Grandus........was a Gobot Sympathizer???!!!??!

Ok, so I was looking through the Transformers Legacy book last night and just happened to open to Grandus's page. Now, I don't know if it's because I never looked close enough at his box art before.......or maybe it's just because the picture was larger and "in my face". But I noticed something odd.

Do you see it? Unless you're a gobot fan, I don't think you will.

The black Helicopter is supposed to be the micro-master Tracer, as depicted on the actual toy pictures on Grandus's box.

However, there is this Super Gobot with the name Warpath.

Now, lets look at the front of Grandus's box again.

Looks a lot more like Warpath then Tracer to me! Look at the red labels/sticker. Look at the cockpit. Look at the whole over-all design. I don't know about everyone else, but I see Warpath. ESPECIALLY when you compare it to this other artwork. One is obviously Tracer and the other looks a lot more like Warpath.

Now, here's the real funny thing. In Japan, Warpath was released in Japan under the toy line Machine Robo (and sorry, I don't know his Japanese name), which had no ties at all to the American Gobot series. Probably one of the reasons Gobots never did as well as Transformers (one of many reasons) was that there was no cross country advertising. The transformers have always been a shared trademark worldwide. Prime is Prime in any country (in Japan he goes by Convoy, but he's still the same character) and Megatron is Megatron. But Machine Robo and Gobots shared NOTHING! Just the toy design. So, the point of all this..........

In Japan, Warpath was NOT a black helicopter, he was more green-ish.

In America, he was the black helicopter. That black AMERICAN version is the one on Grandus's shoulder. Which is even more confusing since Grandus was a Japanese exclusive toy! To top it off, Warpath was released in the US in 1984-ish and Grandus was released in Japan in 1991-ish.

So what does all this mean?!?!? Did Prime send Grandus to Gobotron on Leader-1's request to make peace and Warpath sent back as a diplomat? Did Leader-1 send Warpath to Cybertron to ask for help defeating the Renegades but he got caught up in the Transformers war? And more importantly, what kind of strange time warp was crossed to get these two together? Grandus shouldn't even be in the same universe as Warpath if you think about it! The Japanese and American continuities by this point in time have no similarities at all. Even if Gobotron and Cybertron do exist in the same universe, Warpath would have been sent into the Japanese time-line of Transformers. Not the American one which he should have crossed into.....


But in reality (which I think is even cooler) my guess is this. The Japanese artist for Grandus had a child who liked Gobots (not Machine robo, but Gobots) and that child must have loved his/her Warpath toy. So much in fact, that the artist threw in this Easter egg for the child. The designs between Tracer and Warpath are close enough that no one at work would question it (hell, probably no one in Japan had even owned a Warpath at this point in time!). But for that child, this would be the greatest Easter egg of all time.

thoughts? Am I crazy or does everyone else see this too?

And big thanks to my friends Brandon Yap (Heroic_decepticon) and Johnny Seidts for helping with pics and info.