mikeszekely

I was out running errands the other day, and I swung by the toy aisle. I didn't expect to find anything... I'm believe I'm current on Studio Series and Legacy, and I hadn't heard that Buzzworthy Hatchet or Hound had started turning up. You never know, though, maybe they finally clearanced out the Coronation Starscreams that have been clogging up the Leader spot on the shelf all year- I don't need more Starscreams, but I'd buy them up for the accessories. But he wasn't, so I didn't. However, I did find myself making some Cyberverse purchases, of all things. You guys may recall that I decided to give the Cyberverse Deluxes a go, and while pretty much all of them were a bit below what I'd expect from a Studio Series or Generations Deluxe the Cyberverse Deluxes were an interesting bunch that occasionally used some interesting engineering And yet, despite the heavy focus on Dinobots in the final season, only Grimlock and Slag ever got the Deluxe treatment. And two Dinobots just doesn't seem like enough, so I thought maybe I could fill some of the gaps with Warrior-class Snarl. For those unfamiliar, the Warrior-class is essentially Core-class engineering in a Deluxe-sized package. I guess the idea is that the line is aimed more toward younger kids, so a slightly cheaper, easier-to-transform class of figure is better for their target audience? Anyway, given how many details were left unpainted on the Deluxes, it should be no surprise to hear that Snarl's really hurting for details. The tops of his shoulders, his lats, and crotch should be black. His fingers and biceps should be black, but his forearms should actually more mostly gray with yellow spikes, and there should be yellow on his toes and hips. His hip skirts should be red, and he's missing some blue on his chest. His dinosaur head is visible on his legs. He's full of hollow parts, and, oh yeah, he's missing his backpack entirely. Although the colors wouldn't totally be right, the simplified deco and missing backpack cause Cyberverse Snarl to really remind me of G1 Action Master Snarl. He does still have a tail, though, but now it's an accessory, made of a rubbery sort of yellow plastic. He also comes with a sword made of the same material. The sword fits into a slot inside the tail. As you might guess from an over-sized Legends figure, Snarl doesn't have the best articulation. His head can swivel, but there's no tilt. His shoulders are ball joints that can rotate and extend laterally 45 degrees. There's no bicep swivel, but his elbow is a ball joint that acts like a bicep swivel. The ball joint can bend about 90 degrees- there's another joint for transformation that acts like a double elbow, but it's above the ball joint and therefore above the bicep swivel. No wrist or waist swivel, and technically no thigh swivel either. His hips are ball joints, so you have a very slight swivel there, in addition to being able to 90 degrees forward and backward and 45 degrees laterally. His knees can bend nearly 180 degrees. No foot or ankle articulation. He can hold his sword just fine in either hand. There are also 5mm ports on the outsides of his forearms. You can't do much with his accessories, but if you get guns or something from another figure you can plug them in there. As for his tail, there's two things you can do with it. Since it's acting like a scabbard for his sword, there's a 5mm peg on his left hip that you can plug it into. It's kind of in the way there, I think. You can also plug it onto a post on his back. While you can leave the sword stored in there, the figure does have a gimmick. You can put the sword in his right hand, then wiggle the backpack up and down like a light switch. It'll cause the post its on to move, which in turn will cause his arm to move like he's slashing his sword. I hate it, but I'm not the target audience. Compared to his Deluxe-class brethren, Snarl fits in pretty well in terms of size and aesthetic. He's super simple, though- you turn his forearms so the dino toes face his dino front, you fold the legs over at the knees and fold the head together, and then you unfold his tail and plug it onto his back. That's it. Again, I think the shape here is fine, and the lack of paint does match the Deluxes. But it's really the lack of paint that's also a lack of accuracy. No gold dino toes, the underside of his tail is gray instead of gold, his black rear legs should be gray, and parts of his back should be red, etc. The other thing is, Snarl doesn't do much in this mode. The sword stores inside his tail still. His head has no articulation, not even his mouth. Nor does his tail. His front legs can swivel at the shoulders and that's it. His back legs do a little better. They're ball joints at the shoulders, so they can rotate and even spread laterally. That hinge I mentioned earlier, above this robot elbow ball joints, is a dino knee hinge. Meanwhile, the ball joint is turned so now it bends inward, almost working like an ankle pivot. Adding Snarl to my Cyberverse Dinobots really made me want to get all five. Unfortunately, the only figure Swoop got was a very simple figure that came in a back with a very simple Bumblebee that combined into a very simple Bumbleswoop. Despite being super simple they're also weirdly expensive and prone to breaking, so I think Swoop's a pass for me. But... ...there's an Ultra-class Sludge! Ultra is another class we don't have in Generations/WfC/Legacy/Studio Series, so let me explain it like this... you know how Warrior takes the simplicity of the old Legends-class figures and scales them up to Deluxes? Well, Ultra-class takes a simple Legends-class figure and upscales it to Voyager-size. And, again, you'd expect that simplicity would mean that he's missing painted details and what have you from the cartoon, and sure, that's definitely true... he's missing gold on his elbows, dino does, shoulders, ankles, and the spines on his legs, plus some minor details on his torso and pelvis. His pelvis is also missing reds, blacks, and blues... basically none of it should be the light gray that it was molded in. His head is blue instead of black, and while he does have some blue on his chest most of that blue stripe should be black. But it's not just missing color... his shape, and a lot of his molded details, are also wrong. In fact, with his missing feet, the molded stripes on his shins, the shape of his shins, torso, and head... he's honestly more G1 Sludge and than Cyberverse. The simplicity extends to the back and sides of the figure, where we can see a bunch of hollow spaces again. His dinosaur head and neck dangles off his back, which is fine, but the head is facing forward between his legs like G1 Sludge instead of backward as in the Cyberverse cartoon. As near as I can tell, the toy was probably based on the concept art Eric Siebenaler did for the show. Seibenaler's art had an almost Studio OX feel to it, very G1 toy mixed with Japanese mecha anime, and while it's extremely cool (and I'd urge you to check it out), it ultimately had to be modified to fit the aesthetic the show eventually went with. Like Snarl, Sludge's accessory is basically his alt mode tail. Unlike Snarl, Sludge's tail was meant to be an accessory where Snarl's was still supposed to be a split backpack like G1. Siebenaler's art actually has a longer tail that looks more like a sword, but what we got here is more like a lance. Despite his Voyager-esque side, Sludge's articulation is still pretty crappy. His head has no articulation at all, due to a gimmick we'll get to in a minute. His shoulders are hinged ball joints, so they rotate and even have a little forward/backward butterfly, but they can also move laterally nearly 180 degrees. No bicep swivel, but his elbows are ball joints, so they can swivel and bend 90 degrees. His wrists don't swivel, but due to transformation they can bend down. His waist does swivel. His hips are ball joints that go backward and laterally about 90 degrees but only about 45 degrees forward. His thigh swivel is also limited to the very small about you get working the hip around the ball joint. His knees bend 180 degrees. He doesn't have any feet, let alone foot or ankle articulation. This can sometimes pose a problem, as there's no heels or much for him to stand on, and the dinosaur head makes him a bit back heavy, so he can tip over. He also has fairly loose joints on my copy. He can hold his lance, though. I daresay it's a bit tight, if anything. Ok, so that gimmick? You push down on his dino-head backpack, forcing these two tabs (circled) out. This opens his back, allowing spring-loaded translucent blue "energon armor" to come flying out over his face and torso. Now, I didn't like Snarl's judo chop gimmick, but it's mostly harmless. I loathe this energon armor gimmick. It's the reason his head has no articulation. Plus, when you get his backpack undone it's hard to get back into place; if you don't have it lined up exactly right and really force it it'll just fall back down and cause the energon armor to come flying back out. Can you transform Snarl? Sludge is almost the same, with the arms becoming one set of legs and the other set rotating off his lower legs, his lower legs folding over, and his tail partsforming on. The big difference here is that his waist has to rotate 180 degrees, and his wings cover over his head and torso then his dino head folds up from his back to clip into place. Something I sometimes here when people talk about other Dinobot toys that are all scaled to the same robot mode height (like the Studio Series, Planet X's, Fans Toys, Gigapower's, etc) or, worse, when Grimlock is a larger size (PotP, GCreation, ToyWorld, etc), is that Sludge seems comparatively too small in dino mode. In this case, the extra size granted to Sludge as an Ultra-class is working in his favor here, as Sludge is noticeably larger than the Deluxes (or Warrior-class Snarl). As with Snarl, the shape of Sludge is pretty good, but he's lacking in details. His tail should simultaneously have more and less gold. A lot of the spins on his back are devoid of gold paint, as are his toes. For some reason there's some gold paint on the knees of his back legs that shouldn't be gold, but no gold on the round joint (the molded joint is missing entirely from the front legs, and that painted armor isn't present in the cartoon; again, they're relics of Siebenaler's concept art). The spikes on his shoulders and hips are painted silver, like the concept art, but are gold int he cartoon. And I have to point out that front the front his neck has some serious hollow gaps. Also like Snarl, his dino mode doesn't doo much. There's no articulation in the neck or tail, but at least Sludge can open his mouth. His back legs can rotate at the hips, and that's it. His front legs can rotate and move laterally at the shoulders, and his elbow is a ball joint that can bend 90 degrees or act as a swivel. That's about it. Weapon storage is just partsforming his lance into a tail. So, these guys aren't the greatest... but you kind of know that going in, since these are Warrior and Ultra-class instead of Deluxe or Voyager. The robot articulation is sub-par, they're missing lots of painted details, the transformations are super simple. On their own I definitely wouldn't recommend them. However, if (and only if) you already have Deluxe Grimlock and Slag, then they're at least something to fill out your Cyberverse Dinobots. It's just a shame Swoop never got at least a Warrior-class figure.

Eh... I just backed the Haslab. Turns out there's a bit of a gap between "shouldn't" and "can't".

Usually I like to have a few repaints before doing a Repaint Roundup, but I'm looking ahead at my what I still have coming or preordered... Victory Saber, no, I'm sure I'll do a big review on him. The whole first wave of Evolution. And... well, that's it. Even thinking ahead to what I'm really looking forward to that isn't on my preorders yet I'm guessing stuff like SS86 Ratchet and Frenzy are still away off yet. Maybe Walmart will start stocking the second wave of Velocitron.... y'know, the one that we already bought the Deluxes on Pulse from like a month ago. I do want that toy-colored Hot Rod. Regardless, for at least the rest of 2022, I'm pretty sure this is my last repaint, so I'll just get him out of the way. This is Generations Selects Deluxe-class Magnificus. Magnificus, like a couple of other modern repaints, is what you get when e-Hobby reissues a G1 Transformer in its pre-Transformers Diaclone colors as a Transformer. In this case, it was Perceptor in 2005, and e-Hobby would release a second Magnificus based on the Reveal the Shield Perceptor in 2013. Hasbro's beating e-Hobby to the punch by redecoing SS86 Perceptor themselves, which is, y'know, fine. Perceptor was a decent figure, and he's looking pretty swish in black and gray, so yeah. From the neck down he's 100% Perceptor, just with the red parts in black (including his gun), the black parts still black, and the blue parts in gray. He's got the same pearl/white/silver paint for the belly mirror, the edges of his chest, and the dials on his scope and arms. The insignia was moved from his chest under the clear plastic to on top of the faux mirror, which sports a little silver paint for some reason- that wouldn't be part of the mirror, if he'd actually had one. Under the chest part they've painted his torso red to match the G1 toy, which still used red plastic for part of the torso. And, again, it's all fine, but I'd have liked to see some tampographed versions of the original toy's stickers. The only mold change is his head, which is designed to look like the toy. Hmm... slap this head on Perceptor, tweak the red and blue plastic colors on him, and swap the pearly white paint for silver (or better, chrome), add those tampo details I wanted on Magnificus, and you'd have a pretty good toy-style Perceptor. But I digress. Microscope mode is, again, mostly fine. Again, I lament the lack of sticker details. Plus, while I was willing to forgive some simplifications on Perceptor to make him more screen accurate, I find myself a bit more bitter about the lack of a separate mirror piece on his abs and missing retractable wheels in his heels. My complaint about the lack of wheels that extend from his heels goes double for tank mode, along with the lack of a wheel on his butt and the inability to remove the dials from his arms so his tank mode can lie totally flat like it was originally designed to on the Diaclone toy (but we're forever stuck with them at this weird angle because that's how Hasbro put him in the G1 toy's instructions). So, yeah. Dig the new head and black deco, and the original figure was decent enough, so Magnificus is worth picking up if you're into Diaclone repaints or evil repaints (while Magnificus is officially a Decepticon, this deco is also used as Shattered Glass Perceptor). Just be aware that toy-details that were omitted from the mold for the sake of movie accuracy on Perceptor are a bit harder to forgive when movie accuracy isn't an excuse.

We started putting Christmas decorations up at my house last weekend, but I think we have the space to work in one more. Holiday Optimus Prime will be spending the month of December on display in my living room, but before I put him out I figured I'd better review him! So the obvious thing here is that it's Optimus, with the usual Optimus goodies, right? Chest windows, tummy grill, masked face with a forehead vent and antenna... heck he's even got arm triangles. But, the deco is also Santa Claus. Red thighs? Santa pants. Red arms, and a mostly red torso, with white around the wrists, between the windows, and over his grill? Fur-trimmed Santa coat. Black hands, shins, and feet? Santa gloves and boots. Black pelvis, and a gold crotch with a black C? Santa's belt, with a gold belt buckle (yeah, they probably should have only painted the top of his hips and crotch black and gold, and left the rest red, but there's also the realties of how they molded the parts). But what's arguably more interesting than the deco here is the underlying figure itself. When the first blurry leaks of this guy went up there was some discussion about whether he might have remolded parts from Laser Prime (the chest, biceps, and forearms do look kind of similar), or from Motormaster (both have their cabs on their legs from the knees down, and both wear their rear wheels on their backs). In hand, though, I can honestly tell you that Holiday Prime shares zero parts with Motormaster or any previous Optimus. I even checked some of the finer details, like his hips, biceps, and tires, plus his head sculpt, and it's all brand new. The same can't be said for his accessories, though. He comes with a trailer, and that trailer is Earthrise Optimus' trailer, with one minor modification. A new part has been installed underneath, fitting over the peg that you'd use to plug it into Earthrise Prime's alt mode and stretching back to a new peg closer to the feet. He comes with the same gun as Earthrise Optimus, just painted like a candy cane. He comes with a Matrix, too. The handles on the Matrix appear to be the same as Earthrise's (and why not, they used that mold with Galvatron, Hot Rod, and Rodimus Prime as well, I'm actually surprised they made a new one for G2 Laser Optimus), and Holiday Prime's Matrix will fit into Earthrise Prime's chest. However, Holiday Prime's Matrix is noticeably thinner. Prime's ho-ho-head is on a ball joint with some up/down tilt and swivel, but no real sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel. His waist swivels. His hips can go 90 degrees forward and backward, and just a little shy of that laterally. His hips swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His toes and heels can point down, largely due to transformation, but he lacks any real up/down tilt. His ankles do pivot nearly 90 degrees, though. He can hold is rifle, but the grip is rather tight. His trailer, as it did for Earthrise, can open up, and there's a repair drone inside. The entire interior is just plain white, which I don't mind for the drone trailer itself but the drone could have used some painted details. I find myself wishing for some other accessories, too, like maybe little presents, or a sleigh instead of Roller. Prime's candy cane gun stores on his back, albeit loosely. And although the drone and shield are still removable from the trailer, the truck kibble on his back means you can't give him a drone backpack, and the shield can't plug into the side of his forearm because there's no hole there. Instead, he's got holes on top of each shoulder, on the back of each forearm, two on the back of each leg, and three under each foot. His chest can fold open, and the Matrix stores inside. Again, it's thinner, so the Earthrise Matrix doesn't fit into Holiday Prime. The transformation on Holiday Optimus is interesting. Like, some of it is expected; his backpack forms the back of the truck, his lower legs fold over this thighs and form the front of the truck, sure. But there are more moving pieces than you at first realize, like how parts of his shins spin around to cover his arms tucked under the truck, or the way his backpack fold unfolds to make the tires instead of simply double-hinging over his arms the way Motormaster's does. Like Earthrise Optimus, I think Holiday Optimus isn't simply a Voyager-class toy with an extra trailer, I think some of that budget actually went into the engineering for the figure itself. Well, the engineering and the license, as Holiday Optimus Prime is a licensed Volvo VNR truck. And therein lies the true origin of this figure... this was originally supposed to be a deal with Amazon (Amazon Prime, get it?), and Amazon uses the Volvo VNR in it's fleet. Imagine this truck, painted white, with the sides of the trailer painted blue with the white Prime smile logo. But I guess it fell through, and Hasbro needed to recoup the costs of development and turned him into a Christmas display in time for the holidays. To that end, though, they really nailed the truck. You can see the Volvo badge with the diagonal slash through the grill, the (sadly unpainted) vents on the side of the nose, and even the groove in the bumper. The headlights, the mustache-style mirrors on the nose, and the sunshield but no windvane on the top suggest that Prime is modeled on the VNR 300 series (while I do believe Amazon uses the larger VNR 660). While not colored with extra chrome or anything on the fuel tanks, Hasbro was careful to make the details on the sides, back of the cab, and even the back of the back of the truck and hitch as accurate as possible, with no obvious signs of transforming (until you look underneath). It's even got 8 rear tires instead of four, and and the hitch is angled slightly backward. Of course he can pull his trailer, and the direction suggest putting the gun between the rear tires on the trailer (if you're not using the trailer, the gun cab plug into the hitch). The peg hole is too shallow and the handle too long, though, for it to fold there, so you are unfortunately left with the red rocket peaking forward between the wheels, or turning it around so it's hanging out the back. Of course, it can be avoided entirely by opening the trailer and storing the gun inside instead. Now, an Optimus Prime colored like Santa that pulls a candy cane trailer is an awesome thing I didn't know I needed in my life (but it turned out I definitely do), and this new mold is pretty great, so I'm not complaining, but... if all Hasbro wanted was a holiday Optimus they could have recolored Earthrise and we'd have been none the wiser. Sure, there's the whole Amazon thing, but we gotta talk about the elephant in the room. Turn his waist 180 degrees, and we've got a robot that looks an awful lot like G2 Hero Optimus Prime, I figure I'd very much like to have a new version of. Of course, despite the similarities, the question was always whether or not it could actually be done. Now that I have the figure in hand, I'd say the answer is a resounding "probably"! I mean, I'd have to take Holiday Prime apart to verify that it'd work, but if you remove this circled part necessary for filling in his shin but not necessary for truck mode or if this was the back of his leg, then the grill that's on his knees can fold back further. Then I think you'd simply have to swap the feet where they're pinned at the ankle pivot, so his toes would still point forward, then swap his lower legs where they attach to the black knee hinge. He should still have 90 degree knee bends, and the only difference I can see for transformation is that you'd have to turn his waist 180 degrees to get the cab back on the right side. Then it's just a matter of replacing the Earthrise cab with a red flatbed that has his missile launcher and you're set. In any case, Holiday Prime is a brilliant new mold with a fantastic licensed alt mode, and he's worth picking up even if the holiday novelty limits his overall utility. With that in mind, I really hope they retool him into Hero Prime.

Y'know, part of my initial dislike of Beast Wars was that I thought the idea of robots turning into realistic, organic animals was stupid. If they originally had the sort of mechanical design that they seem to have in RotB I probably would have been cool with it.

Again, that'd be Studio Series, not Legacy. Leader Snarl is already confirmed for 2023. Target-exclusive, possibly this month. 2023, Deluxe-class, Studio Series. Unfortunately, that's it for the characters you named. AFAIK, the rest of Studio Series 86 for 2023 is Core-class Frenzy and Ironhide plus Voyager-class Ratchet. Beyond that, there's Deluxe Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and Barricade from the WFC videogame plus Megatron and Optimus in the Voyager-class. Then there's Deluxe Bumblebee from Dark of the Moon, and the rest of the Studio Series stuff for 2023 is Rise of the Beasts stuff.

If it's like Legacy, you might see some of it if it's in the first wave, seeing as the first wave of Legacy is still on shelves at my stores.

Oh, no... those are still coming. They're not part of Legacy, though. They're coming in Studio Series, as Hasbro desperately wants to keep the line going but they're running out of movie characters that aren't Skids and Mudflap.

If you look around you can probably find a listing for just about everything coming in Legacy Evolution next year. Heck, I've probably posted a lot of it in this very thread. Well, I've heard from a very reliable source some stuff that hasn't been mentioned yet, and a lot of it is probably coming in the 2024 sequel to Evolution. That said, even though this source has historically been very reliable, he's being a bit cagier than usual and claiming to know more than he's actually sharing. Anyways... I leave this under a spoiler tag, so if you want to be surprised a bit over a year from now you can be. Suffice to say, it's an eclectic mix.

No. That was Travis Knight, Steven Caple Jr is directing this. The only thing I know of that Caple directed was Creed II (that is, I think he's directed more, I just don't know the other stuff). At least it's not Bay directing (he's a producer, but he was a producer on Bumblebee, too).

I mean, I'll go see it. It's Transformers. I'm just not holding my breath...

I've been refreshing my email constantly today hoping for a ship notification for either Victory Saber or Holiday Optimus. Alas. EDIT: Well, no shipping notice, but I did get charged for Holiday Optimus and Magnificus... I already was planning to wait until I had Victory Saber in hand, and now I have some unplanned expenses since our cat seemingly lost the ability to poop. 😔 I probably shouldn't back Deathsaurus at all now. ...but knowing me I'll have backed it by the weekend.

While this is true, had you not mentioned it I wouldn't have even noticed. In hand and once you start posing him it's not as prominent as some pictures of him standing straight from a dead-on angle make it look. Maybe? I mean, I really love MS-02, but opinions around certain parts of the web have been mixed. Many seem to agree with me (great articulation, a clean sculpt, easy transformation make for a good time), but others cannot get over the materials. I'd say it comes down to what you're looking for in a collection; if you're like a certain masked Youtuber whose priority is a "premium" shelf queen, then TE-01 has better materials and "feels" better. But if you like to play with your figures MS-02 is so much more fun to pose, at least IMHO.

*Sigh* If only I hadn't bought all the Transformers already. EDIT: But hey, Deathsaurus has been funded, with a little over 1500 to go to get the flail, blast effects, and Living Metal Cannon, as of 2-something am EST Tuesday. And I haven't even backed it yet (but I almost certainly will, I just want to have Star Saber in hand first).

In late 2003/early 2004, Takara released MP-01, the very first Masterpiece Transformer. They followed it up with a few more before realizing that it could be a whole line with a unified scale instead of a few one-off cool robots, so they rebooted with a new scale-standard MP-10. Gradually, as the years went by, Takara's MP designs lost their realistic detail and went harder and harder on looking just like the cartoon, and when MP-36 released in 2017 people were complaining that their Optimus didn't match their Megatron. 2019 brought us a plethora of new options, first with newcomers Magic Square and Transform Element giving us their takes, followed a few months after with Takara's own official replacement in MP-44. With so many choices for an MP-scale Optimus Prime, does the world need even more options? Turns out, maybe. Here's Magic Square's MS-02 Light of Peace. Magic Square's first effort, MS-01 Light of Freedom, seemed to start with MP-10 and ask, "how can we make this better?" They added more cab panels to the arms, they used the same grill for both modes instead of one for truck and one for robot, and they added a lot of engineering to the legs to hide away the rear wheels. They fixed the proportions and fixed some of the shapes and molded details, sure. But his head was like a slightly simplified MP-10 head, and he retained stuff like most of the bumper being part of the Matrix chamber in his chest, the headlights and the rest of the bumper are on panels on his back, and his lats unfold and spin around to get out the front wheels. Now, I loved (still do!) the result- he's got heroic proportions and enough realistic details like windows on his chest with wipers that are actually part of the alt mode and louvered vents on his shins that, to me, he looked like an ideal Optimus, the "real" robot that Sunbow was trying to animate on an '80s kids-show budget. Thing is, a lot of people don't seem to want a "real" Optimus, they want one that looks like an '80s cartoon. This, I think, caused a lot of people to pass over MS-01 in favor of TE-01 and MP-44, and the impetus behind MS-02 seems to be ditching the realistic look of MS-01 in favor of that super cartoony look their 2019 competitors had. Which, I suppose, brings us to those competitors. While TE-01 has a subjectively good "feel" with solid joints, quality plastic, and bits of diecast, I've often felt that sculpt of the figure is a bit blocky and lifeless. MP-44 (or at least, the KO of MP-44 I have) has slightly thinner arms, a slightly narrower chest, and slightly rounder edges that make him a tad cartoonier, but also gives him a tad more life. And when you put MP-44 next to MS-02, you can kind of get the impression that Takara and Transform Element did the assignment and came up with their own answers, but Magic Square was copying Takara's homework. A lot of the shapes and proportions on both figures are very similar. That said there are fewer visible seams on MS-02, and the ones he does have seem to fit together a bit more snuggly. There are fewer screw holes visible. But perhaps the most obvious difference is the backpack. MP-44 was widely ridiculed for having a massive backpack meant to accommodate some electronics. MS-02 not only does away with almost his entire backpack, with the thinnest front-to-back profile short of maybe TE-01, the backpack he does have is actually the only that that's cartoon-accurate. Heck, even the molded lines on the backs of his legs are more accurate. The end result, at least in my eyes, is that MS-02 comes off as slightly cleaner and even more accurate than MP-44. The one advantage I think MP-44 still has is that it's painted, while MS-02 is molded almost entirely in the "correct" colors of plastic. And, yeah... we should probably talk about that plastic. On the plus side, it's not the sometimes mushy-feeling nylon stuff Magic Square usually uses. On the other hand, it's very light, and it has a feel that at first reminded me of the original Fans Toys Tesla, which was all kinds of horrible and prone to developing tiny cracks. After messing with MS-02 for awhile, though, I'd say a more fair comparison is probably the 1/144 Bandai HGUC MRX-009 Psyco Gundam model kit I built several years back in that it honestly seems durable enough, it's just very light, likely with thinner parts assembled around joints, and not a drop of diecast in sight. But because there is an association, rightly or wrongly, with heft and "quality," in the interest of full disclosure MS-02 is the lightest G1-style MP-esque Optimus in my collection. Seriously, coming it at just 332g, it's over 200g less than TE-01 (534g), less than MP-10 (422g), and less even than the already light-ish MS-01 (390g). For the record, my MP-44 was 496g, but as a KO it's likely off from the official. Oh, and all measurements are just the Optimus figure, no accessories. Speaking of accessories... MS-02 doesn't come with a lot, but do we need a lot? We've got the essentials with his ion rifle and his energon axe. In both cases, the sculpt is perfectly fine but unpainted and largely unremarkable (save for how thin the handle on the rifle is). The only other accessories you get are a pair of trailer hitches. More on them in a bit. TE-01 had what I'd consider the minimum acceptable articulation for 2019. MS-01 had pretty good articulation, but it was shown up by MP-44 and Takara's push for amazing articulation. Again, though, you get the sense that Magic Square looked at MP-44 and was taking notes, because the articulation on MS-02 is excellent. His head is on a ball joint with the ball inside his neck, and combining that with smart use of the cutout in the back of his head and the overall shape of the head to be able to look down a fair amount, tilt his head sideways around 30 degrees, and look just a little shy of straight up in addition to swiveling. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can extend laterally around 130-ish degrees (in theory, his shoulders could go even further but at that point the top of the smokestacks collide with his collar). Butterfly joints extend from inside his body to push his shoulders past his chest while turning them inward almost 90 degrees, allowing him to cross his arms in front of him. His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that allow you to bend them about 180 degrees, plus if you really need it there's a second swivel between the two elbow joints (more for transformation). His wrists swivel, plus it bends backward so he can hold out his hand in a "stop" pose. His fingers are all individually articulated, with ball joints at the base of each finger to allow a bend and some splay with an addition hinged knuckle in the middle of each finger, while the thumb has a ball joint at the base for rotation and folding over the palm, plus an addition hinged knuckle. His waist swivels, then much like MS-01 it has a double hinge that allows him to arch his back almost 90 degrees or ab crunch forward over 45 degrees (with varying levels of sculpt breakage). His back and side hip skirts are hinged at the top to move out of the way, but the front skirt is designed to fold up and into his pelvis when his hips move forward. The joint itself has an unconventional shape, too, where it's attached to his crotch near the front but has a part that runs backward a bit before connecting to his leg, which leaves his legs in a proper position when his legs are straight but dropping his legs a little to clear his pelvis when he kicks forward. Ultimately, this translates to a bit over 90 degrees forward on a ratchet, a little under 90 backward, and over 90 degrees laterally on a softer ratchet. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed, both ratcheted, and bend nearly 180 degrees combined. His whole feet are on ball joints, which gives him a slight up/down tilt and swivel (hindered by the shape of his leg around the foot), and providing him with around 90 degrees of ankle pivot (that said, realistically it's more like 60 degrees before the sole of his foot is above the inner edge of his leg). His heels have hinges that can give them more independent up down tilt, and the front of his foot is actually double-hinged with a third hinge in the toes, so they can tilt up or down up to 90 degrees. Seriously, if Magic Square had just given MS-02 a teapot joint he'd be giving MMC's hyper-articulated Optus Pexus a run for it's money. It's probably also worth mentioning that while being very light can detract from a "premium" feel, it has some advantages in that almost all of his joints feel good- not too loose, not too tight- without the extra hardware or reinforcement needed to support weighty plastic or diecast. One of my gripes with MP-44 is that, despite the premium price tag, his joints often feel kind of rickety, leading to posing him with hyperextended knees when he's supposed to be standing straight. Sure, that could be because mine's a KO, but based on my experience with a legit MP-52 I'm inclined to believe it's not the KO, it's the design the KO copied. To give MS-02 his axe, you have to pry apart the ball at the base, then you fit the larger end over his hand while it's making a fist, then fit the other half back on around his hand. Yeah, I'll probably never use it again. His rifle goes into his hands using the tried-and-true method of tabs on the handle that plug into slots on his palms. I guess, technically, MS-02 does have one other accessory. If you look inside his chest you'll find a Matrix of Leadership, as is more or less required on Optimus Prime toys these days. Even the Voyagers! The Matrix can be removed, and it's one area where I can definitively say that Magic Square dropped the ball. I mean, the translucent blue plastic core and the vac chrome on the non-translucent plastic is all well and good, but they really should have painted the globe around the core gold or, better yet, copper. I suppose, at least, it's hidden away most of the time. Indeed, better than MS-01, whose chest opened to a naked Matrix. This time, Magic Square included an inner cover. As a matter of fact, of the three "cartoon" options, MS-02 actually has the most screen-accurate inside of Prime's chest. TE-01 comes close, but the ridges alongside the Matrix chamber look more like tubes or pipes there, they missed coloring the bit next to the gold circle on the chamber door, and those circuits that TE painted metallic gold are green in the film, like MS-02 has them. MS-01 had (and frankly, still has) one of the best truck cabs on an Optimus toy, retaining a lot of the realistic details that MP-10 did but fitting together with a less obvious shoulder joint and fewer seams on the front. As I mentioned earlier, though, the engineering didn't deviate too far from MP-10s, so the back of the truck has the same "this is obvious robot legs" issue MP-10 had. Actually, worse, because the fronts of his shins don't fold around the way MP-10s do, so the vented shins are more obvious and cause the back of the truck to be even taller, plus the taper of his legs leaves a gab between them that's larger near his knees. MS-02's butt is still somewhat visible, but his legs do more to transform and flatten out. The cab itself looses some details, though, smoothing out the roof, getting a bit shorter front-to-back, and ditching the stripe. Personally, I prefer the cab striped, but the stripe was often missing from the cartoon, including the '86 movie. Mind you, that's the kind of cartoon "purity" that designers are chasing these days, and so we have to compare MS-02 to TE-01 and MP-44, which are also stripeless. But I think there are some interesting things to note here. Like, for all the cartoonishness of MP-44's robot mode, and despite ditching the stripe, MP-44 still retains some of MP-10's details like the rectangular, two pane headlights and the round fog lights (marker lights?) set into the bumper, alá a real Peterbilt 362. Heck, they put translucent yellow on the bumper like the cartoon, but in spots where a real Peterbilt 362 would have cutouts. TE-01 has the right geometry on the bumper, but no yellow, and it still has the rectangular headlights. MS-01 has the correct geometry for the bumper, and it fills in the trapezoids on the sides with translucent yellow. Plus, it's the only one that has square headlights like the cartoon, although I'm not really into the round lenses they set into them. I'd argue that it's the most cartoon-accurate truck from the front. From the sides it's, again, the cab's a little shorter than the others and TE-01 benefits from the harder edges. Things get interesting when you look at the backs. TE-01 has the most solid least-obviously transforming cab, but I think MS-02 fills in just a bit better than MP-44 with the back running the whole way down and less noticeable seams between the shoulders and back. The blue part on TE-01 runs the whole way to the cab, which gives it another advantage over MS-02's visible butt, and it's got more molded truck details that make it less like legs. MS-02 is a bit too smooth, with some gap between the legs that's not covered by the panels on top, but I do feel like it's at least a big improvement over the over-engineered mess of parts that is MP-44. At the very end, TE-01's got pretty obvious robot toes. MP-44 has some bits that come out into something like lights and a bumper, but perched over and not totally hiding his robot toes. MS-02 folds his feet up in a way that makes them less conspicuous blocks and even reveals some painted taillights. Of course, you could argue that TE-01's rear isn't really complete without the partsforming hitch. If you're going to make that argument, though, the same goes for MS-02. The hitch even helps hide the gap between his legs and the fact that the panels don't cover the whole area, making the rear look more finished. And, mind you, that's all aesthetics. What I haven't talked about yet is the engineering, and that might be the most pleasant part. MS-01 was fun and easy to transform because it was like an improved version of MP-10's. TE-01 did some clever stuff with their engineering, especially in the legs, but some clearance issues in the torso, especially when from robot to truck, could be a bit frustrating. And MP-44? His legs aren't the only thing that's over-engineered. His upper body does some crazy contortions not to turn into a truck, but to get into a space where panels from his backpack and legs could shellform most of the cab around them. MS-02 winds up being a bit of a breeze, really. Sure, Magic Square cribbed some ideas from MP-44; his cartoon chest opens and spins around to make most of the truck's windows, and most of the roof plus a strip of the cab between the windows comes from his backpack. And changes were made to the legs so that his waist doesn't rotate 180 degrees and the back of the truck looks more like a truck and less like robot legs, as we've covered. But the rest, including how parts of the bumper and headlights are on his back, how some of the side of the cab is stored in his forearms and covers his elbows, how how his Matrix chamber spins around to reveal most of the front bumper and how it inverts along with the grill on his abs (which forms the actual truck grill), is by and large still MS-01's transformation. In short, transforming MS-02 is a breeze. In truck mode MS-02 doesn't have a lot of gimmicks, but what he's got is pretty similar to MS-01 or MP-44. He rolls, and he's got rubber tires. His doors can open (but you're not going to find that little bit of space that Takara managed to carve out for a little Spike/Sparkplug/Carly figure. Using one of the partsforming hitches allows you to connect an official MP trailer to MS-02. This is why MS-02 included two- one works with MP-10's trailer, which I happen to have. If you think the blue stripes on it don't match with the cartoon simplicity of MS-02, the other hitch works with MP-44's trailer. Alas, my KO MP-44 doesn't have a trailer (to my knowledge, none of the MP-44 KOs do), but if a KO trailer is released and sold separately I'd be tempted to pick one up... this guy, not MP-44. I gotta be honest with you, when I heard that Magic Square was making MS-02 I went ahead and preordered one. I did it because it's Optimus Prime, and who am I if not that guy that buys all the Optimus Primes? But, aesthetically, I preferred (and honestly still do) MS-01's more realistic aesthetic to the super Sunbow look this guy, TE-01, and MP-44 were chasing. Then early reports started coming in about how light he was, how bad the plastic felt, and several reports of smokestacks breaking during shipping, and I'd lost pretty much any excitement or enthusiasm I'd had. When I got the in-stock notification I was mostly glad that I finally had over $150 of merch in my TCP stash, so I could finally ship it and get the DNA kits I'd reviewed prior to this. And sure, in-hand, my first impression was that he was light and that the plastic didn't feel great. But then I started really messing with him. Putting him in all kinds of poses, transforming him, transforming him back. Really comparing not just the look, the heft, and the materials with my other MP-style Primes, but comparing the whole experience, and I really started warming up to MS-02. Ultimately, just because I prefer that more heroic, slightly more realistic look, MS-01 is still my favorite, and he's still going to stand with my other MP Autobots on my main shelf. But, while TE-01 still has its charms (namely, the best build quality and materials, and probably the most clever transformation from the waist down), MS-02 beats both it and MP-44 in my book for the best super Sunbow Optimus. Yes, he's light, yes the plastic feels off at first, and yes he's got minimal accessories and next to no paint. But he also nails the cartoon look better than the other two, he's a blast to pose and play with, and his transformation is a breeze. Just be sure to temper your expectations... do you want a heavy, (super subjectively) "premium" feel for a figure you're going to put on a shelf and rarely handle? Then you might prefer TE-01 or MP-44. But MS-02 has shattered its weak first impressions to become one of my favorite purchases this year by being a good-looking cartoon Optimus that's fun to play with. I mean, how many other Optimus Primes are you going to pose pretending to be Minmay?

The other kit I got from DNA is DK-35, which you think would come before DK-36, but it was actually released after. This is a kit for Studio Series 54* Megatron (that is, the one from the '07 film). So, what exactly was wrong with Megatron that needed to be fixed? I touched on it when I reviewed him *checks the date", holy crap, three years ago (good gravy I'm getting old). To save money, Hasbro reused the entire front of the torso from the earlier SS13 Megatron from Revenge of the Fallen. It's the sort of thing where you a lot of people might look at him and think, "shiny silver chest made of jagged bits of metal, sure, that's accurate enough." But, when you actually look at it and compare it with something like the MPM Megatron, you can see that it's actually not so accurate. So that's pretty much what DNA is trying to fix. You get a replacement front torso, plus a new blaster weapon. To remove Meg's old torso, first you yank the head and part of the neck off the friction hinge. Then, remove the two screws on the backs of each shoulder. Hang onto those screws, you'll need them later. Lift the backs of the shoulders, along with the rest of the arms, off and set them aside. Now, work the front of the shoulder off the mushroom peg. You may find it easier to remove the outer part first, then push the inner joint off the mushroom peg. Next, there's two screws in Megatron's butt you'll have to remove. Fold his back down, and there's another screw inside the bottom front of the torso. Those screws you can toss. Carefully turn him over and pull the front of his torso off. Be careful that the small gray pieces inside his pelvis don't fall out. With the original torso off (left), you can compare it and see how it's different than DNA's more movie-accurate replacement (right). Anyway, carefully put the new torso in place, then screw it in not with the old screws, but with new ones that DNA included in a little baggy. With the torso in place, snap the head in place and put the front of the shoulders and arm joints on the mushroom pegs. Then put the rest of the arms back on, and screw them in place with the original screws. So now you have your Megatron looking that much more movie accurate, but we can do better! Fold one of Megatron's hands in. Then, using a ball-shaped peg on the underside of the DNA blaster, you can plug it into a hole on Megatron's wrist, and now he can blast fools like the MPM toy. "But wait!" you say. "The MPM toy's blaster could do that expanding, two-handed gimmick that the movie did!" Relax, DNA's still got you covered. Fold open the top of the blaster, and sure enough you can fold out a longer cannon barrel. Now, there are hinged blades on the back of the cannon. With both of his hands folded in, turn his arms so that his hands are on the underside. There's a bit of a gap between his forearm armor and the hinge his hand folds in on-jam the blades on the blaster into those gaps. Boom! Two-handed big cannon mode, just like the MPM, just like the movie. Frankly, that'd be enough for me if DNA stopped there. But they didn't stop. They kept going! This kit improves his alt mode, too! When you open up his back for transformation, take note of these two little doohickeys. They're on panels that flip around, causing the doohickeys to stick out the front of Megatron's chest. Finish transforming him, and what do y'know? DNA gave Megatron landing gear! Or, at the very least, they kept his painted chest from rubbing directly on the ground. And we're still not done! Megatron's alt mode wasn't totally screen-accurate. One of the most noticeable things about it is the gap between his legs. DNA can't make Megatron's alt mode screen accurate, but they did plug the gap. There's two tabs on the underside of the blaster, near the front. These tabs go into cutouts on Megatron's ankle joints, so the blaster sits between Megatron's legs. Again, it's not totally screen accurate, but it does blend somewhat seamlessly into what is otherwise an empty gap. DNA is a company that can be pretty hit or miss. I've bought so many of their kits. Sometimes they fix a problem, but fail to fix others. Sometimes they're overpriced because they come with a bunch of stuff you didn't really want or need. On a few occasions, the kit was designed so poorly that it outright failed at what it's supposed to fix (the legs for Siege Magnus immediately spring to mind). But once in awhile they just nail it, and they fix a problem so effectively that the kit is pretty much essential. This is one of those cases. A new torso that's more movie accurate and has landing gear to keep his painted chest off the table, paired with a blaster like the MPM's that both does the thing from the movie and fills an alt mode gap, and for a price that's comparatively low versus some of their other recent kits. Suffice to say, if you have this Studio Series Megatron, you should definitely buy this kit for him. *DNA also makes a version of this kit for the Takara Premium Finish version of this figure.

Feels like I've been reviewing a ton of official figures lately... and official figures often need 3P upgrades. Now, I happened to grab a whole 3P figure that I'm primed to talk about, but before that I have a pair of DNA upgrade kits I'd like to cover. I'm going to cover them in release order, so we're starting with DK-36, an upgrade for Studio Series 86 Sludge. The kit comes with the pieces you see here- some effects parts, a shield, a handle, two clips, some rubber bits, some googly eyes, and a sword. The sword, while obviously molded differently to look like the sword that came with G1 Sludge, is a match for the one that came with their kit for Slag- translucent red blade in a solid red hilt. I commented when Slag's kit came out that Grimlock's kit had a metallic silver-painted blade in a silvery gray hilt, so they didn't match. With Sludge's kit having a sword that matches Slag's, I kind of hope when they do the inevitable kit for the inevitable SS86 Snarl or Swoop that they include a new red/red sword for Grimlock. Anyway, we'll start with the stuff this kit is supposed to fix, so to begin remove the pair of screws on Sludge's butt, then pull off his crotch. Inside his crotch you'll find a pair of gray ratchet parts. Carefully pry them out, then jam some of the rubber bits in them to keep the ratchet from compressing so easily. This will tighten the forward/backward motion on his hips, but honestly, I didn't think Sludge needed it. What he needed was tighter lateral joints on his hips, and this kit does nothing for that. Sludge's knees are a little loose, I suppose. If you remove the screws on the inside of his thighs you can pull the inside off and you'll find a ratchet above his knee joint. Same deal, you can wedge a rubbery bit into the ratchet to help it resist being compressed. The Nonnef kit I'd already bought for Sludge had similar pieces already, though. Another problem I had is that his wings want to pop off the hinges. That's what the clips in this kit are for. You take the longer cylindrical end and jam it into the gap in the hinge. This helps force the friction bits to stay in their spots. The other end is supposed to wrap around the lower part of the hinge and grab underneath it, but the edge of the wing kind of warps it out of place. I'm not sure how well the clips will hold up in the long run. Aside from fixes, we have the aforementioned sword (left), compared to one of Nonnef's (right). Nonnef's will probably be fine for most people, but I do prefer the DNA one. The handle is a bit tight in Sludge's hands. As for the shield, you plug the handle into the back, and then pop the whole thing into a free hand. It's a bit tiny for a shield, I think, but being a shield honestly isn't its main purpose. We'll get to that in a bit. That just leaves the blast effects and the googly eyes. Well, the eyes don't have a purpose in bot mode. And neither do two of the blast effects. The third, the yellow one, can be used in bot mode. You have to remove the back end of it first, then it'll have a 5mm nub on it that plugs into Sludge's gun. We can use the googly eyes in dino mode. They're meant to recreate that scene where Sludge's eyes pop out when Devastator pounds his back in the '86 movie. It doesn't look great, because it has to be thick enough and solid enough that it won't break, so it doesn't really blend in with his head. You kind of just bend it enough that curved edges grab into his actual eye sockets. To get it off, you kind of slide it forward and the shape of the eye sockets will force the curved ends out enough that it'll pop off again. At least the paint's a good match for the gold paint Hasbro used. It's a "that thing from the thing" kind of gimmick, and I can take it or leave it. The sword, by the way, has a flat tab that happens to be the right size to friction into the peg holes on his dino hips/robot shoulders for storage. The shield has storage, too, revealing it's true purpose... it's a chest filler for the dino mode! If you're using the stock feet, you can turn the handle 180 degrees and it'll fit in the void, leaving enough room that you can still store Sludge's gun on his robot toes. If you're like me, though, and you swapped the stock feet with Nonnef feet, good news! The chest still fits. It's a tight fit, though, and there's not enough room to leave the handle plugged into the back. You'll have to remove it. You can still stuff it into the space above the robot toes, and the chest will seal it in, but it'll be loose and rattling around in there. Lastly, there's the blast effects. You need to put the back of the yellow one back on, because that piece has a smaller peg hole on it. That peg hole fits onto the peg inside Sludge's mouth, the one meant for Siege blast effects. Now Sludge is breathing fire or shooting some kind of energy beam! But Sludge shouldn't have all the fun... there's also a smaller dark orange one for Slag, and a wider yellow and orange flame that's meant for Grimlock. Like the DNA kits for the previous SS86 Dinobots, Sludge's kit has some useful bits and some less useful bits. I like the useful bits! I think DNA's swords are better than Nonnef's or the 3D-printed ones, and the blast effects are decently done. I don't love the shield in robot mode, but it does fill in his chest in dino mode. However, I'm a bit disappointed that DNA didn't design any folding feet; if you only bought the DNA kit, you'd still have toe-udders dangling down from his belly. The knee ratchet fixes might be useful if I didn't already have some, but the hip fixes aren't really necessary. I'm not sure how well the clips actually will hold the wings on, and the googly eyes are a gimmick that I could honestly have done without. The mixed usefulness of the parts in this kit can make it a bit difficult to justify the price, especially if you have or are will buy other kits to address stuff like the robot toes that DNA missed. Indeed, I think if you're only going to get one kit and you live in the US you're better off ordering from Nonnef- it'll cost you maybe half the price after shipping, it'll get you a sword and fixes for the knee Ratchets (plus another gun you may or may not want), and it fixes the toes that DNA didn't. I don't think I regret getting the DNA kit, though. If you feel like splurging, DNA does make the best sword, I like the blast effects more than I expected, and you can use the chest shield even if you're not using stock feet.

You'd think with that blitz of reviews I did before Thanksgiving that I'd be done for awhile, but I have one more official review before the month is out (plus Hasbro's got a few treats left for me before the year is out). Today we've got Studio Series 86 Core-class Rumble (Blue). Let's talk about the name, for a minute. Does Hasbro think they're side-stepping the whole Rumble-is-blue-Frenzy-is-red argument? Do they expect us to ignore that it wasn't that long ago that they released the Siege Micromaster two pack of "Rumble" and Ravage that came with a guy in the black and red colors? I don't know, btu I do know that after years of leaning on the toy heritage even Hasbro has begun admitting that cartoon is king, and I'm taking this as a tacit admission that if you're goal is cartoon accuracy, and the cartoon clearly called the blue one Rumble, then Rumble is blue no matter how many times they packed him in a box labeled "Frenzy." But I digress. Although Core-class Rumble shares some similarities with the Siege Micromaster, he's an entirely new mold with no shared parts. What you wind up with is still tiny, but with better proportions, actual feet, and colors that are far more animation accurate. You also get some accessories this time- two piledrivers, and two back guns. The piledrivers are pretty hollowed out, and unlike the MP ones they're each a single, solid piece. The pistons do not move. Articulation is where things start to get a bit dicey. His head is on a ball joint, with the ball in his torso, not his head. So, his head swivels (same as the Micromaster), but he's got a limited ability to look up. Shoulders are ball joints with the same range as the Micromaster- rotation and 90 degrees laterally. Also like the Micromaster, and something I'd have expected to be better on a Core-class figure, Rumble lacks a bicep swivel, a wrist swivel, any elbow bend, or a waist swivel. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, and slightly over that laterally, with no dedicated thigh swivel but ball-jointed knees that act as a swivel and a bend- the only difference in articulation between Rumble and the Micromaster here is that Rumble's knee bend is much deeper, more like 160 degrees than the Micromaster's 90. Due to Rumble's transformation he has feet that can tilt up, but not down, and he doesn't have any ankle pivot. I prefer Rumble's guns on his back, and they do have little pegs that fit into little holes on his back for that purpose. He doesn't have fist holes, though, so he can't hold the guns like pistols. In lieu of that, he's got small holes on his forearms that the guns can plug into like arm cannons. As for his piledrivers, you just fold his fists in then jam his forearms into the the hollow spots in the sides of of the piledrivers. For all their similarities in articulation, you'd think that Rumble would end up having a similar transformation. In some ways he does; his wrists fold all the way in instead of tucking into his legs, but they still fold. His head folds into his back, giving his slightly longer arms more space on the top, but they still use the shoulder joints to shift his whole arm to the top of his alt mode box. The big difference is in his legs. With his longer, more proportional thighs he couldn't simply splay his legs and have his knees bend his feet up to his wrists. Instead, his hips have to bend over 90 degrees, to get his knees up to his arms and his heels are along the bottom, with most of his foot folded into his shin. Aside from actually hiding his head in alt mode, on other major difference is that Rumble is actually trying to look like a tape, with a painted label on one side, instead of simply being a Cybertronian data brick or whatever. There's not a lot you can do with Rumble's accessories in alt mode. You could, technically, leave the guns attached. His piledrivers also have little holes near the tops that you can plug his guns into. There's no way to attach the guns to the tape, though. Speaking of, one of the goals Hasbro had for Rumble was that he'd still fit into Siege/Legacy/Netflix Soundwave's chest, as the Micromasters were a little smaller than the G1/MP tapes. And, yep, it's a bit of a tight fit but he surely does sit in Soundwave's chest. Another quirk that I'm not sure I've found a ton of use for is that the tops of Rumble's piledrivers have a (hexagonal) 5mm port. I'm not sure what all you could find to plug the piledrivers on to- given that most figures are covered in ports, not pegs, but I was able to spin around Soundwave's shoulder cannon and plug one into it. That's something. I've got mixed feelings about Rumble. On the one hand, especially given that the blue Micromaster was only available in a Pulse-exclusive set, I think it's great to get a more cartoon-accurate one that still fits inside Soundwave and comes with his back guns and piledrivers. on the other hand, while his aesthetics are improved, his overall engineering and articulation aren't so much of an improvement, and those Micromasters were basically two for the price of a Core-class. Even with the accessories, I'm not sure that Rumble is really double the figure that those Micromasters are. I don't have an issue with the size, per se. I just think, for the money, they could have at least given him some ball-jointed elbows or something. I guess if you need a Rumble to go with your Soundwave SS86 Rumble will do, and for colors alone he's an improvement over the blue Micromaster. I'm not sorry I got him, and I'd like to see Hasbro re-do Ravage for sure and possibly Laserbeak to get something with better proportions and screen accuracy, too. But I'm finding myself weirdly ambivalent about the prospect of a Frenzy repaint; the red and black Micromaster seems good enough for the more minor cassette.

I didn't care for the little Action Toys guys too much, but the bigger Bike Robot/Cy-Kill they did is still one of the best toys I own, and I was really hoping they'd at least do an Eagle Robo/Leader-1 to scale with him. Truthfully, I'd love the entire main cast (so Turbo, Scooter, Cop-Tur, and Crasher, too), but I understand that they were a bit confined within the Revenge of Cronos license. I might check out this new Bike Robo, since I have both of AT's Bike Robos plus an original Cy-Kill (with both wheels!) and a Super Gobots Cy-Kill. Kind of want to complete that set. If it turns out good, maybe Megahouse will do the others (although I'm guessing if they do Porsche Robo it'll be the white one, not Crasher).

As someone who buys, well, pretty much everything, it's almost always the opposite, with the non-86 Studio Series toys often shellformers plagued with ball joints, a lack of paint, and even basic articulation like ankles. But sure, let's take a minute and see how Deluxe-class Studio Series Hot Rod stacks up. Although they didn't appear together, I decided to compare Hot Rod to Lockdown to remind everyone that Hasbro can do licensed Lamborghini alt modes, but Breakdown is still going to be a legally-distinct Ferrari because Hasbro is cheap. (And don't worry, people, he's not so brown-gray in hand, my camera just refuses to believe Hot Rod is as gunmetal as he is. Well, out of the box, I think I can see one way they kept the costs down. Hot Rod is small, and Hot Rod is light. To verify that it's not just Lockdown, I checked Hot Rod against a couple of other Deluxes, and sure enough he's even slightly shorter than "standard" guys like Earthrise Prowl and Siege Sideswipe. And no, your brain is not playing tricks on you, he's super light. While you wouldn't expect every Deluxe to weigh exactly the same, it's telling that Hot Rod here clocked in around 50g on my scale, but Earthrise Prowl, SS86 Jazz, Legacy Dragstrip, Velocitron Cosmos, and SS Lockdown all came up at 70g or more. Like many Studio Series figures, the sculpt on Hot Rod is mostly pretty good, with the usual "this thing has to transform on a Deluxe budget" caveats. So, while the robot details on his midsection, thighs, and head are especially good, and his face is painted well with lots more orange on his legs, there's plenty of awkward car kibble in spots. The backs of his hands are car panels, he's got car panels with tires just hanging off of his knees (semi-accurate) and folded chunks of car on his forearms (again, semi-accurate). The placement of this kibble omits or obscures places where he should have orange on his arms, and honestly even with the paint on his legs he's missing a bit from his thighs and torso, too. Compared to how most SS figures wear their alt modes folded up on their back, Hot Rod's backpack is relatively clean. My biggest complaint here are his little wings, which are fine in the sense that the CGI model has wings, but less fine in the way that SS Hot Rod's contain a bit more car kibble than the CGI model, which the figure attempts to mitigate by having the ends fold in. But, since they can't fold flat, they look a bit awkward and tend to get in the way. Hot Rod's sole accessory is his time gun, and it's fine. They even put some spots of blue paint on it. Hot Rod's head is on a ball joint, and it can look up and down a little but can't tilt to the side. His shoulders are also ball joints, so they can rotate and move laterally a little under 90 degrees. Plus, there's a transformation joint that doesn't really lock into place, so he can really slump his shoulders, if that's something you want him to do. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. His hips are, sigh, more ball joints. They can go about 90 degrees forward and backward, and a bit under 90 laterally. His thigs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees, although you kind of have to force the wheels on his calves around his thighs. His ankles are hinged ball joints, giving him a ton of up/down tilt and a swivel but leaving him with just the slightest of ankle pivots. Hot Rod can hold his weapon in either hand, but I couldn't find any storage for it on his robot person. Hot Rod's transformation is probably where a lot of his budget went, as I'll grant that he's got a lot more moving pieces than Lockdown did. Perhaps they've learned something from what Unique Toys has been doing with the movie designs, because there is some clever use of robot parts to make up parts of the car instead of shelformering the whole thing. For instance, the engine cover on the back of the car is the soles of Hot Rod's feet, and much of the hood that isn't part of the robot chest turns inside out and flips around to form his robot abs. I'm not super clear on the dimensions of a Centenario vs an Aventador, but Hot Rod is noticeably smaller in alt mode than Lockdown. As mentioned, Hot Rod has the licensed Lamborghini Centenario alt mode, and although it's broken up by a ton of panels and hinges it does look pretty sweet. Unlike a lot of of the other Studio Series cars, most of Hot Rod is bare plastic molded in the gunmetal color; unfortunately, that means his tires are the same color as his body and rims. I think we can also see why Hot Rod is missing so many orange paint apps on his robot mode- they'd result in orange paint on parts of the car that aren't supposed to be orange, as the the thin lines over the doors and around bottom is pretty much it for the actual car. That said, they still skimped, as the orange should go the whole way around the car, instead of leaving big gaps around the wheels. What's more, the orange should follow the molded panels, so instead of remaining a thin line it's should cover the whole space where the lines raise up in front of the wheels. It's a minor detail, but the fuel door is also missing. There are two slots near his rear wing (you may have noticed that this figure has one, and many Hot Rod toys like the previous Deluxe or the Jada Metals car did not- I believe the Centenario has one of those wings that blend in the with body and is extended either manually by the owner or automatically by the car's software). These slots fit with a tab on the side of his time gun. If you were hoping for more concealed storage I'm afraid you're out of luck, but it's better than nothing. In summary, I can definitely see where and how Hasbro managed to keep Hot Rod inside his Deluxe-class budget. I don't think he (or any Studio Series figure) got any exceptional treatment that Studio Series 86 or Legacy doesn't. I don't thing his overall parts count is high, and the parts he does have definitely use less plastic than a lot of other Deluxes. His articulation is fairly average, with more ball joints than I'd prefer. Large swaths of orange paint on his legs don't translate to higher-than-normal amounts of paint overall, and a little more might be been beneficial when it seems he's made from just three colors of plastic. However, while I can't say I believe Hot Rod to be exceptional, I can say that he is quite good, perhaps the best Bayverse figure I've looked at in a good long while. Hot Rod's engineering makes effective use of the the parts he has to deliver a solid figure with a good movie likeness less burdened by kibble than many other figures in the line. That engineering happens to covert a solid robot into a very cool licensed Lamborghini, too. So, yeah, Hot Rod's a recommend from me, even if the Bayverse isn't necessarily you're thing.

And now, we can finish off the third wave of Legacy with Megatron, the sole new Leader-class. This Megatron is supposed to be an upgraded form of the last Leader-class Megatron we got, the one from Kingdom. Actually, this is his Transmetal II form, so technically an uprade over the original Transmetal upgrade that organic purple Megatron already got. I think that Legacy Megatron is a lot closer to the cartoon than the original Beast Wars toy, but it's hard to say because I don't have DVDs for Beast Wars, and good screenshots are surprisingly hard to come by. For the most part, it comes down to small details... Legacy Megatron has gold toe claws instead of black, gold horns on the dragon arm instead of red, a gold spike on his left knee instead of a trio of black ones, no black on his right knee, no green or black on the spikey "wheels" in his legs, a lack of gold on his wing claws, stuff like that. Actually, if you're really paying attention (and I don't think anyone was, because the issue seems to go all the way back to the prototypes), you'll notice that the wing claws are actually backward when compared to the cartoon. This can be corrected, though, by removing a pair of screws, prying the tips of his wings apart enough, then removing the claws, turning them around, and putting it all back together. While Hasbro did a great job hiding away his alt mode arms, it's a bit disappointing that they still couldn't manage to do anything more with the alt mode chest than the original toy, that is, to have it hanging over his butt. I believe on the original toy (not sure, as I didn't own it) that it actually was his butt, but here the whole thing sort of dangles off his back like some kind of weird cape. I also have to say that I'm not really a fan of the head sculpt. I'd have preferred a more show-accurate face, more akin to the one on Kingdom Megatron. Instead, Legacy Megatron has bigger eyes, a more prominent nose, sharper lines around his mouth, and a snarl full of pointed teeth that make him seem a bit more monstrous than I recall David Kaye portraying him. Moving right along, unlike Kingdom Megatron, Legacy Megatron does come with an accessory... this single bit of translucent orange plastic. Megatron's head is on a swivel, but he's got no tilt. His right arm has ratcheted rotation at the shoulder, 90 degrees of lateral motion, a bicep swivel, a double-jointed elbow that can bend nearly 180 degrees, and a wrist that can't swivel but can bend downward. His right shoulder also rotates on a ratchet and can move laterally a bit over 90 degrees. There are swivels and curls in there, too, but we'll cover that more in alt mode. His waist can swivel on a ratchet. His hips can go forward and backward 90 degrees on ratchets, although his "cape" will practically limit the backward articulation. A friction hinge allows for over 90 degrees of lateral spread. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend something like a 130-140 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down, plus they've got about 45 degrees of pivot. The translucent orange piece can be held in his right fist like a club or flaming sword. You can also use it as a blast effect, and there's a port inside his dragon head-hand and under each of his feet, but that's it. Don't let the instructions fool you; transformation for this guy is pretty straightforward, and honestly a bit easier/more fun than the Kingdom one. For some reason, though, Hasbro has like six steps in the instructions just for folding the dragon arms out of his robot chest, but they more or less boil down to folding the panel they're on out and arranging them in a way that makes anatomical sense, or alternatively using the joints on them to tuck them back into the chest in the only way that they actually fit. He doesn't have the vehicle mode of the original toy, but quite frankly, when you can turn into a flying, fire-breathing dragon, why on Earth would you want to turn into a grounded dragon that scoots around on wheels? Maybe fans of the original toy will miss the gimmick, but it's omission is hardly a bother as far as I'm concerned. I think the dragon mode looks decent enough. We've got the notes I already had before, like the gold claws on his feet and horns on his head, some missing black on his knees and the "wheels" on his legs. His front claws are also gold instead of black, which technically matches his gold foot claws but, more practically, are because they're formed from the gold chest ribs on the robot mode. The dragon still has his own painted gold ribs, although the translucent orange ball is much lower on Legacy Megatron than the cartoon or the original toy. The gold under his neck is broken up by some red hinges, and front he sides he's a bit gappy- you can actually see his robot fist inside the base of his neck. Using the ratcheted shoulder joint in the robot shoulder, Megatron's head can swivel, and the lateral shoulder joint gives him some up/down bend. Beyond that, though, there are four ball joints in his neck that act as both bends and swivels, and another hinged bend where the head connects to the neck. That gives you quite a bit of freedom for how you want to turn, bend, and curl his neck. His jaws open. His shoulders rotate and move laterally almost 90 degrees. He's got bicep swivels and a single elbow hinge that bends from not-quite-straight to almost 180 degrees of curl. His wrists swivel, and his hands are actually swivels that allow his claws to slide left and right around his palms. His hips and legs have all the same articulation as they did in robot mode, but with an additional digitigrade ankle hinge. His wings have hinges for flapping, the claws are actually hinged and can wiggle left and right a little, then each of the five segments on each wing can swivel, allowing his wings to tuck in or splay out. His tail uses his robot neck swivel to sway from side to side, then there's an up/down hinge on the back of his robot head followed by four segmented sections on ball joints, so his tail has plenty of articulation, too. In dragon mode he doesn't really have any way to hold his accessory like a club. But, naturally, you can plug it into the port in his mouth to have him breathing fire on his enemies... ...in theory. See, after all this writing, I still haven't touched upon the biggest issue I have with Megatron- loose joints. The shoulder hinge at the base of the dragon neck is too loose, so his dragon head droops down. The shifting weight is too much for the loose up/down tilt in his feet, and before you know it Megatron has collapsed under his own weight. His tail droops so it's always dragging on the ground, which is true even after he's fallen on his face with his butt in the air, adding to the indignity. Fortunately, these are fixable problems. I took apart his head and put a little floor polish on the hinge post at the base of the tail. I took apart his left shoulder and did the same for the lateral joint that functions as the base of the dragon neck, then for good measure dropped a little floor polish on the ball joint closest to the dragon head. Finally, I took apart both of his lower legs, putting a little floor polish on the posts for both his knees and the digitigrade joints for dragon mode, then dripped a little floor polish onto the up/down tilts on his feet. Once the polish dried the joints were plenty tight enough eliminating my main complaint about him. So, yeah. I'm not the biggest Beast Wars fan. I'll buy, but won't be bothered if they never get around to the Transmetal versions of Cheetor, Rattrap, Tarantulas, or Blackarachnia. It doesn't matter to me if they don't do other cartoon characters like Depth Charge, Silverbolt, Quickstrike, and Rampage, and I really don't care if they never do any new figures of Beast Wars toys that were never in the cartoon. But I like this Megatron figure. I like it better than the Kingdom one. I'd give him a recommend, just be sure to pick up some floor polish.

And the other Voyager from this last wave of Legacy is Starscream. Not the Earthrise one, and not the Studio Series 86 one. The Armada one. Something Legacy Starscream has in common with Earthrise Starscream is that they're both Voyager-sized toys of characters that were previously released as Deluxes. However, while simply being the same character does mean there will be some similarities, Legacy Starscream isn't merely am improved upscale of the previous version the way Earthrise was. So, off the bat, size isn't the only improvement. His wings are given a more traditional shape, and they've added some more of the black and yellow to his shoulders and chest. There's more black around his cockpit, nose, and canards, and the cockpit itself is now metallic blue with textures molded into it. He's got red bands around his wrists, and the white feet have been swapped for red. His chin strap is painted black, he's got a white spot on his forehead, and the fix on his shins are thin white on the edges with a mostly red chunk. Spinning him around, the molded details on his forearms are improved, and his backpack boosters are totally different design. The net result is that Legacy Starscream is much more cartoon accurate. So far so good, right? It's not perfect, though. The biggest single aesthetic issue I have with Legacy Starscream is his legs. The original toy's lower legs were cast in the same grayish-white plastic as his forearms, with large patches of black painted onto the shins and sides. The cartoon retained this black-on-white pattern. Seems one of the ways Hasbro chose to cut costs was to simply cast Starscream's lower legs in black and forego the white entirely. While were on the subject, Hasbro painted the intakes of the boosters black, but not the exhaust tips, something that they definitely should have done for cartoon and toy accuracy. You could argue that they need some red on the sides, too, but that red (which was definitely on the toy) seemed to come and go in the cartoon. Another thing they did to cut costs was to ditch the removable wing sword gimmick. Instead of removing his left wing and unfolding it into a sword, Hasbro simply made a sword accessory in the shape of his wing sword. My initial thought was maybe it should have some red on the edge, but I re-watched a fight between Starscream and Demolisher, and nope, somehow his wing loses color in the cartoon when it's a sword, so plain white plastic checks out. He comes with one other accessory, and that's supposed to be the Star Saber. It doesn't break apart into minicons or anything- I don't actually see that as a con, though, as what we have here actually looks like a sword and not some jets stuck together. A lot of people are complaining that it's a bit on the small side, and they may have a point there. Anyway, Starscream's head is on a ball joint. He can look up quite a bit, but not a ton down, and not a lot of sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate- his wings have a swivel and hinge so they can angle and fold back to give you clearance. His shoulders can also move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, an his double-jointed elbows get a bit under 180 degrees of curl. His wrists, sadly, do not swivel. But, interestingly enough, his waist does! Granted, you're not really going to get a ton of turn in either direction before his cockpit won't get past his hips, but it's more than Earthrise got. His hips can get beyond 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet have a very slight upward tilt, plenty of downward tilt, and a little bit of pivot. Starscream can hold either sword in either hand. They both have pegs on the hilt (or where the hilt ought to be) in addition to their handles, and ports on his forearms mean you can have him mount the swords like arm blades. Additional peg holes can be found under his feet, on the outsides of his legs, on the back of each wing, and in the middle of his back. The one on his back is a bit recessed, though, which makes it a tad useless. While his wing sword doesn't turn into a wing, at the cost of some wing articulation you can peg it in across his wing and back so that it's out of sight behind him. In the cartoon (and I think on the original toy) Starscream's boosters never actually folded back onto his back. They stuck out behind him (likely giving him grief every time he tried to sit in a high-backed chair). You can absolutely recreate that look with this figure, something you couldn't with the older Generations figure. Simply lift his back, then fold the red part back down and tab it back into his back. No missile firing gimmicks here, but the booster do fold over (no minicon required) to give him his shoulder cannons. They end in 5mm ports, which makes them compatible with Siege blast effects. You'll find some similarities in the transformation- jet nose up, backpack up, wings fold back and line up with the shoulders, legs turn inward then wrap over the thighs. Legacy Starscream's got a few bits that make him feel a bit more solid, though, like panels that fold out of his calves and connect between his legs and a panel on his back that covers over that. These elements combine to fill in a lot of the fuselage between his legs and back boosters. His arms also curl up, fists toward the front, in a manner closer to the original toy/cartoon than the way the Generations figure jammed them along the sides. Speaking of those arms, they kind of bugged me on the original. Like, they just hang there, so un-aerodynamic. Blocky arms are still un-aerodynamic, but they tuck in a bit tighter. You could almost believe they're some kind of engine nacelles or drop tanks. Dangling arms aside, my complaints are pretty much entirely down to the colors and how they chose to paint (or rather, not paint) Starscream. I already touched on the lack of black on the exhausts, and the lack of white on the legs. Beyond that, when viewed from above, there should be a lot more white. The tops of his torso, above the intakes on his chest, should be white such that it blend right into the wings. The red hinges would have been better in white- the ones on his wings, especially, could have been molded in the white/gray plastic instead of red. I think he might have also benefitted if the gray between the boosters were red (which would have had to be paint, since it's molded with the boosters), and the red panel running from it to the tail would have been white instead of red. Starscream's canopy doesn't open, and he doesn't have any landing gear. His boosters can flip over, though, so he can fire his cannons in jet mode. And he's got 5mm pegs on his forearms, under his wings, two on the bottom near the back, and one under his nose, and you can use any of those as places to store his weapons. Transformers Armada is kind of like the opposite of Beast Wars for me. With Beast Wars, the story was pretty great but the shellformery designs and the entire notion of robots turning into organic animals were turn offs. Armada is the kind unwatchable dreck that Japan was serving elementary-age boys in the early-aughts, but I quite liked a lot of the designs from it. Armada Starscream is probably my favorite non-G1 (or G1-adjacent, like Cyberverse/RiD 15/IDW etc) Starscream design. It takes some of G1 Starscream's designs, like intakes on the chest, a torso with a cockpit in it, and wings on his back but tweaks them and the colors enough that the homage inspiration isn't as overt as a lot of the more recent Starscream designs, then gives him ant alt mode that's rather like a VF-11 with FAST packs. Legacy Starscream delivers all that in a package that's got better proportions and cartoon accuracy than the original Armada toy, and better articulation and scale than the Generations toy. And while I might rant about recent G1 releases scraping the bottom of the barrel, I've acknowledged that non-G1 deserves some time in the spotlight and Starscream is easily a top 3 character from Armada. I can find a few aesthetic faults with the color placement on this guy, but ultimately Legacy Starscream is a very good take on one of the best non-G1 Starscreams in the franchise, and I can happily recommend him.

That head on the one on the left... oof. Looks like Jetfire and his elementary-age son.

I don't know about dark undercurrents in his videos, but his stepdaughter committed suicide last year, and his wife filed for divorce this past August. It seems clear he was hurting, but hindsight is 20/20. It's tragic that no one closer to him was able to get through to him.