mikeszekely

You know what's better than a two-pack of Studio Series torso-forming Commanders? How about finally getting the MIA Age of the Primes torso-forming Commander the same weekend? That being Commander-class Silverbolt. Among the Combiner Wars torsos I always thought that Silverbolt was probably the best, but side-by-side with the new one really hammers home how off it was. The torso and forearms straight up have better proportions. The deco is also much more cartoon-accurate; the CW toy might have been copying the G1 toy with the red chest going straight across and the all-black shoulders, but AotP Silverbolt's white shoulder wings and red vest with white in the middle is more accurate to the cartoon. I'm a bit disappointed, though, that with all the budget a Commander-class affords it's still not totally accurate. The Autobot badge on his right collar is something you'd expect on the G1 toy, but the cartoon has nothing on the red and a big ol' badge right in the middle of all that white. Less obvious infractions include missing gold on his lats and knees, and missing red on his hips. Like the limbs, Silverbolt is less a robot that turns into a plane and more a robot with a plane on his back. I know it's going to be cause for some complaints, but for better or worse, it's cartoon accurate. You can fold the wings back, like the G1 toy (and how a lot of 3P versions of the character are depicted), but per the Sunbow art they're not actually supposed to be. As a Commander who's slightly smaller than an earlier Voyager release, much of Silverbolt's budget went toward accessories. He's got a gun, a larger cannon, plus large chunks of arms, legs, and torsos for his combined mode. And, just like Menasor's bits turned into Motormaster's trailer and Devastator's bits turned into Long Haul's trailer, Superion's bits do stuff too. Whatever you're doing with them, though, you're going to start by folding in the knees and toes on the legs and sticking them together, then accordioning the arms up (very much like Menasor's) and sticking them on the sides of the legs. This forms what I call "the brick" (though at this point I'm tempted to call it the port-a-potty). Silverbolt's articulation is not too shabby. His ball-jointed head can look up and tilt sideways a fair bit, though downward is pretty limited. His shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. No wrist swivels. His waist does actually swivel, but he's limited to a little under 45 degrees in either direction due to his backpack. His hip skirts can hinge up, allowing his hips to move 90 degrees forward on a ratchet, about 45 degrees backward due to his backpack, and slightly over 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees seem to bend 90 degrees, though using a tranfsormation joint will effectively make his knees double-jointed and able to bend 180 degrees. His feet can't tilt downward, but due to his transformation they can tilt 90 degrees up and pivot 90 degrees. Silverbolt is meant to hold the small gun in either hand. When he's not wielding it, a tab under the barrel can plug into a slot on either side of the fuselage on his back. Side note, I wish the little wings on the gun were bigger. For use with Silverbolt's bot mode, take the brick and stand it up (so that the Superion fists are at the top). Take the torso piece, fold the chest down, make him do a split, and turn the legs so the openings for the combiner ports are facing the same direction as his crotch. Tabs on the brick will plug into Superion's thighs. Then, take the cannon and use a pair of tabs to clip around the cannon, mounting it to the top of the brick. Now you've got a kind of fortified gun emplacement. I guess. It might sound weird, but AotP Silverbolt's transformation is less like the G1 toy or Combiner Wars toys, and a bit more like Kingdom/Legacy Blaster's. You open up Silverbolt's chest and fold his head into it (while folding out Superion's), but you also fold his arms into his torso as well (once you've folded in his fists and bent his elbows backward). This will leave little bits of his forearms sticking out of his sides. Fold his feet up, turn his thighs inward 90 degrees, then use his hips and upper knee (transformation) joint to bend his legs around to his torso. Those bits of forearm sticking out of his sides will slide into a gap in his calves. Once the robot parts are effectively a rectangle, you can lock the wings into tabs on his legs, double-hinge the forward chunk of the fuselage over Superion's face, and rock the tail back into place. Finish it off by opening the cockpit section and folding out the nose. As with the robot mode, Silverbolt's jet mode is both an improvement over the Combiner Wars version but not quite there. Like, it's a lot closer to a Concord than whatever the CW toy was, but the proportions, nose, and wings are altered just enough to be legally distinct. A robot with a jet on his back still winds up being a jet with a robot underneath; in that regard, the rectangle that Silverbolt squeezes himself into is actually a more compact than the CW toy, plus Superion's antenna kind of give me VF-1J vibes. However, his feet are an eyesore. I think it might have been better if they swiveled and sat on top of his shoulders instead of on the sides (though they way they work winds up integral for combined mode). Or, if you look at the Sunbow art, there's black and red nacelles sticking out from under and past the front of his wings (likely a misinterpretation of the G1 toy's chest and shoulders). If the feet could have turned 90 degrees somehow they might have passed as those nacelles. You might have noticed that Silverbolt's hip skirts have molded wheels on on them. The front landing gear unfolds from the back of Superion's head, and his pistol plugs into a port under the nose. Pull the torso of the gun emplacement, and lay the brick part flat. You can leave the torso in a split, but turn the thighs back around so the front is at the front. Plug Superion's but into a the clips you used to hold the cannon on, while tabs on his thighs plug into slots on the fists. Fold the back clip down and plug it into a pair of square notches on the brick, then fold the chest backward over it and tab it into the brick as well. fold the barrel under the cannon, turn it over, and bend the rear slightly so that a peg hole lines up with a peg on the brick (actually Superion's back clip). Lastly, fold out the little wings on the sides. You've now got something that at first kind of reminded me of a fancy airport terminal, which would have worked well with the Aerialbots. Heck, a ramp or something might have emulated the G1 toy's base mode. But, no, Hasbro apparently decreed that combiner kibble must be a trailer, even for planes... So we fold out a pair of red clips. Lift Silverbolt's wings, and the red clips grab onto his thighs while a pair of tabs plug into his butt. Fold the wings back down and they tab into the edges of the brick. For this mode, you're technically supposed to split and fold down Silverbolt's tail (a feature that was designed just for this mode, since it doesn't need to do so for robot or combined mode). I guess the cannon is the tail now? Let's be clear, the idea of a Concord or really any jet hauling around a big brick of kibble, even a big brick with wings, is a bit absurd, and I prefer my airport terminal idea. That said, I don't hate this as much as I thought. There's more wing, the Concord neck sticking off the front, and some Superion chest kibble on the back, but if you ignore that and squint this "super mode" gives me Ark vibes. Maybe this is Silverbolt's Cybertronian mode, then? Regardless, there's no law that says you have to connect the kibble to Silverbolt, and if nothing else it's a convenient way to keep all his kibble in once place. I'll do a review of the combined Superion mode when the other two Aerialbots are released. For now, I actually really like this Silverbolt. On his own merits, yes, he's still a brick of a robot under a plane that turns into a robot with a plane on his back, but that's inherently going to be a thing when you're working from the blocky G1 toys and Floro Dery's Sunbow designs (and before anyone brings up Maverick, just no- he's still a plane with a ton of robot kibble underneath, but one where they ridiculously over-engineered the transformation to try to spread the robot out flatter for minimal gain at the cost of humps on the dorsal fuselage and limited robot articulation, which I don't think is actually an improvement on any level). But he's still a good robot with a plane on his back, and an improved jet with a robot underneath. The combiner kibble doesn't really do anything for me in either robot or jet modes, but it's at least consolidated and read when we do combine him. He gets a recommend from me.

Who is, of course, Commander-class Long Haul. Where the the first three Constructicons were slightly improved but pretty similar to their Combiner Wars cousins, thankfully, that's not at all the case for Long Haul. I don't think that saying Long Haul was the worse of the Combiner Wars Constructicons is a particularly controversial statement. He had a huge upper body with dinky little arms and thick-but-stumpy legs, and a weird transformation that made his shins part of his bed but had him wearing the majority of it like a cape. Studio Series Long Haul is still a thicker boy than the skinny cartoon model, but with proportions that are more swole than "giant baby." With black arms and no silver anywhere but his face his colors are more cartoon accurate, too. There are some flaps on his back, but nothing like the Combiner wars version. If we're being technical the animation model doesn't have the wheels on his legs; I do wish they had hinges to fold against his calves, but it's far from the worst thing ever. It kind of feels like nitpicking to even bring it up, but then again I could just be cutting him slack because he's such an improvement over the CW version. I mean, look at this! Opening his front is a necessary step in transforming him, but the designers went the extra mile and included some molded engine details that they even painted silver. Long Haul comes with a pistol that's, oddly, in two parts, a green handle/receiver and a black barrel. I've also decided that the rest of the accessories in the box are also Long Haul's; you've got Devastator's hips and thighs, the center portion of his chest shield and the two wings (which do, by the way, have tabs that fit into slots on Scrapper so you can have the flying loader mode), and Devastator's forearms/hands. The Devastator parts all fit together in a non-Devastator fashion. Lift the hip skirts and move the thighs into a sitting position, where you can then tab the skirts into the thighs. The kibble on his butt will wrap around under the thighs and between the knees. Then the center of the chest shield uses a pair of tabs to plug into the hip skirts, while the wings fit onto tabs on the sides of the thighs. The fists fold into the forearms, then pegs that fold out the backs of the hands plug into peg holes on the top of the kibble wrap. It's like a little trailer. I wouldn't say I needed his combiner parts to be a trailer, but it's a handy way to keep them all together at least. In fact, I think my only complaint is that there's nowhere to store the Devastator gun parts that came with Scrapper on the trailer. Getting back to Long Haul himself, it's not just his looks that have improved. His articulation is much better as well. His head is hinged, so he can't really look up or tilt his head sideways, and he can only look a little. His head does swivel, though. His shoulders rotate and move slightly over 90 degrees laterally. His elbows are ball joints, so he can actually bend his elbows forward 90 degrees and not just waggle them sideways, plus the ball joint doubles as a bicep swivel. No waist swivel or wrist swivels, though. His hips can go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, and his thighs swivel. His knees are interesting. There's a joint behind the red panels that you can use as a knee that bends over 90 degrees, with a skinny "thigh" behind the truck bed. However, Hasbro seems to have intended that as a transformation joint, and gave him another, separate hinge below the red panel. That one, due to the tires on the backs of his leg, gets less than 90 degrees, though. So why not use both, and get nearly 180 degrees of bend? Lastly there's his feet, which don't tilt up or down but do have 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Long Haul holds his gun without issue in either hand. He lacks any other storage for it in robot mode. SS86 Long Haul's transformation is a bit closer to the G1 toy than the Combiner Wars toy. His head tucks into his chest, but you have to open it to make room, and his chest folds up. His legs fold around to become the truck bed. And his arms tuck underneath, but they fold up in an unusual way with the fists pointing backward instead of toward the front. Long Haul's alt mode is pretty good. There's a bit of a gap between his feet and backpack that don't quite sell the idea that the "hood" over the cab is actually part of the bed, and there are gaps along the sides where his shoulder joints have to fit through. Speaking of the bed, it doesn't look like he'll be hauling all that much since they're full of robot leg. But his arms are tucked away nicely, and the cab, grill, lights, and smokestack details are all cartoon accurate. There's a little space between Long Haul's legs, and you can capture a purple hook on the trailer in that space so Long Haul can pull the trailer. Again, not something I necessarily needed, but it's at least some attempt to integrate Devastator's parts. As for his own gun, you simply plug the handle into a 5mm port on either side of his bed. I'll cut right to the chase... yes, I recommend SS86 Long Haul. He's such an improvement over the Combiner Wars version that he justifies the entire Commander set, and then with Long Haul and Hook at this scale you might as well buy the other four- two of whom aren't out and I haven't even reviewed yet. Yeah, Long Haul is good enough to make you replace all your Constructicons. But should you actually replace Devastator? Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait for Mixmaster and Scavenger before I can answer that.

While waiting for Amazon and Pulse to get off their butts and fulfil my command for preorders, turns out the Big Bad Slow Toy Store of all people got some stock. So I commanded them to to send me my third two-pack this month (also gave them money). Now, can I command your attention for a bit? I have a review for Commander-class Hook. I was looking at the animation model for Hook, and I don't envy anyone trying to make a toy of him. Combiner Wars Hook figured sticking the wheels on his forearms was enough and didn't copy the weird triangle elbows of the animation model. Nor did it copy Hook's weird cartoon hips. The real tricky part, though, is that the animation model completely abandons the truck parts on the fronts of the G1 toy's legs, except for a lump on his left foot with a wheel and a window. Despite the lump obviously being the cab, aside from the purple window his legs are silver from his hips down. Combiner Wars Hook was like, "nah," and reversed his lower legs, so the cab is on the back of his leg instead, and made his legs green from the knees down. Studio Series Hook looks to "correct" some of Combiner Wars Hook's details by making them more cartoon-accurate. Hence, his torso becomes devoid of color that isn't purple, aside from the cartoon-accurate green on the collar... although, as near as I can tell, his chest actually should have kept some of the black. And silvery plastic was used for Hook's shins and feet to better color match the silver of the cartoon. But, perhaps because the same Takara designers that worked on Combiner Wars Devastator are the same guys doing the Studio Series ones, some mistakes are carried over. The cab's still on the back of his leg instead of the front. He still doesn't have the weird hips. He does have an accessory... forgive me if we're not justifying the Commander-class price point yet, but I promise the other guy has a ton more. For Hook, though, it's just this one gun. Hook's articulation isn't the best, but it actually is an improvement over the Combiner Wars toy. His head swivels and can tilt down some, and up/sideways very slightly. His shoulders swivel and can move laterally 90 degrees; the "shelves" above his shoulders are hinged now and can move up to give you more clearance. He has bicep swivels now, and double-jointed elbows that get around 130 degrees of bend. No wrist or waist swivels, though. His hips go about 90 degrees backward, and a little over that forward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little under 90 degrees. His feet have some upward tilt due to how he transforms, and 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Hook holds his gun just fine. And in a move I kind of like, his boom is only attached via a 5mm peg. This means you can remove it and plug it into the port on either forearm if you want to use it like a weapon. Of course, it naturally goes on his back, and with it there you'll find a 3mm peg that you can use to store his gun on the boom on his back. It a move that's probably not all that surprising to anyone who's already mess with Studio Series Scrapper, Hook's transformation is basically the same as the Combiner Wars version. You still shift his backpack up and tuck his arms into his sides. You still rock his calves up over his thighs, fold his shins up under him, and tuck his feet flat. You don't even fold in his hands now (for this mode), and you might notice that the SS toy carries over the the CW toy's practice of shifting the control cabin for the crane over, so it's not straight behind the driver's cabin. Another thing I'm disappointed to see, given that the big change from Combiner Wars (other than scale) is that Hasbro is embracing partsforming, is that there's still a massive, inaccurate lump in the middle of the truck where Devastator's head is attached. Why didn't they just partsform it, too? While I feel my complaints are pretty valid, as they're largely things that are NOT cartoon-accurate, I have to at least admit that it's at least better. He's now got nicely-painted silver rims, and no random black bits in either cab. The truck's surface is textured like it's got skid plating, and the purple stripe and purple end of the boom are cartoon-accurate (though the hook itself should be purple). Although Hook's crane deck doesn't swivel, since it's just pegged in the crane itself can swivel. And, although that's about the extend of it, the boom can also extend. In both of those ways SS86 Hook is, again, an improvement over the Combiner Wars toy. As for weapon storage, the gun can again simply be pegged onto the boom. As I alluded to, Hook is a lot like Scrapper. Both are, in a number of small ways, improved from their decade-old Combiner Wars versions, but both ultimately use nearly identical engineering and thus carry over a number of flaws from those older toys, and do so at a smaller size. So it's like, yeah, Hook is better... but is he better enough to warrant an upgrade if you already have the Combiner Wars toys? Naturally, some of that is going to come down to the combined mode, and we've got to wait until the fall to answer that question. But, perhaps some of that will also come down to the fact that Hook is packed with another Constructicon...

I just don't know how, on a Hasbro budget, you do that without making his arms more turret-shaped or his pistol barrel more tank gun-shaped. Like, yeah, it'd make for a way better tank mode, and would probably look great on an updated pseudo-G1 Megatron from IDW or something, but it'd make those elements less cartoon-accurate in bot mode. For me, who thinks Megatron's real alt mode is the pistol accessory, that's not a compromise I'm comfortable with.

Yeah, the slim's what I got. Not the original white one (my launch day one RROD'd, but actually lasted until it was out of warranty and the S was out). Not the E that looked sort of like a mini Xbox One. I should have a Kinect for it, too. I don't need $100 for it, it's just been sitting in my closet. Hit me up when things are going better for you.

If the budget for the mace went elsewhere, I'm ok with it. I never use Optimus's axe anyway.

It helps. But I think '80s kids seem to have the right mix of nostalgia and disposable income; time and time again G1 sells more than Beast Wars more than Unicron Trilogy more than Bayverse.

I have one, the 2nd version. Last I checked it worked fine, but the hard drive died. I put in an off-the-shelf drive and got it working, but for some reason it only saw like 8GB of the drive, so it might need replaced with an actual 360-formatted one. Shoot me a PM if you're still looking.

Broadly speaking, cards with three fans tend to have bigger heatsinks and are theoretically better at dissipating heat, and therefore could run quieter. In practice, though, it's going to vary by manufacturer, and your case's airflow is going to be a more significant contributor. Unless you're running a big, hot card that requires beefier cooling I'd bet that you could test a two-fan and a three-fan with the same GPU in the same box and the difference would be similar to doing two passes with the same card. FWIW, I ran a two-fan Zotac 4070 and it was fine. I really only replaced it because my CPU was becoming a bottleneck and with the way the market's been lately it was easier to get a pre-built than to buy parts and build one myself. But I guess I should also say, knock on wood, that I'm currently running an Asus card, I ran an Asus card prior to the Zotac, my last gaming laptop was an Asus, and I currently use an ROG Ally X when I'm on the go, and I've had little to no issues with any of that.

Full disclosure, I grew up on G1, and I want whatever is going to give me the best versions of the G1 cast, right up to and including do-overs for the figures that fell a bit short even in more recent lines like Siege/Earthrise/Kingdom/Legacy/AotP, and if stuffing Mirage in Studio Series is the best way to get one that isn't a clumsy retool of a wonky-in-the-first-place Siege toy then 100% do it. That said, there's going to be pushback. It's tough for us old coots to remember sometimes, but Transformers 07 is just two short years away from turning twenty, which means kids who were introduced to the brand from that movie are now in their mid-to-late 20s... the same age I was when Classics came out and I started collecting. While some of those fans have grown to appreciate G1, there are a lot of them who simply aren't interested in that part of the franchise. For three years, Studio Series only featured toys from the live-action movies, and for three years Bayverse fans lived with the notion that Generations/Siege/Earthrise was for G1ers, and Studio Series was their thing, and then suddenly not only are the Bayformer designs sharing space with semi-reboot G1-esque Cybertronian designs from Bumblebee but now they're giving up slots to actual G1. Then came the addition of Gamer Edition, and in 2023 and 2024 there were zero figures released from the first five films (to be fair, that has a lot more to do with Rise of the Beasts than 86). There's been a lot of grumbling in some corners about how characters like Arcee and Ironhide got Studio Series do-overs for then-relatively recent Earthrise figures but they're still waiting for Skids and Mudflap, or how when the Commander-class came to Studio Series it was three years of '86 when they'd really like more (and bigger) AoE Dinobots. I don't envy the team at Hasbro and the tightrope they're walking; G1 consistently sells, and you want to go where the money is, but you don't want to alienate the movie fans.

Yeah, preorders should be 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT. I'm in for everyone but Grimlock, and that only because I already have him. EDIT: And hey, my Pulse Premium which I haven't bothered to renew yet doesn't run out until Monday.

The list tracks pretty well with what I've heard. Powerglide's a bit of a surprise, but not unwelcome; I think it's their intention to replace all minibots with Deluxes, and with Seaspray and Windcharger supposedly I the way it doesn't leave too many left to do. Swerve is also one I wasn't aware of, but that's another easy Gears repaint. His cartoon presence was minimal, but he was popular in IDW. I expect we'll see Tailgate, too, at some point after Windcharger. AFAIK it's Prime Smokescreen. I don't know how far along in development it got, but he was planned and I think even appeared in some Kingdom artwork. He was shelved indefinitely, though. Big if true. I've always found the G1 toys fascinating; so far from the animation, then learned later it's because they were original cool mech suits.

The official date hasn't been set, but it's traditionally September. Whatever day it is, you just have to order from Habro Pulse (the EU version does ship to Germany). I just don't remember if you have to be a Pulse Premium member or not.

Hey @Scyla I wanted to give you a heads up. This year's Pulsecon exclusive is Commander-class Armada Nemesis Prime.

Su-27 (technically J-16, if we're being pedantic). MiG-27 is a totally different (and far uglier, IMHO) beast.

You didn't do anything wrong, amigo. I'm just tying together the official fan stream announcement with my earlier unconfirmed date for preorders. Because yes, they're gonna talk Studio Series, and yes, you're gonna be able to preorder Megatron on Tuesday.😁

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So, I don't have a lot of details and there's been a lot of hurdles to jump through what with Hasbro and Marvel being buddies so DC normally siding with Mattel. I don't know if they're planning on doing a Batmobile or Batwing, and I don't know when you should officially expect to hear anything about it (though SDCC or "Batman Day," the third Saturday in September, are possible candidates). But yes, a Batman crossover is (or at least was) on the schedule for this year.

I was compiling a list of cars I wanted to check out with her when the lease was originally up next summer, and the Lyriq was on my shortlist. I haven't looked at the Optiq yet. What's attracting me to the iX though are the number of people who are saying how reliable it's been. Seriously, the only complaints I'm hearing (aside from the exterior aesthetics) is that the public charging speeds are a little slower than the competitors (something I think they addressed for the 2025 model?), but we charge at home so it's kind of irrelevant to us. One thing to note, I'm mostly shopping used. Over the last few years a TON of EVs were leased out on a mix of manufacturers running some crazy lease deals and dealerships pushing them for tax credits, so the used market is full of 1-3 year old cars with relatively low mileage going for like half the price of a new one. There's a dealership nearby with a CPO '22 iX xdrive50 with around 25k miles for $48k. Closest CPO Lyriq is 170 miles away (though, if I don't care so much about CPO, Carvana's got some of both). So here's a story... I was driving with my wife, my kid, and my parents in the EV9. The road curves toward a light, and I was stopped in the left lane because I was planning to drive straight through but turn left at the following light. The light turned green, and I start going forward... as does the traffic in the right lane. Because of the curve, I guess, the Kia thought the car behind us to the right, despite not leaving its lane, was coming at us. And whatever smart features Kia baked in decided to drive to avoid the accident by steering itself into the turning lane. It was thankfully empty, otherwise the car would have jerked control from me and caused an accident to avoid an accident that wasn't going to happen in the first place. So, yeah, our Know It All could have left us K.I.A. (I leave those "safety" features alone in my wife's car, but I turned off everything but the parking sensors in the Porsche.)

Blue Booster was packed with his buddy, Wingtail. Prime, though, gets someone to fight instead (which I prefer). In this case, it's Hearts of Steel Starscream. Starscream is, again, roughly Deluxe-class when I would have preferred a Voyager. I'll note, though, that he's a tad shorter to the top of his head than Prime, which does create the sense that they're in scale with each other, if not other Generations figures. Starscream's accuracy is a bit harder to judge than Prime's, though, because concept art exists for two different versions. I went and looked at the comics to see which one was used and found that not only was he drawn very inconsistently, even from panel to panel in the same issue, he was often colored just as inconsistently. Indeed, in one of his first appearances he's actually colored more like Armada Starscream than G1. I'll say that Starscream most resembles a version of Guidi's concept art that appeared as an variant cover. That concept art used a lot more gold for some joints, so maybe Starscream needs more paint? Or maybe not, since almost none of the gold was used in the actual pages. Starscream sports lots of detail from the comics, including the Kawamori-esque hip wings, the fins sticking out of his feet, the hood over his head, at the scalloped "ears." All-in-all, I think he fares pretty favorably for a Deluxe. Starscream comes with a pair of gatling guns. The molding is pretty good, but I think it's a bit lost in that light gray plastic. Again, maybe accurate, but a little of the extra color from the concept art could have made them really pop. Starscream's head swivels, no tilt. Kind of hard to get at it, anyway. His shoulders swivel and move laterally just shy of 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a tiny bit over 90 degrees. No wrist articulation, and sadly (too common for Starscreams) no waist swivel. His hips can go about 75 or so degrees forward, backward, or laterally, which is below average but honestly adequate for most poses, I think. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet can't tilt up, but they can tilt 90 degrees downward (mostly for transformation) and his ankles pivot a little under 45 degrees. Starscream's guns can mount on his forearms, as would be typical for his null rays. You don't even have to remove them to transform him. If you like, though, he can also hold them in his 5mm fists. Starscream's transformation is about folding things upward, but in waves. First, his chest and arms hinge up over his head so the top of his torso tabs into his back. Tuck the arms back under the wings on his back, and then you hinge up the part with the lower pair of wings. Once they're spread and connected to the upper wings, his waist hinges upward, too. From there it's just a matter of making him do a split, swiveling the thighs 180 degrees, bending his knees, and tabbing his legs into his lower wings. Starscream's alt mode is reasonably accurate, but missing some stuff. Like, the little winglets sticking out of his feet should actually be a continuous wing running through his feet. Other than that, the front's fine, but then we come to the back. His got a sort of gappy, unfinished look with visible fists where the design sketches called for lights and chimneys. The red part sticking out the back is accurate, even down the wheel under it, but here's the thing. The design notes that's supposed to be his robot crotch. Here it's a part hanging off his butt, while his actual crotch is folded up underneath. Now, I'm no expert, but it seems to me that they could have used his actual crotch for this part if they'd simply opted to swivel his waist 180 degrees and bend his legs the other way (which would have given him the benefit of a waist swivel). He at least rolls, of the aforementioned wheel in his butt and another pair under his legs, and all three wheels are actually accurate to the comics. His guns, again still mounted to his forearms, protrude from the front in a manner that is also comic accurate. I guess another way of putting it is that Starscream's alt mode is a weird and not particularly aerodynamic mish-mash of biplane and train, but that's the fault of the design and not the toy. So... the toy is pretty good! Maybe just as good as Prime, even, in the sense that you can see how it could have been stellar with a little more budget but is ultimately one of the very best Deluxe-class toys I've reviewed this year. So yeah, this set is definitely worth picking up. What's more, we know Hasbro is going to do at least one more two-pack from Hearts of Steel with Bumblebee and Megatron, and I'm kind of excited for that now. If we're lucky Hasbro can continue to milk Hearts of Steel the way they were doing Shattered Glass for awhile.

Following up on this... wife's car is STILL in the shop. The order the dealer placed for a replacement battery was cancelled (Hyundai makes them, and apparently they're hording them for new vehicles). We're obviously NOT happy. Thinking about buying the wife another car, then putting off an "everyone can use it, especially me when the weather is bad and I don't want to drive the Porsche" until the lease for the Kia is over. Must be electric, wife prefers SUVs, and riding in my Porsche has given her a taste for luxury. Thinking the BMW iX might be a good fit. Thoughts? Edmund's really liked their long-term fleet car as it was fast, comfortable, has a great interior, and it was one of the most reliable EVs in their fleet. Only downside seems to be the exterior, which the wife and I agree is kind of fugly (but fugly is kind of BMW's MO, I think).

Agreed. But you should be able to find him (at least for a little while) on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse, Gamestop, BBTS, etc. I haven't heard anything, but there is a new Tron movie this fall. Now'd be the time.

Well, Sonic's not the only two-pack I got over the weekend. Is there a reason to choo-choo-choose the other one? It contains this guy- Hearts of Steel Optimus Prime. Let me get this out of the way right off the bat... I'm disappointed that he's a Deluxe. I mean, I don't mind that Deluxe-class Primes exist, like Devastation Optimus on the right here, but the thing about Devastation Optimus or Core-class Optimus is that they're basically G1 Optimus, when we also have options for G1 Optimus that scale with the bulk of our collection. We don't have a Hearts of Steel Optimus at scale (aside from a fragile and impossible-to-find-now third party toy), just this little one. Having said that, though, I can't complain too loudly because Hasbro kinda nailed this bot mode. I mean, if you look at Guido Guidi's concept art for the series, they nailed all the major details, even allowing for a surprising number of painted details to keep the colors right. Honestly, I think he's just missing some lines on his toes and some yellow paint for the triangles on his forearms. It's a clean figure, too, with little in the way of kibble that wasn't part of Guidi's design. And while we're looking at he sides and back, I want to call attention to the backs of his shoulders, where there's some nice molded details of gears, like you can see the inner workings there. It's a really nice touch. Prime's accessories are this gun, which is half accurate to the comic book. It's just missing it's rear, like if you imagine Megatron's fusion cannon having the barrel and mount but not the eyepiece on the back. There's also this blue rectangle. Prime's head has a ball joint, but it's flipped so the stem is in his head and the ball is in his torso. Maybe they should do that more often, because it gives Prime pretty good up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate, no problem, but the big shoulder pads do limit his outward range to about 75 degrees. His biceps swivel, and he's got maybe 120 degrees of elbow bend. No wrist articulation, though. His waist swivels. His hips can go a little under 90 degrees backward and a little over 90 degrees laterally, but due to his hip skirts he's limited to about 75 degrees forward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees. His feet have a very slight downward tilt and about 45 degrees upward. His ankle pivots are a tad disappointing, though. The actual joint is designed in a way that he could have 90 degrees of pivot, however, the side of his leg comes down so low and doesn't give his foot clearance to move around it, limiting him to something like 30 degrees. Prime holds his gun with no issues, and the blue rectangle can plug into a 5mm port on either forearm like a non-really-comic-accurate shield. Unfortunately, he lacks any other bot mode storage, which is a shame. I can live without a place to put his gun, but I wish he could have carried the shield on his back. Prime's transformation is surprisingly interesting. I mean, you can probably tell at a glance that his head has to tuck into his chest, and his arms wind up tucked behind him while his legs make up the part with the wheels. But what's neat is how you get there... you don't merely open a hatch, tuck in his head, then curl up his forearms and fold the shoulders back. You actually pull his head and arms away from his torso, and the entire assembly flips over so that when you move it back his head goes into his chest naturally. Then, because his arms aren't actually long enough to make the whole top of the engine, the backs of his legs open up to form the sides and rear. Then his gun becomes his smokestack and his shield becomes the roof. When I first saw the pictures Hasbro released I thought Prime looked a little stumpy. Actually, though, it's pretty close to the concept art, up to the panels that are made from the backs of his legs and the blue roof. In the concept art, they should both be silver/gray... because based on Guidi's concept art, Prime should be longer because he should have a trailer part. DNA, you wanna get on that? As noted, the accessories are integrated into this mode because the gun turns into his smokestack and the shield into his roof. Which works well enough, except that I mention again that I'm not a fan of the shield. But if an upgrade trailer comes along and replaces the roof shield, I really don't have anything to complain about besides the figure's size. Of course, even size is a pretty small complaint- as long as he scales with other Hearts of Steel releases it technically doesn't matter if they scale with other Generations figures, and it's not like Hasbro's charging for a Voyager here. The set's $60, and split two ways that's $30 each... a little more than a normal Deluxe price, but with more paint than a normal Deluxe, so. I think you definitely get your money's worth with Prime; good paint, solid articulation, and adequate accessories with a transformation I rather enjoy. I'd definitely give Prime a recommendation... assuming you want his partner. Which we'll discuss tomorrow.

PSA: I expect preorders for SS86 Megatron to become available next week, June 24th, at 1:00pm ET. Understand that this isn't confirmed, but it's apparently based on retailer info.

Good for those that want it, but PC delivers 99% of what I want to play and the rest is first party Nintendo stuff.