mikeszekely

I'd imagine this is because AT has multiple designers working on the line. They even have their designers listed in the box.

I did have Psycho as a kid, and I played with him long after I quit playing with the other Gobots, because he was just such a cool car. But as long as we're talking about the Super Gobots with that basic transformation I'm going to bring up Herr Fiend. Because he had a monocle and a German accent. Oh, shoot, that's right... Psycho was originally from Space Adventure Cobra, not Revenge of Cronos. There goes my hope of a DX version... I thought the eye's drawn on the cartoon were pretty bad, and I loved that there were little people inside the toy, so I don't really want any more of an update than more articulation... but now that we're talking about him and I'm remembering how awesome he already was I'm kind of thinking about lurking on ebay tomorrow and seeing if I can't find one in good shape.

LG makes good hardware; I used to have a V20. I think their biggest problem is that Samsung has managed to position themselves as the brand if you don't want an iPhone, and with the push to minimize bezels it's harder to draw attention to your hardware based on looks. It's too hard to make a phone stand out and give a minimally-informed user an incentive to pick one brand over another or any brand over Apple and Samsung. Shame, too. The G7 ThinQ looks pretty nice.

Well, you can't have a Prime without a Megatron, eh? So this is The Last Knight Voyager-class Megatron. Maybe because Optimus has all that bright red, blue, and silver, or because he's had two movies, or because he's the hero, or whatever other reason, but it was pretty obvious to me that Prime's toy wasn't right and I just had to dig up a few images to confirm what my brain already recognized. But Megatron, by virtue of less screen time or a more drab predominantly gunmetal color, just isn't as recognizable to me. So I look at this toy, I see he's got his armored knight look, his three-toed feet, his fusion cannon on his arm, the horns on his mostly round head, the mostly gumetal color, and I think, "yeah, this checks out." And, for the most part, it does. Most of the sculpted detail is fairly accurate, and where it's not (shoulders sit a little high, right forearm is a little off, inside of both forearms is a little off, hip skirts are totally different, fusion cannon is a little small, jet kibble on his calves and back) seems to be concessions toward his transformation. And with color, they went a little overboard with the gold where it is applied and there are a few spots that are missing some gold, but that's about it. Arguably the biggest deviation is on his head, where he's got some recessed parts that are red inside his head that should be gunmetal, and the red should really be more like warpaint slopped on the side of his face. All told, when we're talking about minor discrepancies that I have to image search to even been aware of I think they're the kind of stuff I can easily overlook on a Voyager-class, mass-market toy. His sole accessory is his sword, and unlike Prime's it doesn't look too bad. The molded detail is pretty accurate, with subtle paintwork to break up the gunmetal plastic. I do wish they'd have included his shield, though, so he'd be more evenly-matched with Prime in a melee fight. Then again, Megatron does have a fusion cannon, which is not removable by the way. Megatron's head is on a ball joint and can swivel and look up a bit, but due to his large chin and the molding around his collar he can't really tilt his head or look down. His shoulders can rotate, and panels on the sides of his shoulder armor swing out to allow for 90 degrees of lateral shoulder movement. His biceps swivel, and his elbows can bend something like 120 degrees. His wrists can't swivel, but due to transformation they can bend inward, or away from the fusion cannon, which is always nice to have on characters with big guns on their forearms. No waist swivel. Hips can move 90 degrees forward, a little less than 90 laterally, and only a bit backward due to his back kibble on universal joints. His thighs can rotate, and his knees can bend 90 degrees. He's got a transformation joint in his calf that bends his lower leg backward a bit, but that's not really useful articulation unless you don't mind his leg looking like it's broken. He does have ankle pivots, though, and 90 degrees worth. This might have been something they tossed in just for transformation, but I'm certainly not going to complain about the reason why it's there as long as it is there. He holds his sword fine in either fist. Alternatively, you can use a tab on one side of the hilt to plug the sword onto his back. Being that Megatron turns into a Cybertronian jet with next to no screen time it was a little harder for me figure out how accurate his alt mode is. I had to dig up concept art because I couldn't find even one clear still from the movie. And, as with the robot mode, the sculpt is generally fine, although his half-hidden legs add a little extra bulk in places and he's missing some spikey bits around the too-small... am I supposed to assume they're intakes? I mean, they look like jet exhausts that are on backward, but what pictures I could find do indicate that backwards jet exhausts are movie-accurate. I think the main gripe would be less about the sculpt and more about how overboard they went with the gold paint. Truthfully, I'm not even exactly sure that it's wrong so much as it's more of a brown mustard color than the subtle metallic gold used on the CGI. But while they were slathering on the mustard gold they seem to have forgotten the Cybertronian that should be on his wings and the intakes behind the cockpit. There's really not a lot to say about his jet mode beyond commenting on the aesthetics, because it doesn't really do anything. No landing gear. The cockpit doesn't open. The sword can be tabbed in to the top of the jet. Technically, you could tab it in the same slot used for robot mode, which is under the nose, but a jet with a huge sword extending from the nose (at a slightly upward angle) isn't as intimidating as you'd imagine. I don't have a stand laying around that might be compatible, but it does look like there's a small hexagonal hole on the underside of the jet that I'd assume might be compatible with some kind of stand. Between the two TLK Voyagers I have (three, if you recall that Studio Series Thundercracker is actually Nitro Zeus), Megatron is definitely the superior figure. I don't think the little bit of extra kibble detracts too badly from either mode, he's reasonably well-articulated (I'll take ankle pivots over wrist or waist swivels any day), and his transformation is pretty quick and fun. From the handful of reviews I've watched I'd venture that this is actually a better toy than the Leader-class. If the paint had been just a little better and a little more accurate this Megatron could have easily been a Studio Series figure.

Fixed that for you. Seriously, same basic transformation, but instead of getting Bumblebee you end up with a car so awesome that I still wish it were real.

Since I really enjoyed the Studio Series I wondered if this renewed effort on Hasbro's part was unique to the Studio Series or if it was a product of Hasbro raising prices. See, the shift to $20 Deluxes and $30 Voyagers didn't begin with the Studio Series, it began with The Last Knight (and, for what it's worth, there's some scuttlebutt going around that all of the toys for the upcoming Bumblebee Movie will carry the Studio Series label). So out of sheer curiosity I picked up Voyager-class Premier Edition Optimus Prime. He's a head taller than Studio Series Optimus... is Optimus supposed to be bigger in this form? I have no idea. So maybe this will work with your Studio Series figures. A criticism I had with Studio Series Prime was that it was a pretty good, pretty accurate toy, if only it had a little more paint. From the start, I can and will say the same thing about TLK Prime, but even more so. Although he's certainly sporting some more truck kibble than his CGI counterpart, especially on his back, the molded detail on his arms, legs, and torso is honestly very screen accurate. And you can see they did use some paint, like some silver on his torso, shins, biceps, and crotch flap, and a little blue on his forearms and pecs and collar. However, the paint is almost jarring because it's like they quit halfway through. While silver on the front of biceps, but nowhere else on his arms or his thighs? His forearms and the tops of his hands need more blue (we'll ignore, for now, all the missing flames), as do his hip skirts and parts of his shoulders. The tops of his feet are missing some red. Somehow, the missing paint seems all the worse when you realize they wasted paint on spots that didn't need it. The silver in the middle of his crotch flap? Should be blue. The blue on his pecs? Aside from blue flames, his pecs should be red. And the blue they painted on his collar should really be silver. I ordered the Reprolabels set for this guy, because it does fix some of my complaints, but I think I might actually try painting some of this guy. And you should know that I'm terrible at painting toys, so if I'm willing to try you know I think the paint on this guy is wrong. As far as accessories go, he comes with his sword and shield. Just like the figure itself both accessories are sporting paint, orange on the sword and blue on the shield, and just like the figure itself the paint is wrong. Prime's head is on a ball joint for swiveling, looking up a little, down a little less, and miniscule lateral tilt. His shoulders rotate and have a hinge for 90 degrees of lateral movement. Hinged swivels keep the shoulder armor out of the way. If you unplug the shoulder, as if you were starting to transform him, you can fake a butterfly joint. His biceps swivel, and his elbow bends 90 degrees. No wrist articulation. His waist swivels. His hips are actually universal joints, and they can go 120-130 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward before his backpack gets in the way, and you can get 90 degrees laterally if you bring the hips forward a little first. He has thigh swivels. His knees only bend about 45 degrees due to kibble on his calves. No articulation in the feet. The sword slides into either fist, no issues. Both foreams have a peg hole on the outside that you can plug his shield into. If you don't want him wielding his sword there's a slot on his back you can slide the sword into. There's nowhere to put the shield but on his arm, though. And truck mode. I couldn't tell you why, but I thought AoE/TLK's truck mode always looked like it would be smaller than his previous movie form (although I read that a Western Star 5700 XE is only an inch shorter than a Peterbilt 379 with the extended cab, so I guess not really). The extra aerodynamic roof would make him taller, sure, but I think it's clear looking at other details that these figures are not the same scale in truck mode. Perhaps a Studio Series version of TKL Prime would fare better. Scale aside, I think Hasbro did a pretty good job here. Naturally, there's a lack of paint, most notably on the rims and the tool boxes, but nothing actually seems wrong. Even the stripe of blue through the grill, which bugged me at first, is actually correct. Aside from the fact that most of what you see is a kibble shell (and to be totally fair, it's not like the CGI model gave Hasbro a lot to work with here), there's not a lot to complain about as far as the alt mode is concerned. He's even got storage for his accessories. The shield can plug into the 5th wheel, and the sword slides between some grooved tabs on the underside of the truck. Long story short, no, it's not as good as the Studio Series Voyagers, but it's not exactly bad either. Better than recent Voyager-class figures in the Generations line, anyway. I'm just inclined to be a little harder on it than it maybe deserves because of the haphazard way Hasbro decided where and what color to paint. If you want to pick him up I don't think you'll be too disappointed, especially if you're handy with an airbrush, but if you skip him you're not really missing out, either.

It definitely has an artistic style similar to Revenge of Cronos, anyway, from what I have seen. But I couldn't get through more than one episode... rag on Gobots all you want, Revenge of Cronos is pretty awful. And yes, DX Scooter Robo. And DX Supercar Robo and Gyro Robo. And I really want to say DX Porsche Robo, but I really don't see that happening for licensing reasons.

I wonder if this will affect Boom Comics' license? Their Power Ranger books have been way better than I imagined they ever could get, but Hasbro seems pretty content to give IDW their brands.

While a well-done ball joint isn't always bad (I actually really like it when heads are attached with a ball joint in the base of the head and another ball joint where the neck attaches to the torso), and I'll agree that anything smaller than an Voyager/MP car doesn't need ratchets (and that ratchets for lateral hip movement are often a bad choice for lateral hip movement), I still prefer hinges, swivels, and universal joints. I especially dislike it when a single ball joint at the end of a bicep pulls double duty as the elbow bend and the bicep swivel.

I'll have to go back and look for more info, but they've basically admitted as much. It's not exactly that people don't like cheaper figures, it's a lack of perceived value, that people aren't really interested in paying $40-$50 for Deluxe-sized toys full of ball joints and hands like Fansproject's Stunticons. I think that DX Bike Robo performed better for them. It's bigger, it's got more paint, more accessories, and better joints, and those are all things people are willing to pay more for. Until I decided to buy regular Bike Robo (long after buying the DX one) I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on the smaller ones. Even now, with my nostalgia for Gobots rising, I definitely couldn't get myself to buy more than the main six Gobots in the smaller size. But I'll buy a DX toy of every Gobot I had as a kid, plus any that I didn't but remember from the cartoon, especially if they keep including cartoon-accurate Gobot faces.

The little one, yeah. No handlebar shoulders. Which means the DX version was changed to be more Gobots/toy accurate. As for Eagle Robo, the anime version is basically Leader-1 with the toy head, so it's not unreasonable to think DX Eagle Robo might be more Leader-1-ish. And Dive-Dive, please.

I don't think it's quite as far off as you do, but I agree that it's not an animation accurate (it's actually the shoulders that throw things off for me more than the chest). If DX Bike Robo is a Masterpiece Cy-Kill, Eagle Robo is more like a modernized Classics/Generations Leader-1. And, to be totally fair, the smaller Bike Robo wasn't as cartoon accurate as the DX version, with different markings on his pelvis, a lack of black on his abs, and no handle bar shoulders in robot mode. So I'm definitely hoping that DX Eagle Robo is more Gobots accurate.

Tonight I'm going to tip my hat to @Kuma Style, because I'm not into Beast Wars and I was seriously thinking about passing on this guy, but Kuma's enthusiasm won me over. This, then, is Gorilla, Generation Toy's Optimus Primal. Two things we're going to get out of the way. First, Gorilla is bigger than the official MP-32/38 Optimus Primal. I don't know if MP-32 is supposed to be in-scale with MP-10, given how much smaller the Maximals and Predacons were than the Autobots and Decepticons, but Gorilla is the same size as MP-10 or GT's version of Optimus Prime. Second, unlike MP-32, Gorilla isn't striving for show accuracy. Instead, the design comes from a book of reimagined Beast Wars and G1 characters with robotic animal alt modes called T-Beast. And, in robot mode at least, Gorilla is extremely faithful to the T-Beast design. There's a few spots on the drawing that are a gunmetal color that are left black on Gorilla, but I supposed the gunmetal color could feasibly be shading on the drawing and not intentionally gray, and he's missing some red on the backs of his hands. His eyes, not that you can tell from the picture, are red instead of yellow (but that actually might be a nod to the cartoon). Gorilla isn't quite as curvy as the art, and his chest protrudes a bit more. But that's the reality of making a transforming toy and not just drawing one, I'd say. The point is, I like this design. Owing to the simplicity of CGI at the time, Optimus Primal's character model was kind of smooth robot biceps and thighs with smooth gorilla parts on his body, arms, and shoulders. The T-Beast design takes a lot of cues from that version of Primal, but makes the entire thing much more robotic in appearance. While it's clear from the Beast Wars show that Optimus Primal is a separate entity in the G1/Beast Wars canon, the T-Beast design is almost like it's from a universe where Optimus Prime is Optimus Primal. Gorilla comes with a pair of swords that seem to be very similar to the ones Primal had in the show, if a bit less curved. Rather than connect together to make a double-bladed weapon, the blades come off their hilts and attach to a second handle designed to look like the two swords stuck together. And, if you're not a fan of mouths on characters named Optimus, there's an alternate toy-style mouthplate sans mouth hole, which I'm immediately swapping to. Gorilla's articulation is good, when he's not getting into his own way. His head is on a hinged swivel, so he can turn it, look up a ton, and look down a good bit. The swivel is mounted on another swivel, though, so he can also tilt his head to the sides even though his head isn't on a ball joint. One thing I don't like here, and I don't know if this is my copy or if they're all like this, but there's a certain range that's unfortunately right around the looking straight ahead position where his head wants to pop down, almost like a ratchet. Speaking of ratchets, his shoulders rotate on ratchets, and they can move laterally a little over 90 degrees on ratchets. He's got dedicated forward butterfly joints. His biceps swivel, and he's got 90 degrees of ratcheted elbow bend. His wrists can swivel, and they can also bend inward (toward the red part of his forearm). His thumb is on a ball joint, with one pinned hinge. His first two fingers are individually articulated, pinned at the base with two additional pinned knuckles. The other two fingers are molded as one piece, pinned at the base with one more pinned knuckle and a molded curl where the other knuckle would be. He's got a waist swivel and a ratcheted ab crunch. His hips can go forward and backward 90 degrees on ratchets, and 90 degrees laterally on stronger ratchets. His thighs have a swivel, but due to the way his thighs are molded and fit over the hips the range of the swivel is very limited. His knees are double-jointed, ratcheted at both ends, and good for 130-140 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down, with a little extra tilt at the toe, and although the pistons on his shins don't actually work when you move his foot they do slide up and down on his shin, which sort of creates the illusion that they work. Finally, he has ankle pivots, but it's fairly restricted as well. He holds his swords just fine, eschewing the traditional tab on the handle that goes into a slot on the palm for a very similar peg on the handles that fit peg holes on his palms. The cannons on his shoulders have hinges so they can be aimed up and down. If you don't want them deployed, it is possible to transform them back into his backpack. Speaking of his back, there are tabs on his backpack. They fit into slots on the blue part of the swords, allowing you to store the swords on his back. As previously noted, the blades can be removed and fit into a special handle that accommodates both blades. The peg isn't centered between the blue ends, though, and I think it looks awkward in his hand. Although the double-blade handle has the same slots as the regular handles the double-bladed weapon is too long to hang on his back. BTW, if you're wondering how I knew Gorilla's dead eyes are red and not yellow, well, they light up. The battery isn't included and the instructions don't even mention them, but I had some CR1025 batteries laying around (maybe for the Gigasaur's swords?) and they fit, so there you go. I don't have any other Optimus Primal toys so I'm not super familiar with a "normal" transformation for Primal. What I will say is that Gorilla's transformation is pretty clever. It's pretty obvious that the big squarish center of his chest becomes his gorilla head, minus the flap that folds down over his gorilla crotch. His gorilla chest unfurls from inside his robot chest. His backpack doesn't just hide away his shoulder guns, it' unfurls and expands, with the thrusters at the base of his robot back coming down to form his gorilla butt cheeks. His legs compactify, and his forearms get longer and expose new joints even as his shoulder pads fold down to cover the old ones. It's one of the more simple tranformations GT has come up with, although you may find yourself needing a tool to push out some panels if your fingers are as fat as mine. Now, aesthetically the beast mode isn't perfectly T-Beast accurate... his arm is obscuring a lot of his torso, but we can clearly see a black chest and a head that blends into a larger humped back. Proportionally I think he actually looks a bit more like MP-32 or the cartoon, except instead of an organic gorilla he's a robotic gorilla. And, I have to say, a huge part of the reason I wasn't interested in Beast Wars in the first place was because I was turned off by the organic alt modes. If this had been Primal's alt mode in the show I might not have waited over a decade to actually watch it. For a size comparison I left Op Ex in robot mode, as I think that's a more useful gauge of size against a gorilla than a truck. If you guys really want to see a gorilla with a truck, though, just let me know. Gorilla's ape head can look up, but not really down, and it can swivel. His mouth can open. His shoulders are identical to his robot mode, and the butterfly joint is extra helpful getting him into a knuckle-walking position. As I mentioned, his shoulder pad folding down over the bicep locks his robot elbow and bicep swivel, but extending his forearm for ape mode reveals a new bicep swivel just below his robot elbow and single-hinge friction elbow good for 120 degrees or so, exposing some silver-painted mechanical detail in the process. His wrists and hands are the same. Properly transformed, with the flap pegged into his crotch and the backpack fully in place to form his gorilla butt does eliminate the ab crunch and waist swivel, but you can unpeg and move them to fake a pose. Thigh swivel is still limited. Technically there's nothing locking his hips or knees in place, but too much movement will start to decompress his legs. Ankle pivot is still limited, but he's still got some up/down tilt on his feet with some additional up/down tilt on the toes. His big toe/thumb can rotate at the base, and there are a pair of hinges along its length. It's actually pretty fun getting some gorilla-esque poses in this mode. Because his gorilla hands are his robot hands, he can still wield his swords in ape mode. The only catch is that the gorilla elbow bends so that the side of his robot arm, with the wrist guard, would be the back of his arm. As such he has to hold the sword at an angle so that the pommel can get around his wrist guard. The tabs on his backpack are still available for storage as well. And, just like you can store the shoulder guns for robot mode, if you really want to you can deploy them in ape mode (although they don't have a lot of room to get around his head). I have some issues with Gorilla. In terms of quality it's not one of GT's better releases. The plastic, while solid, has a different feeling to it that I don't want to say is objectively worse or cheaper but subjectively feels worse and cheaper. The black panels on the insides of his thighs keep popping off. There's no diecast. If you're really into Beast Wars you might want something smaller and more show accurate, in which case MP-32 is probably already on your shelf. And all of that is without touching on the controversy around using the T-Beast design in the first place. Despite his flaws, I'm finding that I'm having more fun with him than, especially in ape mode, than I expected. He's a great figure if you're looking for something to keep on your desk and mess around with. And I think I liked the Beast Wars story enough, and I think Optimus Primal is iconic enough, that I'm glad to have a representation with a robotic ape mode instead of an organic one, but that might just be me. All I can say is that if the design isn't working for you than you can probably pass on this figure without any regrets, but if you like the design then I'd recommend the toy.

How do you feel about silver paint? It looks like all the silver parts on the smaller Action Toys Bike Robo are silver/gray plastic, but all his silver parts are painted on the DX version. I'd guess that if they do a DX Drill Robo his drill head would be painted silver. I think you're actually touching on the real reason for the DX line... I don't know how true or not this is, but Action Toys has supposedly been listening to the fans, and value (as related by price against size) is supposedly one of the biggest complaints across the line. But if Action Toys really is doing the DX line for Gobots fans, ie me, I'm certainly not complaining! Based on my affection for Gobots and the quality of DX Bike Robo I'll happily put money down the minute preorders open. If they really do include Hanna-Barbera Leader-1 faces that's just icing on the cake. You know what else I'd buy if Action Toys put it in their DX line (besides almost every Gobot)? A DX Bike Robo with in these colors: See, now I'm curious. I'm going to go ahead and order the smaller Bike Robo, maybe Eagle Robo. But I think that'll definitely be it for the smaller ones. Actually, you know what's interesting? I love Transformers, I've bought a ton in the Classics/Universe/Generations lines, a ton in the Prime line, a couple of Animated and Movie figures, some official MPs, and plenty of 3P. But I don't really have a strong desire to go back and get the old G1 toys. I have a reissue Prime, reissue Insecticons, reissue Soundwave, plus an original Seaspray and Hun-Grrr. I'm not really attached to any of them, partly because the Insecticons, Seaspray, and Hun-grrr are the only ones I had as a kid, partly because they were fairly poorly articulated by modern standards and didn't often resemble their on-screen counterparts. Gobots, though... while I don't have any left from when I was a kid (and weren't really any better in the articulation department), I had a ton of them and I have more nostalgic feels about them. I managed to find a complete Cy-Kill loose on ebay that isn't too obscenely priced (about $40), so I'm buying him. ...ah, what the heck. Might as well drop the extra $14 for a Super Gobots Cy-Kill that still has his rubber tires. But that's all! ...until next month, when I get paid again. Then I suspect I'll be back on Ebay, looking for more Gobots.

Alright, this has been a very long time coming, since I've technically owned this figure for over two months but I'd waited until something else came in to put me over the $150 mark so I wouldn't have to pay for shipping. This is Action Toys' Machine Robo DX Bike Robo. Now I'd skipped all the releases from Action Toys' other, non-DX Machine Robo line because while they looked like neat little updates on the original toys I kind of felt like they were too small for the asking price, and the engineering reminded me too much of older Fansproject/Maketoys efforts like their Stunticons, Technobots, and Protectobots. To be fair, that's probably fine for figures that size, but that just goes back to my first reason. Bottom line, I wanted something less like a Fansproject Stunticon and more like a TFM Stunticon, a toy that didn't just feel like a cool modern update of a very old toy, I wanted something that was to that old toy what MP-10 was to the G1 Optimus Prime toy. And what Action Toys' has given us with this DX line is a Bike Robo that is between MP Ironhide and an MP car in height (for reference, their first Bike Robo was a little smaller than a Hasbro Deluxe). So far, so good, yeah? And aesthetically... well, I've never seen Revenge of Cronos. I mean, I watched the first episode, but I thought it was pretty boring and didn't see anything that looked familiar so I quit. But I did watch Challenge of the Gobots as a kid, and I honestly had more Gobots toys than Transformers growing up. So, let's skip to the accessories for a minute. In the box, Bike Robo comes with a blank white plate, two replacement fists, and two fire effect parts. The silver on the fists is paint, not plastic. And the effect parts are a bendy, rubbery translucent plastic. He doesn't come with the chain base that Action Toys' other non-DX Machine Robo figures do, nor does he come with the axe weapon that came with the smaller Action Toys' Bike Robo. Taped outside the box was a little bag, and in that bag are three alternate faces for Bike Robo. Three unmistakably Hanna-Barbera Gobots Cy-Kill faces, one neutral, one snarling (complete with yellow teeth), and one smirking. Not only are these faces not in the box, they're not shown in any of the pictures on the box or acknowledged in any way in the instructions. Maybe the faces are only going out with Bike Robo shipments in some markets? It's worth mentioning that Action Toys' has a license to produce new Machine Robo toys based on the Revenge of Cronos anime, and DX Bike Robo's default face is the face Bike Robo has in the anime. To my knowledge, they don't have any licenses with Hanna-Barbera or Hasbro or whoever else for Gobots, so another guess would be that that the faces are included separately to avoid any overt notion that the DX Bike Robo box actually contains a Masterpiece Cy-Kill. Anyway, we'll just swap with one of the Cy-Kill faces... ...holy cow, it's a Mastepiece Cy-Kill! And really, it's a very accurate, very good-looking Cy-Kill. In fact, for the rest of this review I'm calling him Cy-Kill and not Bike Robo. I've got him here with Unique Toys' Salmoore for comparison, and while Salmoore has a nice "what if Cy-Kill was a Transformer?" aesthetic there's no questioning that Cy-Kill is the more cartoon-accurate toy. The lighter blue used in Revenge of Cronos and the first Action Toys' Bike Robo is replaced with a darker, more Cy-Kill blue. He's got the handlebars on his shoulders, which neither the smaller Action Robo Bike Robo toy nor the Revenge of Cronos anime had visible, but not on the silver part like the original or Super Gobots toys, on the red like the Gobots cartoon. His arms are still molded with that coil shape, and his hands have Cy-Kill's rounded clamp-claws. His chest is a proper red with yellow squares flanking a yellow rectangle. His abs are still white with two vertical black lines. His red pelvis has the proper trio of yellow rectangles, and the middle one is correctly higher than the others. His hips are designed with the rounded shape of the original toy. Yellow-painted trapezoids sit on his knees where the original toy had stickers. Molded detail on the outside of his legs are painted a gunmetal color, which again seems to be more in-line with the Gobots cartoon than the original toys or Revenge of Cronos. The biggest departures from the Gobots cartoon are that DX Bike Robo has real feet instead of little block toes at the end of his leg, and that the overall proportions are a little thicker or beefier, with a proportionately smaller head. The feet don't really bother me, and the proportions are honestly an improvement as far as I'm concerned. I have no comment on the default Bike Robo face, but all of the Cy-Kill faces are excellent. I mean, I put the neutral one on him because I tend to prefer neutral faces in general, but I'm still staring at the other two and debating swapping in either of them. For accessories that weren't even packed in the box Action Toys absolutely nailed Cy-Kill's expressions to a level I don't think I've ever seen on a Transformers toy, official or 3P. Cy-Kill's head can swivel, but only about 45 degrees in either direction before the back of his head gets caught on his handlebars. He can't really look up or down. His shoulders can rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps and wrists both swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that give him 180 degrees of curl. His fingers and thumbs on the default hands are pinned at the base, and his index finger is a separate piece while the rest of his fingers are one solid piece. He's got 90 degrees of ab crunch and a swivel at the waist. His hip skirts are hinged on the front so he can move his legs forward maybe 130-140 degrees, but some kibble on his butt limits him to 45 degrees backward, which is still fine. Outward hip movement is ratcheted and good for 90 degrees. His thighs swivel. His knees are single-jointed and ratcheted, but still good for 130-140 degrees of bend. His ankles have swivels, his feet can tilt up about 45 degrees but not down, and his ankles can pivot both inward and outward about 45 degrees (although you have to fold a flap on the inside of his shins up to get the full range). The friction joints are tight enough (maybe too tight in some spots), and overall I feel like his articulation is pretty great where you need it and only limited in areas you wouldn't really use anyway. I think the only thing I'd have changed is to use friction for the lateral movement on the hips and the ratchets for the forward/backward motion, but that's still small potatoes. To use the fire effects parts you have to pop off one or both of Cy-Kill's fists, then plug the ends of the effects parts into his wrist stump. Again, I'm not familiar enough with Machine Robo to know if Bike Robo had a weapon or not in it, but this overall look here is very Gobots-accurate. I think that's what counts, although if I'm being honest I wish they'd have made the effects parts fit over the fists instead of necessitating their removal. I really appreciate how when UT reimagined Cy-Kill they tried to give him a more realistic motorcycle mode, but once again Action Toys' Cy-Kill nails the cartoon look. Seriously, I think my only complaint is that Cy-Kill can't look up while he's in bike mode the way he often did in the cartoon. His wheels are rubber and they roll fine, and the vents on the back are hinged and can move up and down instead of being fixed to the back of his hips. There's some play in his shoulders in bike mode, too, and he's sporting a gunmetal kickstand on one side. The transformation is very similar to the original Cy-Kill toy, too, with a the big differences being the way his back opens and stretches to move the handlebars and head and to make room for the collapsing shoulders, and the way the insides of his lower legs fold up and around to make the engine block rather than have it as a separate piece. The wheels, though, are still separate partsforming pieces, but the neat thing is that they don't just peg on, they also have magnets. Speaking of magnets, his faces are actually held in place with them. Pushing the orange dome on top of his head pops the face off so you can put in another one. Or, in the case of bike mode you can pop out his face and pop in the blank white plate if you really want to disguise the fact that this is also a robot. Likewise, you can pop off Cy-Kill's fists and swap in the other ones if you want a closed circle gripping the front wheel. While they definitely look better for bike mode and I appreciate the options, I'll probably leave the unbroken fists and blank face in the box. And before you ask, no, you can't use the effects parts in bike mode. I was hoping that you'd be able to peg them into the exhausts pipes (which are metal, by the way), but the hole is too big. Missed opportunity there, I'd say. Since he's not a realistic motorcycle it's hard to say what figures may or may not fit to ride Cy-Kill. I think maybe a Deluxe-sized Transformer, or something in the 4-5" range. For no other reason than because I opened with Ironhide and Bluestreak, here's Cy-Kill in bike mode with Ironhide and Bluestreak. Cy-Kill is a giant motorcycle... which I do believe is cartoon-accurate, so there you go. I don't have any of the other, non-DX Action Toys Machine Robo toys, so I can't comment on them, but if you have any affinity for Gobots at all I highly recommend this DX Bike Robo toy. In terms of materials, build quality, articulation, size, paint, and cartoon-accuracy it is every bit a Masterpiece Cy-Kill. Word on the street is that Action Toys will be releasing a DX Eagle Robo in the near future as well, and they've have hinted that it too will have Hanna-Barbera-style Leader-1 faces. I don't know if they have any plans for the DX line beyond that. I have a long list of Gobots I'd like to see get the DX treatment, but it's doubtful that some of them will ever get made due to licensing issues. Sadly, unless Action Toys is having better luck with Porsche than Takara, Crasher is one that will probably never get made, which means I probably won't ever get MP versions of even the main six Gobots unless a third party decides to make Gobots instead of an eighth take on an MP Springer. Still, I've got a MP-quality, cartoon-accurate Cy-Kill on my desk right now, and that's something I wouldn't have believed would happen even a year ago.

I think I'm in the same boat.

The SXS Rodimus has a thinner, more Nick Roche style than MMC's. MMC's totally kills it for vehicle mode, though.

FansProject is finally getting around to doing a Monstructor version of their Dinoking. I dunno, I don't want to be too hard on FansProject because they were one of pioneers of the whole 3P thing and one of the few who are still releasing non-MP, non-Legends stuff, but this is too little, too late for me. Their designs just seem like they're from five years ago. Their Dinoking wound up getting sold in bundles for huge discounts.

Which is totally fine. And I'll even give Eaglemoss nods for bringing a very large variety of ships to fans at pretty reasonable prices instead of going for the high-end collector's market. I personally need them to be in the same scale, though.

Yeah, I'm a Star Trek fan and I was briefly interested, but ultimately decided that if I had a collection of Star Trek ships they had all be the same scale.

On the contrary, it confirms her record for making smart decisions.

Huh, I go spend some time in the official TF thread talking about the Studio Series and this thread vanishes to the second page. @Kuma Style where all your pictures at? Well, I picked up something kind of interesting. This is Supreme Leader, from a Chinese company called JuJiang. And yes, Supreme Leader is an oversized knock-off of the original Classics Optimus Prime. Or, more accurately if you're already noticing the some aesthetic differences, he's a KO of the Japanese release of Henkei Convoy, as the deco is a two Autobot tampographs and some vac-plated chrome away from being a perfect copy of that deco. As for the oversized part, JuJiang basically scaled it up to the same size as MP-10. But, they didn't stop there; Supreme Leader has a number of little tweaks, all of which we'll cover. For now, though, the big aesthetic tweaks are twofold; one, the fact that his pelvis and thighs aren't silver-painted plastic like the old Henkei toy, they're actually diecast, possibly natural and unpainted silver, probably painted silver. The diecast gives him a significant heft- he weighs about 758 grams, compared to MP-10's 412g. Two, he's got an entirely new head. The head is the one thing that I might consider a downgrade. The outward-angled ears are, perhaps, an attempt to look more anime... I'd prefer more them straighter, but I'll let it slide. The chinstrap has got to go, though. Don't know why they didn't just OS the original head; I always kind of dug it. There are other, more subtle differences. On the original toy the truck kibble on his arms were molded in translucent blue plastic with all the red being paint in addition to the silver stripes and the headlights being painted. On Supreme Leader, the truck kibble is red plastic with the translucent blue windows being a separate piece attached on the inside, so the edge showing against his arm is read instead of translucent blue. If you look closely at the Classics/Henkei toy you'll see a little groove on the outside of the forearm, near the wrist, and a tab above the pinned swivel on the truck kibble that sits inside it. That connection is much more snug on Supreme Leader. Additionally, there's a groove on the other side of that pinned swivel that a tab on the inside of the truck kibble sits in. Again, much tighter on Supreme Leader, as is the pinned swivel itself. Finally, Supreme Leader has an extra hinge in the truck kibble, just next to the headlights, that lets it fold in. This allows the whole kibble section to sit a little more flush to his forearm. It also has a little tab, right on the hinge, that fits into a little slot on his arm. The end result is that the truck kibble locks neatly in place and doesn't rotate freely like it does on the original toy. If I'm being honest, though, one more hinge just below the windows on the truck kibble that could have allowed them to fold flat against the back of his forearms would have gone a long way toward improving the design even further. Now 12 years ago, when I got my Classics Prime, I was so glad to have a modern, articulated, semi-G1 Optimus Prime toy that I was able to overlook a lot of things like the short torso and long legs, the truck kibble on his back and forearms, and his black fists. On an MP-sized figure, though, some of those issues are a little more magnified. Even though he's as big, heavier, and possibly has better joints than figures like MP-10, MPM-04, Op Ex (GT's IDW Optimus), or Gunfighter II (Fans Hobby's G2 Laser Optimus) he looks rather out-of-place with them. As much as I hate it when people label everything that doesn't fit their narrow aesthetic criteria as "CHUG" I can't really say that Supreme Leader looks like a Masterpiece. Supreme Leader comes with the same accessories Classics Op/Henkei Convoy came with, just smaller with a few minor tweaks to their handles. You've got your "I've never seen smokestacks that look like this" smokestacks that turn into a gun, and your air deflector that turns into another gun. He does come with one other accessory, or accessories, depending on how you look at it. This is a sprue with fully-articulated hands that you can cut out and assemble, Gunpla style (although the only assembly is putting the backs of the hands on and then attaching the hands to a figure; all the fingers are already put together and attached to the hands on the sprue). Compared to Classics Prime the articulation on Supreme Leader has been improved to be more in-line with what you'd expect from an MP toy. His head, previously a swivel, is now a ball joint that can turn as well as look up and down and tilt to the side a bit. His shoulders rotate, but the joint is ratcheted now. He can move his shoulders laterally 90 degrees, no change there. He has the same bicep swivels. His elbows, one of the joints that were ratcheted on the original toy, are still ratcheted here (and more strongly). Unlike the original toy, Supreme Leader has wrist swivels and hands more like what you'd expect from an MP figure with a fixed thumb, an individual index finger pinned at the thumb with an additional mid knuckle, and the remaining three fingers molded as one piece pinned at the base for opening and closing. His got a swivel in his chest, more for transformation than articulation, and a soft-ratcheted waist swivel. His hips can kick forward 90 degrees and backward about 45 degrees on soft ratchets that, despite their softness, have plenty of clicks with no play between them and can support the weight of the figure to the point that picking him up and giving him a little shake doesn't cause his hips to so much as jiggle. Outward movement is also on a ratchet, with six positions between stock-straight and 90 degrees (and a 7th that actually pushes them past 90). The thigh swivel that was just above the knee on the original toy has been replaced with cuts in the thigh right below the hips. Speaking of knees, the slightly-over-90-degrees single-jointed friction knees of the original toy have been replaced with double-jointed ratchets that let him bend his knees 180 degrees. His feet can still tilt down, because they transform the same way, but Supreme Leader's feet can also tilt also tilt up a little bit and a swivel was added to give him a little over 45 degrees of ankle pivot. To top it all off, JuJiang added rubber pads to the front of his feet and his heel spurs. Given that he has articulated hands instead of molded fists with 5mm ports, the way he holds his guns has changed from the original toy. The smokestack gun works like your usual MP weapons; there are tabs on the handle, and they fit into slots on his palms. While the tension in his fingers seems to be enough to keep the gun in his hand, the tab doesn't really like to stay in his palm and it pops out very easily. It's the kind of popping out that feels more like the connection is too tight than too loose, if that makes a difference. The air deflector gun doesn't have tabs on the handle. Instead, there are a pair of tabs, one slightly longer than the other, behind the handle. These tabs fit into matching slots near his wrists, locking the gun in place. His wrists aren't the only place with those slots, though. On the original toy, there's a hinged piece on his back with a 5mm peg hole that the air deflector can plug into. There's still a peg hole and a corresponding peg for Supreme Leader, and you can still store the air deflector on his back in deflector mode if you want. However, the piece with the peg hole isn't one piece; the sides are rotating bits with slots that match the ones on the back of the gun, allowing you to tab it on and have him wear it like a shoulder cannon. The slots have another use, too, if you don't mind a little partsforming. If you don't like the big truck kibble panels on his forearms they can be detached. You'll find the same pair of tabs, one longer and one shorter, on both of the panels. This allows you to instead tab them to the rotating bits on Prime's back like little wings. While I kind of prefer this look, you can't store the air deflector on his back like this because they stick out enough that the peg on the deflector can't really reach the hole. Oh well, I suppose the kibble on the forearms covers the screws, which are on the outside (like the original toy). And it is a more "Classic" look. *ducks in case of thrown produce* There's no instruction inside Supreme Leader's box, just a piece of paper with QR codes with YouTube and Youku video links. It's not really a big deal, though, as the transformation is more or less identical. There are only two small differences; you have to rotate his wrists 180% for them to fit properly in truck mode, and you can't rotate his head 180% or it won't fit properly. That one in particular might not be an official deviation from the original instructions (which I've long since lost or thrown out after two moves), but I always did it on the original toy so his face wouldn't be showing if I didn't put the air deflector on him. He's also a big truck. He doesn't just dwarf the original version, he's actually slightly bigger than MP-10 in this mode. Oh, and because he's nearly identical to the original toy he's not compatible with MP-10's trailer. I will note, though, that there's a tab near his foot in the bottom inside edge of each shin. These tabs sit snugly together, making a large peg. These tabs are actually copied from the original toy, which makes me wonder if at some point a trailer was being planned for Classics Prime? It also makes me think JuJiang could make an OS KO of FansProject's Commander trailer armor for this guy. Or maybe even the newer TFX-06 armor. Aesthetically, the deco is again straight copied from the original Henkei Convoy, minus the vac-chrome on the bumper and grill which instead have the same silver paint used on the rest of the figure and therefore a better aesthetic match as far as I'm concerned. He's got real rubber tires, and they're nice and wide. Beyond that, I mean, he looks nice enough, but with the obviously-turns-into-a-gun smokestacks and the overall "I'm a toy, not a real truck" aesthetic he again doesn't quite fit in with the other Primes in my Detolf. At the end of the day, that's really Supreme Leader's sticking point. I mean, the plastic is as good as any that HasTak uses, there's plenty of diecast, and the joint tolerances put HasTak to shame. On build quality alone MP-10 feels like it should be the much cheaper toy. But at the end of the day, MP-10 and other MP-style Prime's have a level of detailed aesthetics and engineering that Supreme Leader just doesn't have. For all his improvements, he's still ultimately a oversized copy of a 12 year old Voyager. Because of that he won't be for everybody. He's not going to replace MP-10 on anyone's shelves. Aesthetic issues aside, though, he's a really good toy with excellent quality and a price tag that's only around $70. If you collect Primes, especially MP-sized ones, then you should absolutely get this guy. Oh yeah, one final thing about those hands. Basically, both sets of hands fit over mushroom pegs on Supreme Leader's wrists. In theory, you're supposed to just pop off the default hands then pop on the articulated ones. The default hands are on pretty tight, though. I really don't care if this particular Prime toy has articulated fingers enough to even minimally risk stressing or damaging the mushroom pegs, so I didn't bother to install them. However, they're pretty nice hands. Generally speaking, if a figure the size of a carbot can open his hands and a figure MP Seeker to MP-10's size has a separate index finger so he can point that's enough for me. While I've had some decent fully-articulated hands on figures this size (Sovereign, for example), I've had a lot more that were looks, crappy ball joints that flop about and fall apart if you sneeze (pretty much anything this size from X-Transbots/KFC). I have to say, though, that these hands were pretty good once I built them. Each joint felt nice and tight, and while the fingers were attached with ball joints at the base on the thumb's ball was exposed enough for it to even be possible to fall out. I hated for them to go to waste... And they didn't! Turns out that the connector is just the right size to fit on Maketoys' Despotron, with no modification needed. Although they are a little larger than his original hands, s long as they're oriented properly, with the fingers curled in as tight as possible and the thumb along the outside, they still fit for transformation. This pleases me greatly. This actually pleases me more than it probably should, since I didn't really have a problem with his original hands. It's just that I replaced my MP-10's with the KFC hands, not because I wanted articulated hands but because I wanted the KFC ion rifle and the fit was a little too tight in the original hands. But once my Prime had articulated hands it seemed like my Megatron should, too. And now he does, so they can make rude gestures at each other and balance is restored.

In the comics, way back in the '90s, after Spider-Man rescued Eddie's ex-wife Venom and Spidey made a kind of "you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone" deal. To put some space between them Venom moved to San Francisco because it's where Eddie grew up. Anyway, I showed the trailer to my wife when she got home from where. I started to ask her, "Do you want to go see it with me?" and she was already saying "Yes!" before I got the question out. My wife really doesn't know jack about comics, but she's seen pretty much every superhero movie out there anyway.

Well, that's pretty clear from the trailer. Evil corporation finds symbiotes, Eddie's a reporter whose girlfriend works for evil corporation, whistleblower at evil corporation decides coworker's reporter boyfriend is the perfect way to blow whistle, Eddie investigates and winds up accidentally bonded to a symbiote, evil corporation tried to kill Eddie, hijinks ensue. And given that the Life Foundation was an evil corporation doing stuff with symbiotes and acted as bad guys for Venom's first solo run in the '90s I think tweaking Venom's origins to tie him to the life foundation instead of Spidey should work pretty well. It provides a reason for Eddie and the symbiote to come into contact and a villain for him to fight without the convoluted "I hate Spider-Man because he ruined my life" backstory. So, bad CGI aside, it looks as faithful to Venom as you can get without Spidey. As a Venom fan I think it's actually looking pretty good.

Considering that they're telling an origin story for Venom that has nothing to do with Spider-Man the Life Foundation angle is fairly clever, and Hardy's coming off as a pretty good Eddie Brock. So on that much, at least, I can say that this looks like something I want to see. But yeah, that CGI Venom looks really bad. Maybe more comic-accurate from the neck down, but from the neck up Venom looked better in Spider-Man 3, and that was over a decade ago.