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Totally digging those little red accents. Really brings out the look

You're correct. I don't know why I thought I paid less... eh, I'm getting old. Must have had something else shipped around the same time that cost $80. I'll have to edit my review, but really the takeway is that the Air Defense team is now fully equal in price to Optimus' trailer, and I dunno about that. The math ain't mathing, as my daughter would say. I 100% agree. Just like animators in the '80s couldn't shade silver, and now we've got a whole mess of people insisting that Optimus' legs and thighs should be white when they're clearly supposed to be the same silver as the toy. And if I'm being honest, I'd have preferred that NYCC Nemesis Prime was black. It's how Takara did the original Armada toy. But, like I said in my review, they're not just copying how the animation was done, it seems that the Hasbro version of the original toy was also dark blue.

This may be true but also inconsistent. Many “mint” items always seem to be “missing” original items from catalogs of the correct time, stickers, and instructions. It’s just a matter of time.

I am very sure they do, but have yet to surface. it seems there are a few collectors who have stashes of Takatoku items in sealed cases. Last example known was from last year when a buyer/seller from AZ was selling case fresh exemplar items of Orguss in two scales amongst other gems. I mean mint, real mint, Ruth out of a master case kind of throng. While it seems we may not know the answer know, rest assured time will deliver on what we seek. Just not soon enough or fast enough. Really hoping AgentGHQ was around to chime in.

Starting to look like a Motar Head. Now I’m waiting for paint to dry and I need to fiddle more with that scratch build face armor. I haven’t totally committed to it yet. I did reach out to Volks and I might be able to buy a replacement sprue. Just waiting to hear back, but I feel like I could just skip it if the one I made is good enough. I hand painted the red in Vallejo acrylics. I want to put down another gloss coat over it, but read that I should give it 24 hours before I mess with it. Once that’s done I need to do one more layer of brush painting. I guess it’s more like a white enamel panel line outline on the red eye shapes on shoulder armor.

@mikeszekely I thought Armada Nemesis Prime was also $90 (he is €92 in the EU). Since he is such a weird release (no trailer, no regular face sculpt, not the correct sword, odd animation shading color), I hope we will get a full commander release with the trailer and a "correct" color for Nemesis Prime down the line (maybe akin to the Nemesis Bendy Prime version). I think Armada Nemesis Prime is supposed to be black in the cartoon but because you cannot shade black the animators decided to make him this dark green. RiD Scourge is also sometimes depicted as a very dark blue (and sometimes black) but it is easier to have parts of Scourge a pure black because he has other colors on him whereas Armada Nemesis Prime is predominantly black.

While I'm sure there's plenty of 'who knows how the first buyer put it back in the box' I think there's also 'it was the 80s and the only rule at the factory was that all the contents had to be in the box.'

Right...but that's the point. All the valk boxes we ever open have been put back together by the previous owners who did it their own way. The closest thing I've seen were those case fresh strikes from 15 years ago. Just find it hard to comprehend that of the well over 1 million 1/55 toys that were made finding MIB sealed doesn't exist. Maybe in another 20 years when all the Japanese gen x start having their estates sold by their kids we will see some, but I'll be gone too!!

Those look great! Thanks for sharing. 😊

I have put in some thought on where certain items were originally placed, but can honestly say it was never consistent. Many times even the contents provided were slightly varied. Even the sticker sheets would be packed in the Battroid tray folded in half, above the missiles, sometimes under the instruction sheet. Other times the sticker sheet is played flat and free roaming in the box. Or sometime folded in half and slight nudged into the longer crevice near the legs of in some instances in the strike/super pack tray und the bagged missile cluster clips with Minmei. It was all very different.

They're about three months later than release. I ordered from Amazon and they just told me it will be late and will cancel in November if they don't show.

I was wondering, once sticker-fest is completed, has there ever been any thought to how these things were packed from the factory? Meaning the stickers went here, the catalog there, the heatshield in styro hole X, the VE-1 antennas in slot Y I know its probably impossible to ever know, having box opening videos on youtube wasn't a thing in the 80s ha Hmmm...now THERE is a fun experiment to do with these AI video generators! Walk into a Japanese Toys-R-US and see the shelves filled with Super Ostriches and you take it home for a box opening video!

Nine Inch Nails has been pretty hit and miss with me, but YOLO. I just bought the Ares Soundtrack. I liked what I heard in the movie.

I have long entertained the opinion that the Minifigure, iconic and beloved as it is, is an anachronism, nonetheless. Its limitations are manifest when compared to Mega Blok's stylized but highly articulated figures whose pose ability make them far more fun to play with, IMHO. I have long thought that LEGO should develop a new improved figure to enhance some of their action-oriented lines, at the least. I'm not saying get rid of the Minifig, but incorporate a new more pose-able fig to accentuate and compliment certain lines where a far more dynamic figure might enhance the playability of certain themes and sets. And, yeah, LEGO's unofficial retirement of Castle and Space, the latter my favorite theme, two of the three original Minifigure-based themes released in 1979 that drove LEGO to meteoric success is, I won't say disgraceful, but certainly dismaying and disappointing. It's analogous to Disney's retiring Mickey Mouse by just fading him out of existence except for an anniversary or the infrequent special occasion.

If nothing else, that could look pretty cool onscreen in a future series. It could maybe be helpful in concert with the same kind of ECM the Aerial Knights were using early in Macross Delta.

Marvel Legends X-Men '97 Morph.

I'd assume the "there's a rotator joint we forgot to mention on the wingtip" is something they came up with for the movies... hence the more traditional Super Pack design the VF-31 Siegfried/Kairos uses. I'm not sure you'd be able to get all the way to where the VF-1 or VF-17/VF-171 get with it because of the wing shape, but I'd also argue the "cape" is probably intentional/practical. After all, the YF-24 Evolution and its derivative run their reactors hotter than any previous generation's and even though they're more efficient they do still require a lot of propellant for space flight and coolant/radiator surface for cooling in space. It's been noted that the liquid/slush propellant pulls double duty as a system coolant and the wing surface itself is also pulling double duty as a large radiator for cooling purposes outside of direct combat. I dunno, ask Shinsei Industry... it took them 17 years. 😆

First time hearing of a Galient, and it looks good & different.

That could be fun!

Prey is coming to theaters for the first time as a double feature with Predator Badlands in AMC theaters on November 5.

Marvel Spider-Man Venom Versus Ghost-Spider.

A few more repaints, then I think I'm just waiting on a few crossovers and, despite it still being warm enough to skip a jacket most days, I think I'm done for the year. Up first we have Seaspray's wavemate, Retro Brawn. And... he's kind of unimpressive. To be honest, I was going to skip him entirely but I got to thinking, "well, I have Retro Gears and Bumblebee, and Seaspray's Retro (especially if they do eventually release a toon version), and I started getting FOMO. So when I saw him on a peg at my local store I grabbed him. So he does have a new head that matches the G1 toy. They also altered the colors of the green to better match the toy, they painted the windows black instead of blue, and they put a spot of black under the badge on the hood. But that's where they stopped, and that's kind of disappointing. I mean, I get it's a Walmart line and they're not going to dump a ton of money into remolding figures for it, but the stocky cartoon body doesn't match the clawed jank that was the G1 toy. But forget about giving him claws and shoulder pads, they could have at least tampoed some sticker detail onto his waist and pelvis. The moral of the story is don't be me. You have SS86 Brawn? You've got all the Brawn you need then. Coming from Hasbro Pulse, we've got a two-pack of G2 Dinobots. One of which is Snarl. There's some minor paint differences. Most notably they painted the eyes red like the toys whereas SS86 Snarl went for cartoon blue. Other than that, they used a slightly darker shade of red for the parts that were already read, and a lighter shade of red for the parts that were gray, and that's it. The other Dinobot is Snarl, and it's pretty much the same story. The gray plastic has been swapped for a greenish blue, and he's got a silver lower jaw, red eyes, and red horns to mimic the original G2 toy. He's also got black thighs and a black head. But there's no changes to the actual mold. It'd have been cool if they'd has some remolding; keep the dino kibble on the outside like the toys, for instance, but broad strokes this is probably fine. A bunch of Leader-class repaints with no remolding is probably a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. Still, especially with Grimlock still on shelves, it's kind of cool seeing the team together but sporting more individualistic colors. Again, maybe not for everyone, but I say bring on the expected orange Sludge and green Swoop. Finally, we have our NYCC-exclusive Nemesis Prime. Unlike more recent Nemesis Primes, this isn't simply a black repaint of regular Optimus. This version, one of the first to actually bear the name "Nemesis Prime" AFAIK, actually had screen time. And to mimic the cel-shaded colors of that episode (also the Hasbro version of the original toy), Nemesis Prime is more dark blue than black, with a messed up face also pulled from the episode. Aside from the new head and colors, he's the same figure as the Commander-class toy, with the same Matrix, gun, and forearm pipe-guns. He doesn't, however, come with a trailer. Instead, he comes with the Star Saber from Transformers Armada. Not the Vorpal Saber he wielded in the show, but I guess Hasbro figured that most fans would want the Star Saber more? The Star Saber is an awkward-looking sword, and that sword breaks into three smaller minicons. The Minicons are, of course, the Air Defense team- Runway, Jetstorm, and Sonar, from left to right. Note that I have Jetstorm mistransformed. His tail should slide back, then swing over his head to sit on his chest (a bit like Runway's). You might notice, however, the crack on one of the hinges. The tolerances don't seem to be right and the plastic is too thin for the stress, so I'm leaving it permanently where it's at. Aside from being the Star Saber, and aside from the fact that Armada fans seem to genuinely want more Minicons, I don't think they're much to write home about. They're a little larger than the Siege Micromasters, with slightly better articulation, but not by a lot. Moving back to Nemesis, he of course transforms into a truck. Although he doesn't come with a trailer, he can pull the one that came with Optimus. He can even combine with it; despite not technically needing them, he's got the head and fists for combined mode. Kind of makes you wish he came with a trailer of his own. What makes you wish it even more is the price tag. Optimus, as a Commander, was $90, right? Well Nemesis here is also $90. In other worse, he's giving up the trailer and extra play patterns that come along with it for a trio of honestly-not-that-great Minicons that turn into a sword. I dunno about you guys, but I'd have rather had the trailer. I mean, how does that even add up? Optimus' trailer has WAY more plastic and more parts than the Air Defense Team. I know, recent tariffs and price hikes would likely mean that Armada Optimus would actually cost even more, but still, a repaint of the core bot with some dinky and fragile minicons instead of the trailer is a really hard pill to swallow.

I wonder if they'll go back more like the original's footage/style, or double-down on "contrived experiences" and have tons of CG events blatantly "staged" to experience like in the current version. I like the original version way more.

The tag says summer for season two, but the poster picture says spring, I guess it will happen one of these seasons

Ironically, the Tron coaster at Disney World is my all-time fave. Not that I go on very many coasters to compare, but I love it 10x more than any other I think. It's so SMOOOOOOTH.