Jim Sorenson is back this week with another edition of The Ark Addendum.  If you pop on over to his blog, Disciples of Boltax, you will find a new article titled Madman's Paradise part 2: Mara-Al-Utha in which Jim covers the character models for the Madmans Paradise episode of Season 3 of the original cartoon, so go take a look

The Allspark are reporting that the Transformers Prime First Edition Vehicon and Bulkhead figures appears to be being distributed again within the US.  There have been reportings of sightings of the toys on both ad the TFW2005.com, for the Vehicon and on The Allspark for Bulkhead.

Non-official Transformers manufacturer, TFC Toys, have updated their Facebook page with a new teaser image of their upcoming un-official Superion (not-Aerialbots) toy. The new preview image has been blurred but appears to be of Slingshot.  The project, called Project: Uranus, had it's first preview image revealed durnig Botcon as a silhouette of the figures.  you can view both preview images below.

More news for fans of the Cyberverse line.  TFW2005.com board member Quegon has reported that the Optimus Maximus figure has now been released at retail within Singapore.  The figure, who is a large transforming battle station, is available at Toys R Us stores.

Happy hunting!

Kapow Toys have updated their fansite (FullMetalHero.com) with a picture review of the "just released" Transformers Prime Star Hammer and Wheeljack vehicle set (available right now within the UK from Argos).  The review covers images of the pack and rates the set as a 9/10 stating that both kids and collectors will love it.  You can read the full review by following the link at the start of the story.

Following on from the recent news story regarding the Australian release of Masterpiece Optimus Prime version 2, where we commented that we'd expect Toys R Us to pick him up within the UK, well it seems that Hasbro UK have now come out and pretty much confirmed out thoughts.  TFW2005.com member Sweeny28 has posted a copy of an email reply sent by Hasbro UK to a question he posted them regarding a possible UK release.  The email, which can be seen below, confimred that Hasbro are hoping to release the toy on these shores in the Winter and that they are looking for a major toy specialist to pick up the figure in order to distribute him.

Here's a copy of the full email:

"RE: Transformers MP10 Masterpiece Optimus Prime
Thank you for your email.

We are hoping to be able to bring the Masterpiece Optimus Prime in to the Transformers line this winter and if available you will be able to find it major Toy specialist stores. More information will be available in the coming months

May we thank you for contacting Hasbro and if we can be of any further assistance, either now or in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind Regards,

Kate

Hasbro UK Ltd
00800 22427276"

As you are all probably aware by now I have spent the last 10 months buying a house.  It took 6 months to get to the completion and another 4 months of repairs, decorating and moving, but now I'm 80% unpacked and so I thought I would share a preview of the new dedicated Transformers display room (which has also been dubbed "The Transformers Museum") with you all.

Now, I am still unpacking some of the toys and so the layout in the cabinets it not yet finalised (and there is another cabinet still to do) but you'll get the idea of how things are going to be displayed.  Once everything is out and in the correct place I will take create a full image gallery of "the Transformers museum" as well as the other figures that I also have out on display as well as putting together a video tour, oh yes, it needs a tour ;), but that is another day.  For now you will find one preview image attached to this news story, another preview image on our Facebook page and the third preview image on our Google Plus page, so you'll need to click around a few places to see them all.

Hi everyone,

Auto Assembly 2012 is less than three months away and we thought that it was time that we stepped up a gear to let everyone know about the convention! We’ve been making announcements about the event steadily over the last few months and the response and support that we have had from everyone has been phenomenal so far, but we want to make this the biggest and best Auto Assembly ever and – with your help and support – we know that we can!

We wanted to do something different to let everyone know about the convention and to share some more news and updates about the convention and we thought long and hard about what the best way to do it was and decided that there was no better way than the internet! Social Media has become an incredible part of our lives over the last few years and there isn’t anyone out there in the Transformers community that either isn’t a member of a forum, doesn’t use Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or some other part of the internet as part of their everyday life so we’re running this week-long campaign starting today to let the whole world know about Auto Assembly and what we are doing with the convention this year and we want everyone out there to play a part in this and share your excitement and enthusiasm about this year’s convention!

So what’s it all about? Well for the next seven days we want everyone to tell as many people as possible about Auto Assembly 2012! Whether this means posting comments on Facebook, sharing stories and news updates that we post here on the website, re-tweeting our comments on Twitter… anything you can think of really and we want you all to be as creative as you can! Just have fun with it and we’d love to hear what you all get up to! For those of you on Facebook, why not join all of us here at Auto Assembly and change your profile image for the next seven days to our QR code image that we have included here:

Talking of Facebook, why not like our page? If you’re not already doing it you can find it here and while you’re there, go to the Auto Assembly 2012 Event Page on Facebook and let us know whether you’re attending this year. Don’t forget it’s an open group so invite all your friends to come along too! Still with online sites and we’d love to have more of you following us on Twitter so why not pop along to our Twitter page at www.twitter.com/auto_assembly and let’s see if we can get up to 500 followers by the end of the week!

We’re not just on Facebook and Twitter though… we’ve got an active channel on Youtube with video footage from the convention from previous years and we’ll be uploading some more news announcements about 2012 shortly. We’ve just released a new photo montage video today for Auto Assembly 2012 so feel free to share this on your own Youtube channels, Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else too! Check out our Youtube channel at www.youtube.com/autoassembly

Anything else? Well, for those of you who shop with some of our dealers, you may have seen our latest flyer for Auto Assembly 2012 but if you want to distribute this yourself or post copies on forums, Facebook or your own website, feel free to post the artwork which we are now making available to all of you now

If you’re on any Transformers forums, feel free to talk to any of our team who will no doubt be online on all of the major Transformers forums including our own joining in in most of the discussions that will be taking place about the convention and we’ll be on hand to answer any questions you might have. We’ll also be making some announcements about the convention through the website over the coming week so if you want to get this news as it breaks, don’t forget that you can sign up for updates free of charge by subscribing to the site!

We’re really excited about what this week is going to hold and we’re really looking forward to hearing what you’ve all got to say about the convention and what you’re all looking forward to!

Simon Plumbe

Auto Assembly Committee Head

Whilst not really Transformers news we thought we had to share this with you all.  Neurie tweeted us earlier today about the "return of the Jumpstarters" in reference to a figure he saw for sale from the new Amazing Spider-man toy line released to tie-in (not in story of form, just in time) into the upcoming movie.  The toy was from the "Flip and Attack" line and is produced by Hasbro (so there is a Transformers link :p).  The toy, which can be seen below, it basically an updated Jumpstarter and is, in my opinion, both awesome and tacky at the same time.  You can view Neuries original tweets here and here,

Spider-man, Spider-man does whatever a Jumpstarter can.

You can watch the preview video for the 40th episode of Transformers Prime, Triage, using the YouTube plugin below.