mikeszekely

Well, Arcee wasn't the only Rise of the Beasts figure Amazon sent already. I also have Voyager-class Cheetor. Cheetor, as a Voyager-class, seems weird. In G1 the Maximals are supposed to be smaller than the Autobots already, and Cheetor was one of the smaller Maximals. Even in Kingdom Cheetor was pretty much in-line with the Deluxe cars, but this Cheetor is slightly taller than Kingdom Tigatron. I'll be curious to see if he's a bigger guy in the movie, or if this is entirely about getting a giant robo-cheetah to run alongside a certain offroad Camaro to recreate that scene from that trailer. Is it film-accurate? I honestly don't know, I don't think I've seen the CGI for the robot mode yet. The coppery color does seem to match the CGI of the alt mode, I suppose. I'm not really sure how I feel about it, otherwise. There's elements of his chest that look like the eyes and the top of a a cheetah head kind of flattened out, and he's got the suggestion of ear points and a head crest. Oh, and he's got spots! But nothing else really screaming "this is Cheetor!" Indeed, while he's got a butt flap and a tail along his spine, he's devoid of the wings and legs dangling off his back that I associate with Cheetor. All-in-all, I'd say the design is ok. Better than the Bayverse stuff, but kind of generic compared to Beast Wars. Note that I'm not sure how his shoulders are supposed to look in the movie, but the shoulder armor his hinged and can move out to the sides. I rather like that look. Cheetor comes with this two little spears. No gut guns or tail whips or anything like that. Cheetor's head is on a ball joint with some fairly adequate up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel, and he's got two joints for lateral movement. The one is really a for transformation, and it's on the wrong side of the swivel. It'll go about 45 degrees before his shoulders bang into his head. The other is on the correct side of the swivel, and it'll go a little under 90 degrees. You can combine them to go past 90. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. He does actually have a waist swivel, it's just a little lower than you'd first expect and his butt flap can get in the way. His hips go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 60 degrees backward (if you move the butt flap). His thighs swivel just above the knees, which bend 90 degrees. His toes can tilt up due to transformation, but nothing down. His ankles pivot about 90 degrees, both in and out. The two smaller spears are meant to combine into a larger spear. You slide the end the three spikes into the top of his hand, then plug the other end into the first under his hand. That being said, both ends have enough of a 5mm port that he can hold them as two weapons. Or if you'd rather store them, they have tabs on them that fit into slots on his back. Despite his larger class, Cheetor's transformation isn't particularly complicated. Both his back and his chest open- opening his chest allows you to fold in his robot head, opening his back allows you to fold out the cheetah head. And the rest of the transformation is pretty much just arranging his robot limbs to be cat limbs. For the front legs that's pretty uninteresting. His shoulders lock onto the cat's neck, then you turn the bicep and the wrist so elbows bend the right way and the claws are pointed forward. Transforming his rear legs is a bit more interesting and works really well. It's not exactly novel, as it's extremely similar to Titans Return Weirdwolf in that you shift his shins up to unlock a mid-thigh digitigrade bend. The main difference is that you rotate his thigh 180 degrees first, so that his shin tabs into the back of his robot thigh and the digitigrade bend goes the other way. As near as I can tell, Cheetor looks decently accurate to the CGI of him running with Bumblebee. I mean, he's missing some of that gunmetal paint on some of his mechanical details, sure, and some panel lining would have helped, too, but it's a overall a very good catlike shape. There's some molded fur where the CGI model has some, but it's the same color as the rest of him and molded so lightly I didn't even realize it was fur until I looked at the CGI. Really, my biggest aesthetic complaint is the visible robot hands on the backs of his front paws. Well, my actual biggest complaint with his alt mode is actually articulation, which is kind of limited. His cat head is on a ball joint, but there isn't clearance for more than the slightest wiggle left/right/up/down. He can swivel his head on the joint, but that just tilts his head like he's confused. His jaw opens. His shoulders are actually locked to his cat neck, so he's got no shoulder rotation or lateral movement. His front legs are limited to a bicep swivel, 90 degrees of elbow bend, wrist swivels, and a little bit of up/down paw tilt. His butt plate locks his waist swivel in cat mode. His rear legs do a bit better. His hips don't have the clearance to move too much forward or backward, but he retains the lateral spread. His thigh swivel is locked in this mode, but his knees can still bend and now he's also got the digitigrade joint His feet have a little up/down tilt, but they still retail the entire pivot range. His tail is hinged so it can move up/down at the base, but it has no additional articulation. As with robot mode, the spear can be stored on his cat mode by splitting it into two parts and tabbing them into slots on his back. Fortunately, Cheetor makes a much better impression than Arcee (but at triple the price it better!). His robot mode articulation is good, and although I wish his cat mode had better articulation it looks pretty good. Speaking of looks, my complaints with his robot mode are likely more complaints with his design in the film than with the figure itself. The most I can really say is that it probably could have used a bit more paint and some panel lining. All-in-all, he's a decent figure that's worth checking out if you're curious about the new movie toys.

Some more 2024 leaks, this time Studio Series. This isn't from my usual source, but another one who's proved reliable in the past... but I have questions. The list looks like this: TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV5 MOHAWK TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV6 RUMBLE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV6 STARSCREAM TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX TF7 SCORPINOCK TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX MV6 SUNSTREAKE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX WFC SIDESWIPE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY WFC STARSCREAM TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY 86 SCRAPHEAP TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY MV6 SHOCKWAVE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR MV6 MEGATRON TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR AST TF86 SWOOP OK, well, we knew Swoop was coming, we were just waiting to here when (I really wish Hasbro would stop screwing around and release more than one Dinobot a year). And some of these make sense. A core-class Mohawk? Sure, Hasbro loves doing motorcycles lately. I've been hearing rumblings that War For Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron (the games) were joining Studio Series, so Starscream and Sideswipe are reasonable picks. 86 Scrapheap? That'd be another Wreck-Gar retool, the Junkion with the red head and yellow torso. TF7 is Rise of the Beasts, is Scorponok going to be in that one and we just haven't heard about it yet? Now here's where I start having questions. MV6 is Bumblebee. Rumble wasn't in Bumblebee. Megatron wasn't in Bumblebee. Sunstreaker wasn't in Bumblebee. Someone suggested that it's a misprint, that they're probably 86s (which would make Rumble a package refresh). Sunstreaker was briefly in 86, flying Optimus' shuttle. If true, curious to see what they'd do that they didn't with the Earthrise figure. And while fans have suggested that they'd love a Studio Series Megatron that's a better toy than the Siege-retooled Earthrise figure, it's pretty much a fact that he can't have his G1 alt mode. Do I really want another G1-ish Megatron compromised by a tank alt mode? Also, if those guys are typos, what about the other two Bumblebee figures on the list? Are they supposed to be typos, too? Given that we already have a Core-class G1 Starscream from the Kingdom it seems unlikely that another Core-class release would get the budget to make any significant changes, so a Core-class Bumblebee Starscream seems more likely to me. Likewise, while I think Hasbro could make a more accurate 86 Shockwave than Siege, fans have wanted a Voyager-class Bumblebee Shockwave since they released the Core-class version. But if those listings are correct, then it calls the notion that the others aren't into question. I mean, we know Megatron at least had concept art for Bumblebee. And we do have a Soundwave and Ravage from Bumblebee. Is there some concept art for Rumble and Sunstreaker in Bumblebee out there?

Or a Ferrari, like they did the last time Mirage (or Dino, if you prefer) was in a live-action movie. No, what bothers me about Mirage isn't that they changed his alt mode. They've been doing that since the very first film with Hummer Ratchet, truck Ironhide, and Camaro Bumblebee. What bothers me is that they made a CGI model for a robot that looks an awful lot like Jazz that turns into a car that looks an awful lot like Jazz then named him after a prominent Season 1 Autobot that is NOT Jazz.😒 Speaking of Rise of the Beasts, it seems that the toys are starting to trickle out early. I myself happen to have a copy here of Studio Series Core-class Arcee. In some ways it seems like Arcee's having a bit of a renaissance these days. She was one of the handful of characters to get a Deluxe-class release for Cyberverse. We got a G1-inspired release in Earthrise (and repackaging in Kingdom) and a Prime-inspired Legacy version. And when people complained the Earthrise version wasn't good enough we had a G1 do-over in Studio Series, one of now four Arcees in Studio Series line along with these three. Despite Hasbro's enthusiasm for Arcee of late, it seems that after getting a major upgrade from the Revenge of the Fallen figure to the Bumblebee figure she's suffering a bit of a downgrade for Rise of the Beasts. I assume the decision to make this release a Core-class was about scale, but limited budge for paint and parts is doing her no favors. It's hard to tell from the screen caps of trailers that have been revealed so far, but in very broad strokes her colors are mostly OK. White head, white chest, pink shoulders and biceps, red pelvis and thighs, red forearms, white shins and feet... this all checks out. Her pink face is kind of off, though, as it should be white- apparently they were working off an older design, which is why I firmly believe that new movies should have their own line and not enter the Studio Series until later, as inaccuracies on Bumblebee and the car version of Shatter from Bumblebee were also due to the toys' designers working on unfinished movie designs. Other issues are down to class, though. Her entire midsection is black, lacking the white and silver mechanical details of the CGI model. Her forearms are missing some white on the undersides, as well as silver fingers. He thighs are missing mechanical details, as well as the Ducati branding. Then there's the kibble. The front of her alt mode is sticking off her butt, and her calves are dominated by wheels. The wheels on her calves almost get a pass. As near as I can tell the CGI model has them tucked away somewhere when she's just standing around, but action shots have her using the wheels like skates and I think that's the look they're going for. Good luck getting her to stand, but you can even fold them out and down a bit. The front of the bike is a bit more egregious. I mean, the front of the bike is clearly her chest on the CGI model (to the extent that the toy's chest has painted lights that the CGI model doesn't). The CGI does have a wheel on her back, though... two, in fact. I can't tell from the trailers if she has two wheels on her back that move to her legs for skating mode, or if the idea is that one wheel splits and stores in her thighs, deploying for skating, and the other splits into two "wings" on her back. It looks like it might be the former (you can see wheels on her back and nothing on her legs in the Stonehenge shot, and wheels on her legs but just fenders on her back in the scene where she's skating and falls backward into Wheeljack to avoid a missile). Arcee does have an accessory, and it's this... object. I suppose it does look a little like the blaster she's got in the skating with Wheeljack scene in the trailer. Note that her front wheel is also packaged with her blaster in the box and not attached. It just plugs into the bike's nose via a peg. Arcee's head seems to be on a ball joint, and she can swivel and look down a bit, but no real sideways or upward tilt. He shoulders are on ball joints that swivel and give her 90 degrees of lateral movement. However, they don't actually tab into her sides and there's a hinge for transformation that you can use for more lateral movement. No bicep swivel, but her elbow ball joint swivels in addition to providing a little over 90 degrees of bend. No wrist articulation. Her waist swivels, though. Her hips are ball joints, and they can kind of go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, although practically her butt kibble gets in the way. Her only thigh swivel is the limited amount that her leg can turn around the ball joints in her hips. Her knees can bend about 90 degrees, even with the wheels folded up. She has no foot or ankle articulation. She can hold her blaster by plugging the peg into either of her fists. Technically, the peg on her front wheel will also fit in her fists, in case she needs a pizza cutter. I suppose going Core-class for Arcee is about robot scale. While smaller than her Bumblebee Deluxe counterpart, her bike mode is larger than Revenge of the Fallen Arcee's. And I'm pretty sure that if you put ROTF Arcee next to, say, ROTF Bumblebee, and figure out how big a human would be in each one, that ROTF Arcee was already on the big side. As a Core-class, the transformation is pretty simple. Rotate her at the waist, bend her head forward, bend arms up above her so they meet, make her do the splits, flip the front of the bike between her legs, fold out the wheels and double hinge the knees so that the top of her foot sits where her knee should be, then fold her legs under her so the halves of the rear wheel meet. Arcee transforms into a Ducati 916, which actually does bring us some continuity with Revenge of the Fallen since she was a Ducati there, too (and 848). She's a bit of a mess, though. You've got a mostly-visible robot head, visible robot hands where her exhaust should be, and a seat broken up by her robot shoulders. The tail is red when it should be mostly white, and the nose is mostly white when the red should rum the while way up the sides, over the mirrors. The smooth, curved sides of the real bike are flat and marred with mechanical details that don't belong. Unlike the myriad of other motorcycle Transformers Hasbro's been releasing of late, Arcee doesn't have a kickstand and can't stand up on her own in bike mode. This is where her blaster comes in, though. You'll notice two grooves on the top. This allows the blaster to grab onto some tabs as you wedge it between her feet under the bike. Little flared protrusions on the bottom of the gun act as a stand to keep the bike upright. And since the front wheel is pegged in place you can swivel it. Both tires spin. That's about it. Arcee is not a good first impression for the Rise of the Beasts toys. And I find it curious, because Hasbro is releasing figures in both the Studio Series line and a separate Rise of the Beasts line. We've already seen leaks, in fact, of a planned Deluxe-class Cheetor in the Rise of the Beasts line that's retooled from the Kingdom toy, but the revealed Studio Series toy you can preorder is a more screen-accurate, all-new Voyager mold. The impression I was getting is that Hasbro was going to cheap on the main ROTB line (much they way they do with Earthspark, offering "Deluxes" that are a bit less than what you'd get in a Legacy Deluxe, for example), while making the Studio Series releases the more accurate, more premium versions. But Studio Series Arcee is a messy, ugly figure that I can't honestly recommend. I'd suggest waiting and seeing if she doesn't get a better Deluxe-class toy in the regular Rise of the Beasts line.

Yes, SS86 Magnus is coming. This year, I think. And no, it shouldn't be a repackaged Kingdom. My sources say it's Commander-class which means it should have nearly double the budget.

As far as upgrade kits or anything? Not that I'm aware of, save a few 3D-printed gap fillers (I have one in his shoulder pylons, but I couldn't be bothered to find some that matched Delta Magnus). The only things I'd seen were ways to cover his hands in truck mode. There's basically two I'd seen. For the first, all you need is the figure you have. You want to open up the trailer, then you want to grab the arm covers and pull them back off. Swing his arms out, and turn the fists so they're back in the robot mode position. Open the arm covers, and slide the peg inside into the top of his fist, so that when you turn his arm back in that the long edge is facing out and the short edge is facing in. Note that there's not enough clearance around the fist to fully close the bottom of the armor, just do your best. Now his hands are totally hidden. Sure, his arms are still sticking out of the back, but if you squint the parts that's covered in blue now almost looks like it's part of the trailer. The only downside is that the clearances of the slightly-open armor made it a bit tricky to keep his arms lined up properly, giving it a crooked look. Which brings us to the second option. For this, you want to get some kind of accessory you're not using from another figure. In my case, I've got the part of the bazooka that came with Earthrise Cliffjumper, since A.) I replaced him with the more cartoon-accurate Buzzworthy Bumblebee version, and B.) even if I hadn't, a cartoon-style gun for him came with the Gen Selects Centurion drone so I didn't need the bazooka anyway. But you can try this with other accessories, as long as they fit, cover most of his hand, and are basically symmetric. Then, with his hands in the usual "I'm riding a motorcycle" position, just plug the accessories into his hands. Again, it's not a perfect solution, and his hands are still technically visible, but it does a fair job of obscuring them. I have the guns angled like this because that's how they fit best. If I squint, maybe I can pretend they're like fuel tanks. If you don't mind the roof not coming down the whole way you could haven turn them sideways and pretend that they're air filters instead. Whatever works.

Guess what? Robots in Disguise (2015) is not the only sequel to Transformers Prime. I'm not exactly sure, but I heard something along the lines that Prime was designed with a massive story bible and a plan to run for three seasons, but the writers burned through all the material in the story bible in two. The beast focus in Season 3 was kind of a last minute thing that, in the West, lead to the whole "Beast Hunters" imprint and a lot of toys that didn't make it into the cartoons until the Predacons Rising finale movie (if ever). I don't know if Takara didn't know what Hasbro was doing or what, but they created their own OVA cartoon they bundled with magazines to promote the new toys, called Sanjō Gattai: Transformer Go! (Triple Combination: Transformers Go!). And while the initial wave was made up of toys that would appear on Western shelves it would go on to include a number of figures based on new characters from the Transformers Go! OVA. You know what that means? Another Optimus for my collection. 😆 So I went and grabbed this guy, who surprisingly doesn't go by "Convoy"... this is Transformers Go! G26 Optimus Exprime. Exprime is a pretty tall fella... I don't think Takara divides everything up into classes the way Hasbro does (or at least, they didn't), but he's taller than Earthrise Optimus or (not pictured) Prime "First Edition" Optimus Prime (who was already taller than Prime "Robots In Disguise" Optimus Prime). And he's got some very recognizable Optimus elements, like silver thighs, blue feet and hands, red on the torso with a chest windows and an ab grill, and a blue head with a silver mask, antenna ears, and a vented forehead crest. But... to call Exprime "awkward" might be understating things a bit. Large flaps hover over shoulders that stick way too far out from his torso. Likewise, there's a ridiculous overhang above his chest windows, and massive kibble armor on the outsides of his arms. His pelvis is covered by a single-piece apron of a hip skirt that actually plugs into his crotch. He's got an absolutely mammoth backpack, and you'd think with all that backpack they'd have a better way of hiding that flap that's just laying on top of it, but they didn't. Probably because the backpack is a battery box and speaker for lights and sounds that I haven't tested because I don't feel like opening him up and looking for batteries. Exprime comes with a few accessories, and none of them are guns. You get two pretty massive swords, for starters. But what's probably drawing your attention are the blue, red, and gold things. I've heard them referred to as kabuto, which is Japanese for a samurai's helmet. Which might seem confusing, because on his own Exprime does not wear them on his head. So, Exprime's head is on a swivel. Technically, he shouldn't have any tilt, but the head folds into the chest for transformation and that transformation hinge can fake a little downward tilt. His shoulders swivel, and they could in theory do something like 180 degrees of lateral movement, but in practice you're going to get a little over 90 straight up before his forearm kibble meets his shoulder flaps, or about 90 if you raised his arm before engaging the lateral joint before his arm kibble starts hitting his backpack. His biceps swivel. His elbows bend a little under 90 degrees, and there's no wrist swivel (in fact, his kibble is attached to the backs of his hands and then plugs into his forearms, so even if he did have swivels you'd be pinning them in place). No waist swivel, either. Plugging his hip skirt in helps hold him together, but you'll have to unplug it if you want any forward hip movement- they can go forward 90 degrees on a ratchet, backward a little less than that because his thigh armor hits his backpack. His hips go laterally a little over 90, also on ratchets. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 45 degrees on a ratchet. If you fold open the red flap on his calves you can bend his knees farther. His feet have some up and down tilt, but no ankle pivots. For starters, he can hold his swords fine in either hand. It's a simple sort of look. You can spruce him up by using either kabuto as a shield- they have 5mm pegs that just plug into his hand. The other can plug onto his back to give him wings. I've seen snippets from the cartoon where Exprime looks like the first picture, with the segmented wings. While a kabuto is occupying one hand, you can slide one sword out of his hand halfway, then plug the other sword into the underside of the same hand. Alternatively, if the other kabuto is on his back, you can plug the swords onto his wings for storage... although the kabuto with the blue doesn't look as much like a shield. Unless, that is, you don't want anything on his back. Then the kabuto combine into a larger shield. And, because it's apparently a thing in the cartoon, his swords have small pegs and holes on the sides so they can combine into something like giant scissors. So, it turns out that Exprime's excessive kibble is largely due to the fact that he's a shellformer. His pelvis disconnects and shifts so that it's behind his back, then his legs open up and fold over his thighs, and his head folds down into his chest. From there it's just about arranging kibble. His arms tuck under his chest so that the forearm kibble and shoulder flaps cover up, then the flap on the top of his backpack flips over to complete the front half. From there it's just a matter of taking some flaps that were on his shins and swinging them on a double hinge to fill in the remaining gaps. And yeah, as you can see, Optimus Exprime is no truck. Instead, he turns into a shinkansen, a Japanese bullet train. This might actually be his best mode. As near as I can tell, it's fairly accurate to the show (it just needs a little more light blue paint on the door windows), and from most angles it definitely looks like a train. It's only when you spin it around and look at the rear that he's a bit unfinished. The train can carry all his accessories by combining the kabuto into their larger shield mode, and then plugging the swords onto it. Tabs on the very back of the train plug into slots on the blue kabuto. At this point, you might be thinking that the swords are kind of cool, but the kabuto seem like more trouble then they're worth and are wondering why you need them. Well, maybe you need them for dragon mode! You need to put his legs into robot mode, open the top flap, and start to fold out his arms, but stop before you shift his pelvis down, fold back the arm kibble, or flip out his head. Instead, take the arm kibble and spin it 180 degrees, then push the translucent lights in so the translucent part spins around, revealing some claws. Unfold the blue kabuto so the head is in the front and the wings are stretch back, and it'll plug into a hole on the front of Exprime's chest. The other kabuto stays folded up, and uses two slots on the underside connect to a pair to tabs on Exprime's back flap. The swords plug into it, and... it's a dragon! I guess? I kind of think maybe it'd look better if the wings on the red kabuto were unfolded, but that might be my Western bias as Japanese dragons were typically wingless. Still, Exprime's legs don't make a very convincing dragon tail, and aside from a little arm articulation it's not like the dragon mode does much. But even the dragon mode isn't exactly the point of the kabuto. Recall at the beginning of the review I said the full name of the show is Triple Combination Transformers Go! Exprime doesn't turn up until late in the story, which actually revolves around two teams of Autobots fighting the Predacons. There's the Swordbot Samurai Team, led by a police car named Kenzan. Kenzan combines with the other two member of his team to form GoKenzan. The other team is the Swordbot Shinobi team, led by a lion named Gekisoumaru. And, of course, he combines with the other two members of his team to form GoGekisou. But once Exprime joints the fight, Kenzan and Gekisoumaru combine with him to form DaiKenzan or DaiGekisou, depending on who forms the top and who forms the bottom (Exprime is always the torso). And this is where Exprime's kabuto really come into play. Gekisoumaru is on top, Exprime's blue kabuto goes on top, with the dragon's mouth opening to reveal the face of DaiGekisou. When Kenzan's on top the red kabuto forms the chest and the actual helmet swivels up to become the head of Daikenzan. And... well, you're not missing much. If I may borrow some pictures from Transformers Universe... DaiGekisou DaiKenzan. Yeah... they've got weird proportions and look kind of rickety, although as I don't have them I can't test the combination for myself. I imagine the design process for Optimus Exprime at Takara when something like this: Boss: Transformers is great, and Optimus Prime is cool, but he fights with a gun and turns into a truck. That's so American. How can we make him more Japanese? Employee 1: What if he turned into a shinkansen? Employee 2: Gattai! Japanese robots should combine! Employee 3: Give him swords! And samurai armor! Boss: Brilliant! We'll do all those things! Unfortunately, the toy isn't the best. The robot is an awkward, kibble-covered thing, with rather limited articulation. The kabuto are finnicky and do little to add to Exprime's solo modes, and the combined modes have weird proportions (to say nothing of the fact that you have to buy, at minimum, two other figures that'll wind up becoming six if you want the options for those two to also combine into GoKenzan and GoGekisou). On an objective, rational level I can't actually recommend Optimus Exprime. That said, I kind of love him. The concept and design are just so over-the-top Japanese that I can't help but admire it. Heck, I'm even thinking about tracking down the other six Go! Autobots to complete the experience.

When I shop at stores that don't have free shipping I prefer to buy more at a time. So, when I grabbed Bumblebee from Transformerland, I decided to grab Robots in Disguise (2015) Warrior-class Optimus Prime, too. Most immediately out of the gate, Prime is around the same size as Bumblebee. This is because, well, they're both Warrior-class. Thing is, I don't think that's actually the correct size. He's much smaller than Prime First Edition Optimus, who he's supposed to be the same character as. He's around the same size as Cyberverse Deluxe-class Prime. But, sure, in Cyberverse everyone is sort of the same size- Prime's maybe a head taller than Bumblebee. But I'm not sure that's the case in RiD15. It certainly wasn't in Prime. Beyond the size difference, there's the lack of painted detail that has him coming across as a bit bland. There's molded detail on his chest, but aside from the main chest window none of the windows or lights are painted. Some of his torso should actually be silver, too. Likewise, his hips have hip skirts molded directly onto them, but the entire part is cast in blue plastic and painted silver, while the molded skirts should be black. His hands and his knee pads should be black, too. He's carrying a bit more alt mode kibble on his forearms and back, too. What's kind of odd is that wheels that should be part of his back kibble aren't, they're on his arm. And his smokestacks are missing entirely, at least from this mode. All-in-all, the sculpt seems right enough, but you can definitely tell this is a toy with a lower budget, and he comes across as just a bit worse than Bumblebee did. Prime's sole accessory is this axe. It's got some nice paint on the blade. I didn't watch enough of RiD15 to know what all weapons he used in the cartoon, but this seems like it's at least appropriate. Not sure why there's a hole in it, though. Prime's head is on a swivel, no tilt. His shoulders can swivel, but he's got no lateral movement. His elbows are ball joints, doing double-duty as a bicep swivel and a little over 90 degrees of bend. No wrist articulation. His waist swivels, though. His hips go forward or laterally 90 degrees, and just a little shy of that backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. He has no foot or ankle articulation. His axe fits into either hand. As with Bumblebee, transformation is fairly simple. His arms curl up and then meet over his head to form the cab sort of like G1 Star Convoy. Then his waist rotates 180 degrees, he legs tab together near his ankles, and the sides of his legs fold up to cover his thighs and sides. It's interesting, because it's a transformation that incorporates his trailer, but the result is kind of tiny. He looks small, even compared to the Cyberverse Deluxe, but next to FE Prime or RiD15 Bumblebee he looks way out of scale. The truck is, at least, kind of accurate. He actually does have painted headlights, and he manages to get some smokestacks for alt mode. He's missing some black around the unpainted marker lights on the roof of his cab and where the cab meets the trailer. The trailer itself is fine on the sides, minus some light blue glow and a missing Autobot insignia. The top is blue and gappy, though, due to being his legs, which aren't really covered. The rear is also gappy for the same reason, and missing painted taillights, and from some angles you can see his feet just sticking up on the back. Prime can carry his axe in truck mode... by stuffing it into the gap between his legs, actually. There's a notch on his back kibble that the axe's pommel slides into, and some grooves where the yellow blade meets the black part of the axe fit over some tabs on the insides of Prime's shins. This leaves the fin on the back of the axe sticking up. RiD15 Prime is a kind of mediocre figure. Like, given the constraints of the Warrior-class budget it's OK, but you can't help but think about how it could be better if it had been a larger, more expensive figure (which is likely why in Japan he actually did get a larger, more screen-accurate toy but we just never got it here). If you just want something, anything to represent RiD15 Prime in your collection he'll do in a pinch, and only runs about $15 even on the secondary market. "Better" is going to come with a premium, as the Japanese figure (TAV21) can go for $100 or more used without the original packaging, and upwards of $150 new in box.

A little while ago I posted the entire rest of the Legacy Evolution line. Well, same source leaked some of next years line (which I suspect, but don't know for sure, will be Legacy Universe). And... well, you know how I complained that Evolution is a bit less exciting than Legacy, and Legacy was a bit less exciting than the War for Cybertron stuff? There are some choices here that are so "what were they thinking?" that I'd swear that someone was trolling with a fake list if this wasn't coming from a trusted source. First, let's start with the good. G1 is still getting some love... we're finally going to get a Deluxe-class Gears! And Pointblank is going to be joined by fellow Targetmaster Sureshot. And... well, that's it. At least for what's been leaked, which is only two waves worth of Deluxes and some Cores. Then there's the mixed. Windblade and Chromia are both getting new toys, based on their Cyberverse versions. I'm fairly ok with that. I think Cyberverse was one of the better Windblade designs, if they can just give her a more WFC/Legacy-ish, less cartoony head (which has largely been their MO) I can dig it. Athough... isn't a G1-ish Cyberverse Chromia basically the Thrilling 30 toy? And Animated will continue to get some attention with Animated Bumblebee. Frankly, they're losing me here. Animated Bumblebee without Derek Wyatt's style is basically G1 Bumblebee with a more generic alt mode, and Animated has to be one of my least favorite versions of the character. I'd rather they did Cyberverse Bumblebee or a new take on Thrilling 30 Bumblebee. As for the "what where they thinking?" there are two listings labeled "Rock 1" and "Rock 2". My guess is that this will be the Weaponizer/Fossilizer/Junkion gimmick for the year, but the real question is, what is it? New Rock Lords? Or the abandoned Rock Bots concept that was originally going to be in G2, that featured Transformers that turned into musical instruments? Something else? And then there's the last of the leaked Deluxes... Chase. From friggin' Rescue Bots. Now, on paper, I'm totally cool with Rescue Bots as a show to get really young kids into Transformers. But, are there any kids who started on Rescue Bots old enough and still into the brand enough that they actually want characters from Rescue Bots in a line that's aimed at adult collectors? I mean, I was on the verge of quitting Hasbro's mainline Transformers before Siege, and they totally sucked me back in by putting out some really awesome, cartoony, G1-inspired figures, and while I've said I don't mind them branching out into the other shows (I've actually enjoyed picking up some of the main-cast characters from Beast Wars and Armada), I think Rescue Bots might be a bridge too far for me. Continuing with the WTF-ness, we have the leaked Core-class releases. Whatever Rock is, it's continuing there with one release labeled "Rock 1." If it's the old Rock Bots concept, I'm thinking something like one of the Deluxes turns into a guitar, and maybe the Core turns into an amp? The original proposal had a guitar/amp combo pack. Then there's Energon Megatron, which... like, yeah, I'm cool with an Energon Megatron. Maybe a lot of fans are. But, y'know, in a Voyager or Leader class. Why Core? And we conclude the leaked Cores with Tasmanian Kid. Who's Tasmanian Kid, you ask? Well, rather than put out a few more Core-class Decepticon Pretenders like Submarauder or Octopunch, or release some more improved versions of Soundwave and Blaster's cassettes, Hasbro thought they'd go back to the Japan-only Beast Wars II well.

It's an impressive feat of engineering that's just too far from the Predaking mark for my tastes.

An outdated sub-Deluxe probably isn't the most exciting figure for a review, but it's what I got. This is Robots in Disguise (2015) Warrior-class Bumblebee. Until this point, the only RiD15 figure I'd bought was Warrior-class Grimlock, and that's because in the 15-ish episodes I watched Grimlock was easily the highlight. Does the show get better? I wouldn't know, because Netflix only has the first of four seasons, and if I wanted to watch the rest I'd have to buy them... on Apple TV (which I don't have), because Amazon only goes to season 3. Streaming Transformers right now is a mess, but I digress. So, yeah, I realized I have a big box filled with just Bumblebee figures (probably half of them from Studio Series alone!), but RiD15, which stars Bumblebee as the leader of the Autobots on Earth, wasn't represented. Thanks to Transformerland.com, I was able to rectify that with Warrior-class Bumblebee. I'm pleasantly surprised! After finding the new Earthspark Deluxes a bit underwhelming compared to the Legacy stuff I was a little afraid to go down to the Warrior-class, but apparently "Warrior" back in the RiD 15 days is closer to "Deluxe" by Earthspark standards. I mean, he's clearly a much simpler figure than the Prime and Cyberverse Deluxe-class Bumblebees, but not too far off the Earthspark one. The main thing working against Bumblebee at the Warrior budget seems to be paint. They managed to slather some black paint over his shins, which included painting over some details that actually should be yellow, but none of that made it to his feet, which should be mostly black with a little gray. His pelvis should also be be black, and his abs should be gray and silver instead of unpainted yellow. Blue headlights are missing from his chest, and some red details on his shoulders are also missing. Other inaccuracies could be chalked up to the relatively simple design of the figure, but arguably also to the fact that the chunky, heroic proportions Bee had in the cartoon don't realistically lend themselves to transforming into a sports car at even a Deluxe or Voyager budget. His arms, shoulders, and chest are much narrower than the cartoon. A swivel to get his door wings to face forward would have been nice, and his smaller black wings are simply omitted. He's got a bit of a backpack formed by the rear of the car, which irritatingly doesn't really lock into place, and the roof is hanging from his calves- it doesn't even plug in, but at least it stays put. A lack of any heel spurs means he has to lean forward a bit or risk falling over backward. Bee's sole accessory is a translucent blue sword, and considering he's a Warrior-class it's not bad! It's a bit longer, and the plastic a bit thicker, than the translucent blue sworld that comes with Leader-class Legacy Laser Optimus. Bee's articulation is held back a bit by his low-end nature. His head is on a ball joint that swivels and tilts up a bit and slightly to the sides, not really down. His shoulders are also on ball joints, but where they connect to his torso. That provides him with a swivel, a bit of shrug/slump, and a slight forward/backward butterfly. A dedicated hinge gives him nearly 90 degrees of lateral movement. Refreshingly for the class, he has a dedicated bicep swivel and hinged elbows that bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel. His hips (also NOT ball joints) can go 90 degrees forward, and a little less than that backwards and laterally. His thighs swivel. His knees get a little under 90 degrees of bend, surprisingly due to the shape of his leg and not the roof kibble on his calves. His feet tilt up due to transformation, but not down, and he lacks ankle pivots. He holds his sword in either hand by sliding the handle into his grip. Transformation is simple- spin the waist 180, tab his legs together, fold his feet up, lift his backpack over his head, slump his shoulders so his arms are tight against his sides, rock the roof back and into place, then fold his wings down until the doors cover his arms. As I said, simpler than the Deluxe-class Prime Bumblebee that came before or the Cyberverse Deluxe-class that came after, but not far off the current Earthspark Deluxe. I'm kind of tempted to check out an Earthspark Warrior-class toy just to see how bad they've gotten. I really dig Bumblebee's alt mode. The hard lines reflect RiD15's animation style, mostly, but I think they also make for an aggressive, retro-futuristic look that sets the design apart from the more rounder recent Bumblebees. Overall the shape of the car is very accurate to the cartoon without much visible robot kibble. Once again, the main thing working against the figure is just paint. They put some black on the hood and nose, and they painted the blue headlights, but that's it. The turn signals and marker lights on the front aren't painted, and the stripes on the sides are missing. His rear is missing the taillights and A LOT of black... like, it should be almost all black except for the raised bit and the trapezoidal stuff at the bottom. I actually decided to order the Toyhax labels for this one. The underside of the car doesn't show as much car as you'd think, and there's storage for his sword under there. Basically there are two hollow gaps in the blade that fit over matching tabs on the underside of the car. RiD15 Bumblebee is not on par with a modern Legacy Deluxe... but unlike the "Deluxe"-class Earthspark figures he wasn't supposed or priced to be, so I find that I can forgive his simplicity easier. I think he's actually a pretty decent figure, and I'd give him a recommend, especially if you don't mind painting some of the missing detail yourself.

Eh, unpopular opinion, maybe, but I actually like the newer ones better. The original ones tried to hard to be serious but not only are they not trying to be serious now, they're not even pretending. They flew a car into space in the last one! These movies play out like a kid on a sugar rush playing with Hot Wheels, and I'm there for that.

Can I flip them? I'm a little thin on top, but my chest hair is full and luxurious. Does the key have a hole to go on a key ring? I kind of dig it. Not sure what I'd do with the license plate, though. My car doesn't have a bracket for a front plate.

That strikes me as such an unusual take, but honestly, I think I'm just old, and I expect that your scenario is going to be more and more common. I mean, basically nobody I know owns a desktop computer anymore unless they use it for gaming. And my wife, (who's on her phone so often she had a toilet paper holder installed in the downstairs bathroom with a little shelf for you to set your phone down on when you while you wipe) does the majority of her internet life on her phone. She only turns on her laptop these days when she wants to do banking, since she keeps all sorts of financial stuff in Excel. My daughter's going to be 8 this year, and she's a pro with an iPad but hasn't shown any interest in anything with a keyboard. That said I've grown to prefer PC gaming, personally. My computer desk is a more personal space where I can get away when I need a break from the world, and it's a far better platform for game preservation. I'm definitely not anti-console, though. Like I said, I've owned pretty much every Nintendo console and handheld, and I'm going through a phase where I'm super nostalgic for the NES. I've owned every generation of PlayStation, although now that Sony's bringing their 1st-party stuff to PC a PlayStation console isn't as necessary as it used to be for exclusives. And I've owned every generation of Xbox, and I have to say, while I barely touched the Xbox One I'm actually getting decent use out of the Series X. Game Pass is a real game changer, and I mentioned before that Microsoft's cloud makes alternating between playing on PC and playing on the console super easy. Speaking of Game Pass, I saw they added SD Gundam: Battle Alliance. I'd actually bought the game already on Steam, as I'm a Gundam fan, and I don't regret it. But if you have Game Pass it's definitely worth checking out. It's pretty easy to pick up, and not exactly the deepest game. I've heard it referred to as an action RPG, and I don't know that I'd agree. Yeah, your pilot levels up and learns new passive skills you can equip. And yeah, your mobile suit has stats that you can increase by spending capital. And yes, you can get plans for new mobile suits that'll have you grinding the same level multiple times until you can build said mobile suit. But that's kind of it. It's mostly running through levels, attacking with a primary ranged attack, primary melee attack, and two special attacks. The story is nothing amazing, but it is set up in a way that you get to play through missions from lots of different Gundam shows, not strictly One Year War or Cosmic Era or whatever.

Well, there are the Hasbro Siege ones. They're not quite as smooth, and the nose and tail aren't as sharp, but they're definitely supposed to be those Seekers. Modern Voyagers. A company called Impossible Toys made some very accurate tetrajet modes... but the robots aren't so hot, and they're smaller, closer to Deluxe size (around the same size as the original Classics Seekers). I'm not sure how easy they'd be to find on the secondary market these days. Planet X did all three main Seekers, plus a few repaints like Acid Storm and Sunstorm, based on Starscream's look in the War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron videogames. The tetrajet is the inspiration for their alt mode, but it's not exactly close. They're a bit bigger than the Hasbro Siege ones. And that's pretty much it. MAAS Toys was working on an MP-esque design with a bit more of a stylized jet mode. But they went bankrupt. Hasbro did a small War Within Starscream in the Titanium line, but I wouldn't recommend it. Hasbro also did their own version of Starscream from the video games. I think they did repaint him as Skywarp and Thundercracker. They're small, Deluxes.

Quick Repaint Roundup. So, here's a look at how my brain works. I'm at Target the other day, and I'm looking at the Transformer aisle. Nothing super exciting... lots of the Earthspark toys nobody wants, a couple of Warrior Skywarps, a handful of the Deluxes. Some Studio Series Arcees (the Bumblebee one), and plenty of Core-class Ratchets, Wheelies, Hot Rods, and Iguanuses... Iguanusi? And some Buzzworthy stuff. I'd already bought the Bumbleswoop pack, entirely for Swoop so I could complete the Cyberverse Dinobots. Figuring that the other stuff needs to go too if I want Target to start stocking Hound I decided to grab N.E.S.T. Bonecrusher. And when I got home with him, I decided I should probably get N.E.S.T. Bumblebee, too, for my box of Bumblebees. And that's when that part of my brain that demands that sets be complete was relieved to see that Pulse still had copies of N.E.S.T. Ratchet. If I'm not mistaken, Bumblebee was the first N.E.S.T. repaint and the only one in the regular Studio Series packaging (although he was a limited shared exclusive between Pulse, BBTS, and Entertainment Earth, and was originally supposed to be a Universal Studios exclusive). He's a repaint of Bumblebee Jeep Bumblebee, with the yellow plastic swapped for gray, and the gunmetal paint swapped for silver. (Technically, the "black" plastic on the original is kind of a dark brownish color, and that's swapped for actually black plastic here.) He comes with the same blaster accessory as the original, plus the Sam slug that came with Revenge of the Fallen Bumblebee. I actually kind of dig it. It's not necessarily the most creative repaint, but Bee looks kind of cool in gray, like he's getting ready for covert ops. Ratchet came next. He was a Buzzworthy Bumblebee release, which means he's technically a Target-exclusive, but as I already mentioned he's available on Hasbro Pulse as well. It's the same basic idea- take the original figure, and swap the green plastic with gray (and black). I find this one to be a bit less interesting. I don't know why swapping yellow for gray works on Bumblebee, but swapping yellow for gray makes Ratchet just seem more boring. I'd have preferred if they did the G1-ish white-and-red repaint instead, but I guess that's not how N.E.S.T. does things. Oh well, at least he trades the buzzsaw from the original Ratchet for a gun (that's actually from the Dark of the Moon repaint that I never bought but wish I did). Bonecrusher is the third, and the only one you're likely to find on (Target) store shelves. Like Ratchet, he's a Buzzworthy Bumblebee release, although like Ratchet, he's available on Pulse. And the theme continues, as N.E.S.T. Bonecrusher is the previous Studio Series release with the brown plastic swapped for, you guessed it, gray. As with the original release he has no accessories. This release feels like an odd choice... Bonecrusher struck me as the least forgettable of the Decepticons, probably of all the Transformers, in the 2007 movie. And he died before N.E.S.T. was created. And he's a Decepticon. So... yeah. Bonecrusher's weirdness extends to the vehicle mode. N.E.S.T. is a military unit, and the military definite uses Jeeps. Plus, we know Bumblebee worked with N.E.S.T. as he ditched Sam to a miserable civilian life after college to go work with them, even if he was still a Camaro then. I could see N.E.S.T. personnel driving Jeep Bumblebee around the base. Ratchet's lightbar, black now instead of red, is a little out of place, but the military definitely had some Hummers. N.E.S.T. probably does some search-and-rescue after a robot battle, and that seems right up Ratchet's ally. But Bonecrusher? Yes, I get that the Buffalo is definitely a military vehicle, but it's for clearing mines. Are the Decepticons building minefields that need cleared? Also, shouldn't the gray used by N.E.S.T. be uniform across all their vehicles? Bonecrusher and Ratchet are close, but we're really looking at three different shades of gray here. Bee's alt mode features the fewest changes from the original. It's mostly down to color, with gray plastic instead of yellow, black instead of dark grayish-brown, and greenish translucent plastic instead of clear. Both have painted taillights. Other than that, N.E.S.T. Bee has "N.E.S.T" tampoed on the sides, and an insignia that is ostensibly the N.E.S.T. version of an Autobot emblem on the hood. Ratchet's got a few more changes. As previously mentioned, the red lightbar is black now, and the red fire department livery is gone, replaced with the N.E.S.T. Autobot insignia on the sides and "NEST" in big letters and "FD681 SRE4" in smaller print with another N.E.S.T. Autobot badge on the door. FD681 refers to Fire Department 681, and SRE4 is Search and Rescue E4, which was apparently on the livery for his Dark of the Moon alt mode. He's picked up a few other paint decos, swapping the metallic blue on the lights with silver and adding some new orange ones on the roof and red marker lights on the rear. Bonecrusher's a curious one. They added some orange marker lights to the sides, and some red taillights. The ladder on his rear is painted now, too. He has black rims instead of tan, but otherwise, he's pretty much the same, just gray instead of tan. Curiously, he's got the same N.E.S.T. Autobot badge prominently displayed on the sides, yet under the windows in a smaller print is "4LL H41L M3947R0N" and a Decepticon badge. His bio states that he's apparently undercover on a N.E.S.T. base... I dunno, proclaiming "All Hail Megatron" right on the side of your alt mode in a unit that probably doesn't have much need for minesweepers probably isn't the best strategy. But, given that Bonecrusher died before N.E.S.T. was established this must already be some kind of alternate universe, and in my head canon I prefer to think that if Bonecrusher lived through the first film that he decided to join up with N.E.S.T. to save his own hide. Regardless, he still seems like an odd choice. Like, sure, the Autobots have mostly civilian alt modes, but we've actually seen them working with N.E.S.T. One assumes that we got Bonecrusher instead because his original Studio Series mold hasn't seen any repaints or remolds yet and Hasbro needs to get their ROI on it... but then again, the same could be said for Brawl, and even though he's another Decepticon I'd figure N.E.S.T. would need a tank more than a minesweeper. Oh well. So, yeah, of the three none of them are what you'd call must-have, essential additions to your collection. For what it's worth, though, I do dig Bumblebee as the colors just work for him, I dig the Jeep mode, and it was one of the better Studio Series releases in the first place. Ratchet's a bit less exciting, but I like that I get the gun I missed when I skipped the Dark of the Moon repaint, and aside from a bit of back kibble it's also a pretty good mold. Bonecrusher is the least interesting and most expensive of the three. The original figure was fine, I guess, but not my favorite. I'd say this is the easiest pass of the three- I can only hope that my purchase really does help Hound get to shelves sooner.

Ever since the PS4 and Xbox One went x86 I gather it's been a lot easier to port to PC. Heck, even Sony's doing it now. I might well and truly be done with PlayStation hardware, and I really only keep an Xbox around because GamePass Ultimate works on PC and console, and cloud saves make switching between them pretty seamless. But Nintendo... they've got the best 1st-party franchises, and a lot of them have been going since I was a kid. I've owned every Nintendo console since the original NES, and I don't think I'll be stopping any time soon.

I signed up for some kind of FedEx informed delivery thing when Pulse was shipping Star Saber, because FedEx was sending emails as soon as tracking numbers were in the system but Pulse didn't actually email me to tell me it shipped until after it arrived. The only weirdness I've had with them lately is that on my last three or four shipments I'd get an email from FedEx with one estimated delivery date before they even had the package in hand and they never met those dates. They wouldn't email me about it, but if I checked the tracking number the delivery date would change once they actually picked up the package. For instance, I made one order on Pulse yesterday afternoon, I got an email from FedEx that it'd be delivered today, but today when I checked the tracking number it's showing as "in transit" with a new estimated delivery date tomorrow. It might help in my case, though, that Hasbro has a warehouse in my state, like 4-ish hours from me. In stock stuff tends to get to me pretty fast, it's usually only the newer preorders that take longer because they're coming from the port in Georgia.

I feel like there was a ton of big announcements at the Nintendo Direct, but the highlights for me are Metroid Prime Remaster today, Kirby at the end of the month, Zelda in May, and Gameboy and GBA coming to Switch.

I saw it on Disney Plus, and I'm with @jenius and @renegadeleader1. It was a long, boring film about characters making bad decisions for worse reasons, to the point that I'm questioning if it's mostly positive reception with critics is just fear of deviating from a PC groupthink.

I kind of want that bridge playset... but then I'll have to buy the TNG crew to put in it... and then I realize that what I really want is a for Playmates to do an Enterprise-D.

I said that when I reviewed Needlenose, and sure enough, I'm being told that Generations Selects Windsweeper is coming soon, along with Antagony (from the Predacon Inferno mold). Walgreens is set to get a repaint/retool of Crankcase as Medix, and Target's going to get a Buzzworthy Bumblebee pack that ties into Rise of the Beasts. Then there's the mysteries... I'm hearing that there's another Gen Selects, but it's just labeled "G1 Headmaster." Then there's something called "Fan Fest" in the system, but again, no idea what it is.

Deluxe-class, Buzzworthy Bumblebee (Target-exclusive) Origin Jazz. Coming in the summer.

Eh... I know it's supposed to be Studio OX, but that big helmet, small face is killing it for me. That looks much better than Galvatron. Especially Rodimus Prime. I need that Snarl, and I need it now! Kinda weird, though, that after giving the first three guns and no swords that they gave Snarl a sword but no gun. I guess that's what the DNA kits are for. While DNA is at it, they can replace the sword with a slightly bigger one, with the translucent red they used on Slag and Sludge, that'd be good. Include one for Grimlock, too, since the one they included with the Grimlock kit was silver. Can't wait to see Swoop, now.

I forgot this thread was a thing. Seems my local Walmart is carrying some (or maybe all) of Playmates' Star Trek stuff. I understand that people are kind of upset that they're not like Star Wars Black Series-ish figures but Star Trek, but I think the idea is that they're more like retro-style figures, like the TMNT reissues or the He-Man stuff. Those TNG figures are basically the same ones I had as a kid (except Riker has his beard, now). Still, maybe they should be more like the Black Series, because nostalgia alone wasn't getting me to buy. I passed on the phaser, too. Maybe if you could remove the Type-1 phaser from the Type-2 grip I'd have bought it... or if it were a TNG Type-2. Heck, I might still check it out if they have more next time I'm there. I absolutely bought the Enterprise, though. It's all colored plastic, and no one is going to mistake it for something more premium like a Diamond Selects Enterprise. But, it's a decent size, it comes with a stand, it has sound effects from the show, and it lights up. And, while I don't know about some of these online prices, at Walmart it only ran me $40. At that price I'm satisfied, and would happily buy a few other ships (Enterprise refit/A, Excelsior or Enterprise B, Enterprise C, Enterprise D, Enterprise E, Voyager, Defiant, Thunderchild for sure, probably Discover, Zhang He, Titan, Titan A, and Enterprise F, maybe a D'deridex Warbird or Klingon Bird-of-Prey even).

Huh, I'd have thought he'd have sold out by now. I cut the pelvis flap on my replacement Ironhide. This time, I grabbed some tools and knocked the pin out of the flap and removed it. Made cutting it with a hobby knife much easier, and I didn't gouge Ironhide at all! Stabbed myself in the thumb trimming a little flash, though, so it doesn't look like I'm gaming tonight. So, I might as well do a review. We're finally finishing wave 1 of Evolution with Deluxe-class Scraphook. Well... these original characters are always less fun to talk about, because there's no point of reference for me to be like, "this figure looks pretty good, but...". What I can say is that Scraphook is supposed to be a Junkion. But, I dunno... Junkions to me, in the '86 movie, in the third season of the Sunbow cartoon, in the Marvel comics, kind of a biker gang. They're similarly-sized, they turn into motorcycles (and ride each other), they have "helmets" that look like the front of their bikes, and spikes like you might see on riding leathers. They also tend to have lots of "rusty" colors like grays, browns, reds, oranges, and yellows to reflect that they live on the Planet of Junk. Scraphook gets some of that. Like, he's definitely brown, orange, and gray. And he's got some spikes, although they're mostly on his legs and feet. He's shorter, though, coming in around the same size as a standard Deluxe car and well below Wreck-Gar or Junkheap. He doesn't really have a biker helmet head, either. Actually, he looks like Ironhide with a goatee and a eyepatch. Curiously, he also has an Autobot insignia. While the Junkions were allies of the Autobots (and the original G1 Wreck-Gar toy has Autobot branding) the Junkions didn't have the Autobot badges in the cartoon, and SS86 Wreck-Gar and Junkheap are both faction-free. That aesthetic continues as we look around the figure, but there's one issue that I'm not sure you can see too well in this picture because of his backpack. Now, I'm used to Hasbro hollowing out arms and thighs (which the did here) to save plastic, but this time Hasbro went and hollowed out the back of his head, too. That's a bridge too far, in my book. Could they have spared the plastic from somewhere else to fill in his head? Probably, because he's got a ton of accessories. You get two of these pipes, a crane boom, a hook, a spikey tire, and two bits that I guess are supposed to be pistols. We'll circle back to this. Scraphook's head is on a mushroom swivel, so there's no tilting here. His shoulders have hinges for lateral movement, about 75 degrees or so, and pinned swivels for rotation, but once again the swivel is at the torso and the hinge is on the outside. Hasbro's gotta stop doing that! His biceps swivel, and his elbows are technically double-jointed (more for transformation), but he doesn't have the clearance around his massive biceps to get much more than 90 degrees of bend. His wrists swivel, as does his waist and thighs. His hips can go forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet are double hinged and can get some decent up/down tilt, plus his ankles pivot around 75 degrees. Scraphook has several 5mm ports, in addition to his fists. The default arrangement of his accessories is on the left, with him holding the two pistols. The pipes plug into the 5mm ports on the wheels on his shoulders, the tire plugs into a 5mm port on one forearm as a shield, the hook goes into a port on the crane boom, which in turn plugs into a port on his other forearm. That still leaves a port above the wheels on either shoulder, on one each wheel on the side of his leg, on on the front of each shin, one on the inside of each leg, one under each foot, and two on his back, plus each of the pipe accessories has a 5mm port opposite the peg and a 5mm port near the tips. Feel free to arrange them however you like. Since Hasbro started releasing the Citybot pack-in guys as Weaponizers in Siege it seems like they've been into this pull apart gimmick. I'd hoped we were done with it, since Legacy didn't have any, but Hasbro's decided to replace Weaponizers, Modulators, and Fossilizers with... well, Junkions. No fancy names. The gimmick is a bit downplayed now, at least with Scraphook. He doesn't pull into too many parts... basically, his arms can come off at the shoulders, and his legs can come off just below the knees. And you can pull is forearms off! This is not actually intended, it's a result of the cheap design. The elbow joint clips around the bicep with one of these friction hinges, and the connection is a bit loose because the tolerances are a little off, which pushes the clips on the elbow outward. Your mileage my vary, but I'm betting it actually doesn't. The reason Scraphook doesn't break into as many pieces as Cog or Paleotrex is because unlike the Weaponizers, Modulators, and Fossilizers, the Junkions (Scraphook, anyway, although I'm lead to believe this will be the case for all of them) do NOT partsform into their alt modes. Scraphook transforms from robot to tow truck without removing any limbs, and you can pretend the gimmick doesn't even exist if you want... although you might want to remember it when more Junkions come out, as the limb-swapping thing was something straight out of the 86 movie that I wish Hasbro thought to include on the SS86 Junkions. Speaking of the SS86 Junkions... I know you can sort of rationalize it by saying that the Junkions turn into bikes for other Junkions, not Earth-mode disguises, but Scraphook's truck mode looks kind of ridiculous next to a Junkion bike. He's pretty out-of-scale next to a car like Hot Shot, too. Does he look like a Junkion? He's brown with orange rims and spikes... perhaps too uniformly brown? While the patches and holes on the sides do seem to fit with the junk theme, the cages on the windows and the spiked reinforcement over the bumper and headlights gives him more of a Mad Max vibe. Then again, I guess there's not a ton of difference between junkyard biker gang and post-apocalyptic biker gang, so maybe I'm splitting hairs. The rear of the truck looks the most unfinished, although there's a noticeable gap in the hood, too. This is, of course, where the accessories come in. The guns plug into a pair of ports in the hood gap and look like a carburetor scoop with butterfly valves. The pipes plug into the holes on the sides, just in front of the rear tires, like kitted exhaust pipes. The crane with the hook attached plugs into one of two exposed arm ports in the bed of the truck; note that the peg is offset so that the crane will be centered. This makes Scraphook a tow truck. Lastly, the spiked wheel plugs into a port on the rear. This still leaves a port on either door, the port on each of the four wheels, and the ports on the exhaust pipes you can use to plug in other, non-included accesories. Circling back to my earlier question, about filling in the head... yes. The spiked tire shield. The bot mode can live without it, the alt mode can live without it, and without any paint on the spikes or the rim it doesn't really match his other wheels anyway. To get into the gimmick where we turn him into parts for other robots, with Scraphook you want to start from his truck mode. First, pull the front end off and split it in half. Then, remove the rear by removing the arms from their shoulder ports. Unfold the arms so that the wheels are on the ground, pegs up, and the arms are turned so that the hollow bits are facing up. The instructions suggest that you fold his shoulder ports in all the way on the remaining cab. But, the cab isn't actually used on other robots. There's no pegs on him to plug into the ports on another bot, although I suppose if you have a bot with an exposed peg (a quick look at the bots on my desk doesn't reveal any) you might jam him there. Really, you're just taking all his accessories and his limbs and handing them off to someone else... the instructions use Hot Shot as an example, with Scraphook's arms forming shoes, his guns plugging into the sides of his legs, his shield going on Hot Shot's arm, his crane (with the hook) becoming some kind of odd hand weapon, and his legs becoming shoulder pads with the pipes flaring off like wings. How do I best some up Scraphook? Using bits of guys to augment other guys hasn't really appealed to me- what I liked about the Weaponizers was that they were NOT original characters, they were the little guys that came with the G1 Citybots, guys that were kind of neglected since Thrilling 30 Metroplex only came with Scamper but not Slammer or Sixgun, Trypticon came with Full Tilt but not Brunt, and Fortress Maximus and Scorponok were missing Cog and Fasttrack, respectively. I was far less enthused with Micromaster bases given robot modes (the Modulators), nor was I particularly loving original characters that turned into dinosaur skeletons (the Fossilizers). Scraphook falls somewhere in between. I like him better than the Modulators and Fossilizers because he's a decent enough robot with a decent enough alt mode that I don't have to partsform to transform, and as a Junkion he can technically fill out their ranks on a shelf that currently just has Wreck-Gar, Junkyard/heap, and my custom Rubbish. But as an original character he doesn't have the same draw to me that the Weaponizers did, and he feels somewhat unnecessary. This is compounded by feeling a bit cheap, what with his loose elbow hinges that pop off and the hollow back of the head. That, in turn, brings me to the complaint I feel I'm making rather often, where I wonder why Hasbro is wasting slots in their regimented line up on guys like this while G1 cartoon characters like Gears are still overlooked and more desirable (probably) releases like Breakdown can't even get enough remolded parts to look like the right car. I guess I'd have to ultimately say that you're not missing much if you pass on Scraphook, but at the same time, if you don't mind smaller original Junkions that don't turn into bikes he's not really a bad figure, either, and he can help fill out the Junkion's ranks.