Early word from the Official Transformers Collectors Club magazine issue 48 showing up in club members' mailboxes now is that the theme for Botcon 2013 will be Transformers: Machine Wars! Machine Wars was a clumsy release in 1997 that was exclusive to Kay-Bee Toys stores in the US. Legend has it that during Botcon 1996 after the launch of Beat Wars a rep at Botcon '96 made the comment that Hasbro was working on a G1 revival as well. That line never materialized, instead Hasbro seemed to make a half hearted attempt to appease fans by taking a bunch of older figures that were never released in the US, repaint them, and make a new line out of them. End result is we got an Optimus Prime repainted from a 'Turbomaster' Thunder Clash, a black Starscream repainted out of 'Predator' Sky Quake, and a red and gray Soundwave made out of 'Predator' Stalker (all pictured above from my own collection) along with equally strange repaints of familiar characters. Not much else is known about the figures in the Botcon series next year except that it reportedly includes silhouettes of Megatron, Galvatron, G2 Optimus Prime, Soundwave, and Starscream. There's been a lot of speculation, but it's much to early for the TFCC to give away all of the details. However, now that we know this much there should be an update on the official Botcon site fairly soon!

[via Walky of the Allspark.com forum]