Transformers and Frank Welker Want You to Activate Your Alt Mode [Exclusive]

Hasbro and legendary Transformers voice actor Frank Welker are teaming up, and they want you to “Activate Your Alt Mode.” They’re launching a new campaign that will allow fans to help decide what classic Transformers character is going to get an all-new vehicle mode, and Collider has an exclusive video from Welker outlining it. Collider is also exclusively revealing the new Transformers Studio Series Windcharger figure.

In the video, Welker discusses the alt mode (short for “alternate mode”) and how it’s always been crucial to the franchise; he also talks about it as a metaphor for the personal transformations people, including Transformers‘ loyal fanbase, go through throughout the course of their lives. As a way of spotlighting it, Hasbro will be conducting a fan vote to determine an all-new alternate mode for one of four classic Transformers characters: Shockwave, Starscream, Mirage, and Grimlock, who traditionally transform into, respectively, a laser gun, a jet, a race car, and a Tyrannosaurus rex. There will be three rounds of voting across several weeks on Transformers‘ social media accounts.

Who Is Windcharger?

A stalwart Autobot warrior with magnetic powers, Windcharger traveled from Cybertron to Earth with the rest of Optimus Prime’s crew and took on the alt mode of a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. He made several appearances in Marvel’s comic books and the cartoon; he was voiced by John Stephenson (The Flintstones, Jonny Quest) in the latter. However, the character’s most memorable appearance may have come in one of the Choose Your Own Adventure-like Find Your Fate game books of the 1980s. In a horrific “bad ending,” Windcharger attempts to use his magnetic powers to remove mind-controlling cerebro-shells from the Dinobots, but accidentally tears the Autobot warriors to pieces, instead. Oops! However, his new Studio Series figure is based on his appearance in 1986’s Transformers: The Movie, in which he and several other characters are sent permanently off-line after a Decepticon attack on Autobot City. The Deluxe-class figure transforms from robot to car mode and comes with a weapon accessory.

Welker has long been associated with the Transformers franchise. In the original Transformers cartoon, he voiced Decepticon leader Megatron and his synth-voiced second-in-command Soundwave, among many others. He reprised the role of Soundwave in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, and returned as Galvatron and later Megatron in Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. He also returned to voice Megatron on TV in the animated series Transformers: Prime.

Voting will begin soon on Activate Your Alt Mode. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.