mikeszekely

So... I was getting some guff about not having any Valkyries, what with this being a Macross board and all. Is the High Metal line a good place to start? What's the scale? I'm not a huge fan of the designs from Frontier on, but I think I'd love a good VF-4.

...yeah. I did it.

I didn't get into Macross until I was in college, and importing Macross toys back then was difficult and far too expensive for my meager budget, so I just never got into it. Every now and then and think about it as I still really love the older VF designs (post Frontier, not as much), but I don't even know where to start. Transformers hits different for me. It came out during my foundational years, and I only saw my dad on weekends so Optimus Prime was my make role model. They're also (mostly) cheaper. Like, I know the G1 Jetfire was a Valk, but I'm approaching GoF as an updated G1 toy rather than a new(ish?) Valkyrie toy that happens to be painted like G1 Jetfire. If it helps with the comparison, I'm seriously thinking about dropping $300 on a slightly yellowed but otherwise complete with box copy of the G1 toy...

I actually forgot about this until I got a notice from ShowZ to pay the balance on the one I preordered forever ago. I'll take pics and write a review here, but 1) that review will be in the Unlicensed Third Party Transformers thread in the Anime and Science Fiction section of the boards, because 2) I have no other Valks to compare it, but I'll probably compare it with the Siege Commander-class Jetfire.

I know that Takara doesn't like doing the bad guys, but Megatron could really use some help there... No MPs, but I got a few repaints/retools in. First up we have Studio Series Bumblebee Voyager-class Skywarp. And... I mean, he's ok. I think of Skywarp more as the "the black one," than "the purple one," but he's predominantly gray and purple. I believe that's accurate to the film, though. He's got the same gas mask face as Skywarp and Thrust, and while any of the Seekers can technically pose their wings either way (and their guns, too) I believe the way I have them is film-accurate. Because there's been no changes to the mold aside from the head (and the pointed hump on Thrust), transformation is the same, accessories are the same, alt mode is the same, except for colors. So on the one hand, it's nice to have all three of the "main" Seekers (sorry Thrust). On the other hand, I'm a geewunner and this isn't G1. There's a sense of "been there, done that" that isn't as overpowered by the "gotta have a complete set!" like the Earthrise and Siege molds. And to be frank, I don't care for the base mold as much as the Earthrise and Siege molds. So, recommended if you're collecting the movie toys and want to complete that Bumblebee Cybertron scene, otherwise I think one of this mold is enough. Going back to Walmart's exclusive Star Raiders line, I got two more of the Deluxes (still need Filch, who somehow sold out immediately, and Road Pig, who hasn't been released yet). So, we'll start with Lockdown, who's honestly been done a bit dirty. Since his introduction in Animated he's been a popular character, with a movie toy for Revenge of the Fallen (right), appearances in IDW comics (based largely on the movie toy), an actual movie version with Age of Extinction, and an appearance in Cyberverse. I think a lot of fans would love a new large Deluxe/Voyager Lockdown mold, but all he's managed to get is a new head on a repainted Axlegrease. Even the accessories are the same, which does kind of allow you to fake a hook hand. But with loose elbows and poor shoulder articulation this wasn't a great mold to begin with, and it feels small for a character like Lockdown. The front of the alt mode looks pretty great as Lockdown, which is why I think a lot of us saw this repaint coming. But the fact that Axlegrease was herself a retool of Scraphook, who turned into a truck, is doing Lockdown no favors. The Mad Max armor cage molded onto the windows, tall cabin, and rear that only isn't a truck by virtue of using accessories to make some kind of massive engine is a bit removed from Lockdown's traditional sleek muscle car. There's nowhere to store his hook that isn't just out there, and it's kind of weird that Hasbro only used gold paint on one of the engine/cannon bits. If you don't have a Lockdown in your collection and want one this might be your only choice, but it's kind of lame that a movie toy that's almost fifteen years old is kind of better than this one. The other Deluxe Star Raider I got would be Cannonball. Cannonball is another retool of the Skids/Crankcase mold, and bewteen five of this mold already in hand (Skids, Crankcase, Crosscut, Burnout, and Medix) and the more limited popularity of the character (a late repaint in the Cybertron line that didn't appear in the cartoon), you'd think Cannonball would be fighting an uphill battle. And yet, Cannonball, who began life as a repaint of Cybertron Red Alert, is fairly extensively retooled. He's got a new gun hand on his left, new shoulders with faux doors to better match the original toy, a new chest, new head, and at least a partly-new roof and backs of the legs. He's also got totally new accessories. There's some roof kibble with a light bar, a Cyber Key, a claw, and a hammer. The roof kibble plugs into a slot on Cannonball's back, and itself has a slot on one end for the Cyber Key. The hammer and claw both have 5mm pegs and can be held in his normal hand or plugged onto one of the 5mm ports on his arms or legs. But they also have 3mm ports on them, which allows them to be plugged onto the tip of his gun hand in a manner very reminiscent of the original Cybertron toy. Going a step further, there are spaces on the inside of his partially-remolded lower legs where the claw and hammer can be stored, again like the original Cybertron toy. So the only gimmick that Cannonball is missing is the shoulder guns that were activated by the Cyber Key. Transformation is basically the same as Crankcase, minus the need to turn his gun into a grill. You can see that the remolded chest, which wasn't super accurate to the original toy, becomes a more-accurate front of of the car, and the lightbar kibble even has a gold spot that mimics the head of the original toy poking through the roof. I'm not sure why, but the green skeletons on the doors of the original toy have been replaced by skulls meant to look a bit like the Vok from Beast Wars. Some of the silver paint on the original is gold here, and he's a little narrower and taller, but it's interesting how a little remolding turns Skids into something fairly close to Red Alert/Cannonball's alt mode. The claw and hammer can stay in his legs while he's in alt mode. Again, the only thing that's really missing is the guns that pop out of the sides when the Cyber Key is plugged in. Cannonball is probably the best use of this mold since Skids himself. The retooling they did was smart, the accessories manage to capture most of the gimmicks of the original toy. Might just be me personally, but the joint tolerances are also improved since my pretty-loose Crankcase. So far, I'd say that Cannonball puts the "star" in "Star Raiders," and is the one most worth checking out. I dare say I'm even hoping for a Cybertron Red Alert repaint.

I'll keep this short, but Ignis wasn't the only MMC figure I picked up recently. I also grabbed Shiftlane, their version of Robots In Disguise Rollbar. So, much as Rollbar was a repaint of G1 Swindle, Shiftlane is a retool of Fraudo, MMC's version of Swindle. He sports a new head, new crotch and hip skirts, new shoulders, and a new back. Except... ...I actually had him turned around the in the above picture! Swindle's Sunbow appearance has always been one of the weirder quirks of the animation in that, aside from being yellow and purple, he really didn't look look all that much like the toy. MMC worked to make their Combaticons Sunbow-accurate, so as the demands came in for them to be redone as the RID Commandos the question became how to take a G1 cartoon design and get it back to the toy-accurate RID one? Frankly, I think MMC could have swapped the yellow for green and the purple for orange and called it a day, and people would have been happy enough. But MMC went above and beyond, retooling Fraudo's back to make it look like a toy-accurate front, removing the faux wheels from the shoulders, etc. Now, it's still not perfectly cartoon-accurate- he's lacking the backpack with the front wheels, for example. I can only hope that Hasbro might do something this clever if the seemingly-likely 2026 Bruticus gets an RID makeover. As far as accessories go, Shiftlane has the same missile gun and spare tire as Fraudo. Now, without the wheel to plug into, Fraudo's arm cannon simply can't be an arm cannon. It can use the pair of tabs on the back part (which is the same part as Fraudo's) to clip into his shoulder, which in and of itself would be fine. But the removable barrel is a new tooling, with a fold out handle to be used as another hand gun. On that topic, the part that connects the cannon and missile for alt mode still stores on the back of one leg. But since Fraudo's back is Shiftlane's front, you don't have the storage on the back for the spare tire anymore. The instructions suggest plugging it onto the back of his other leg, which you absolutely can do, but it requires you to fold down the flaps on the backs of his legs and fold out the gestalt heels, making his feet a bit bigger than Fraudo's. In addition to his weapons and wheel, Shiftlane comes with two extra faces. So you have the stock stoic face (which I prefer as I think it bests suits Rollbar's personality), a smiling face, and a yelling face. Transformation is basically the same, save for the fact that you don't have to rotate the waist because it's already done. Unfortunately the kind of retooling MMC would have to do to get a toy/Rollbar accurate FMC HMCV would probably have necessitated doing an entirely new figure, so we're settling for the Sunbow Jeep in Rollbar's green. Well, at least he's got the white star and "GV" on the hood. Of course, Shiftlane still does the all-built-in leg mode thing, and aside from the colors the only difference is the retooled back... er, front. And that still works! Since Rollbar's chest was the front of Ruination's leg, having a toy-accurate chest on the front of the leg means that he's a reasonably-accurate Ruination leg. Well, except for the green toes. But, as nothing from the waist down was retooled, Shiftlane is compatible with the "slippers" from the add-on pack. In fact, I rather expect that down the line their Mega Octane will come with the add-on chest(s) pre-installed and the add-on feet in the box. But in the mean time, here's a look at MMC's Bruticus with Shiftlane in place of their Brawl. So... yeah, I liked Fraudo when he was released, but when figures are $100+ I'm not super keen to buy into repaints. I had no interest in G2, and I was not one of the people calling for Battle Gaia. But, even though Robots in Disguise wasn't a great show, it holds a place in my heart for a couple of reasons (bringing the franchise back to transforming vehicles, delivering one of my favorite Optimus designs, etc). Ruination is the one redeco I'm willing to double-dip on, and with his clever retooling Shiftlane doesn't disappoint. I can only hope the other Commandos get as much extra attention as Shiftlane.

Anyone else get the SDCC Fractured Friendship pack ordered today? Sorry I didn't post about it before hand, today's been rough for me. It's still available as of 2:25pm ET, though.

TFW2005 staff apparently got some face time with the Hasbro crew. You can check it out here, but here are some highlights... It takes roughly two years to go from planning to release, so while I know most of what's coming in 2025 the team actually has 2026 planned out and are starting to think about 2027. The various lines have an internal storyline, Legacy is about a multidimensional battle bringing Transformers from different universes together. The Legacy story is not a guarantee going forward, but the brand will still touch on multiple eras of Transformers. 2025 and 2026 are linked together (I'm calling it now, Commander-class Onslaught for Bruticus in 2026). When asked about completing "sets," Evan says he and Mark keep tallies on who's been done and who needs doing. No specific examples were given, but given how the question was asked, I'm taking it to mean something along the lines of Red Alert, Demolisher, and Cyclonus will come eventually to round out the main Armada cast, for example (AFAIK Red Alert is actually coming in 2025, but Demolisher and Cyclonus aren't in the lineup yet). John says later that their priority is less about doing whatever cool character he or another team member likes and more about fleshing out teams, and uses the RID Car Brothers and the G1 microcassettes as examples. Core-class isn't dead, but it's not getting fixed numbers in every wave anymore. The team is confident that they won't run out of Titans, either. SS86 Devastator won't be robots stuck to a nearly-complete frame the way Menasor was, but they talked a lot about how that approach allowed for greater stability and articulation than the Combiner Wars stuff, so we should expect that there will be some kind of kibble frame. SS86 Devastator will also be smaller than Combiner Wars Devastator, closer in size to Legacy Menasor. They talked about Yuki wanting to do a new Megatron/Gigatron to go with Haslab Omega Prime. They pointed out, though, that he should be nearly as tall as Omega Prime, and wonder if he'd be a Commander or Titan. When asked about a Jetfire to go with Armada Prime, John says he's aware fans have been asking about it and to stay tuned. Studio Series could continue to expand to other media, and John reiterated that they want to keep doing G1, to keep improving on older releases and pushing for better screen accuracy. John was asked about if a transforming cab version of Ultra Magnus that might be compatible with SS86 Magnus' trailer would be possible. His answer was pretty evasive, but suggests that Takara wants to do something like that and it could be possible. It's not necessarily in the plan, but John would like to do new versions of Whirl and Roadbuster, and a bigger Overlord. A new G1-accurate Titan Metroplex is a possibility, if the team gauges enough interest in it, but there are other Titans already in the queue. I'm not saying he confirmed it any time soon, but John namechecked Animated Omega Supreme. Time is less of a factor when determining what character to do an updated version of than scale and what slots for a given class are available. The line is extremely governed by price point. There are more concept designs coming to Studio Series, and the Bayverse was specifically mentioned. John says "fans who are close to that universe know what I'm talking about." Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if they're finally going to give the Bayverse fans a Commander-class Devcon in 2026... Hasbro has to be able to reliably sell a certain number of units to justify putting a figure into production, and that's why we've seen so few redecos of Commanders and Titans. That said, they feel like SS86 Optimus has a lot of redeco potential. Not saying it's happening, because the queue is what it is, but John is very interested in doing more IDW-universe characters, especially the cast of More Than Meets the Eye/The Lost Light. He mentions the rest of the Decepticon Justice Division, Nautica, Rodimus, and Fortress Maximus specifically. He also suggests that comic-accurate designs might find a home in Studio Series, rather than the post-Legacy mainline. The team is looking into getting the Minicons out for the Armada characters that didn't come with them. The team has decided on what the next Transformers Haslab will be, but no time frame yet. It will apparently, "be amazing, and it's probably going to melt people's faces."

Seems plausible. Anyway, going from the big figures to the small figures, I got some new stuff from Dr. Wu. So first up we have brand new figure Iron Jack, aka Wheeljack. A number of people have been calling out the fact that Iron Jack is pretty out of scale with the doctor's Prime Commander... but it's kind of like, have those people been sleeping through releases like Seaspray, Beachcomber, and Powerglide? Or are they only able to process scale discrepencies between Prime and a carbot? I mean, we're talking about a Wheeljack figure that comes up to the knee on the Earthrise version, so I'm inclined to cut the little guys some slack. The comparisons to the Earthrise figure are deliberate. While Dr. Wu put a little more effort into not having hollow legs and making the cockpit on his chest more rounded, Iron Jack has a lot in common aesthetically with Earthrise Wheeljack. They both have the back of the car on the sides of the shoulders, the wheels on the backs of the forearms, and split the spoiler to form his wings. If I have to criticize one thing, it's going to be the sides of his legs. The sides of his alt mode just stick up so far along the sides of his thighs. Iron Jack comes with an accessory. Sorry the picture is blurry, but this thing is tiny and it was hard to get my camera to focus. But yeah, unlike Earthrise Wheeljack, Iron Jack comes with a cartoon-style shoulder launcher. Nice. Iron Jack's seems to be on a swivel. There's no sideways tilt, but his transformation does allow for his head to tilt up and down. His shoulders are ball joints and allow for rotation with no issue, but only about 45 degrees of lateral movement. You can get more lateral movement by using a transformation hinge, but it's on the wrong side of the rotation. Another ball joint serves as his bicep swivel, while a hinge bends his elbows 90 degrees. No wrist or waist articulation. Ball joints in the hips go over 90 degrees forward and backward, but only about 45 degrees laterally. The movement of his hip sockets around the balls is all the thigh swivel he gets, and it isn't much. His knees bend 90 degrees. His feet can tilt 90 degrees downward, but nothing upward, and the front of his feet are on a swivel so he's technically got 360 degrees of ankle pivot. Jack's shoulder launcher has a small hole under it. This hole fits into a post by Jack's shoulder. Once again, the comparison with Earthrise Wheeljack is unavoidable as they have essentially the exact same transformation. The wings fold in to become his spoiler, the legs collapse and the chest double-hinges over his shins, his head folds into the gap, his waist spins 180 degrees, then his shoulders hinge up to form the back of the car and his arms fold down to make the rear sides and tires. Literally the only differences are that Iron Jack's wrists don't spin, his legs are on sliders instead of doing a sideways Combiner Wars thing, and non of his cockpit window is in his legs. And the resulting car is a lot like the Earthrise toy as well, a little wider or flatter than the he ought to be, and a little flat on the sides. The livery is a bit more G1 toy than Sunbow, but that's fine. There's also no storage for his shoulder weapon, which is a little less fine, but I'm still not too mad. Again, this isn't a Masterpiece toy, we're talking about a car that's roughly as long as a AA battery. And for the same price as a regular Hasbro Deluxe, you don't just get Iron Jack... ...you also get Fire Ladder. Which, I'll remind you, is Inferno. Except this Inferno is obviously colored very differently; this is apparently Inferno's Shattered Glass colors. Aside from color, there are no differences from the standard version of Fire Ladder. If you want something a bit different, you'll have to pick up another set and get Hammer. Hammer is a retool of Dr Wu's Inferno/Grapple mold meant to be a G1-esque Bulkhead. From the neck down he's pretty much the same figure, but they've replaced the crane/ladder with a bulky backpack. They also replaced Inferno's gun hand with a Bulkhead-appropriate wrecking ball. Oh, and right out of the box he actually has a different head. It seems that the Dr. was working from some fan art of a hypothetical G1-style Bulkhead and copied the head that artist gave him before figuring out that fans would really prefer a head that actually looks like Bulkhead. In truck mode, you can see how the cab and the bottom of the truck are basically the same as Inferno/Grapple's. The difference again is in the backpack, which splays out and folds back around on itself to form the trailer of a military truck. There's even a small peg on the back of the trailer that you can use to plug the wrecking ball onto. It's not the prettiest, but it's alt mode accessory storage. Hammer also comes with a copy of Iron Jack, with no mold changes, just a new deco based on Slicer, aka Shattered Glass Wheeljack. And this is where I start to have issues with Dr. Wu. Why not put the two Shattered Glass decos into one box, and the G1 decoes in the other? Of course, the answer is actually quite obvious- because he's going to sell a lot more sets that way. He's essentially bundling one figure you really want with one niche repaint, forcing you to by two sets to get the figures you actually want and moving way more of the figures with more limited appeal. I can honestly say that I, for one, am only mildly interested in Slicer and have no desire to own an SG Inferno, but I'm stuck with them because I really wanted Wheeljack and Bulkhead. And there's actually a third set, too! You can get a back that has Wheeljack with a new head and shoulder guns as Exhaust, and a repaint of Inferno as Artfire. I'd have been more into that and might have bought a set, but I wasn't going to buy three sets. I don't really know what else to say. Iron Jack is a figure that'd be kind of mid if he were larger or more expensive, but if you're into Dr. Wu's Micromaster-scale Extreme Warfare figures then he's pretty much a must have (as in, "I must have the entire G1 Sunbow cast at this scale!"). And Hammer is a pretty solid use of his Inferno mold as Bulkhead. But you kind of have to want them enough to justify the $25 per set on just those two figures, because rather than bundle them together they're bundled with the least desirable repaints. It's a page out of NewAge's book, and it kind of sucks.

I think I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but I finally got my hands on MMC's Ignis, their MP-style Hot Spot. So... I got out Combiner Wars Hot Spot and TFC's aging 3P version to compare with. A more proper comparison might have been with Generation Toy's, but that thing was such a frustrating piece of trash that I managed to get it from combined mode back to a truck with several pieces coming off that weren't supposed to and wound up just tossing it into the closet. Anyway, yep, that's what Hot Spot looks like in the cartoon, all right. Cartoon colors, and the molded geometry like the rectangles on his shoulders, the trapezoids on his forearms, the lines in the red on his chest, the L's on his knees, and the striped rectangles on his shins are all spot on. Wheels in his chest, biceps, and shins? Check. I'd say the only real discrepencies, and this is really nitpicking, are the fact that his thighs only have one circle each instead of two, there are molded stripes on his shoulders and knees (where the red and silver striped stickers go on the G1 toy), and the black squares on his chest have some additional silver details that aren't part of the Sunbow model. Ignis has a little chunk from the sides and back, but realistically, what was MMC supposed to do? His upper arms are actually somewhat cartoon accurate, but they were simply drawn smaller. In the cartoon his ladder sort of just disappears, and MMC certainly tried to compress it all into a backpack. Ultimately, given the dual sources of the Sunbow model and the G1 toy, Hot Spot came out better than he has any business looking. He comes with a few accessories. You have a pair of fireball cannons, which have a small handle that folds out for Ignis and a larger one that folds out for the combined mode. You get an alternate open-mounted face for the combined mode head, and you get two hinged... doohickeys. I think that's the technical name. As part of the first batch, I also received a second combined mode head and an alternate open-mounted face for it, too, but I am unsure if MMC plans to include it in future runs of Ignis. When MMC did their Combaticons Onslaught was, by most counts, the most compromised figure of the five due to the all-built-in gimmick. You might expect that Ignis should be, too, and that if it's not his aesthetics that are compromised it must be his articulation. But his articulation is actually pretty good! His head is on a ball joint with pretty decent up, down, and sideways tilt in addition to swiveling. His shoulders rotate, and a ratcheted hinge outside the rotation gives him 90 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps swivel, though they can get caught on his kibble, and his double-jointed elbows bend 180 degrees. His wrists swivel and have a little downward tilt, and his fingers are all individually articulated with the thumb as a solid piece on a ball joint for bending and rotating, while each finger is hinged at the base and two additional knuckles. His waist swivels, and he has a ratcheted ab crunch that's almost 90 degrees. His hip skirts are hinged to give his ratcheted hips the clearance to go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his ratcheted knees bend just about 90 degrees. His feet, thin as they are, have toes that tilt up, half of his foot can tilt down, and his entire feet pivot 90 degrees at the ankles. Ignis can hold his fireball cannons in both hands by slotting the tabs on the small handles into slots in his palms. Ignis' transformation from robot to truck (or truck to robot) is fairly straightforward, once you know what you're doing. I mean, there are some aspects like getting out the combined head, opening it, and storing Ignis' head inside before tucking the whole thing back into his torso, or figuring out the locks on his knees to bend his thighs up just right, that might trip you up the first time because you're not expecting it, but it all makes sense after you've done it once or twice. It really boils down to stowing his head inside the combined head before stuffing both back inside his torso, opening up his big ol' biceps so you can bend his forearms inside and the front of his cab out, locking his arms/cab together, collapsing his legs and storing his toes, locking them together, filling in the gap with some of his backpack, then working his ladder out. Ignis' truck mode isn't actually super cartoon accurate... but in MMC's defense, have you looked at his truck mode in the comics/cartoon? I swear it's like the animators were looking at an entirely different toy, one based on a different truck with one axel in the front and two in the back, a totally different cab, and weird pipes along the sides. I wonder if someone told the animators that Hot Spot is a Mitsubishi Fuso fire engine and they thought Fuso is a specific model rather than the name of a company within the Mitsubishi group dedicated to making large trucks and buses? Instead, Ignis borrows largely from the G1 toy, swapping in some cartoon details like the white hose instead of black and the stabilizers near the back, and filling in some details of the cab like the grill, lights, and chrysanthemum badge with details from an actual Fuso fire truck. Technically this does leave the door open for someone like X-Transbots to make a more cartoon-accurate truck, but given how little I can recall of his truck in the cartoon I think Ignis strikes a nice balance between cartoon, toy, and real life truck. Ignis rolls on rubber tires. His ladder can move up and down as well as swivel, and the stabilizers can be deployed. Unfortunately, to make his ladder as small and collapsed as possible for his bot mode, Ignis' ladder cannot extend any further. The handles on his fireball cannons can fold in, and tabs on the top plug into slots on either side of the ladder for storage. MMC didn't stop at bot and truck, mind you. With his arms folded up for cab mode you can swivel them so the cab is facing forward. Tuck in his feet and make him do a split, then a groove near the folded-in handles of his guns allow them to slide partly over the stabilizers near his ankles. Store his head as you would for truck mode, fold his chest down and out, and his ladder flips over where his head previously was. Lastly, plug those doohickeys we didn't use in robot or truck mode into holes on the insides of his cab. It's not exact, but the result is very close to the base mode of the G1 toy. And the discrepancies (mainly the fact that his chest doesn't fold down all the way over his crotch and the fact that there's no blue molded detail behind his chest) can be easily overlooked by the fact that I simply do not care about this mode. The doohickeys are going to wind up in a plastic bag inside a storage tote in the closet with all the other extra accessories figures come with that I don't use. A mode I (and, presumably, most people) will care about is his combined mode. The transformation to combined mode is fairly elaborate and less intuitive, with numerous locking mechanisms and a bit of origami that combines his arms with his torso to form the gestalt torso, gets his head and chest from inside his back, shifts his thighs into wider hips, turns his lower legs into gestalt thighs, and folds the entirety of his gestalt feet out from inside his legs on thin armatures. I'll do a more complete review of the combined mode when it's all the members are out and I can actually combine them, but for now I'll just say that there are hinged tabs on the ladder that are used to help lock his back together in this mode, and they kind of suck. It's a pain to get them in, and one of them even popped off the hinge a few times. And, because I'm going to put one head in storage with the doohickeys, here's a comparison of the two heads. The one on the right is the standard head that comes attached. As near as I can tell, while appearing more detailed than the one on the left, it's actually the Sunbow accurate head. The more squarish head on the left with the more simplified helmet seems to be based on his appearance in The Headmasters. We still have two more Protectobots to go until MMC finishes their Defensor, and time will tell how the fully combined gestalt will turn out. As Hot Spot alone, though, Ignis is an extremely good figure. The bot mode looks fantastic and has plenty of articulation, the transformation to truck is pretty easy when you get the hang of it, and the truck mode strikes a good balance between realism, cartoon, and G1 toy. I'd highly recommend Ignis, even if he weren't the only real option for an MP Hot Spot right now.

I ordered Ratchet, Megatron, the Bludgeon & Ruckus Pack, Agent Knight, and (against my better judgement) Frenzy (because I have Rumble, so why not?). Core Starscream doesn't interest me at all, the Joe collabs are too expensive and kind of crappy robots, and I already have the individual figures in the ROTF anniversary pack. Likewise, I didn't order Reactivate Bee because I already bought the back with him and Starscream when it was first released. That said, if you don't have him, $25 is a heck of a good price. In terms of parts/complexity and size he's closer to a Voyager than a Deluxe.

Amazon links Agent Knight Gamer Edition Ratchet TFOne Megatron Bumblebee Frenzy Bludgeon & Ruckus GI Joe Kup Triple T Reactivate Bumblebee Revenge of the Fallen Anniversary pack Core-class Bumblebee Starscream Pulse links are live now too, but you have to be a Pulse Premium to order before 2:00pm EST. Check out what's new here. Alas, the Supercop Pax/Gladiator Megatron pack isn't up for order.

I don't have a lot of experience with the Sega CD, but at one point I set out to play every 32X game released in North America that didn't also require the Sega CD (I think about 33 games in total). I actually didn't finish; I only got through A-S. But from what I remember, the best 32X games were probably Knuckles Chaotix, After Burner Complete, Metal Head, Space Harrier, and Blackthorne.

Pensburgh... as in Pittsburgh, home of the the Penguins (hockey team). If you want to find me on Google Maps, I'm actually in North Huntingdon. Yup. I actually have some sympathy for the Bayverse fans. Studio Series started as pretty much nothing but Bayverse figures, but for the last two or three years it's been kind of overrun by 86, Gamer Edition, the Cybertronian designs from Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts, and now Transformers One. In 2021 only five of the eighteen Studio Series releases were from Bay films, 2022 was six out of twenty, and 2023 was zero out of seventeen (not counting core classes, package refreshes, and store exclusives). So far there's been zero this year, too. With Hook & Long Haul in 2025, every Commander-class release in Studio Series is 86. And with Revenge of the Fallen celebrating it's 15th anniversary this year, the reality is that there's a whole group of fans with no connection to G1, for whom the Bayverse is their G1, and it's gotta suck feeling like a line made for you is suddenly going to the G1 crowd. But I also think the number of Bayverse characters to put in Studio Series is dwindling (hence the expansion into 86 and Gamer Edition), and some of those characters are extremely obscure. Some people just don't seem to get that just because there are Bayverse characters big enough to need a Commander Class that Devastator, who appeared in a very memorable scene during the attack on Autobot City in the 86 movie, will move twenty times more units than a guy like Devcon, a guy who had about 17 seconds of screen time in Dark of the Moon, none of which were in alt mode, and whom all but the most ardent fans will have to look up on TFWiki. So, yeah, every time I hear, "aw, G1 again, screw that, they should Devcon!" I lose some of that sympathy. I will say, though (and not for the first time) that with the volume of characters that could benefit from the extra budget, Hasbro should really consider doing more Commanders a year. Heck, if Silverbolt and Long Haul/Hook turn out as good as Motormaster, then Onslaught, Hot Spot, Scattershot, Hun-Grrr, and Razorclaw alone could take the rest of the decade, and that's still only G1.

Bad pic with crappy lighting and in their temporary (crowded) home. Pro tip, that stand I used for Swoop is a Simple Stand from Good Smile. For a very reasonable $15 on Amazon you get a pack of three complete stands (three bases, three arms, each arm has three hinges), including a set of three tips with the 3mm pegs for Transformers and the like as well as a set of 3 of those pinchy claws that grab the waists of stuff like Marvel Legends or G.I. Joes. My only complaint is that the hinges aren't ratcheted (which you wouldn't expect at that price), and I had to tighten the screws to make the hinges tight enough to support Swoop's weight.

While SDCC is giving us glimpses as to what's coming, I still have one review left for what's current. Thought about waiting until after the weekend, but I know this is one of the more anticipated figures this year... it's Studio Series 86 Leader-class Swoop. Well, I definitely think Hasbro just about nailed the robot mode. It's got exactly the sort of the cartoon accuracy you'd want, from the shape of the missiles to the caveman brow on his face to the quartet of rectangles on his pelvis, combined with the extra greebles endemic to the post War for Cybertron soft relaunch of the brand. Many of those extra greebles, like the L-shaped cutouts on his lats, the cuffs around his wrists, and the segments in the alt mode legs on the front of his thighs. That's not to say that I don't have any nitpicks. I think the crest on top of his head is a bit too vertical, coming almost straight up at the back of his head. His feet seem a bit too tall. And it's kind of weird that they painted the red stripe on his leg, but only until the break for the ankles, and not the entire stripe. It's a bit disappointing that Hasbro hollowed out the rocket launchers on Swoops wings (though to be fair, if you don't remove them, you'd never notice). Those launchers are some of his accessories, and, and they feature removable missiles (with 5mm pegs that plug into the 5mm ports in the the barrels). He also comes with a pair of red swords that feature distinctly different sculpts. Swoop's head swivels on a ball joint with a little bit of sideways tilt, some upward tilt, and a little downward tilt. His head happens to be on a panel for transformation that you can use to fudge more downward tilt, should you desire. His wings are hinged at the base and can fold backward to give his shoulders the clearance they need to rotate a full 360 degrees, and move laterally just over 90. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His beak hinders his waist swivel, but he can still get around 45 degrees to either the right or the left. His hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend up to 180 degrees. His feet can tilt down, but not up, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Swoop can, of course, hold his swords in either hand. His rocket launchers peg onto 5mm ports on the corners of his wings, and if you like he can use those pegs to hold his launchers in his hands. Additionally, Swoop has 5mm ports on the back corners of his wings, in the middle of his back, on the outsides of his shoulders, on the outsides of his ankles, under each foot, and under each heel. His swords happen to have 5mm pegs on one side of the hilt, so you can easily store them in one of those ports, especially his back or wings in bot mode. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that only one of those swords is really Swoop's. The other, if you look at it, is really Grimlock's. Which is great, except for two things- Swoop and Grimlock's swords don't match Snarl's, and it it still leaves Slag and Sludge in the lurch (unless you go 3P). Apparently, to get official swords for those two (also red, so Snarl's still doesn't match) you had to buy the Pulse-exclusive (and totally sold out) comic book edition of Grimlock. Sigh. Oh, and now that I have Swoop and Grimlock together, you can see that Swoop is actually a little shorter than the other Dinobots. I'm a tad lazy to look much further than the copy of The Ark I have laying around for a scale chart, but I think that might actually be correct. Swoop's transformation is, at times, both clever and puzzling. I think it's clever that there's a locking mechanism to keep his alt face attached to his robot head, and several hinges and flaps that'll be a factor in a minute. I think it's clever the way the tips of his wings sit one way in robot mode to maintain a cartoon-accurate silhouette but then flip around to a more accurate alt mode position. Then there's some expected stuff, like his feet folding in, his torso double-hinging inward to fill the gap left by his alt mode face, his fists folding in, and his legs wrapping around onto his back. The part I find puzzling is his arms. Rather than tuck in and lock against his sides, like you'd expect, the backs of his arms actually tab onto his wings. So, yeah, dino mode isn't as strong as his bot mode. While his wings might be clever, they seem a little short and too angular. His arms definitely should have tucked against his sides instead of his wings, and it probably would have been better if his biceps collapsed so they'd be a shorter. His lower jaw is too short, and the verticality of his head crest looks more off in this mode. And maybe I'm nitpicking, but he's a tad chunky in alt mode. If they could have made his torso, legs, and arms maybe a half a centimeter thinner he'd look so much better. He also lacks any kind of tail, which is odd because the G1 toy had a tail, and the animation model has a tail. In alt mode his robot arms prevent him from folding his wings downward at the base, and even if you untab them from his arms his legs kind of get in the way of bending them very far upward (though, if you do leave his arms tabbed to his wings, he's got special butterfly joints to get at least a little upward bend). Mid-wing he's got a double-hinge that can fold up or down until his wing starts banging into stuff. His stubby alt feet have hinges so they can bend upward and let him stand upright, or fold down for a flying pose (and he does have one of those little 3mm holes just above his crotch for a flight stand). His jaws open, and there is a blast effect peg inside. Ok, about those clever neck hinges and flaps... in alt mode, Swoop's head can bend far enough that he's looking upward even while in a flight pose, and down until his chin touches his chest. The clever part is that there's a flap that serves no other purpose except to hide the hinges and fill in his neck in through most of that range. While in alt mode, you can leave his rocket launchers pegged into the corners of what's now the underside of his wings, and that's cartoon accurate. The pegs that were on the backs of his wings are now also on the undersides a little farther out. You still have the ones on his robot shoulders, provided whatever you're plugging in there fits between his shoulders and the rocket launchers. The ones on his ankles, now the sides of his back, are probably your best bet for storing his sword(s). Between his robot feet/legs and his head, the one in the middle of his back lacks the clearance to be useful in dinosaur mode. With his relatively simple engineering and smaller size, Swoop is arguably the least impressive of the Studio Series Dinobots. His missteps, like the chunkier pterosaur mode, lack of tail, missing red paint on his ankles, shorter beak, and inability to shorten his arms and collapse them tighter against his sides tend to stand out a bit more, as you might expect the smaller size and simpler engineering would have left more budget to fix those issues. There's a temptation to look at what other third party companies like Gigapower, Fans Toys, or Newage did when they made a Swoop, see what they did right, and think, "why couldn't Hasbro do that?" I'll remind you, though, that even the cheapest of those 3P options is at least $10 more (and a fraction of the size). I'm not saying that Hasbro couldn't have done better. But I am saying that Swoop has an excellent robot mode, and a pretty good if flawed alt mode. After a little over three years, I'm honestly just happy to finally have a compete set of Dinobots. Swoop might not be the best figure Hasbro's released this year (or will release this year), but he's a solid B+ and worth picking up.

Might as well do Goliath and KARR while we're at it.

Actually, I'm on the West side of the state, just far enough East of Pittsburgh to be over the line into Westmoreland county. As you said, about two hours. I think Elk County is a bit more rural than I prefer, but I'm not exactly a city boy, either. Outside of hockey games I rarely venture into Pittsburgh proper. I'm into suburban life... less crowds and traffic, but I still have neighbors and a Target. Anyway... the reveals have turned into something of a crap show in other parts of the Internet, with Bayverse fans literally trying to wish G1 out of existence because Hasbro used the SS Commander slot on a popular character with a memorable scene from the 86 movie instead of a Cloverfield monster-looking robot that has less than 30 seconds of screen time in Dark of the Moon.

To be fair, XTB's doesn't have lights and sounds, cost double what KITT's gonna (and that's without adjusting for inflation), and kind of sucked to transform. But yeah, it's a definite eyesore.

What part of PA? You're kind of in my area now. It's true. Just like I promised you guys a Knight Rider collab.😉

I don't think so, Cosmos and the Wave 5 United stuff were pipeline reveals, and aren't due until later. I'd expect full reveals and preorders around Pulsecon in September. The preorders on Tuesday should be KITT, the Studio Series reveals (TFone Megatron, Core Frenzy & Starscream, GE Ratchet, and Reactivate Bumblebee), the ROTF anniversary pack, and the Bludgeon/Ruckus Mayhem pack. Maybe the Fractured Friendship (Gladiator Megatron & Supercop Pax) if they don't put that up sooner.

The only thing I'm not liking on "Agent Knight" is the chunk under the Trans Am's nose. But I assume it's for the electronics, and as much as I want a proper Trans Am, I think I want the red swooshy lights more. EDIT: My source says the 2025 SS Commander class is a package deal with Long Haul and Hook. He seemed to suggest that the SS news at Pulsecon is that SS86 Devastator will be entirely out by the end of the year, which make sense if you pair the Commander pack with Deluxe Bonecrusher, Deluxe Scavenger, Voyager Mixmaster, and Voyager Scrapper I told you guys about awhile ago. They haven't mentioned it, but I've heard elsewhere that the mainline Commander will be Silverbolt, so we'll be completing Devastator and Superion. EDIT 2: Preorders for KITT and the new Studio Series stuff announced at the SDCC stream will start July 30th at 1:00pm ET.

Nothing too exciting at the panel. Basically they announced most of the final waves of United and 2024 Studio Series. They say they're saving stuff for "the panel," I assume they mean Pulsecon (September 13th)? They specifically mention big news in the 2025 Studio Series, I'd have to assume they mean either Leader-class SS86 Megatron or the SS86 Constructicons.

Told ya. Includes lights and sounds. Can't friggin' wait.

Hey, he has feet this time. I dunno, I thought the Dinobots weren't super hot, and I have to be at tad frugal since some jerk ran a stop sign and plowed into my wife's car we had for barely 14 months. I'll probably save my pennies and try to get the Supercop Pax set instead. Speaking of Transformers, I have a minute between picking up my wife's new car and running back out to get my daughter from the sitter, so I'll give you the review I was planning on doing later today... Studio Series 86 Leader-class Springer. This one's a bit controversial, due to the reuse of parts and engineering from the Voyager-class Siege toy. I even went back and forth on whether to stick him with more Star Raiders or something in a Repaint Roundup instead of giving him his own review, but I think he's worth talking about, from "how did he get to be a Leader now?" to "just what, exactly is new here, and why should I upgrade or not?" I think the most immediate thing that's going to jump out at you is the changes in the deco. Every shade on the new figure is somewhat different than the original. But it's more than just color tweaks. There's paint around the rim of 86's feet, his hands are now the same color as his thighs, and his biceps are a different color than his forearms (forearms that now match his waist in color). The somewhat visible hinges in his torso that move his arms for transformation are now the same colors as his torso, instead of blue-gray. And yeah, some of those colors are because Hasbro used more paint on 86 than Siege (it's actually why his forearms look noticeably two-toned in my photos, whereas in hand the difference is extremely subtle... it's because most of his forearm actually is using the same color of plastic as his biceps, but they painted it darker). All of these deco differences might not seem like a big deal. Most people are probably looked as Siege Springer and thought, "yeah, that looks like Springer to me." But the deco is, for the most part, more cartoon accurate on the newer figure. But 86 Springer isn't merely a more-accurate deco and done. So much of this figure is using a new mold... probably more than you'd first realize! He's got a new head that's less generic and very spot-on to the cartoon. He's got new shoulders and biceps, with new wheels, and (save for the rear two flaps) new shoulder pads. These pads are on a hinge, so they can angle outward in a more cartoon-accurate fashion. His forearms mostly carried over, but he's got new hands. His entire upper torso accept for his back (with the cockpit) and the parts that connect his shoulders to the transformation armatures is brand new. His backpack is new. His crotch and hips carried over, but he's got new hip skirts and new thighs. Then, with the except of new wheels, 86 Springer reuses Siege Springer's legs from the knees down. At some point you have to wonder why they didn't just remold everything. He's got a lot of new accessories, too. He has the two guns that can combine to make one long gun that Siege Springer had, but he also has another painted rifle that is, if not more cartoon accurate (I don't really remember Springer's gun in the cartoon), is certainly very similar to the G1 toy's rifle. One of my peeves with the Siege toy is the pair of swords that needed that extra bit to form the rotor for his helicopter mode. It's been replaced with one green sword that transforms into the rotor, no extra parts required, but you can still have him dual-wielding swords with the inclusion of a second sword, sculpted and decoed to look like the one he used while fighting the Junkions in the movie. Speaking of stuff from the movie, you get the bomb/missile, which could have used some gold accents but it at least has a 5mm port on the back for effects parts. Lastly, just because they had some leftover budget, he comes with a basic sort of Wreckers hammer. Articulation shouldn't be too different, but I'll go over it again. His head seems to be on a ball joint. He can swivel it and look down, but he doesn't really have any upward or sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate, and can go about 90 degrees laterally if his arms are at his sides, or about 60 degrees if he raises his arms first. His shoulder pads, as mentioned, have a swivel so they can be angled like the cartoon or you can put them right over his shoulders like the Siege toy. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees, his wrists swivel, and this time his fingers are a separate part, hinged at the base, so his hands can open. His waist swivels. His hips can go laterally 90 degrees, backward a little less than that, and forward even more than that. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees. His feet can tilt up a little, down a little less, and pivot 90 degrees. Springer's fists can accommodate anything with a 5mm peg, so he can hold all of his accessories except the bomb, which just cradles in his hands. He also has 5mm ports on his forearms, on the outsides of his legs just below the knee, and one on his backpack that can be used for storage (plus one under each foot). His new rifle, swords, and bomb also have tabs. These tabs can fit into slots just above the 5mm port on his backpack, or on either thruster on his backpack. Springer has one more gimmick. To copy a scene in the movie, you can flip a tiny gun out of his right (and only his right) forearm. You may recall, though, that I said his forearms were pretty much the same as before, and that's where he runs into some problems. To deploy the gun, you have to first open and rotate a panel that's meant for helicopter mode. Then, the gun is built into the hollow underside of his forearm, which means you have to rotate his forearm 180 degrees, then rotate his wrist to pretend the back of his arm is the front. I mean, it's nice that they tried, but personally I'd have been cool if they'd used this bit of the budget for something else... like new lower legs. Which brings us to his transformation. Going to car mode is almost exactly the same as the Siege toy. The only differences are that his head folds into his chest a little differently, and that the shoulder pads have to swivel into place and slide between the tires and his biceps. For the most part, the car mode is fine. The biggest change is the backpack roof, which is again much more cartoon accurate. The changes to the chest and shoulder pads make for more subtle but still present differences; the hood isn't flush with the fenders, for example. And his more accurately-colored fists and thighs sort of work against him now, as they're visible on the sides of the car. I don't really have a problem with the new wheels, either, except to question why the front rims are a different color than the rear wheels. Like, yes, grim rims are accurate to the control art Toei produced for the film, but the rear wheels are actually covered in alt mode. Maybe they colored the rear rims to try to match the legs, as if they were covered? In car mode, Springer has the same 5mm ports on the just behind each of his four wheels that the Siege toy does. He looses the ports on top of his fender/shoulder pads and roof, though there are still the slots for the new accessories on his roof and thrusters. Going from bot to copter requires the bit of extra steps as bot to car, but going from car to copter is pretty much the same as the Siege figure. There's only two differences. First, the thrusters on his back are hinged, and you have to push them down so they're along the sides rather than angled or or top, to give the rotor enough clearance to spin. Second is the rotor itself. The blade of the green sword splits in half, and one side folds down against the handle. Then it uses a 5mm peg on one side to plug into the port on top of the copter. One thing I like that Hasbro did here is to paint the inside of the leg panels green, so only the tail boom is gray. And the green rotors are actually cartoon accurate as well. But he's got the same kind of dinky landing skids as the Siege figure, without any yellow paint even to make it look more accurate. There's also the visible wheels in the tail boom. If I'm being honest, rather than the arm gun from the movie, or the hammer, or even the bomb, I'd rather they spent that extra budget to retool the legs a bit more to be more movie-accurate. Again, you've got fewer 5mm ports for accessories, but you've got some extra tabs on the thrusters, so he can still carry most of his accessories. So, 86 Springer is a tough call. To be fair to Hasbro, they really did remold so much of him, focusing on making the sculpt and paint more cartoon accurate, that I think his new Leader price tag is justified. And he really does look better. If you don't have a Springer, this is definitely the one to get. Where things get murkier, though, is if you do have Siege Springer. Like, yeah, he's mostly new parts, and yeah, he's more accurate... but they still amount to relatively minor deco changes and almost no new engineering over the Siege toy. I think a lot of people that have Siege Springer might look at him and think, "yeah, good enough." That being said, the one thing that definitely makes me happy to have 86 Springer is the new rotor sword. I hated the partsforming one so much! So get 86 Springer if you don't have one, or if you just hate partsforming.