, starring him, Siren, Slag and Sludge. The last prose story of 2009, "At Fight's End", seemed to be an attempt at closure for the universe and included an in-fiction appearance of the Timelines Seacons.

Profiles for Classics character continued to be published in issues #13-#18: Grimlock, Mirage, Astrotrain, Skywarp, Rodimus, Ramjet, Breakaway, Cliffjumper, Megatron, Optimus Prime and Starscream. The Diamond Edition of "Games of Deception" included profiles for Springer and Bug Bite. All twelve Classics Mini-Cons got short profiles in issues #16, #17 and #18. Profiles for Slag and the Headmasters Lug, Minerva, Muzzle and Quig would be published in issue #22 as a "Cheap Shots" tie-in.

TransTech

The two continuities created by the club over the next two years would prove to be amongst their most original and enduring. The fourth year/arc of the magazine introduced Axiom Nexus, the world of TransTech. This world took the concept of interdimentional travel up to eleven, with characters from countless continuities interacting on-panel. Many characters used their designs from the cancelled Transtech series, which would have been a sequel to Beast Machines, but the world and story were wholly original. To give the impression of a vibrant metropolis, all five stories released during this time (the "Transcendent" comic arc, the "Gone Too Far", "Withered Hope" and "I, Lowtech" prose stories and BotCon 2008's "Bee in the City" script reading) took place roughly concurrently, with minor plot threads tying them together. The magazine's back-up humour strip Around Cybertron also tied into various events in those stories.

Six TransTech characters would get profiles in issues #22-24 of the magazine as part of "The World of... TRANSTECH," a feature which sported a unique design and layout but was textually almost indistinguishable from the regular MTMTE-style profiles, namely Cheetor, Shockwave, Prowl, Starscream, Optimus Prime and Megatron. Two lowtechs, Blackarachnia and Topspin, got normal profiles in issue #25. Beta Maxx, who initially went unnamed when he was released at BotCon 2007, was given a full profile online.

Shattered Glass

BotCon 2008 would introduce perhaps Fun Publication's most iconic creation: the Shattered Glass mirror universe. The first three pages of that year's convention comic, "Shattered Expectations", were "leaked" online to universal acclaim. This turned out to be an April Fools' Day prank, and the real comic (simply "Shattered Glass") turned out to be much more serious in tone. The story split in two roughly-parallel branches after this: the magazine's 2009 comic arc, "Reunification", maintained the tone of the BotCon comic and continued the interdimensional plot threads from previous arcs. Around Cybertron also made the jump to the new universe. The second branch took a campier approach to the "evil mirror universe" concept and consisted of "Dungeons & Dinobots", "Do Over", the preview comic "The Desert Heat!", "Eye in the Sky" and "Blitzwing Bop". Another prose story tying these two branches back together, "Transhuman", would eventually get published in 2011 but its intended sequel, "Coalescence", wouldn't see completion until the club's last days in 2016.

MTMTE-style profiles for Shattered Glass characters were published in issues #25 to #30, though for the first time the amount of space given to each character varied. Abominus, Aquarius, Computron, Cyclonus, Dirge, Galvatron, Heatwave, Hound, Ratbat, Ravage, Sky Lynx, Steeljaw, the Technobots, the Terrorcons and Whisper all got profiles during this time. When Nexus Prime finally appeared in the comic, he too received a profile. Rodimus and Starscream each got a profile in the Diamond Edition of "Shattered Glass". In 2011, a contest was held on Twitter to decide Scourge's bio - the winning submission was expanded into a full-sized MTMTE-style profile released online.

Wings Universe

With the club's many stories having come to something of a conclusion, it was time for something brand-new. Having already tackled most major continuities, one of the most glaring omissions was perhaps that of the original Generation 1 cartoon. BotCon 2009's "Wings of Honor" ventured far back along the cartoon timeline, before "War Dawn", to tell the tale of one of Kup's earliest missions. Pete Sinclair made sure to explain that these so-called Wings Universe stories would deviate from the cartoon in several ways, some cosmetic and some not, and more so as they progressed. 2010's comic arc, "The Coming Storm", took place ten years later. "Flames of Yesterday" took place between parts #2 and #3 of that arc; "A Team Effort" between parts #4 and #5. 2011's comic arc, "Battle Lines", was an immediate sequel. Around Cybertron continued for another ten strips set in this universe. BotCon 2010's "Generation 2: Redux" comic jumped forward in time to 2010, and 2012's comic arc "A Flash Forward" picked up from there. This arc led into "Termination", BotCon 2013's comic, and its immediate sequel "A Common Foe". A single-panel "Interlude..." was given in the customization class handbook for that convention. These stories told a G1-cartoon version of the Machine Wars and advertised the third series of the Transformers Figure Subscription Service. As a prelude to BotCon 2014, a Facebook page was created for Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur where he would post entries of his personal journal. The convention's comic, "Hoist the Flag", took another time-skip to post-Beast Machines. This issue was branded as Timelines #10 (with "A Common Foe" being #9) and served as a celebration of both Fun Publications' tenth convention and the 20th anniversary of BotCon as a whole. It also incorporated some version of 3H's stories into the Wings Universe. A pack-in comic released with the "BotCon Legacy Collection", simply titled "Legacy", further strengthened these ties.

Profiles were published at a steady rate of two per issue throughout those three years (issues #31 to #48). The characters to receive profiles were Runabout, Jetstorm, Magnum, Over-Run, Onslaught, Moonracer, Deathsaurus, Metalhawk, Sentinel Major, Ricochet, Ironfist, Bruticus, Landshark, Starscream, Outback, Ironhide, Side Burn, Prowl, Thunderclash, Lyzack, Gyronian Sentry, Sprocket, Hauler, Devastator, Ultra Magnus, Runamuck, Sizzle, Jhiaxus, Windbreaker, Flamefeather, Hubcap, Nightracer, Blaze, Soundwave, Sideswipe and Frenzy. The Diamond Edition of "Wings of Honor" contained profiles for Kup, Banzai-Tron, Flak, Leozack and Dion; "Generation 2: Redux" included profiles for Clench, Rapido, Slicer and Scorch; "Termination" included profiles for Strika, Obsidian, Megaplex, Thundercracker and Mirage; "A Common Foe" included profiles for Krok, Serpent O.R., Carzap and Tarantulas; "Hoist the Flag" included profiles for Alpha Trizer, Apelinq and Flare-Up. Thundercracker was to receive a Wings Universe bio card for his Action Master form, but when that figure was released as Shattered Glass Thundercracker instead the bio was shelved and later published in non-canonical form in issue #42. A series of features titled "The Transformers Menagerie" were released in issues #49 to #54 and provided information on the Primitives. As a tie-in to "Hoist the Flag", profiles were published in issue #56 for Squirm and Olin Zarak and in #58 for the Dread Pirate Crew and Flamewar.

Animated and Aligned

A two-page online comic, "Moving Violations", was the first Timelines story to be entirely set in the Transformers Animated universe. It doubled as both an advertisement for Cheetor's exclusive toy and as a prologue to BotCon 2011's comic, "The Stunti-Con Job". Both stories were set after "Endgame, Part II". A live script reading of "The Stunti-Con Job" was performed at the convention, along with a script reading of the Prime episode "Shadowzone". Both performances included extra scenes not present in the original versions. BotCon 2013's script reading, "Unreliable Narratives", had Prime Kup tell Hot Shot a tale (taking place between War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron). BotCon 2015's script reading, "The Return of Blurr", would prove to be the last Animated story. The script was later re-released at BotCon 2016 as an illustrated storybook.

Supplementary material for Animated came in the form of The AllSpark Almanac Addendum, printed in the Diamond Edition of "The Stunti-Con Job" and issues #43, #44 and #45 of the magazine. A series of Tech Specs were published with ten in issue #24, two each in issues #25 to #30, and six (plus four reprints) years later in issue #71. All twenty-eight of these plus twenty-four extras were also released as a BotCon 2011 exclusive lithograph. A single MTMTE-style profile for the Animated Headmaster Jrs. (Nightbeat, Siren and Hosehead) was published in issue #71.

"Invasion"

BotCon 2012 saw the long-overdue return to the Classics and Shattered Glass universes, in the form of the epic "Invasion" crossover. A six-page "Invasion Prologue" comic was released online during the build-up to the convention, with the TransTechs observing the opening of a gateway between the two universes, and would be printed in the Diamond Edition of the convention comic. A two-page "Invasion: Epilogue", in which the TransTechs recruit a Depth Charge to intercept some temporally-displaced survivors of the invasion, was released after the convention and was reprinted in issue #48. 2013's comic arc, "Beast Wars Shattered Glass", starred those survivors: Ultra Magnus and Megatron's ships had just made it through to the prehistoric Earth of the Shattered Glass universe. A seven-page TransTech comic, "Timeless", advertised the second series of subscription figures and had Rhinox monitor Ultra Mammoth and Megatron. The leaders would make it back to the present day with their crews just in time for 2015's comic arc, "Another Light", which served to wrap up most major plot threads left dangling since the club's very inception. Fun Publications collaborated with e-HOBBY to release "Solar Requiem", a comic starring Soundwave and Blaster. The four-part Spatiotemporal Challengers series of prose stories ("Sunrise", "High Noon", "Journey's Eve" and "Last Sunset") starred the GoBots from "Withered Hope" and their arrival on post-"Invasion" Shattered Glass Earth. Recordicons, starring Shattered Glass Ravage and the other Mini-Cassettes, was published as a back-up strip in issues #34 to #63.

Meanwhile, a smattering of TransTech stories were released. BotCon 2012's script reading "Bee in the City 2: Electric Boogaloo" was a loose sequel to that of BotCon 2008, with the main connection being the appearance of the same Megatron. The three-page online comic "Collections" starred Packrat, leading into his appearance in the BotCon 2015 comic "Cybertron's Most Wanted" and following up on threads from the aforementioned "Timeless". Several Facebook pages would spring up during this time, building on the success of Tornado's journal: "Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter", "Rook - Axiom Nexus News: Investigative Journalist" and "Axiom Nexus News Editor" all ran in parallel and were soon joined by "Ask Vector Prime", " Spacewarp's Log" and " Renegade Rhetoric". Three back-up features in the magazine, Transformers I.Q., Hot Shot's Bot Thoughts and Bot on the Street, were generally set in the TransTech universe but often touched on events from other continuities. TransTech Rhinox featured in "The Beast Wars Road Map", a flowchart published in issue #70 explaining the chronology of the various Beast Era stories until then, along with the Rhinox, Rattrap and Airazor from the Japanese Transformers Legends comic (another of Hayato Sakamoto's stories, the Kre-O Transformers webcomic, received a tie-in with 2015's "The Brick List: Earth's Most Wanted"). A single-page "Epilogue" published in issue #72 revealed the fates of some of those left unaccounted for in the aftermath of "Invasion". "Epilogue Two", a two-page comic published in the Diamond Edition of GIJoeCon 2016's comic "Project Downfall" (of all places), wrapped up the TransTech story.

Profiles for a variety of characters were published during this time. Optimus Prime ("Hero Prime") and Depth Charge got profiles in issue #49, and Rhinox got one in issue #54. A Tech Spec for the INSIRT was published on Facebook. The Diamond Edition of "Cybertron's Most Wanted" included profiles for General Optimus Prime, Battletrap and Zaptrap with Beet-Chit. Classics Grimlock, Dirge, Scylla, Autojetter, Ultra Mammoth, Megatron, Magnaboss, Autolauncher and God Neptune got profiles from issues #50 to #54; Prowl would get his own profile in #62 and Grimlock would get a third in #63. Shattered Glass Soundwave finally got a profile in issue #65, and artwork for Nova Prime and Galvatron would be published in #66's feature. On its last day, the club's Twitter would release four profiles repurposing the BotCon 2015 Waruders as other characters: Bug Bite, King Waruder, Skywasp and Shattered Glass Waspinator.

The BotCon 2014 script reading, Prevenge, starred character plucked from a wide range of continuities in a Universe-style battle royale.

Beast Wars: Uprising and "Dawn of the Predacus"

The universe first glimpsed in the bios for Blackarachnia and Depth Charge would finally get a dedicated story with "Alone Together", 2014's comic arc (starring Rampage and Trans-Mutate in their Timelines forms). Then, from 2015 to 2016, twelve prose stories written by Jim Sorenson and David Bishop were released: "Broken Windshields", "Head Games", "Burning Bridges", "Micro-Aggressions", "Intersectionality", "Trigger Warnings", "Identity Politics", "Not All Megatrons", "Cultural Appropriation", "Safe Spaces", "Derailment" and "The Inexorable March". Unlike the vast majority of Fun Publications' stories, which often dealt heavily in interdimensional shenanigans, this new continuity was much more isolated and grounded (although a screen-capture comic published in issue #70, "A Change to the Agenda", would try to provide a divergent-timeline "origin" of sorts to the universe). A small set of profiles for Rampage, Trans-Mutate, Jawbreaker, Bigmos, Medusa, Lord Imperious Delirious and Lio Convoy were released in issues #55, #57, #59 and #61.

The BotCon 2016 comic "Dawn of the Predacus" and associated script reading "The Hot Rod" were originally intended to be Beast Wars: Uprising stories, but plans changed once IDW Publishing was brought on-board and the final comic was ostensibly set in their Beast Wars continuity.

Of Masters and Mayhem

The last new continuity to be created by the club saw the relocation of the humans and Classics Pretenders from the Shattered Glass universe in the aftermath of "Another Light" and served to advertise the fourth and fifth series of the Transformers Figure Subscription Service. It would see the return of Ramjet, last seen in "Revelations". Five prose stories ("The Truth We Make", "Life Finds a Way", "The Toxic Transformer", "Deadly Aim" and "Lively Pursuit") supplemented the main "Of Masters and Mayhem" comic arc.

Five profiles for Ramjet, Lifeline, Impactor, Gnash and Thrashclaw were published in issues #67, #68 and #70.

Back-up strips

The magazine also included a variety of humour strips in its earliest years, none with a strict continuity: Another Con, Lil' Jerry, Robot Parade, Mini Mayhem! and Lil Formers.

YouTube videos

In 2008, the club's official YouTube channel uploaded its first video: a brief teaser for BotCon 2008. After that convention, both parts of "Theft of the Golden Disk" was released on the channel. A teaser for 2008's membership figure, Topspin, was released which consisted of about seventy seconds of text and three seconds of stop-motion animation. From 2009 to 2013, the club teamed up with media professionals Randall Ng and DR.SMOOV to produce several short videos to promote both BotCon and the Collectors Club. The first of these was an Elite Guard recruitment video, starring young Kup and advertising BotCon 2009. The second had Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream making plans to go to the convention. Advertising BotCon 2010, the club released a parody of the original Generation 2 cartoon opening sequence along with another video starring Megatron, the exclusive-toys-obsessed Starscream, Breakdown, Optimus, and Punch/Counterpunch. They also released a parody of an Old Spice commerical advertising club membership. Gregg Berger voiced G1 Grimlock in a video asking fans to vote for him in the 2011 Transformers Hall of Fame. Another animated video was released to advertise BotCon 2011, in which Starscream finally found someone to share his passion for exclusive toys with, and another for BotCon 2012. The last animated video, advertising BotCon 2013, had Blaster and Soundwave battle in a... dance-off. For BotCon 2016, Fun Pub worked instead with voice actor David Kaye to produce that year's video.