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The next wave of Age of the Primes is hitting... at least online (local stores seem to have Devastation Optimus, TFOne Bumblebee, and maybe a few Bonecrushers, and that's it). I'd prefer to write reviews on weekdays, since a lot of you seem to read them at work, but we're going to have a lot to cover. So let's jump right into it with Deluxe-class Skydive. In keeping with the rest of the AOTP Aerialbots so far, Skydive is definitely a case of two steps forward, one step back. Like, sure, he's a bit closer to the animation model than the Combiner Wars toy. His head has less of the almost Bayverse-esque extraneous mechanical details, his limbs are blockier, and his pelvis is red. That said, aside from the head and the jet parts on his back and the backs of his legs, he's pretty much a cut-and-paste of Air Raid. Same arms, same feet, same fronts of the legs, same pelvis... even the front of the torso is basically the same, except the left side of his chest is filled in to better match the cartoon. Hasbro probably figured they could get away with it since Skydive and Air Raid do have pretty similar animation models... it's certainly not the crime that Legacy Breakdown was. But it does mean that crotch bulge with the line and triangle that Air Raid does, instead of the three squares his animation model has. His forearms are entirely gray with black hands, instead of gray with black cutouts at the wrist and gray hands. The black part of his chest is missing a protrusion, and his shin details are a bit off (to be fair, they're a bit off from Air Raid, too, almost like they were planning this from the beginning and split the difference. Air Raid comes with, surprise, a pair of guns. Note that, out of the box, his vertical stabilizer is not attached. Since it just uses a 5mm peg to connect, it can technically be held like a weapon if you're into that. It probably won't surprise you to hear that a toy that's 75% Air Raid has the same articulation as Air Raid, but I'll go over it again real quick. Ball-jointed head swivels, can look up and tilt sideways slightly, no real downward tilt. Shoulders swivel and move 90 degrees laterally. Biceps swivel, elbows bend 90 degrees, no wrist swivels. Waist swivels. Hips go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees. Thighs swivel, knees bend 90 degrees. Feet tilt up due to transformation, but not down, and the ankles pivot 90 degrees. He holds his guns fine, and they plug into the wings for storage. Transformation is, for better or worse, also the same as Air Raid. Now, I know the jet lovers in the audience already hate this alt mode, but as it's NOT a licensed F-16 I see no real point in comparing it to one. I'm just looking at it compared to the animation model. And, well, the stubby wings and single vertical stab with the lightning bolt designs are certainly more accurate than the Combiner Wars toy. His arms are still just chilling there in the open, which isn't worse than the Combiner Wars toy but still sucks. You can argue that the the entire block of robot under the jet sucks, but frankly that's mostly accurate. Less accurate are the two exhaust nozzles, another unfortunate side effect of recycling Air Raid's parts, and I maintain from my Air Raid review that they really should have come up with a better way of stowing the feet. Weirdly, though, I think the thing that's actually bothering me the most is just how flat the fuselage is. Like, yeah, you want the F-15 to be flat, but the F-16 is much more curved along the spine, and it's one of the F-16's details that the animation model did retain. The jet parts on his backs and the backs of his legs, aka the parts that form the bulk of the fuselage, are some of the only parts that did get new molds, so why not get that detail right? Anyway... same as Air Raid, the chest opens up to reveal a front landing gear. And his guns plug into the undersides of his wings. Through the first three releases Air Raid was the worst of the Aerialbots, and I could tell you that Fireflight would instantly be better than Air Raid even if he were just a new head and red paint on an otherwise unchanged Slingshot. But to me, Skydive is worse. He fixed none of the things I disliked about Air Raid, and I think that has more to do with keeping them interchangeable as legs and saving money than an inability to do so. I mean, folding the head into the chest and folding the arms up above the torso, like Slingshot, would have not only solved the arms just hanging out on the sides but could have created the illusion of the F-16's big intake. Changing the legs could have ditched the dopey underbelly feet and giving him the proper single exhaust. And even when they did mold new parts it still seems like they got stuff wrong that they just didn't need to, like the overall shape of the fuselage. Despite Skydive being a bit of a disappointment, he is still better than the Combiner Wars version. And for a lot of collectors, I don't think it'll ultimately matter how how good or bad the individuals are, it'll come down to how good Superion is. We'll get to Superion later in the week, after I have Fireflight in hand. But if you don't mind the spoiler, yeah, you're probably going to want to pick up Skydive.

We watched WARFARE last night on HBO, a good solid movie. It has that combo of you've been thrown straight into combat like BLACK HAWK DOWN, the nighttime is very Zero Dark Thirty and the visual impact of Saving Private Ryan. It's an hour & a half film that gets right to the point and no need to drag it out. The sound of the rifles, shell casings and that cracking sound must have been deafening in the movie theater.

It does not. Its pretty unique.

@Mog & @pengbuzz Thank you so much you two, if you're willing to part with the stickers & those decals, go ahead and PM me, let me know what I owe you and my address. I can definitely make both work for my project.

That actually came out really good.

Does the Spartan share the lower body that those other three do? I admit I've never taken a super close gander at it...

Who knows these days. Seems every company is missing their deadlines these days for various reasons. Hopefully it’s not as creepy as too many booty bits going missing. i had a preorder from hiya that was supposed to be out before last October and barely got a notification for it being in processing. It was supposed to be a Christmas present last year but I had to do an alternate item instead. I kinda forgot about it and I think it’s unfortunately getting the expensive dhl shipping since I ordered it from a spot that doesn’t hold items and now that’s probably the only option. Luckily the Rogue was ordered at hlj, so maybe things will smooth out when it eventually comes out

I got my hands on Mixmaster and went to cancel it on BBTS and somehow canceled Scavenger even though I know I paid for him......not sure what happened there. Didn't see much of anything exciting though besides Mixmaster. Neither of my closest stores have carried much, they're just getting shelf warming figures left and right. I mean Target DID have a Gamer Edition Thundercracker, but I'm not all that excited over game stuff....I feel like their WFC Figures are to odd of a size and not all that exciting. Optimus was okay, but man the other figures were so gappy and weird looking that I had to pass on all of those.

So that regardless of whether you prefer to or toon colors you have to buy both sets.😒

In my monthly Mafex Rogue update HLJ now lists her as an October release. I wonder what is taking so long? Are the assembly workers stealing all the butt pieces, I don’t understand. At this pace Jubilee will be out before her, if she is not also delayed. This is maddening! Is this normal for a Mafex figure being delayed for 6 months and counting? This and the Heatboys Shredder being delayed and delayed again is driving me crazy. I fear that they will either be in permanent preorder limbo or being cancelled outright.

There are other constraints than just money

You don't need to pay bills this month...

Ooh, that's very cool, and very tempting... 😋

Hi everyone, I recently bought a DX Macross Quarter second-hand, and I just noticed the hinge behind it is broken. The seller didn’t mention this, so I’m not sure what the best way is to deal with it. Does anyone have experience fixing this hinge? Is there a reliable repair method, or do I need to look into replacement parts/custom fixes? Any guidance, photos, or tips would really help me out — I’d like to get it back in good condition without making it worse. Thanks in advance!

I don't undestand why Dr Wu packaged a toy-inspired Cliffjumper with an utterly hideous toon-inspired Shockwave. It is a weird choice to mix 'em like that, even ignoring my visceral hatred of Shockwave's toon colors.

More importantly, if you ARE pure distilled evil, you turn into a puddle of metamucil and ink. You don't retain a humanoid form.

Yeah... I was trying to do a play on The Best of Both Words (TNG)

Okay, I found what I have left: some of the smaller warning ones were used on another kit, but the majority are here:

Maybe one day there will be a fourth and maybe we might even get lucky and see a fifth that has chicken legs, but super chonky

I see what you did there! 👏

I'll add my kudos for your customary extensive writeup and pics. I've made a few poor efforts towards doing minimal reviews, so I appreciate all the work you put into your elaborate efforts. As to the thing itself, I think we the fandom at large recognize that both the individual bots and the final gestalt are good, but certainly not perfect by any stretch, and as always, it leaves one hoping that the next installment, b/c there's always another installment, will be further improved. I skipped the CW team entirely b/c they left far too much to be desired. On this go round, the figs were markedly better, and I bit to my general satisfaction. Of course, I have the same complaints as everyone else, mostly, but on the whole I think it's a much better collection of figs. I'm still waiting on Mixmaster to complete my team and assemble Devastator, but thanks to this and other reviews, I'm well informed on what to expect and what to do, so a sincere thank you, Mike. I do have to say that, with all the extra effort and higher price points for these guys, I'm a bit disappointed that Devy's elbows don't even achieve the standard 90 degrees. C'mon Takara, you can do better. One more thing for third party add-on kit makers to fix, I guess.

My wife and I have been binging Orphan Black on Netflix this week and we finished it this evening. We enjoyed it immensely. Huge kudos to Tatania Maslany for pulling off one of the best multiple character portrayals I've ever seen, not to mention all the folks who made her concurrent appearances in scenes look seamless. Just a damn good show overall.

I hope that there are lots of mecha designs in the book. Twich

I have a few leftover MPC Beta stickers: Definitely missing the big Jupiter Base sticker and a good chunk of other stickers. But there may be enough, depending on what you’re planning to do. Unfortunately, I’m pretty certain I used the majority of the JB stickers that came with the red Toynami Alpha. Just PM me if you’re interested. If you need some large black JB stickers for the Beta wings, I might be able to print some up. Just would need to confirm the dimensions, as I sized them for the Sentinel Tread’s wings. And they’ll be a little more “shiny” than the Toynami stickers: