mikeszekely

1. My bad. 2. I clearly didn't scrutinize the details of fake planes to the extent you did. 3. My bad.

That thing is like original-model Xbox-One VCR big. I want one, though. They teased a new God of War, and between that and Miles Morales that's two PlayStation exclusives I already want to play. That's two more than the Xbox Series-whatever has.

What photo viewer were you using? I reinstalled/re-enabled the old Windows Photo Viewer from Windows 7 on all my 10 PCs.

Starscream was the last of my Target run figures, but I'm getting preorders in from Amazon now. So today I've got Studio Series Voyager-class Blitzwing. Ok, c'mon, this guy turned out to be Blitzwing but there's no way you can't tell me this wasn't Starscream at some point in development. Blitzwing is fairly accurate to the CGI model. The armor on his hips could be a little bigger, the fins on his shoulders should be taller, and the shape of his wings is a bit off. Mostly, like all Studio Series figures, it comes down to a lack of paint. Some of the gray used on his joints would have been better in white, some of the mechanical details, especially on his arms, could have been picked out, and the wheels on his toes should be black. There's some red stripes and real-world markings that are missing. Overall, though, I think the robot mode is fine for a $30 mass-retail figure. Blitzwing comes with the two bombs on his wings, a gun, and a replacement hand with the blade he tried to stab Bumblebee with. I wish the hand stood out more from the blade, but based on the 3A version the blade and his hand are about the same color, so what are you gonna do? Bltizwing's head is on a ball-joint, and it can rotate, look up a fair amount, down a bit, but no sideways tilt. His shoulders can rotate, and they can extend laterally a bit over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel. His elbows are double-jointed and he can bend them nearly 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his right hand (and only his right hand) has a pin hinge so it can open. No waist swivel. His hip skirts are hinged and can move out to the sides. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, 60 degrees laterally, but under 45 degrees backward. His thighs can swivel. His knees bend 90 degrees. His feet can't tilt up or down, but his toes can bend down and he's got 90 degrees of ankle pivot. His gun fits with a tab into his forearm and a 5mm peg into his hand. To use the blade hand you have to pull off his hand, which is connected to his wrist via a 5mm peg. Note that while the blade hand is molded to be his left hand both hands can be removed. His accessories can be stored on his back when he's not using them. The 5mm peg on the gun can fit into peg holes on either wing. The blade hand has a smaller peg that fits into a peg hole on the middle of his back. Or, if the blade hand is installed on his wrist you can technically store the regular hand by plugging it into the wings, but it'll be sticking straight out the back. Um... that's not an F-4. I thought it looks a bit like the fictional jet mode of Studio Series Thundercracker/Studio Series KSI Boss/TLK Nitro Zeus (which was supposed to be a Saab Gripen). Hasbro is, at least, consistent, because Blitzwing's fictional jet mode is the same one they used for the Bumblebee movie Nitro-series toy. I think the alt mode looks a bit better if you don't split the vertical stabs and pretend it's just got the one. It's a typical jetformer, with robot kibble chilling on the underside, but it's not the worst example. It'd have been nice if his robot feet hid a little better, though. The canopy can open- indeed, it's necessary for transformation. His rear landing gear, part of his robot heels, are always deployed but he's also got one under the nose that can fold out. The bombs tab onto the underside of his wings (actually to his arms). His gun fits into a hollow depression in the middle of the of the underside. So far so good, everything fits well. But then you get to the blade hand. Despite having a tantalizing hollow at the tail, and despite having a a 5mm peg in the middle of the tail, the blade hand is meant to plug into either of the horizontal stabilizers via the smaller-than-5mm peg. If you're a plane guy then you might find that Blitzwing isn't for you. It's not an F-4, and aside from color not remotely movie-accurate. If you're after a robot for a display, though, Blitzwing's actually pretty good, and I'd recommend him for robot mode.

In a world where this is the TMNT and this is the Thundercats I'm shocked and elated that the Animaniacs reboot looks and sounds perfect. I just hope the writers are up to it.

A Weibo user has uploaded images of what's purported to be a Kingdom Fossilizer and Studio Series Kup and Hot Rod

If Windows is installed on the SSD, check the advanced power settings and see if Windows is allowing the non-SSD to sleep.

And the third, the biggest thing I bought at Target... Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-10 Starscream. While I'm not the biggest fan of Bayformers and I fervently wish they'd have gone with something more like the Bumblebee designs from the start, I've admitted that time has allowed me to grudgingly accept the Bayverse as part of Transformers history, and I've even warmed a bit to some of the designs, especially the 2007 movie's roster. However, I've also said that I wasn't really interested in the MPM line, due to space constraints, and that the Studio Series was enough Bayverse for me. I did pick up Prime, for my Prime detolf, Barricade because he wasn't particularly expensive and because he was my favorite movie Decepticon, and Bee because I got him for half off when TRU was going out of business. I happily skipped Ironhide, Jazz, Megatron, and MPM-7 Bee, though, and if the only way to get Starscream was through online stores I'd have passed on Starscream, too. The sheer novelty of picking up a Masterpiece Transformer (even if it is MPM and not regular MP) on my weekly Target* run was simply too much for me to pass up, so here we are. *Turns out that in the States MPM-10 is actually a Target-exclusive. Now, I abhor store-exclusives for mainline regular retail stuff, but if being a store-exclusive gets more official MP Transformers in stores then I hope MPM-11 Ratchet is a Target-exclusive, too. Anyway... there's a surprising dearth of clean, clear images of Bayverse Starscream before his RotF tattoos, but the overall design of Starscream's robot mode is very good. I might criticize that his toes aren't as thin and sharp as the CGI model, or that the very fine details of some of the mechanical bits in his ribs and limbs aren't as detailed as the Three-A version, but for a $150 transforming toy I've really got no complaints with the sculpt and proportions of this figure. Paint, though... that's a different story. In some places they uses some silver, gunmetal, and copper that looks really nice, along with a salmon color for the wires in his forearms. Other parts are just bare grayish-khaki plastic. The paint and lack thereof in spots is more jarring when you look at his back, because you can tell some bean counter was betting that the back wouldn't show in most people's displays and omitted it almost entirely. I find it especially noticeable on his arms, because the back of his forearms have molded detail very similar to the front, and while the front has that silver paint and salmon wiring the back is bare. But hey, he's got the thrusters on his back that he had in the films. I think that's a first for an official movie Starscream toy. The thrusters are painted and articulated with a swivel attached with three hinges and a swivel so you can pose them however you like. Oh, and while I'm showing him off aesthetically with Studio Series Starscream, which is one of the better Starscream figures, I wanted to do a size comparison with MPM Prime and... well, Starscream is either a bit taller or a bit shorter than Prime. Depends on a lot on how you pose his legs. I guess that's accurate? I don't pay a ton of attention to the Bayverse scale, but it's fairly similar to the Studio Series figures, and the Studio Series line is supposed to be in-scale. So the accessories. He comes with the spikey missile hand he used in the first movie, the saw blade hand that I can't recall which movie he used it in, and the gatling gun he definitely used in at least the first movie. The saw has some paint on the blade, but that's it for paint on his accessories. The missiles look extra bad to me, especially since the same accessory was painted on the Studio Series toy. And as near as I can tell, the actual missiles were yellow in the film. And sadly, while the spikey blades and missiles can swivel the blades on the sides do NOT rotate around the center the way they did in the film. Starscream's head is on a hinged swivel. He can turn his head and look up, but he can't tilt his head to the side or look down. By design, the hinge is where the neck connects to the torso instead of where his neck connects to his head, and there's molded detail on his neck that you only see when his head is tilted up. That's a nice touch. Plus his mouth can open and close. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can extend laterally 90 degrees, also on ratchets. Also, perhaps due to transformation, he's got a bit of a butterfly joint as well. He doesn't have a bicep swivel, which I hold as perhaps the biggest strike against this figure. His ratcheted elbows bend 90 degrees, and he has a swivel below the elbow. His wrists swivel, then can bend up and down, plus his hands can bend inward mid-palm. Each of his three fingers is individually hinged at the base. His thumbs have hinges that allow them to fold down toward his palms, and a second hinge that splays them out away from his hand. He doesn't have a waist swivel. His hips can move forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees, all ratcheted. His thighs swivel. His upper knee joint is double-jointed with the ratchet on the lower end, and it ranges from straight to almost 180 degrees. The lower knee (technically an ankle on digitigrade Earth animals) is also a ratchet, and it ranges from stock straight to about 90 degrees forward. His feet, when properly tabbed in, do not tilt up or down, but simply untabbing them will allow for it. They also have a hinge for ankle pivots. Finally, his hinges have hinges and swivels so they can pose a bit, too. Using his gatling gun is as simple as using the tab to plug it into either of his forearms. The barrel on it can spin. The other accessories can be attached to either arm by bending his thumbs back against his forearms, then folding his palm in half. There's a hinged arm on the back of the accessories, the hinge should be opened and a tab on it goes into the same slot on Starscream's forearms that the gatling gun goes into, while a second tab goes into a slot on the inside of his hand. All of his accessories can be stored in robot mode as well. The gatling gun goes into a slot on the middle of his back, while the other accessories use angled slots on the wings. Because of the angles, the saw always goes on his left, the missiles always go on his right. Transforming this guy is both easy and confusing. Easy because the parts that actually make up the F-22 are pretty easy to figure out and line up. Confusing because none of his arms and very little of his torso make up the F-22, and it's a bit less obvious how those bits fold, unfold, and line up, and the instructions are hard to see. I wound up mostly figuring it out on my own. Right from the start, something I brought up when pictures of this figure first starting coming out months ago, is that the colors of the jet mode are wrong. Starscream doesn't spend a lot of time in jet mode in the movie, and he's moving very fast when he is, so it can be hard to tell but he was a two-tone splotchy gray with white on the edges and nose. In other words, more like the Studio Series toy. And that's not the only way the Studio Series toy beats MPM Starscream. While both have plenty of robot kibble on their undersides I do believe that MPM Starscream actually has more of it and winds up proportionally thicker. The kibble in the back prevents him from having actual exhaust nozzles. When you look down from the top the Studio Series figure manages to keep all of its kibble under the plane. MPM Starscream has visible kibble peaking out from the front of the wings, and between the wings and the horizontal stabilizers. From the underside, you can see how they both have their share of kibble but how the Studio Series figure keeps it as much in the middle as possible, while the MPM's is just all over the place. While we're on that side, though, you can see that Starscream does have landing gear with rolling wheels, one between his intakes and one each on his robo-thighs at the back. And all of his accessories can store on the jet. The gatling gun plugs in under the nose, while his missiles and saw tab in under the wings. As with robot mode the slots for those accessories are angled, so the saw is always on the right wing, and the missiles are always on the left. MPM Starscream is kind of a mixed bag, because he's a Masterpiece figure that does some things very well but in some ways is still beaten by a $30 Voyager-class figure. The jet mode is not great. The colors are wrong, and there's a ton of kibble on the underside. The lack of a waist swivel is frustrating, but I can see the engineering challenges in designing a transforming toy with this robot mode that would have one. Less forgivable is the lack of a bicep swivel because, y'know, the Studio Series version has it. And I definitely would have liked a bit more paint, especially on his back. Despite a few articulation issues and a less-than-good alt mode his robot mode is fantastic, though, and I've often said I'd rather they make sacrifices to the alt mode to get the robot mode right. This is far and away the most-accurate robot mode for Starscream I've seen on a toy that still transforms. It's better than the Studio Series, and better than the RotF Leader/MPM-1. At the end of the day MPM-10 isn't a perfect movie Starscream, but I think he is one worth the asking price. I wouldn't go out of your way to track one down, but if you happen to see him at your local Target he's a worthy impulse purchase.

Yeah... fans of transforming jets with clean alt modes might not like my next two reviews (over in the official section)...

Big Firebird's not-particularly Arcee doesn't really interest me, but I saw that's not the only thing they've been working on. Seems another project, Kalavinka, might be of interest to fans of a certain anime about jets that turn into robots... Doesn't sound like it'll be particularly large at around 7" in robot mode, but for a 3P toy it's not looking to be very expensive, either. Preorders are starting to pop up- ShowZ has it listed for $71 plus $4 shipping. If you're in the States and have been having issues with packages coming from China TFSource has it listed at $80, and The Chosen Prime for $95.

Well, back to my Target run. The middle-sized find was the Target-exclusive Studio Series Deluxe-class Leadfoot. You may recall from when I reviewed Studio Series Roadbuster that I wasn't really a fan of the Bayverse Wreckers and their brief and entirely forgettable role in Dark of the Moon. I picked up Roadbuster at the time largely due to the fact that I found him in a store and hadn't bought any new Transformers in awhile. I didn't have a preorder for nor a concrete plan to buy Studio Series Topspin. But then I found out that Leadfoot was getting a Studio Series release, and I suddenly wanted both him and Topspin. You see, all three DotM Wreckers have never really been released as a matching set. They all got Cyberverse/Legends-class releases, but Roadbuster and Leadfoot had the guns out, half-transformed "Stealth Force" look while Topspin was just a regular NASCAR vehicle. At the Deluxe-class scale it was Roadbuster who had the regular car look, Topspin in Stealth Force mode, and Leadfoot wasn't released in the States (his Japanese figure was Stealth Force style). Leadfoot and Roadbuster were released in the Human Alliance line, but Leadfoot was a normal car, Roadbuster was doing the Stealth Force thing, and Topspin was nowhere to be seen. The Studio Series is the first time all three are being released in the same scale all with matching Stealth Force-style alt modes. Of course, with his prominent Target deco, Leadfoot was announced as an exclusive. And by the time I decided I wanted one he was sold out online, so finding him in stores was quite pleasing. Like many of the Studio Series figures Leadfoot's sculpt is fairly on-point, with the most obvious exception being his shins which simply do not have the level of detail seen in the movie. But, like many of the other Studio Series figures, the biggest strike against movie accuracy comes down to a lack of paint. Sure, he's got the Target bullseye on his tummy, but that, the Impala brand, and the NASCAR logo on the outside of his lower legs is it for branding. The doors that make up his pecs are missing the black stripe and the prominent '42's. His legs don't have the Gillette branding. Even skipping the branding, his arms are uniformly black and gunmetal, and his legs are entirely red save for his toes and knee joints. In the movie, both sets of limbs were mostly gunmetal decorated with red panels from the car mode, and subsequently they'd all look better with more paint- red on spots on the arms, gunmetal on spots for the legs. Leadfoot comes with a few accessories. You get one gatling gun with a 5mm peg, two machine guns with slots on one side, two sets of missiles with slots on one side, and his dog. As near as I can tell, the dog's name was Steeljaw, which was was also the name of Lockdown's dogs in Age of Extinction. Steeljaw's sculpt is movie accurate, but he's a solid lump of plastic with zero articulation. Leadfoot's head seems to be on a ball joint that can look up a little and swivel, nothing really down or sideways. Shoulders are also ball joints that rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees. His wrists bend inward for transformation, but they don't swivel. No waist swivel, either. His hips are ball joints that can go a little under 90 degrees forward due to his big belly, and only a little bit backward due to his backpack, but laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, his knees bend 90 degrees, and he has no foot articulation. The missiles are meant to latch onto tabs in his armpits, and the machine guns similarly tab onto his arms. That matches promo artwork I've seen of Leadfoot. With it's 5mm peg he can hold the gatling gun as a pistol, but the instructions indicate that it properly belongs in one of the two 5mm peg holes above his shoulder joints. I find this interesting because I didn't see any art of Leadfoot with a shoulder gun, but Roadbuster has one in his artwork that the Studio Series toy didn't come with. Maybe Leadfoot can share? Steeljaw does nothing. I kind of wish they'd made some sort of leash for him that Leadfoot could hold. Leadfoot's alt mode is, as mentioned, a "Stealth Force"-style NASCAR Chevy Impala. I'd have preferred real-world vehicles, but I guess these alt modes tooling around Chicago for a few seconds is the definitive scene of the Wreckers in alt mode. Aesthetically it's a match with ol' Roadbuster here. Interestingly enough, I'd say that Leafoot uses slightly more of his robot parts on the vehicle, and winds up being easier to transform because he doesn't have Roadbuster's clearance issues stuffing his arms behind the side panels of the car. Like robot mode, Leadfoot's alt mode has a pretty good sculpt. It's got the gap in the front bumper, the two rectangles under the Impala brand, the little guns in the vents next to them, the jet turbines in the rear, and the jagged mechanical bits all over the sides. The missiles go on the sides of the hood, the machine guns on the sides of the roof, and the gatling gun on top of the roof, and that all checks out. Again, the problem is mostly one of missing branding and colors. The 42 on the side is right, but it's missing a ton of red behind hit. The panel in front the the NASCAR logo should be the same black as that panel, and it should have Gillette branding. Tums branding is missing from below it, on the red. The exhaust pipes behind the tires are left unpainted. The biggest problem I have, with both modes, is the red plastic. It's kind of softer and more pliable, but as a result anything that tabs into them doesn't hold well. The missiles in the armpits? Constantly fall off at the slightest touch. Same for their spot on the hood. The machine guns fit tightly onto his gunmetal forearms, but are easily knocked off the the roof. The red pec panels are what hold the front of his torso in place by receiving tabs from his shoulders, and you have to take care that they don't come loose when you're manipulating his arms. Ultimately, I feel the same about Leadfoot as I do about Roadbuster. They're mediocre figures of unessential, under-developed characters with minimal screen time. You're not really missing anything if you pass on either of them. But, I will say that between the two I like Leadfoot better than Roadbuster, and if you bought and liked Studio Series Roadbuster then you'll probably be happy with Leadfoot.

Hmm, I don't even see ER Smokescreen listed at Target now. Guess I'm stuck waiting to see if Amazon fulfills my preorder while I take my chances on finding one in-store.

Where'd you order from? I had him preordered with Amazon since way back in February, and my order just says "not yet shipped, we'll email you when we have an estimated delivery date." And with Pulse showing as pre-sold out I have no idea when I'll get my copy.

Stopped at Target to get a birthday card, but while I was there I figured I'd check out the Transformers aisle. I wasn't really expecting anything, since I have most of what I want preordered at either Amazon or Hasbro Pulse, but I actually found some interesting items in stock, and ultimately I made three purchases. I'll review them from smallest to largest, so we're starting with the Micromaster Astro Squad. The one on our left, with the red torso, is Fuzer... probably due to trademark reasons, because he's an update of the G1 Micromaster Phaser. The guy on our right, with the blue, is Blast Master, known in G1 as, well, Blast Master. Fuzer is somewhat close to G1 Phaser. Similar molded details on the head and torso. His torso is correctly red, his arms are white with a little black, his face is silver, and he's got a shuttle nose behind his head. All nice and G1. They added some new molded details to his shins, because he actually has those now. Then they made his pelvis a dark blue when it should be red, and his thighs are white instead of light blue. What I find most interesting is that he appears to be holding blue pistols. They're attached, but its an interesting detail that they didn't just mold, they painted. Blast Master is a bit less recognizable. The red helmet and blue face check out, as does the molded shape of his torso. His arms are mostly the same, although they added some gray paint to his shoulders that they didn't need to. But his torso is blue, instead of gray. His thighs are white instead of a light blue closer to Fuzer's guns than Blast Master's torso. and his lower legs are massive compared to the mostly-empty G1 toy. Same goes for the wings folded onto his back. Micromasters don't come with accessories, so we'll skip to articulation. Neither Micromaster has any head, waist, bicep, elbow, or wrist articulation. They have ball-jointed shoulders that rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. They both have ball-jointed hips that go a little under 90 degrees forward, only slightly backward, and maybe 30 degrees laterally. Blast Master seems like he might have slightly more lateral range than Fuzer, but it's hard to say for sure because (at least on my copy) his legs like to pop off the ball joints. They don't have dedicated thigh swivels, but you can move their legs a little around the ball joints at the hip (as long as they don't fall off). Both can bend their knees over 90 degrees; again, Blast Master a bit more than Fuzer. Neither have any foot articulation. In addition to the above, Fuzer's shoulder ball joints are hinged for transformation, so he can kind of shrug. He also technically has a waist swivel, but it's for transformation and mostly blocked by his back kibble in robot mode. Also, and this is a big issue, the backs of Blast Master's legs are largely hollow and he has no heel spurs, despite his having a backpack and very large wings. Getting him to stand at all without having him fall over backward is a challenge, let alone doing any kind of action poses. Back at the end of Siege I reviewed a pair of Decepticon Micromasters, the Battle Squad consisting of Direct-Hit and Power Punch. They were, if you recall, a pair of blue military vehicles that combined to form a larger truck. The Astro Squad has sort of the same thing going on, except they're much less successful at passing as two smaller vehicles. Fuzer, despite having molded detail on the back that could pass as thrusters or engines, looks like nothing but the front half of a space shuttle. And Blast Master, despite the tiny molded cockpit over the massive gap on his front, looks like nothing but the back half of a space shuttle. Well, they do at least both have flip-out 5mm pegs. Despite not being mentioned at all in their instructions that does permit you to use them as weapons, as the older Siege instructions always pointed out. But, of course, they're meant to combine into a single space shuttle. Here you can see how tiny he is compared to Sky Lynx (btw, what a great two months it's been for shuttle fans, first Sky Lynx and MMC's Blast Off, now this guy... maybe we can get a Galaxy Shuttle in Kingdom). Despite his diminutive size, I think his general proportions are a bit better than Sky Lynx, although from some angles he looks droopy, like his fuselage is gently curving downward. The layout of his engines are weird, too; he has two big bells where OMS bells should be, and a smaller thruster slightly above and between them, but none of the three main engine bells. I can mostly forgive it, though; the main engines would cover Blast Master's head and shoulders. On a larger figure perhaps they could fold away into the backpack/torso, but these guys are just Micromasters. And although he doesn't get a named shuttle like Sky Lynx's Magnificence, I do enjoy the fairly realistic colors and the old NASA logo on the OMS pods. Comparing the Astro Squad to Sky Lynx got me thinking... could he work with the base you make from the Lynx? Well, no. Not really. I have him perched there, but he's not locked in place. And he looks too tiny to work with the ramps. On the other hand, Micromasters are meant to play well with Deluxe-class "Modulator" figures, like Ironworks, which in turn can attach to a base like Sky Lynx or Omega Supreme. And that actually works pretty well for me, like a larger aerospace complex as a gestalt. I imagine it might work even better with Airwave (who I don't believe has been released yet), since Airwave looks more like an airport. Y'know, I keep saying that I'm not a big fan of the Micromasters in the War for Cybertron Trilogy, as I'm not convinced a pair of tiny robots with minimal articulation and super-simple transformations are actually worth $10. And I do manage to skip a lot of them especially the ones that turn into cars and trucks like the Hot Rod Patrol, the Roller Force, the Battle Patrol, or the Off Road Patrol. But every so often they sneak a set in that grabs my attention, like a pair of dudes that turn into a little space shuttle. Can I objectively recommend this set? Probably not. Fuzer's robot mode is ok, but Blast Master can barely stand. Subjectively, though? $10 is worth it for a tiny space shuttle.

Maybe more than that. I have an order with ShowZ that they shipped a month ago today, and there's no sign of it. Whatever shipping method he used only has tracking for USPS, and from they're apparently still waiting for it. I'll give another month then contact ShowZ for a refund.

Just my opinion, but I tend to like the size, engineering, and price of Magic Square's stuff, but the materials are usually better on Newage. I personally think that both Soundwaves look extremely good but I think Magic Square's Megatron looks far better than Newage's. It's kind of early to say for Optimus, but based on the image of their Magnus I'm not a fan of the MP-44 super square chest windows, short torso, and giant diaper pelvis, so I expect I'll prefer Magic Square's Optimus. That said, some people really like that super Sunbow style, and if you're in that camp you might like everything I hate about Newage's.

If you use a credit card they'll charge it when the figure comes in. If you use PayPal they'll invoice you when it comes in.

Yes. I reviewed it here, but the short answer is do it.

They're not upside now. The gray on the one side facing forward in bot mode and on top in plane mode matches the animation model, plus as you've noticed the slots for tabbing the wings to his arms are on the white side. The molded details are actually identical on both sides, but they're obscured by the gray paint on the top. But yes, the top is flat as a board. Maybe for cartoon accuracy, or maybe so they lie more evenly against the sides in truck mode? But you're right, that shape wouldn't be useful for generating lift. EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it... a plane that turns into a truck... I bet @David Hingtgen has some thoughts on this one.

I'd complain, but as much as I liked the story I never really liked the toys as I didn't think the art style translated well into 3D. It may be a reissue of the RiD Vehicon. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope for a white jet Vehicon, though. Actually, Breakdown will likely have a lot of people interested, because the only Breakdown released here in the States was a little Cyberverse toy. In Japan he got a proper Voyager-class figure, but apparently the cost to manufacture it was higher than normal. In Japan they just charged more, but in the States Hasbro couldn't afford to sell it at $20 or whatever a Voyager cost then. I myself imported Silas Breakdown, a black repaint with a new grill, just to have any Breakdown, but even then the cost of importing the original was too high. Today you're not likely to find a non-Silas Breakdown for under $500 on ebay. Side note... the Japanese name for the original release was War Breakdown. Like it says on this new box. So if I had to guess, i'll be a reissue of that figure, plus a reissue of either the FE or RID Vehicon.

In addition to Browning I picked up one other figure in TFSource's recent sale. It's KFC's Stratotanker, their MP Octane. KFC was obviously trying very hard for a cartoon-accurate Octane. They even painted part of his shins gray to match his thighs in an attempt to match the weird shape of Octane's legs in the cartoon. His pelvis has all the right geometric shapes molded into it, and he's even got the two white rectangles just above his waist. His torso has the white sun visor (pardon the askew marking light, I rotated it back into place later) breaking up a dark torso made from the truck cab. The proportions of his torso aren't exactly the same as the cartoon, but without faux parts the truck's nose can't just disappear like it did in the cartoon. That said, he's arms seem a tad too long, his head too small, and the sculpt of his head seems a bit derpy. While I chose to photograph him with his Titans Return counterpart for an interesting visual comparison, size-wise he's the same height as MP Starscream (assuming the new one won't be bigger), which makes him smaller than KFC or DX9's Blitzwing, smaller than DX9's Astrotrain, and a little bigger than Fancy Cell's Astrotrain. Then there's this. He's got a backpack, which I guess I can forgive, but he's got prominent armatures running from his backpack up the sides of his body to his shoulders. I can't help but think it looks a bit messy. Stratotanker comes with a couple of accessories. You get an alternate yelling face, and a screwdriver you can use to take apart the head to perform the face swap (as well as correct some factory arm misassembly). You get a flight stand that, aside from the KFC logo molded into it, is identical to the one that came with XTB's Scourge. You get a shield, because the G1 toy had one, although this one isn't a partsforming bit. And you get a purple rifle with a sculpt that isn't far off the cartoon but seems more toy-accurate than anything. The gun does have a button and a light-up gimmick, but I don't feel like taking it apart and looking to see what batteries go in it. Stratotanker's head is on a ball joint, and he can look up a little (more if you want to lift the flap his neck connects to; it's not locked down in any way), nothing really down, but some sideways tilt in addition to swiveling. His shoulders rotate on a ratchet, then they can move around 60 degrees laterally on a friction hinge plus a second ratchet provides an extra 90 degrees of lateral motion. His biceps and wrists can swivel. His elbows, well, they're a little weird. In the above image his left arm is correct, and like that his elbow can bend a little under 90 degrees despite being double-jointed. If you rotate his bicep 180 degrees, then do the same for his hands, despite technically being backward he'll be able to bend 180 degrees at the elbow to touch his own shoulders. It just doesn't look as pretty. There's a little up/down tilt in his wrists, and his hands are the old-school KFC/XTB hands, where the base of the thumb and each finger is a tiny ball joint, and each digit has two additional knuckles that are hinged but not pinned. Gonna be honest here, while I like good articulated hands like what FT does I'd rather have MP carbot-style typewriter hands with the fingers molded as one piece and the only articulation is at the base than KFC's fragile, floppy hands. Anyway... he's got a ratcheted waist swivel. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, and almost 90 degrees backward on ratchets. Problem here is that there's quite a bit of space between clicks (four clicks goes from stock straight to 90 degrees laterally), and between clicks he feels kind of wobbly. I like a good ratchet, but especially on outward hip movement I'll take a good friction joint over a bad ratchet any day. His thighs swivel. Now, his knees bend 90 degrees on a ratchet, but for some reason a little over halfway up his thigh there's another ratcheted hinge that also bends 90 degrees (no, it's not used for transformation). And then we come to what I dislike the most about the robot mode- the feet. They can tilt down, he's got a toe tilt up, and they can pivot 90 degrees, which doesn't sound too bad until your realize that the entire figure rests on a tiny pin hinge connected to the (diecast) foot by a single rivet at the back. Worse, that pin hinge is actually part of a larger thin armature. It's tabbed into the leg at the blue arrows, the but true connection is all the way up by the screw marked in orange. As I understand it issues with this part on review samples caused KFC to switch materials and/or change the design a bit to make it stronger and more flexible, but I can't say I'm crazy about a design that relies on such small joints on a such a thin armature for something as important as standing on his feet. I digress (again). Stratotanker can hold his gun, but I had to file out the slot in his palm for the tab on the handle to actually fit. As for the shield, there's a slot on the back that fits over a tab on his forearm. Note that it's meant for the tab on the "correct" outside of his forearm; if you turned his arms around to get more articulation it looks like it might fit on the tab on that side, but it'll sit lower, and I didn't bother to test it because (spoilers) I have no use for the shield. Because, yes, Stratotanker turns into a an airliner. The engineering here is, with the exception of a few flaps on sliders and the multiple hinges that connect his arms to his backpack surprisingly straightforward. Again, it's pretty cartoon accurate. The front is a little more streamlined, lacking the bit of a hump where the cockpit is, it's got that bit of gray paint on top where his shins end up, his arms curl under the wings instead of sticking straight out like the G1 toy and cartoon model, and he's missing the blue swoosh on the sides of the fuselage. On the other hand he's got a tail without partsforming, and there's no big wheels under the nose or sticking out of the spine. From some angles the plane actually looks pretty good, I think. Not a real-world accurate Boeing 767, mind you, but sleek enough with molded doors and translucent windows and without much in the way of obvious truck or robot kibble. From other angles you notice that bit of tire in the vertical stabilizer or the gap in the fuselage a little past the wings. Or the fact that, just like the G1 toy, the truck cab forms rear of the plane and tail, and from just the right angle you can see the truck's windshield. To be fair, though, it's kind of G1 toy accurate, and of the five takes on this character I can think of (G1, Classics Tankor, Titans Return Octone, Unique Toys' Provider, and this) Stratotanker is probably the most cartoon-accurate, it's in the running for cleanest plane, and the one plane that gives it the most competition in my book has a worse tail. Top looks good, save for the aforementioned gap in the fuselage and some double hinges near the tail. From the underside there's a larger gap, some obvious truck kibble, and some recognizable robot arms and thighs. Also some landing gear; one under the nose, and one each in his robot armpits. Of course, you can leave the landing gear folded in and tab Stratotanker onto the flight stand. Now, I think that actually looks pretty good. Not perfect, but considering how many triple changers suffer for their gimmick I can cut Stratotanker some slack and accept the plane mode as one of the best we've gotten from an Octane toy. The plane's tail might not be made from a partsforming shield like the G1 toy, but if you haven't tossed that shield into a drawer or put it back in the box yet you can store it on the plane mode. There's a tab on the spine, and you just clip it on. It doesn't look good there. It seems a bit pointless that they included it, because there's nowhere to store his gun in plane mode that I can find. Not even on the stand, with those small pillars on the back. When I'd first seen Stratotanker's alt truck mode I didn't like it. Even if it's G1 toy accurate the wings just laying flat across the sides of the tanker trailer seemed lazy, especially when neither Unique Toys' Provider nor Titans Return Octone did it. But then I went back and looked at the Sunbow model and sure enough his truck mode was drawn with the wings folded onto the sides of the trailer. So, points for cartoon accuracy, then. Speaking of cartoon accuracy, Stratotanker goes for the black roof and nose and gray sides of the animation model instead of the white sides and striped nose of the G1 toy. The cab in general is more realistic than the G1 toy, with fuel tanks on the sides, smokestacks, a proper grill, and lights. He also doesn't have his robot arms just hanging off his sides. It'd be cartoon accurate if he did, but I'm glad he doesn't. His wheels are plastic, which seems like a bit of a letdown on a 3P MP figure, but he rolls well, and the cab is articulated. That is, unless you store the gun on the underside, which you can do, but it'll bock him from turning. There's no partsforming chrome section for the trailer, but once again you can mount the shield if you want. Honestly, as it's not really useful in any of his modes I'll be putting it in storage with the spare face and instruction book. The cab isn't just articulated, mind you. There's a small switch behind the cab that will release it from the trailer, and the back of the truck has some molded skid plating and a fifth wheel. The trailer, meanwhile, has small fold-down landing gear to prop up the front when the cab isn't connected. Now, it's the sort of gimmick that I love in truck mode, but there is a part of me that wonders if his arms would have needed the complex armatures if they hadn't included a gimmick that allowed most of his torso to separate from the rest of his body. OK, down to brass tacks... at the time of writing there aren't a lot of options for an MP Octane. Really, it's this or Unique Toys' Provider. From a purely aesthetic and objective point of view Stratotanker is much more cartoon accurate as Provider is fairly stylized in all three modes (especially his alt modes). It's been four years since Provider came out, it took two years after that for Stratotanker to provide an alternative, and there hasn't been a hint of anyone else doing the character in the last two years. What Stratotanker does for me is crosses a character off the list, and I do like both of his alt modes. Thing is, some of the engineering here seems like KFC had some ambitious ideas but they could have been executed better, and his robot mode suffers for it. His sides are messy. The design of his feet, with the thin parts and tiny pin hinges, is awful. I hate the KFC hands. The materials don't feel great, and the ratchets have entirely too much play between clicks. I feel like when choosing an Octane I had to choose between build quality and cartoon accuracy, I went for accuracy, and there's a tiny part of me that wonders if I shouldn't have gone with Provider instead. Stratotanker is a little disappointing. Not as bad as Ditka, mind you, but still worse than most of the other MP Decepticons in that Detolf. So do I recommend Stratotanker. That's a tough call. I mean, he's not awful, but the quality is definitely below what most 3Ps today are doing (including Keith's own XTB brand). If there was some sign that anyone- Fans Toys, MMC, DX9, Transform Element, anyone- were doing an MP Octane I'd say no and tell you to wait. But with no new competitors in sight and the only one from the past being very stylized this may in fact be the best Octane available.

Runabout is definitely coming. Question is when? Also, this is interesting. Some kind of two-pack to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Transformers Prime. Looks to contain Breakdown and a Vehicon, but whether they're reissues or new molds or what I don't know. Also curious to see if there will be more Prime anniversary sets.

And if you don't care about 4K (or physical discs) there will also be a $299 Xbox Series S. And either version is slightly more tempting since Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass service will apparently include EA Play at no extra charge. Personally, adding EA Play is a big plus for me since I already subscribe to Xbox Game Pass for PC. I wasn't planning on getting the Series X as I rarely touch my Xbox One, but as Microsoft expands their games-as-service plans perhaps I'll consider a new Xbox some time after launch.

With last week's announcement of a Gen Selects Cordon I really needed a Clampdown. Couldn't wait on Hasbro. And since you can't get Cordon without taking Spinout, and since I'd already preordered Tigertrack, looks like I'll have both molds in red, yellow, and police.

I can't blame this one on 2020. I loved the Venture Bros, but honestly with the long gaps between seasons I lost track of it and quit watching after maybe season 5. I'm honestly less surprised to hear it's been canceled than the fact that the cancellation is recent. I'll pick up a complete series Blu-ray box set if they put one out.