mikeszekely

OK... so for reasons I am not privy to, nor do I understand, Hasbro and Target worked out a deal to make Studio Series 102 Rise of the Beasts Optimus Prime an exclusive to Target's Buzzworthy Bumblebee collection. As they do with store exclusives, Hasbro sold a limited number through Pulse. Meanwhile, while Target did apparently stock a few in stores, they canceled a large number of preorders and quickly listed the figure as "discontinued," leaving quite a few collectors in the lurch. Those collectors barely had time to post their displeasure on the internet before KOs started popping up. A relative newcomer to the scene is a company called Baiwei, who'd previously done KOs of Studio Series Ironhide, Shockwave, Sentinel Prime, and Optimus Prime from Dark of the Moon. But since Baiwei was beaten to the punch on doing a 1:1 KO of ROTB Optimus they took a bit of a different approach and decided to KO a different unofficial figure (assuming that Baiwei isn't related to the original), Lemontree's LT-01 Lemon Prime. Lemon Prime released over two years ago, and was meant to represent Bumblebee Optimus, not Rise of the Beasts. It was a figure that seemed kind of interesting, but was overlooked by a lot of people because it was a bit over a head shorter than Hasbro's own Studio Series 38 Optimus- too big to be a Legends figure, too small for Studio Series. So the first thing that Baiwei smartly did was to make their version, TW-1027 Cybertron Commander, scale better with Studio Series. I think Baiwei made a few other minor changes to the mold (I'm not totally sure, as I myself didn't buy Lemon Prime), but they definitely made changes to the deco. Like SS-38, he's got black hands instead of blue, and he lost a lot of Lemontree's accents including some copper in some of the mechanical details on his legs and abs and some silver on his forearms. Also, in an attempt to ride the Rise of the Beasts wave, Baiwei removed the blue from the crotch and the red from lats, and added silver to the sun visors on his chest. Spinning him around, Cybertron Commander has also lost some of the red on the outsides of his forearms, blue on his calves, and fins on his smokestacks are painted silver. As a Bumblebee Optimus, while I do wish Cybertron Commander was closer to Lemontree's original deco, it's hard for me to fault Baiwei too hard here. Black hands, missing silver on the arms, missing red on the lats, missing blue on the crotch and calves? You can say the same about the official Studio Series figure. Meanwhile, Cybertron Commander has better proportions with less backpack, less forearm kibble, and much more accurately-shaped legs and feet. As a substitute for SS-102, he might pass at a glance but he lacks the circles on his knees (that technically didn't belong on SS-38), the sun visor isn't big enough, and the shins and feet have some subtle shape differences that mark them as Bumblebee Prime, not Rise of the Beasts Prime. Cybertron Commander comes with a lot of accessories. He lacks the stand and extra hands of the original Lemon Prime, but he's got the rifle. Baiwei also added rim covers, a second head based on SS-38's, two swords, an axe, an arm blaster, a translucent globe, and some extra gear for the truck bumper. Cybertron Commander's head is on a ball joint that can look up a little, down not too much, and only slightly sideways. His shoulders rotate and move laterally almost 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and bend nearly 180 degrees combined, and he's got a slight backwards butterfly due to transformation. Unfortunately, he doesn't have wrists swivels (or removable hands) like the original Lemon Prime did. His waist swivels, though, and he's got 90 degrees of ab crunch thanks to his transformation. His hips have a joint that swings the actual hip down and forward, allowing him to kick 130-140 degrees forward, and a respectable 90 degrees backwards or laterally. His thighs swivel just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. Ball joints in his ankles allow his feet to swivel, tilt slightly up, and tilt a ton down, and a transformation hinge gives him 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Note that while most of his joints are adequate, the ankles on my copy were super loose, to the point where he had a hard time standing. I had to give them several coats of floor polish before I could take these photos. On that note, he also holds his rifle and axe a bit loosely, His swords, though, are quite snug. They're basically just 5mm peg handles and 5mm port fists, which means you can also give him SS-38's rifle, or share his weapons with any of the official Studio Series Primes. That also goes for his big arm blaster. It's simply hollow underneath, with a 5mm peg inside. That said, I wish the peg was closer to the barrel and the hollow section covered more of his forearm. It's like the wanted to make up for SS-102's little stumpy blaster, but over-corrected. It's also a bit heavy for his shoulders. As for the other accessories, as I noted before the extra head seems to be based on SS-38's. I don't know which is more accurate, but I prefer the longer ears on the Lemontree head. The translucent globe, another giveaway that this is actually Bumblebee Optimus, plugs into a port on either forearm and is for recreating the scene in Bumblebee where Prime orders B-127 to go to Earth. The wheel covers, also mean to represent Prime's Cybertronian design from that movie, have tabs on the back that fit into cutouts in the rims of the wheels. Personally, to me it takes more than different rims to make a truck a Cybertronian alt mode, so I'll leave those off and hope that someday maybe Hasbro will give Bumblebee Prime a toy with a proper Cybertronian mode. For an unlicensed third-party toy (or KO of one), Cybertron Commander has a very simple, straightforward transformation. In some ways it's similar to SS-38 with the way to upper torso rotates, the lats fold out, the arms tuck in, and panels on the arms help fill in the cab. The rotate and tuck in between his legs the same. Really, the biggest differences are that his shins don't fold up and stick to the back of the cab, and instead of using hip skirts to make the back of the wheel well on the cab and flipping the fuel tanks out of the back of the thigh, more panels fold out from inside Cybertron Commander's legs and stretch along the bottom, providing some mechanical details, fuel tanks, and the bottom of the cab, tires included. Oh, and one more big difference... Cybertron Commander requires partsforming. Yeah, you actually have to remove his backpack, and remove the little gray bits on the sides of his knees. Once you have the rest of him in truck mode, you can turn the gray bits so the part that was facing forward on his leg faces toward the cab, and the divot on the top is facing up (divot down would look like it simply rotated 90 degrees, the way SS-38's due, but it'll cause them to pinch against the tires and inhibit his ability to roll). Then, flip the keyed peg on the backpack and plug it back in to finish up the front of the cab. The result is pretty good. A little smaller than SS-38, and still a bit gappy between his robot thighs. His robot shins are also quite prominent, and he lacks a hitch to pull any kind of trailer. The back is a lot cleaner than SS-102, though, and the cab is cohesive. He's got rubber tires, which is a nice touch. Sadly, he lacks any method of storing any of his accessories in alt mode. \ As a replacement for SS-88, I think his truck mode is pretty good. The wider stripe on the cab and the design of the bumper do strongly suggest that this is Bumblebee Prime. I just need to take a little rubbing alcohol to the sun visor. A tab on the bumper lets you plug in the extra armor to make him better resemble Rise of the Beasts Prime. It doesn't quite pull it off, though. Although they molded the lights onto it that Hasbro seems to have missed, the overall shape of Hasbro's is more accurate. Likewise, the stripes on the cab don't angle up, the sun visor is too small and elevated, and he lacks the little wings near the smokestacks. Note that if you opt to use the bumper armor, you'll have to remove it to fully tab his backpack on in bot mode. Even if you don't mind his backpack being slightly untabbed, you'll have to remove it to flip the keyed peg around. A lot of people missed their chance to get Studio Series 102 at a reasonable price, and even those of us who did can point out many flaws with the figure, flaws that had me preorder DNA's upcoming upgrade kit for him the minute it went up. Cybertron Commander copied a design that was clearly meant to be Bumblebee Prime, but if you don't look too hard I suppose he could pass for Rise of the Beasts Prime, too. That said, from my point of view I'm expecting that DNA kit to fix most of my complaints about SS-102. Meanwhile, the more I look at it the more SS-38's huge backpack, clumsy forearm kibble, blocky legs, and pizza box flat feet bug me. I wish that Cybertron Commander's deco was closer to the original Lemon Prime's, but at the very least if I can get the silver paint off the sun visor Cybertron Commander makes an excellent alternative to SS-38 as my Bumblebee Prime. I mean, deco aside, my biggest complaints would be the loose ankles, which I tightened up with floor polish, and the bit of partsforming needed for his transformation. If I want to be really hard on him, I might also point out that the plastic Baiwei used doesn't feel as robust as Hasbro's, and you can even see some swirling in the red. However, all his flaws are pretty easily forgiven when I point out that Cybertron Commander can be had for $25 or less, well under the price of a Voyager and certainly less than I paid for either SS-38 or SS-102. So, know what you're getting into, but at that price he's an easy recommend as a figure that's going to look a lot better on your shelf than SS-38.

I'd preordered the Japanese version of him. I don't have any strong attachment to the character, but the concept is neat. After people started getting the Western version and I started hearing reports about QC issues and an overly-complicated transformation I cancelled my preorder. X-Transbots is gonna be X-Transbots, and I don't really need (or have room for) an MP-scale Punch/Counterpunch anyway.

Sat in Chinese customs for over a week.😩 Finally arrived today, but my wife and kid are off for Thanksgiving which maybe won't leave me with a lot of free time. I will try to have a review (with comparisons to SS-38 and SS-102) probably Sunday or Monday.

Killer W.H.A.L.E. Seaspray with Shipwreck, Hasbro. That one's a freebie.

Boy, I thought for sure I was pretty much done reviewing Transformers for the year. I mean, maybe Deathsaurus, if he arrives in time for me to put him through the paces, but it seems like Hasbro is having fun sending me stuff that wasn't due until 2024. Today, that means we're looking at the newest G.I. Joe X Transformers collaborative, Soundwave Dreadnok Thunder Machine. After the awful mess that was Bumblebee, Soundwave hews closer to Megatron in that he's mostly G1 but with a few extra bits of kibble here and there. Heck, from the knees up your brain almost discards the tires and kibble on Soundwave's arms and tells you that it is simply G1 Soundwave. But even where it's not, it's not so bad. The grills on his shins aren't terrible, and I honestly kind of dig his red feet for some reason. Honestly, compared to the other two, even the kibble isn't so bad. He's got tires in his calves, but that's fairly common even among regular Transformers. He's got a backpack, but it's not as big as Megatron's or as finnicky with loose bits of roll cage dangling everywhere. The worst kibble really is the bits of car on the outsides of his forearms and the tires on his biceps. Well, that and the antenna, but technically you can remove the antenna. I mean, it's not even attached in the box. That said, being better than Megatron and Bumblebee isn't a huge win. After all, like the other G.I. Joe collabs Soundwave is too big to scale with anything but other G.I. Joe collabs, and made from a pretty light, cheap-feeling plastic. He does come with quite a few accessories, though. You've got a double-barreled machine gun, some kind of large cannon, a knife, a chain, and a mini-cassette. He also comes with some of Hasbro's retro 3.75" G.I. Joe figures. This time, we get two instead of just one, Zartan and Zarana. Just like Stalker and the Baroness before them, they come packaged in blister packs on retro-styled cards that could pass for retail packaging if they weren't missing UPC codes. They both come with a stand, a weapon (rifle with a buzzsaw for Zarana, pistol for Zartan), and a backpack (so Stalker is the only one without a backpack?). In a first for me, Zartan's backpack does more than simply plug into his back. It opens up to reveal a storage space for an included mask. The mask is designed so that the edges of the mask tuck into the space between Zartan's face and his hood, so Zartan can disguise himself. Or maybe get ready to go to a Star Wars convention cosplaying as Qui-Gon Jinn. Anyway, like Bumblebee and Megatron before him, Soundwave's articulation is pretty poor for his price tag. His head is on a ball joint and can tilt up and down slightly, and sideways even slighter. His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, although the wheels on them can get caught on his shoulders, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel, and no waist swivel. His hips can ratchet forward 90 degrees and backward a little less than that, and they move laterally 90 degrees on softer ratchets. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on another soft ratchet. No foot or ankle articulation. Technically, the machine gun, cannon, and knife all have 5mm pegs, and even though his hands are larger they've still just got 5mm ports in them, so he can hold any of those accessories. However, he also has ports just behind and to either side of his head, and it seems obvious that the cannon is mean to go on his shoulder, G1 style. Note that you can pull the ammo belt on the machine gun to one side, and the molded bullets will push on little gears that make the barrels spin (which reminds me, the barrels are just tabbed in, and like the antenna are not attached in the box). His backpack has a flap you can fold down to reveal some small pegs. These pegs go into the feet of any 3.75" G.I. Joe figure, giving them a place to ride on Soundwave's robot form. If you'd like Soundwave to have both hands free, the knife has tabs on the hilt. These tabs fit into slots on the outside of Soundwave's lower legs, and the knife can stay there through transformation and into alt mode. Which just leaves the mini-cassette and chain. Well, there's a button on top of Soundwave's chest, and pushing it causes the door on his chest to spring open. The mini-cassette fits neatly inside... as should the Takara MP mini-cassettes, or G1 mini-cassettes. As it turns out, the mini-cassette is actually a redeco of MP Ravage. Which, y'know, is the best of the MP tapes, but I guess it's better than the G1 tape or, worse, the Siege version. And Ravage is where the chain comes in. It's made of a rubbery material, and one end fits over Ravage's head and snuggly around his neck. The other fits into a G.I. Joe's fist. While product photography on the back of the box has Zartan holding the chain, it's pretty obvious that it's actually meant to go with the Baroness that came with Megatron, as A.) the Baroness did this exact chain-on-Ravage thing in issue #3 of the Devil's Due Publishing G.I. Joe vs The Transformers, and was apparently iconic enough that an SDCC box set in 2013 had a Baroness figure and a non-transforming Ravage on a chain. At some point, First 4 Figures was also working on a diorama-style statue of the Baroness and Ravage, but it wound up canceled. I am curious, though... why is Ravage blue? My first thought was maybe this was an homage to the old Marvel comics, where blue was often used as a substitute for black... but the Barnoness chain thing is from a relatively more modern series. Maybe it's his Cobra uniform? I don't know. Anyway, the point of the G.I. Joe collabs is that they turn into G.I. Joe vehicles. Not like regular transformers turn into a representation of a vehicle, like how Studio Series Mirage is a 1:30-something-ish Porsche. I mean that in 1986 you could buy a Thunder Machine vehicle for your G.I. Joe figures to drive, and this Soundwave turns into a roughly 1:1 copy of that toy... which actually makes him a bit bigger than Bee or even Megatron. Soundwave's machine gun and cannon are vital to this mode, and I have to say it's actually pretty clever how they used the cannon to make the Thunder Machine's engine. His accessories aren't the only partsforming; the grills on his shins have to removed, tabbed together, then they attach to the nose of the vehicle. I think Soundwave is a tad less accurate than Bee or Megatron. Don't get me wrong, they got a ton right, from the Firebird nose to the various tampoed decals like the stars and RU0169 (with a backward R) on the sides. But Soundwave's blue plastic is a little brighter, and he's got light gray in place of dark gray/black for the guns and engine. The red running boards are broken up by a chunk of blue that Hasbro couldn't be arsed to paint. I guess they spent the paint on headlights, marker lights, and light bar instead. Typically, I do prefer paint to stickers, but I think you loose some of the sticker's details, especially in the red spots on the light bar. You kind of have to undo the back of the cabin and swivel it up to get it out of the way, but you can of course fit 3.75" Joes into either of Soundwave's seats. There's even some molded dashboard details and a steering wheel that turns. The running boards also have more of those little pegs for Joes' feet, so Soundwave can carry up to six Joes in this mode. Honestly, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. While I watched the occasional episode of G.I. Joe as a kid, I was never super into it. I didn't have any G.I. Joe toys as a kid. And I already know that these G.I. Joe X Transformers collaborations don't scale with my other Transformers toys. Plus, compared directly to my other Transformers toys, they feel kind of crappy, have poor articulation, and extra kibble in service to their alt modes. So, just like Megatron, just like Bumblebee, no, I don't actually recommend buying Soundwave. There are cheaper, better Soundwave toys you can buy. These collabs sacrifice too much in the name of a gimmick, that gimmick being that they turn into vintage G.I. Joe toys that you can play with your vintage G.I. Joes. And the desire for such appears to be so niche that not only are both Bee and Megatron still readily available on Amazon, they've both been discounted (with Bee sitting at $48 and Megatron at $55). I have no room for these in their mediocre bot modes, let alone as part of a G.I. Joe collection. And yet, after posing them all together I found myself poking around eBay to see if I could find a couple retro figures of a few G.I. Joe characters I remember liking (mainly Cobra Commander, Destro, Duke, Snake Eyes, Serpentor, and Stormshadow, possibly Scarlett, Shipwreck, Roadblock, Flint, and Lady Jaye). Well, maybe I'll get those Joes yet, because Hasbro seems keen on continuing the line; next year we're apparently getting Sgt. Slaugher and a Triple T that turns into Kup. And, knowing full well I won't actually like it and have no room for it, I'll probably buy it anyway.

Well, as this year has been a pretty great year for videogames there have been several releases that I hadn't picked up because I was busy playing something else. I was pretty excited for the Steam sale that started today, figured I'd be able to go back and get some of the games I skipped on a discount. But... it's kind of disappointing. There's big discounts on the games that always get big discounts every Steam sale... so I have most of the ones I wanted. Newer games, though? RE 4 remake down from $60 to $40. Not bad, but not great. Hogwarts Legacy is down to $36, a little better, but I think I'm waiting for both of those games to go under $30 before I pull the trigger. Mortal Kombat 1 is still almost $50, and since I just play those for the story mode (yeah, weird, I know) that's a bit much yet. Armored Core 6 isn't on sale at all. (Neither is Baldur's Gate 3, although I already own it). Then there's the Epic Games Store. I have an intense dislike for Tim Sweeney and the Epic Games store, but right now you claim the current free game you get a coupon that you can use for 33% off your whole cart. Dunno if that stacks with the sale prices, but you can use it on regular-price games. And wouldn't you know it, they've got two very recent releases that aren't on sale that aren't even available on Steam... so I just bought Alan Wake 2 and Assassin's Creed Mirage for $67.

I don't have a lot of gaps left in my MP-style collection, at least if I'm just counting US G1 cartoon characters. Taken with the fact that the number of companies working on MP-style seems to be dwindling, and a combination of inflation, less competition, and MP-44 showing just how much collectors are willing to spend causing prices to rise, and I'm feeling like I'm just not that excited even when I do buy a new figure. Case in point, I've actually had these guys in hand for nearly a month, but I just today got the motivation to take a few pictures and talk about them. These guys being Ocular Max's Motif and Pitch, their REmix versions of Rewind and Eject. If you've picked up the previous REmix versions of Rumble and Frenzy, then you kind of know what to expect: bigger, cartoon-accurate, articulated versions of the super simple G1 cassettes. We're just doing Blaster's humanoid buddies instead of Soundwave's this time. And they are indeed cartoon accurate. They have the cartoon-style heads with the little ears, normal eyes, and a face mask. They've got the square shoulders and sculpted abs of the cartoon. The pelvis details are reduced to a cartoon-style silver square on the belt and hexagon on the crotch. And their feet are intended to match their legs, though under some lights the diecast used in the feet doesn't quite match plastic used for other parts. They're still mostly flat, and still rely on some transformation tricks to thicken out some parts. Oh, and that molded detail on the sides of their shoulders? Cartoon accurate again. Both figures come with the same accessories. I photographed Pitch's (Eject's), but Motif (Rewind) has the same stuff. Just imagine black plastic instead of blue, and red paint on the faces instead of gold. Anyway, you get a pair of guns that walk a line between being toy and cartoon accurate. You get some extra shoulder pads. And you get three replacement Studio OX faces- a stoic one, a yelling one, and a smirking one. It's here that we're running into our first bummer with these figures. I don't have any attachment to the Studio OX designs. What I would have greatly preferred is a toy-style head (basically, the OX helmet and visor, but with a face mask instead of a mouth and the visor matches the face), or even an IDW-style head (similar to the toy-style, but with a blue visor and a camera on the left side). The irritating thing was that at some point there actually were toy and IDW-style sculpt done for these guys, and hand-painted samples were produced. But at some point MMC quietly ditched the toy and IDW heads, and I don't think an explanation was ever given short of one confused minor MMC employee saying he thought the OX heads were supposed to be convention exclusives (the convention-exclusive head was actually based on the '86 movie, and was basically the default cartoon head with bigger cheeks and pointier ears). Swapping the heads is done by removing the screw from the back of the head, separating the halves, then fitting the halves of the other head around the ball joint and screwing it back together. Anyway, articulation. Their heads are ball joints with adequate up/down/sideways tilt. Their shoulders can swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. Their biceps swivel. Technically, they have single-jointed elbows that bend 90 degrees. However, they have transformation joints near the the top of their biceps that can act as a double elbow, if you don't mind breaking the sculpt a little. Their wrists swivel, and their fingers are molded as a single hinged part so they can open their hands. They have a slight swivel under their chests, and more complete swivels at the waist, plus a hinge in their abs lets them lean back or crunch their abs forward about 45 degrees. Flaps on their pelvis move out of the way so their hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. Their thighs swivel. They have double-jointed knees that bend nearly 180 degrees combined. The front of their feet can bend upward, but they have under 45 degrees of ankle pivot. There's actually a few things you can do with the guns. The most obvious thing is that they have rectangular handles, and those handles simply slide into their fists. The handles fold in, though, to reveal a small square tab. That tab allows you to plug into slots on their backs for storage. Or, for better replicating the G1 toys, they can be plugged into the sides of their forearms. Speaking of replicating the toy, there are the included shoulder pads. These simply clip over the existing square shoulders and give them angled look that sticks out a bit further, to better mimic the shape of the G1 toy. However, they have to be removed for transformation, and that's a bit dumb, as the convention-exclusive versions had shoulders that had that angled look that replaced the square ones rather than fit over them, and those shoulders could be kept on during transformation. While I'm in complaining mode, something that you're not likely to notice just looking at the figure on a shelf but will absolutely drive you crazy when you handle the figures are the way their backs and chests work. Basically, the pecs and traps split in half and there are panels on them that swivel up to cover the head in tape mode. That's fine (although I've heard of a few people breaking the chests at the swivel point). The issue is that in bot mode they do not lock in place in any way, meaning that as you manipulate the figures they won't stay in place. The transformation for these guys might just be the easiest of all the REmix tapes so far. Tuck away the hands, swivel the panels on his chest and pack to cover his head, bring his shoulders up beside his head and scrunch the arm using the elbow and bicep hinges, then swivel the panels on the sides of the forearms around to form the bottom of the tape. Open the shins, then use the multiple knee hinges to collapse the lower legs onto the backs of the thighs, then swivel the thighs and tuck the leg up against the torso so the part with the spools tabs into place (if it seems like it doesn't fit, make sure you split the bottom of the feet and folded them out). The shins will double-hinge forward to fill in the sides of the tape. The A side of the tapes has tampographs that are at least somewhat reminiscent of the G1 stickers. Aside from no window to see the tape inside the cassettes, from that side they do look passably like cassette tapes. The B sides are pretty plain, although that's likely a necessity to recreate their robot modes in a cartoon-accurate way. As cassettes they don't do much. They do come with acrylic cases that could hold a real cassette. Sadly, as was the case with their Steeljaw, the inserts with the instructions do not fit inside the case, rather, they fit around it like sleeves. Also, when going into tape mode you'll notice slots inside the shins. The slots allow you to store their weapons, one in each leg, while they're in cassette mode. I have mixed feelings about these guys. On the one hand, even if it is a bit simpler than previous figures, the way MMC manages to move parts from a thin cassette to bulk out areas in the forearms and lower legs is still impressive, and these guys have pretty great articulation. And it's nice that Blaster's tapes are getting some love; not sure when Ramhorn is coming, but he is coming. And Blaster's tapes were the only ones I actually had as a kid. On the other hand, the chest and back panels are super annoying. Taken with the somewhat simpler transformation, and I wonder if these guys couldn't have used a bit more time in development. There's a lack of refinement here. A lack of refinement, and a lack of accessories, as the far more desirable toy-style and IDW-style heads somehow didn't make the cut. Long story short, I'd say I do recommend them, if you've been collecting the REmix tapes and you prefer their larger size for your MP display than the smaller KFC or Fans Toys ones, but also know that they're probably the REmix tapes that I find to be the most disappointing.

Generally speaking, multi-monitor setups are better for productivity (regardless of curvature), as it's easier to assign specific windows to specific screens. A single ultrawide with something like 1000R curvature is better for immersive gaming. Since I do mostly gaming I've actually been eying Samsung's Odyssey Neo G9 (yeah, I know, the OLED one is prettier, but it's less curved and I hear Windows has problem display high-res fonts on OLED displays). But in your case I'd maybe look at a three or four smaller display setup, like a 24-27" horizontal main display with a 21-24" display directly under it, then a vertical display on one or both sides.

What's to screw up? They could take the leftover discs from the first release and slap it in a new PS5 box and no one but Digital Foundry would know the difference. Seriously, why this (aside from trying to cash in on the TV series) instead of, say, InFamous Remastered, Sly Cooper Remastered, Jak & Daxter Remastered, pre-Norse reboot God of War Remastered, etc?

So it's... Madame Web before she got old, Spider-Woman when she was a kid, Araña after she became Spider-Girl (which isn't until after Julia Carpenter replaces Cassandra as Madame Web in the 616 universe), and Mattie Franklin, a Spider-Woman from the '90s so inconsequential that I forgot that she existed (and whose origin in the 616 comics relied heavily on her being a big Spider-Man fan). But no Jessica Drew. I guess Drew's a Spider-Woman that isn't a Spider-Man thing and maybe Sony doesn't have a license? Whatever. They should have included Silk, too, for even more (spider) girl power, while they fight evil Spider-Man (who doesn't wear that costume and is more neutral than outright evil in 616, but seems like he's acting more like Morlun in the trailer anyway). I mean, I'm a big Spidey fan so I'm want to watch it out of morbid curiosity, but I do NOT have high hopes here. Supposed to be Ezekiel Simms. It's not MCU. Maybe Morbius/Venom universe. I'd have been so much happier if they just set it in the present instead of trying to tie it to Peter by setting it in the past and inserting a young Uncle Ben into the story. This film's going to scream it's connection to Spider-Man with all the subtlety of Lady Gaga attending the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

Dug through this thread to refresh my memory on the details. Last year, Hasbro Pulse sent the emails that said we had until the 28th of November to update our details, and I posted a review of Victory Saber on the 11th of December. This year I've already received three emails reminding me to make sure my shipping info is correct by the 24th. Assuming it takes roughly the same amount of time to ship Deathsaurus after the last day to change your shipping address as it did Victory Saber, then people should start getting Deathsaurus around the second week of December. I'm hoping that, just as Victory Saber was my last review in 2022, that I'll have a Deathsaurus review for you guys to wrap up 2023. Oh, BTW @M'Kyuun, while digging through old posts I saw that you missed getting Minerva from Pulse. Did you still want/need her? I think I actually saw one in the wild at Walgreens the other day. I'll be out tomorrow, I could check again.

Arriving a bit too late for what I'd consider to be a more optimal release, we've got Frankenstein X Transfomers Frankentron today. Frankentron is a retool of Siege Impactor (who I actually no longer own, as I sort of feel that the Wreckers collection Impactor better represents Marvel G1 and the Fan-Vote three-pack with translucent Mirage and Powerdasher Aragon with a Go Better upgrade kit better represents IDW Impactor). So, as near as I can tell he's got new asymmetric thighs, a new head, a new chest, new hands, and that's about it. The deco is, naturally, meant to evoke the Boris Karloff's turn as Frankenstein Monster from 1931 Universal film. The new head is a pretty obvious Frankenstein head, sure. Beyond that the deco is primarily black and green, which I guess is like Frank's black clothes and green skin, though the deco uses green in places that Frank had clothes, plus there's random silver elements. The asymmetric thighs and the chest that's sculpted to look like it's two different chests stitched together do lend a certain piecemeal element to the sculpt. Frankentron has different accessories from Impactor, though. Instead of a rifle, he's got a Tesla coil-ish machine, and instead of a knife hand he's got some purple lightning effects for said Tesla coil. Frankentron has the same articulation as Impactor, but there's something worth noting here. Like Impactor, Frankentron doesn't have wrist swivels. However, his new hands are sculpted so that they're turned 45 degrees. This is good for stereotypical arms forward, hands out with palms down walking pose, but it makes holding his accessories awkward. The instructions suggest plugging the tesla coil into a shoulder, although I prefer his back, with the effect part attached over the ball. Here, I have it attached to a bolt that's angled to the ball, which makes the lightning look like it's coming down at an angle. I'll note, though that there's a tab on Frankentron's left forearm that you can use to attach the coil there, and an angled peg on the effect part that you can plug into a hand to sort of make it look like he's shooting lightning from his hand. Frankentron turns into a tank, same as Impactor. The only real difference is that the new hand parts lack the 5mm ports that the originals did, and that he uses the Tesla coil in place of a rifle for the tank's barrel. In this mode, we can see that Frankentron is a Decepticon, due to the huge faction symbols tampoed onto the sides of the tank, but really the alt mode feels a bit random. It is kind of cool, though, to attach the blast effects. Instead of shooting shells or lasers, Frankentron is a tank that shoots lightning! Objectively, Impactor is a better base figure than Titans Return Mindwipe. Thing is, as a humanoid figure that turns into a bat a Dracula retool of Mindwipe made a certain amount of sense as a retool, even if the nearly century old Universal monsters pictures don't have the same nostalgic value for the Transformers core audience that '80s sci-fi franchises like Ghostbusters and Back to the Future do. And while I do see the value in Hasbro and Universal collaborating on more monster crossovers, turning Impactor into Frakenstein feels a lot more random. I can't help but feel like Hasbro is missing opportunities, here. First, by not retaining Mindwipe's headmaster gimmick and retooling Vorath into a little Dracula that became the head for Draculus. Second, for not using other Titans Return figures to make the other monsters, also retooling their head/Titanmasters into little versions of the monsters they represent. I mean, instead of Impactor, why not Chromedome? Or even one of the non-traditional Headmasters... heck, Titans Return Perceptor with his microscope AND weapon retooled into Tesla coils could almost pass for turning into the machinery in Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Third, because I think a Universal monster that might have made a bit more sense would have been the Wolfman from Weirdwolf. Long story short, I think Frankentron is ok, but a bit more random than Draculus, and less appealing for it.

Soundwave at least looks pretty uniform in his use of black. Look at Bumblebee's knees, there's a chunk of yellow in the black. And in his alt mode, his one side near the headlights has a black panel that's missing from the other. Meanwhile, Starscream is super asymmetrical with black all over his left forearm, shoulder, thigh, and wing. I guess they're supposed to look damaged? I'm not totally clear on what the plot of Reactivate is supposed to be. Actually, looking closer, Prime does seem to have some battle damage, too... except his is all light gray. You can see the light gray on his forearms is different, and I wonder if some of the light gray you see on the truck won't be red on the other side. Oh well. That's the most G1-looking gun a Prime has come with yet, and that's worth the price of admission. I see he's the first non-MP Prime in a long time to have the fuel tanks on his legs, too. I wonder if this mold could get retooled into a SS86 Optimus...?

They're available to preorder now at the usual places. I grabbed both sets.

I finished Robocop. The guy you think is the big bad for most of the game eventually lets you in on his secret plan... which turns out to be a plot device to set up a major boss fights.

Meh. Kup's not one of my favorite characters, I'm not a GI Joe fan, and frankly the GI Joe collabs have been kind of terrible. I'm still not sure why I preordered Soundwave, except Soundwave is cool. Kind of curious about this Optimus Prime Target collab, though.

While yesterday was spent talking about Magic Square's various lights, the simple fact is that if there's one player in the Legends game bigger than Magic Square it's NewAge. So I'm guessing that those of you who follow Legends releases could probably guess that today I'd be writing about their Optimus Prime, David. Where Magic Square's design ethos seemed to be, "let's take our first Optimus and make it a bit more cartoony," NewAge's approach to David (middle) seems more like they wanted to make MP-44, but small. The difference in materials vs Magic Square's nylon plastic is immediately noticeable. David is made from harder, more vibrant materials, some of which I think might be painted. Admittedly, although I do prefer gray/silver for the thighs and pelvis, the reds and blues on David make the duo of Magic Square Primes seem a bit washed out. However, as NewAge goes hard into Sunbow territory, David's got proportionally smaller shoulders, thinner limbs, and a bigger pelvis. I definitely prefer the overall shape of Light of Victory. That remains true as we look at them from the back and side. Despite not having any electronics, David's hauling a bit more backpack, plus is chest protrudes farther forward. While David and Light of Victory both went for the cartoon-accurate back, Magic Square laid Victory's over a mostly flat red space while David's got more obvious folded bits and even small gaps. David's accessories are pretty much what you'd expect. You have the rifle and axe, basically the minimum. A trailer, which is pretty typical yet often overlooked, and a Roller. You get two pairs of alternate hands, then David eschews Light of Victory's MP-44 excess in favor of two alternate head sculpts. About those heads... one seems to be a rounder face with the top of the mask angling downward instead of the more common upward. I don't know if it's based on any specific animation, but it gives me major Marvel Comics vibes. The other head is more squared off, with a larger mask. It's closer in design to the head on MP-44 (or Light of Victory, for that matter), and I kind of prefer it, but I'll leave the stock head in place for now to give him a slightly more unique appearance. If you do want to swap, it's simply a matter of popping one head off the ball joint and popping another one on. Oh, yeah, and of course his chest opens up, and of course he's got a Matrix inside. I mean, even Hasbro can't make a Prime figure without one anymore, so... anyway, the sculpt and paint on the Matrix is fine, and there's a bit of molded detail behind it, but its all black and not really done as thoughtfully as Light of Victory. Not that the Matrix chamber is the be-all, end-all factor of how good a Prime figure is. Moving along, let's talk about articulation. Now, it's here that I should note that as with Light of Victory, my copy of David is a recent reissue. On Light of Victory that meant some slight changes to the aesthetic, but for David this means improved articulation from the original release. So, head is on a ball joint that has no sideways tilt and less downward tilt than Victory, but the same ability to look 90 degrees straight up. Shoulders rotate and can extend laterally a little over 90 degrees. He's also got a small backwards butterfly. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows can curl a full 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His waist swivels, and he too has a multiple transformation hinges that lend him a sculpt-wrecking 45 degree back bend and 90 degree ab crunch. David has more tradition hinged flaps on his pelvis that give him the clearance to get his hips 90 degrees forward and laterally, plus about 75 degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and double-jointed knees bend a little short of 180 degrees. His entire foot has a slight up/down tilt, plus his heels have some up/down tilt and his toes can bend upward 90 degrees. His ankles, which are ball joints, have a slight swivel to them and can pivot a little more than 45 degrees. David's rifle slots neatly into either of the default fists. To swap a fist or equip him with his axe you simple pull one hand off, leaving a peg hole behind. All the hands and the axe have a peg on the end. At first blush, the David's trailer is a lot like Light of Victory's. There's the normal trailer supports, and the fold out supports for base mode. The doors on the trailer open, and the whole thing splits in half. Inside you'll find a drone with the antenna and hinged claw, and a translucent cockpit that can open up. There's no consoles for dianauts, and no storage dedicated storage for accessories. Roller can sit in the trailer, but doesn't lock in and there's no launcher. Honestly, the biggest difference might be that instead of having a ramp that slides out from under the trailer the ramp folds out from the floor, leaving a small dip in front of Roller. NewAge didn't entirely abandon MP-44's removable drone gimmick, they just went about it differently. You can yank the drone out, but it doesn't have wheels on its own. Instead, you have to yank the wheels and bumper off the trailer. The pegs that attached the drone to the trailer line up with peg holes on the detached wheels and... well, it works, but what are you supposed to do with the rest of the trailer? It can't even roll now. I did have the thought that the hollow space in the wheels might be a good place to store extra accessories. That's partially true. You can fit a few in there, but the rifle is too long. Even without it, there simply isn't room in there for two heads, four hands, and an axe. Of course, Roller can always carry David's rifle. What's interesting here is that, as you'd expect, the siren can flip around. However, where most Roller figures have the siren flip all the way around, then use the revealed ports for everything, you only want to flip Roller's rear 90 degrees. This will give you a small hole that you can plug the long handle of David's rifle into. Without the rifle, if you continue to flip the siren all the way around you'll find a much bigger port. This port allows you to plug in the trailer so Roller can pull it. Now we come to the transformation, and I can say that David is a weirdly over-engineered figure. Like, he rotates at the waist so his pelvis is pointing backward, but then at the thighs, then below the knees, but then again at the ankles. And what does that accomplish? Sure, it allows most of his lower legs to invert over the thighs and form a back of the truck that isn't a total mess like MP-44 and not obviously legs like MP-10 or the first version Magic Square Primes, but it's still not super clean, still has a very obvious robot pelvis, and still leaves his feet and what's left his his shins sticking so far off the back that I had to double check the instructions to make sure I hadn't done something wrong here. Then there's the whole window thing. Like MP-44 and the second versions of Magic Square's Prime, David goes for cartoony square windows in robot mode but rectangular windows with more realistic details and wipers in truck mode. Unlike MP-44 and Magic Square, who simply turn the windows around, David's entire robot chest is fake parts that sit directly in front of the truck's windows. This leaves a cab that's roughly as long and tall as Magic Square's to make room for the faux chest, but significantly thinner. I could, perhaps, overlook the fact that David, in my opinion, looks the worst of the three trucks if it were more pleasing to transform. And for all the unnecessary spinning the legs are pretty easy. However, transforming the cab has a lot of the same issues with clearances and flaps that Light of Victory does. Neither are particularly enjoyable. David's trailer has a peg with a lip, and attaching it to David actually means splitting his legs apart and encapsulating the hitch around the peg. As with Light of Victory and MP-44 David goes for the Sunbow look, so no stripe on the cab, and no blue on the trailer. The trailer itself is closer in size to the earlier Magic Square release, which is fine. And David works about as well as Light of Victory, able to turn and open his doors. I don't mean to come across as down on David. On the whole, he's a very well done, well built figure. I don't think an Optimus needs quite all the accessories Light of Victory or MP-44 came packed with. David looks good, has good articulation, probably scales a bit better with other NewAge figures, and if it's your thing is arguably the most cartoony Legends-scale Prime. In a vacuum I'd simply say he's good, he gets a recommend, and move on. In practice, though, I have to admit that I think Light of Victory looks a bit better in both modes, has just as good articulation, plus he has more accessories for the same price (even if you don't need them all). Unless Magic Square's nylon plastic really bothers you Light of Victory is still my recommend Legends-scale Optimus Prime.

Disappointing to see Ultraman go from a pretty good anime to yet another generic CGI kiddie film.

You guys know I collect Optimus Primes, I think. And a long time ago I picked up Magic Square's Light of Freedom, their first take on an MP-style Optimus Prime and, IMHO, still probably my favorite one. At the time Light of Freedom was announced, Magic Square was (and still is, really) a company focused on Legends-scale releases, and it eventually came out that Light of Freedom's design was a reworked design they'd done for a Legends-scale Prime. Sure enough, a few months later they released Light of Justice, a figure I wound up buying despite not really being into the whole Legends thing. And it, too, was good, but Magic Square wasn't the only one releasing Primes then. Transform Element's Op Leader and Takara's own MP Prime 3.0 went hard in a more cartoony Sunbow direction, and while I don't always prefer that it seems a lot of fans do, which sent Magic Square back to the drawing board. Last year I picked up Light of Peace, their second stab at an MP Optimus, and while I ultimately preferred the realistic details and heroic proportions of Light of Freedom I preferred the clean design to MP-44 and the excellent articulation to Op Leader, making it a close second over all. However, in the words of one Jean-Luc Picard: Yeah... unlike last time, where Magic Square released the MP version then went back to do Legends, this time Magic Square replaced the Legends one first before tweaking and upscaling it to MP. It was actually in the back of my mind a few weeks ago when I picked up Hasbro's Legends Prime and Bumblebee set and I compared it with Light of Justice. I was acutely aware that I was missing an Optimus, and I set out to rectify that. Now, here he is, Magic Square's Light of Victory. As I kind said, just as Light of Justice is like a tiny Light of Freedom, Light of Victory is like a tiny Light of Peace. To be clear, the copy I have here is a recent reissue; the original release had painted windows instead of translucent, didn't have the arm details painted, and I believe that the pelvis and thighs were a brighter white. Here, you can see that more like a very light gray. But see, this makes things a bit more interesting for me. Remember, I'm not part of the super Sunbow crowd, and I prefer Prime to have silver or gray instead of pure white there. I preferred the original MP Light of Freedom over the newer Light of Peace because it has details like painted arm details, translucent yellow in the pelvis, gray thighs, louvered vents in the shins, and more realistic details like rivets and and wipers. But in shrinking Light of Freedom, Light of Justice wound up with cartoony painted windows, lost the paint on his arm details, lost the louvered vents, lost the details on his smokestacks, and got some wonky proportions on his head. Light of Victory, meanwhile, retains more Sunbow proportions than Light of Justice, but with a bigger head, painted arm details, and details on his smokestacks I think he comes out ahead aesthetically over his predecessor in a way that the MP version kind of didn't for me. Quick looks around the sides and back. Victory has the same bit of the top of the cab on his back that the larger Peace figure does, and I know that was a sore spot for some on Peace. I don't think it's as noticeable from the front of Victory, though. On area that's improved over Justice is the accessories. To be fair, with Roller and a trailer with a non-removable drone Justice already had more accessories than either of the MP versions, but Victory takes the Takara approach of tossing in everything. So, you get the trailer with a separate drone. You get Roller. You get his rifle, and a blast effect for the rifle. You get a jetpack, and effect parts for the jetpack. You get his axe. You get alternate smokestacks that have sliding parts like the MP versions instead of the solid ones that come installed. You get the Starscream head and shoulder intakes from that one episode. You get a battle damaged head. You get a sprue with six pairs of alternate hands. And you get a little black part... I think Justice came with the same or a similar part. I'm not 100% sure what it's for, so don't quote me on this, but if I had to guess I think it might be an adapter to let Magic Square's Huffer pull the trailer. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know. Moving along, Victory's got some solid articulation, but surprisingly not as much range as his larger cousin, Peace. His head's on a ball joint that can tilt sideways slightly and look down maybe 30 degrees, but the cutout on the back allows him to look 90 degrees straight up. His shoulders swivel and can move over 90 degrees laterally, and while they have a slight butterfly they don't pull out the way Peace's do. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend maybe 120 degrees on a single hinge, actually a bit worse than Justice. His wrists swivel. His waist swivels, and although it breaks up his sculpt he can also arch his back 45 degrees and crunch his abs 90. His front hip skirt moves up under the top of his pelvis along with his leg, allowing his hips to go forward a full 90 degrees (improved from Justice), and he can also move flaps on the sides of his pelvis to get 90 degrees of lateral motion. However, he doesn't have any butt flaps and only has a little backward hip movement. His thighs swivel, and his knees are double jointed for nearly 180 degrees of bend. His heels can tilt down, and the front of his foot can tilt up or down about 90 degrees. His ankles can pivot nearly 90 degrees, and he even has a limited swivel to point his toes in or out slightly. Victory's rifle fits into the default hands and the closed alternate hands (but I didn't check of those closed hands fit for transformation). To replace the hands you open his arm up like you're going to transform him, then pop the hand off the ball joint and pop a different hand into the socket. The energon axe also has a ball joint at the base and connects the same way. Presumably, popping off the ball joint is also how you change his head to the battle damaged one or the Starscream one. The Starscream intakes, meanwhile have hooks. You undo his backpack a little, then fit the hooks in notches on the backpack before pushing it all back into place. The jetpack, meanwhile, is designed to fit over the backpack without undoing it. Oh, yeah, I didn't mention it in the accessories but of course Victory's chest opens up and of course he comes with a Matrix. More detail was molded and painted into Victory's chest, and unlike Justice the Matrix can stay in Victory's chest when he transforms. Still going on with the accessories, Victory's drone has a claw and antenna that work very similarly to Justice's, but they're a more typical gray than the black used for Justice. Also, the drones lasers/missiles can extend, and the drone's translucent cockpit can open. Like MP-44, the drone can roll on wheels independently of the trailer. To install it in the trailer, simply fold the wheels down and tab it into place. The trailer itself has the usual gimmicks. It has the regular truck supports as well as the swing out supports for base mode. The doors on the back of the trailer open, and a ramp slides out from a space between the bottom of the trailer and the bumper. I like that it's the whole ramp, not just the two tire-sized ones they used on Justice. The interior of the trailer is similarly empty, though; no diaclone consoles, no spaces for storing accessories. You can set Roller inside, although there's no launching mechanism. And Roller's red light flips around to reveal a small peg. That peg can be used to arm Roller with Victory's rifle. The peg also fits into a small port under the front of the trailer, allowing Roller to pull it. Again, much as Justice is a slightly simplified version of Freedom, Victory's engineering is extremely similar to Peace. At a glance, you might even think that the only obvious differences between Victory and Peace is that Peace has some chrome and translucent parts in the bumper, or that Victory's toes don't fold down to show off the colored lights and Victory doesn't have wing mirrors. Truthfully, there are a few other minor differences in engineering, but it's still like 90% the same... for better or worse. You see, some ideas that worked well enough at an MP-scale create tolerance issues at smaller scales, and parts that could be comfortably manipulated on Peace are too tiny for my fat American fingers on Victory. What's more, the leg transformation that left Peace with a smoother, thinner rear winds up just making Victory just as thick as Justice because the relative thickness of the flaps can't be scaled down. Materials, often an issue for Magic Square, are one here again. While everything lines up nicely and sits proper on Peace, material tolerances from the nylon plastic Magic Square uses mean that Victory's legs don't like to stay together, the fuel tank on the one side kept popping out, and the flaps that stack on the back of the truck don't like to stay in place. It's interesting, though, that where Peace came with trailer hitches compatible with MP-10 and MP-44's trailers, Victory's own trailer has a hitch part on it. If you turn it 180 degrees you can pop it off and attach it to the cab, which helps to hold the legs together. However, to attach Victory to the trailer, you have to remove the hitch from the cab, put it back on the trailer, then attach the cab. Cab attached, I think the overall truck mode is pretty good, although I prefer the stripe on the cab and the blue on the trailer on Justice. Actually, I think the overall level of detail and the shape of the lights make me prefer the truck mode on Justice/Freedom, even if the back of the truck is more obviously robot legs. Still, Victory does have some improvements. For one, the trailer hitch, which rotates on the the trailer so the truck can turn, actually uses a pair of tabs to attach to the truck vs kind of just sitting on the back of Justice and hoping for the best. Also, due to the transformation, Victory's doors can open, although all you'll see inside is his hands. Curiously, Victory's trailer is significantly longer than Justice's (or, for that matter, Hybrid Style Convoy's). I think it might actually be a little more proportional to a real American truck, although I think Justice's proportions are probably more similar to the G1 and MP toys. And on that note, say you prefer those toy proportions, or you really want the blue stripes on the cab. If you go back and look at the hitch again, you'll notice that in addition to the space in the center keyed to attach to Victory's trailer there's a small peg hole. Remove the hitch from Victory's trailer and put it on the cab, and that peg hole will allow Victory to pull Justice's trailer. With the number of players entering the 3rd party Legends market I have to say that I don't think Light of Victory is the perfect Legends Optimus. He's got flaws, mostly from scale and material tolerances, that make transforming him kind of a pain compared to the larger, easier Light of Peace, and someone else could swoop in and make a Legends-scale Prime I like better. That being said, what surprised me given that I still prefer Light of Freedom to Light of Peace at the MP scale is that I do prefer Light of Victory to the older Light of Justice. The truck mode isn't as good, but the sculpt and proportions are a bit better in robot mode, he doesn't need to remove his Matrix to transform, and his accessories are (minus the lack of blue stripes on the trailer) all around improvements over Justice's. If you want a good-looking, fun-to-pose mini Optimus figure for your desk Light of Victory is the one you want... probably. Because, well... Tune in tomorrow (or Monday if this is how you kill time at work) for a Legends-scale Optimus that isn't from Magic Square.

Not a super big update or anything, but I picked up a few 3D printed kits from Go Better. Up first we have this kit, a pair of missiles and attachments. This kit is for Transformers Prime First Edition Deluxe-class Starscream, and it addresses my single biggest complaint with the figure. See, FE Starscream came with these rubbery pale gray missiles, molded in trios. In the cartoon, though, he had a single red missile each arm, evocative of his G1 null rays. With this kit, you pop the rubber missiles off, pop the new red missiles into their attachments, and use the attachments to clip them on where the rubber missiles were. The fit of the attachments onto Starscream is quite snug; I've found that the missile will come off before the attachment will. The paint accurately reflects the fact that the missiles in the cartoon had two red tones, a darker one for most of the missile and a brighter shade on the tip. My only real complaint is that I wish the missiles didn't stick out so far from his arms, but that's more an issue with FE Starscream's design than Go Better's. As they attach to the robot mode exactly where the stock accessories do, you could probably guess the same holds true for his alt mode. No real complaints here. Actually, I do have one complaint... the price. This kit ran me about $16 dollars, and as good as Go Better's prints are I really don't think this is $16 worth of paint and plastic. That being said, the lack of cartoon-accurate missiles for Starscream has bugged me for a long time and I don't see anyone else rushing to fix the issue. I personally have no regrets, but I do think it's too expensive to recommend more generally. This kit's for Studio Series Wheelie, and it's a bit more involved. There's a number of filler parts (including one not pictured, because I'd already test fit it and couldn't get it back out), but we've also got a hinged part, a pin, and new forearms. We'll start with the easy stuff- the fillers. The gray ones go in the insides of his toes, the big orange ones go on the inside of his lower legs, and the small orange ones go inside his thighs. Note the directions: it's easy enough for the big orange pieces to follow the curves, but for the rest if you're not as sure remember that the molded details should wind up on towards the bottom of his feet and the backs of his thighs. For me, the orange pieces fit very well, and the color match is quite good. The gray parts are slightly too large. I had to push them in very hard to keep them from forcing themselves back out. I kind of wonder why they didn't make fillers for the smaller cutouts in Wheelie's thighs. Generally speaking, I tend not to buy filler kits for cheaper figures like a Core-class and wouldn't buy this kit if all it were was fillers, even if it did have fillers for the smaller thigh cutouts. By the same token, I'm not really bothered that they're not there, either, just curious. Moving on. Now we gotta prep Wheelie for surgery. First, pop his forearms off the ball joints. Turn him around, and push the pin out of his butt flap from left to right. Be careful, that pin also goes through the cockpit on his back, but you want the cockpit to stay put. Take the hinged piece from the kit. Find the side with pin holes and line it up with the hinge you just removed his butt flap from, then slide the new included pin (not the original) from left to right to pin everything in place again. With this new butt part, you can use the double-hinge to fold it up tighter against his back, so he no longer looks like he's got a bustle for a dress he might put on. The arms attach a bit easier... simply pop them onto the ball joints, making sure that the wheels point in toward his body. The first thing I'll note is that the new arms have some molded details that are a bit more cartoon-accurate than the smoother originals. And personally, I think the gray Go Better used for the hands matches his feet, knees, and cap better than the silver Hasbro used. However, that's not exactly the point of replacing them. Rather, it's the transformation. With the new arms, you can open panels on the sides, then the fists can swivel inside. The transformation is basically the same at that point, except the forearm panels (which stay open) tuck up under the new butt flap. Then the butt flap unfurls to fill in the gap between his arms, and... yeah. The hinges and concave spaces aren't as neat as the smoother, rounded stock parts. But the trade off is wheels with silver rivets that better match the front wheels, and... something else... oh, yeah, that's right. No more big ol' silver hands sticking out the back! Frankly, I'll take the slightly messier trunk over visible hands any day. Overall, I think this kit's a pretty big improvement over the stock figure, and at $17 it's also a lot more reasonably-priced (although still technically more than the base figure). There are some caveats, though. For one, Wheelie's new butt flap doesn't have a place to store his slingshot like his old one does. Two, the new fist holes are a tad large, so even holding the slingshot in bot mode is a tad problematic. I still think it's an improvement overall, though, so I'll recommend this one.

Word on the street is that it's going to be the official reveal of the Transformers Rise/Reactivate figures, three of which have been leaked. Well... I guess it'll be cool to see Soundwave (I have it on authority that he'll have a G1-ish robot mode and a truck/SUV alt mode (ala his evergreen design), and maybe get some preorders in. If we get really lucky maybe they'll announce a few more characters, or provide an update on the game.

Real good deal if you haven't picked up a Steam Deck yet, but probably not necessary if you already own one. I want to say "like the Switch OLED", but when Tears of the Kingdom came out and I saw a demo running on a standard and OLED Switch side-by-side the smaller bezels and much more vibrant display got me to buy one on the spot and give my old one to my daughter. Personally, although the APU is the same as the ROG Ally's, I've been eyeballing the Lenovo Legion Go. Lenovo's software seems so much better than Asus' Armoury Crate, and the as someone who hates playing shooters with a controller their FPS mode seems pretty brilliant.

Is it $60 on consoles? You guys are getting ripped off, it's $50 on Steam.

A Chinese toy company, no, and generally speaking I don't have a problem buying Chinese toys. But if said Chinese company is producing the toy under license from Shenyang Aerospace (I *think* it is, I've seen AVIC's logo on some images), and SAC is a division of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (it is), and AVIC is a state-owned company (it is), then money from this toy is going more directly to the PRC. And again, I'm not interested in making a moral judgement for anyone, but I do think it's something people should be aware of.

Just to clarify, you mean because the FC-31/J-31/J-35 was almost definitely developed with stolen JSF data, right? Because, for anyone that doesn't know, the Shenyang J-35 is a real Chinese fighter, and I do believe this figure is licensed. You guys do what you want, I'm not judging, but for me personally I'm a bit hesitant to contribute to the Chinese military. Supposed to be out around the end of the month. Here's a ShowZ store link.