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What paints did you use? And how did you cut Ironhide's skirt? I was thinking about buying the Toyhax labels, but if I can get Ironhide looking that good with just paint...

I've gone on record more than once for saying that while I liked the show, I don't like Wyatt's exaggerated cartoon designs as three-dimensional objects, so I can honestly say that if a third party did any kind of Animated toys, be they designed to augment and replace the originals like APC is doing with Prime or even a more ambitious attempt at Masterpiece Animated designs, they'd be a hard pass for me. That said, I'd kill for Blackout to get a G1-ified Legacy-style update in the mainline.

If you follow APC and their love the best show on Hasbro's short-lived Hub channel, then you might have seen this coming after Soundwave and Bulkhead (unless you thought I decided to get their FE Arcee or their Vehicons... not entirely out of the question, BTW). No, tonight I'm taking a look at APC's first* totally new figure- Night Countess, aka Airachnid. *That I know of... you know how these third parties are. For all we know APC is a brand TFC created just for knocking off TF Prime figures. When it comes to Transformers, I think one of the least controversial things I can say is "Hasbro's Deluxe-class Airachnid sucked." Huge backpack, limited head articulation because she had a seat on the back of it, awkward arms, and practically no deco as she's almost entirely black. Ironically, one of the few places she had purple paint is her pelvis, and that's probably the one place she didn't need it. Needless to say, it'd take more than a fresh coat of paint to save that figure, so APC didn't. Instead, they brought us an all-new design that, from what I understand, was actually something a fan worked up years ago. I'm told APC bought the design and put it into production, and here she is. Mor purple on her legs, arms, abdomen, and feet. Gold on her knees, shoulders, and wrists. Actual arms, not just the panels. She has a backpack, sure, but it's not particularly large or egregious. All-in-all, I could probably find little things to nitpick on like the screws on her forearms or her thicc hips, but when you look at what she's replacing Night Countess is clearly a huge upgrade. Emphasis on huge! I'm pretty sure that the official scale has Arcee and Airachnid as being among the smallest of the Transformers in the Prime continuity. Night Countess dwarfs RiD Arcee, and stands roughly equal to First Edition Starscream and APC's own Soundwave. But... I recall a scene where Airachnid was trying to convince the Decepticons that Megatron was gone and she was in charge, then Soundwave kicks the crap out of her. Now, if I rewatch that scene, I can plainly see that Soundwave is bigger than her, but that's not what stuck out in my mind. What stuck out was that she must be high-ranking... and higher-ranking characters in G1 tended to be bigger, my brain applied that logic to Prime, and lo and behold I wound up remembering Airachnid being bigger than she was. Even though I rationally understand that Night Countess is too big, this scale feels right to me. Night Countess' head is on a ball joint with some sideways tilt, but really good downward tilt and the excellent upward tilt until she's look straight up. Her shoulders are ball joints and they swivel fine, but she only gets about 45 degrees of lateral motion and only if her arm is down. If you raise her arm first you get nothing, and it's due to the kibble on her biceps. Speaking of she has a ball joint at the elbow that doubles as her thigh swivel, but a hinge below it means her elbows are double-jointed and can bend 180 degrees. She doesn't swivel at the waist, but she does have one under her chest. There's also a hinge there that gives her a slight back bend/ab crunch. Her hips are ball joints that'll go 90 degrees backward, a little short of that forward, and about 45 degrees laterally. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend about 90 degrees. No foot or ankle articulation, although her heels are hinged for transformation and can tilt up or down as needed to keep her feet flat. The three limbs on her backpack have ball joints at the base that let them swivel and hinge, plus a second hinge mid-limb. Did she have a weapon in the cartoon? It's been awhile, I don't remember. I do remember that the Hasbro Deluxe had those weird-looking web guns. In any case, Night Countess doesn't come with any guns. That's not to say that she doesn't have any accessories, though! Her rotor comes off, and you can replace it with the six spider limbs she often deployed in the cartoon. They come in two set of three, and instead of plugging in where the rotor goes they plug into the sides of her backpack. They have the added benefit of letting her do her half-spider mode. In fact, a good portion of her lower leg actually detaches from her shins and hinges backward, and her legs tab together. Her hip skirts then kind of cover over the sides of her leg. They don't seem to lock in place that I can find, but since the backs of her legs don't detach for alt mode this was clearly an intentional design, not a fan transformation. This is also likely why she can look straight up and arch her back. Much has been made of how the spider legs can't support her weight, and indeed, when I first started messing with her I thought it was a pain just to keep them attached. If you run into problems, you're probably doing it wrong. I eventually figured out that the sides of her backpack need to fold out so that they're pointing away from her body. Then the spider legs don't attach to the outside of those flaps, they attach to the inside- quite securely. From there, you'll find that you can swivel a trio of legs at a time, then each leg has a hinge that moves it forward/backward and a pair of hinges for bending in/out. Properly attached, you should have no trouble posing her in spider mode with the legs more than capable of keeping her body off the ground. Night Countess' transformation is interesting, because while it is definitely a bit more complex that the simplistic Deluxe Airachnid, it's not at all complex by 3P standards. Her backpack unfurls, revealing the cockpit and nose, then her upper body spins 180 degrees so the cockpit is in the right spot and she's kind of sticking her face between her legs. The outermost section of her backpack spins around to cover over her head, then arms curl up and combine with the hip skirts to make much of the sides of her alt mode while her legs clip together so they form her tail boom. That's it. In a way, it doesn't feel like a 3P sort of design, it very much feels like something Hasbro could have come up with on their own if they'd made Airachnid a Voyager in the first place and she had a bit more budget to work with. Which is good, because even as I replace certain figures with the APC versions APC's stuff is still mostly tweaked KOs of Hasbro toys in the first place. Feeling like she could have been a Hasbro toy means she doesn't feel out-of-place with them. All that being said... if we're being totally fair I do have to point out that aside from the rotor blades Hasbro's Deluxe is actually more accurate in helicopter mode. She's thinner and less bulbous in the front, with sharper angles that flow more smoothly into her tail boom. The mechanical detail around the rotor isn't present on the Deluxe or the animation, and her cockpit can open up. Night Countess doesn't have anything on her underside to rest on the way the Deluxe does... in fact, if you look at her underside you can plainly see her whole robot mode from the bottom of her ribs down to her toes, with her face peaking between her thighs. But you gotta pick your poison... do you want a great helicopter but a robot mode as bad as the Deluxe? Or do you want a great robot that makes kind of a fat helicopter? I mean, most of my stuff is displayed in bot mode, so I know what I pick. Not a lot you can do with the helicopter, though. Her rotor does spin, but it doesn't spin freely to make posing her in bot mode easier. Her cockpit doesn't open, and she doesn't carry any weapons. I suppose you can pull out the rotor and pop on the spider-legs for a spider-chopper. Night Countess is an impressive figure that looks fantastic in robot mode with a fairly intuitive, not overly-complicated transformation that manages to fit in with your official Transformers Prime toys. My only real complaint is that I wish her shoulder and ankle articulation was a bit better, but it's not like the decade-old toys she's meant to be with were setting a new standard for articulation, although her larger size may also bother some. Honestly, though, at a very reasonable $40-$50 I'd still recommend her, she's a figure Prime fans won't want to miss.

And Skynet is really ChatGPT.

Oh, ok, I gotcha. I didn't realize that Ptereleons Nemeios came with replacement parts for Kadmos.

We can't help it that the '80s and early '90s were filled with forgotten cartoons way cooler than BMFM. To be fair, this is the first time I've ever heard of Roar Comics. If I never heard of Roar, how could I know they were making Dinosaucers comics?

Isn't that close to what Kadmos cost in the first place? And I thought I was bad for thinking about dropping $16 on cartoon-accurate missiles for TF Prime First Edition Starscream...

While APC's first product was a KO of Transformers Prime First Edition Optimus Prime, their first announced product was a KO of First Edition Bulkhead. And yet, a few releases and several repaints later APC's Bulkhead is nowhere to be found. Or is he? Because I just received this- Now, I don't normally cover packaging in my reviews, because I'm generally a "toss the box" sort of collector. But... what is this? I mean, we can reasonably assume AC-01R is the model, but is Arms Iron the name of the company or the name of the figure? Is "Model-Level Deformation Toys" the company, or a description of what they do? Confusing things more, while a rep from APC has denied their involvement, other sources involved have claimed that this is, in fact, from APC. I don't know what's true... all I can say is that the box is not at all APC's style, but the instructions (a single paper with robot-to-alt one one side and alt-to-robot on the other) is exactly like APC's. Curiouser and curiouser... And out of the box, wouldn't you know it, it's a KO of First Edition Bulkhead... like APC announced and never released. Specifically, this one is colored like the Takara release. There's apparently an AC-01 without the R that's colored like the Hasbro release. I grabbed this one because it was more readily available when I decided to try it instead of holding out for an official APC release, but I kind of think I might prefer the darker green anyway. As near as I can tell, it's a 1:1 KO. I think that's fine for the size, but here's hoping that if this isn't from APC and APC does eventually release one that they change up the deco to make it more cartoon-accurate. I mean, while this Takara-colored one uses a darker green, I think both versions used the same color for the hands, biceps, and crotch, which is sort of a warm taupe instead of cooler silver or gunmetal. Actually, if they'd matched the color of the plastic on his knees that'd have been fine. His feet are painted to match that taupe color, and I'd argue that his feet and hands should be a very dark gunmetal or even black. He lacks the darker green stripes on his arms, too, which is something that the later Robots In Disguise version had. On that note... which version did you guys like better? There's definitely some things that the newer Robots In Disguise mold tried to get right from the cartoon, like the black shoulder pads, the more refrigerator-shaped body, and the shape of the outside of his leg and foot right down to the faux wheels in this heels. On the other hand, the FE design has a rounder shape that I associate more with Bulkhead, a grill on his tummy, and the headlights are properly on his chest behind the doors instead of under the doors near his waist. I think his wheel-wings are also more accurate, with less kibble on top peeking over his shoulders. Oh, a note about his shoulder pads... since they're actually part of the alt mode instead of random floating bits, I don't mind that they're not totally black even though that'd be cartoon accurate. That said, there's a splash of silver on them that doesn't show in alt mode, and that silver could have been black to at least be a bit closer to accurate. APC, I hope you're taking notes. As far as I know, the only accessory First Edition Bulkhead came with back in the day was his wrecking ball. In a most APC-like manner, this figure comes with some extra accessories that appear to be knocked-off from a 3P upgrade kit from a company called Dreamworks... you get a pair of blasters, a black bumper part*, two parts that form a long handle, a claw, and a... I dunno... thingy. The blasters, handle, claw, and thingy can be combined to form a large hammer. *The bumper part reads DP-12-001 Dreamworks... they didn't even bother to remove the name of the kit-maker they KO'ed. Bulkhead's head is on a ball joint, but it has no up/down/sideways tilt and you can only swivel it a bit under 90 degrees to the right or left or it will pop off. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees... the rotation joint is a tad loose on both shoulders on my copy (the other joints seem fine though). He's also got a little backward butterfly. Elbows are a single hinge, but they bend a bit over 90 degrees. His wrists don't swivel, but due to how they transform they can bend inward. No waist swivel. His hips go forward and backward about 45 degrees, and 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend on soft ratchets 90 degrees. No ankle pivots, but his toes have a slight upward and plenty of downward tilt. The wrecking ball works the same as the original Hasbro/Takara toy- fold his hand into his forearm to reveal a peg hole, and a peg on the wrecking ball will plug into it. To use the hammer, pull the bottom of the handle off, slide the upper portion through his fist, and then plug the bottom back on. Like I said, the shoulder swivels are a tad loose, though, and they don't support the weight of the hammer all that well. That said, they're just mushroom swivels, so a little floor polish should fix that right up. BTW, notice the bicep on the arm holding the hammer? Now, I own neither the Hasbro First Edition or the Takara (if I did, I wouldn't have to resort to KOs, would I?), but AFAIK that bicep filler was NOT part of the original Hasbro toy and therefore not on AC-01, but it was on the Takara version hence its inclusion on AC-01R. To use the arm blasters, there are clips that allow the sides of the blasters to pull apart, and they're just pegged to the thing on top of the handle. With the sides of the blasters open there's enough room to stuff Bulkhead's arm inside- just make sure his hands are still folded in so they can peg in like his wrecking ball. Speaking of pegging stuff in, if you take the thingy off the handle, then take the spikey part off, it can also plug into his wrist port, giving him a kind of claw. And, I have to say, I can do without the hammer, but I love the new blasters. Which just leaves the bumper piece. You can store it on his robot mode by turning him around, where you'll notice two slots on the sides of his pelvis. Little tabs on the bumper fit into those slots, holding it in place over his butt. It's not the prettiest, but at least it's storage. So this is probably super subjective, but I strongly prefer the transformation for FE Bulkhead over RID Bulkhead. Like, both of their arms have to tuck under the rear of the car, but his forearms don't have to be twisted to fit. They both have their collar and back make up their roofs, but the rear of FE is made from his shoulder pads, giving him less back kibble and not requiring you to move the shoulder panels on their own separate armature to form the rear side windows. Both have their rear wheels and fenders on their backs like wings, but FE doesn't have the additional side panel. Both have the legs tucked under the food, but FE doesn't require spinning his legs around, and it tucks his crotch more neatly underneath. Both are pretty accurate in truck mode, shape-wise. I like RID Bulkhead's larger front bumper, and he's got the darker green stripe on the doors. I like the bigger silver sections around the headlights and wider body on FE Bulkhead. I like the FE Bulkhead has translucent front side windows, no dark green around the windows, and no translucent plastic on the roof, plus he's got the dark stripes on his bed cover. I also think FE Bulkhead manages his undercarriage kibble just a bit better, and as a bonus his wrist ports are facing out the back like exhausts... that you can totally plug Siege blast effects into. Both have paint on the grill, headlights, taillights, and side skirts, and both are missing painted details on their bumpers. Both also could have used painted rims. More stuff for APC to improve on later, eh? As was the case on the original toy, you can use the peg on Bulkhead's wrecking ball to plug it into his bed cover in alt mode. And this is where the Dreamworks bumper really comes in- you just wrap it over his actual bumper. I'm not sure it's entirely necessary, though- the bumper he already has is cartoon-accurate, so he doesn't really need a bigger one. That said, I suppose his shoulder pads to tend to pull apart a bit, and the bumper acts as a clip that holds them together, eliminating any unsightly gaps. I probably won't use it, but it's an option, at least. If you want to store his blasters on the truck it's a little bit trickier. You'll notice that two of the panels that make up each blaster has a pair of slots, one the third pair has some ridges. The ridges look like they should fit around the rails on his roof, but the tolerances are far too loose. The slots, though, can fit onto the spikes on his wrecking ball. If you don't mind the blasters pointed out at a 45 degree angle you can simply plug the blasters onto the ball, then plug the ball into the bed like normal- no part of the blasters will be directly over the bed. If you want them facing forward, though, you'll find that the blasters are slightly lower than the bottom of the ball, preventing the peg from reaching the bed. To get around this, get the claw, plug it into the bed first, then plug the ball into the claw. That'll raise it up enough that the blasters can sit over the bed. I suppose, in some ways, this is more review of First Edition Bulkhead and a comparison with the Robots In Disguise mold, and I ultimately conclude that the First Edition version is the better version. And, given that you can buy a new copy of FE Bulkhead from Hasbro Pulse or one of their retail partners, and used copies on eBay hover around $100, I don't really have any qualms about suggesting the KO instead- aside from slightly loose shoulders (which is fixable) the quality seems on par with my legit RiD version, plus you get some extra accessories. However, APC's releases are rarely 1:1 KOs. Prime got a more show-accurate, premium deco. Megatron was an improved upscale of the superior Deluxe-class mold. Arcee got a more premium paint job. Soundwave got a more accurate deco and was embiggened a bit to scale better. These improvements don't always equate to modern articulation like ankle pivots that an original 3P release might have had, but they still help your Transformers Prime shelf look a bit better. So, while I might recommend picking up this KO over buying an actual FE Bulkhead on the secondary market, I'm not sure that FE Bulkhead is so much better than RID Bulkhead that replacing RID Bulkhead with this KO is necessary, especially with the specter of a more-accurate deco with possible mold improvements from actual APC Toys still hanging over us. And if you already have a legit FE Bulkhead there's zero reason to replace it with this KO (although, buying this KO for the extra accessories might be cheaper than tracking down the original Dreamworks upgrade kit, so...), whereas an APC release with silver on his biceps and crotch instead of taupe and black on his feet, shoulders, and hands, painted lights on the bumpers, and the stripes on the doors and forearms might have been worth an upgrade. Alas, AFAIK APC's next planned release is a KO of First Edition Cliffjumper, so the wait for an APC Bulkhead goes on.

I really liked Tron, I really liked Tron: Legacy, and I absolutely LOVED Tron: Uprising. But... not sure I like Jared Leto.

I forget about ArtDink's Vita games (Delta Scramble and Gundam Seed Battle Destiny) because, despite running on better hardware, they seemed so much worse than the PSP games.

Some time ago I reviewed APC Toys Attack Prime (and the superior repainted version), which was basically a KO of Transformers Prime First Edition Optimus Prime with extra accessories from a Dr. Wu kit. The later I checked out their Dark Master, which was also still technically a KO of a HasTak Prime Megatron with some extra accessories from a Dru Wu kit (I think), but a slightly more ambitious project- unlike Attack Prime, who was a 1:1 KO (with better paint on the second version), Dark Master took the superior Deluxe-class toy the improved and upscaled it until it was bigger than the Voyager. I skipped APC's third major release, a KO of First Edition Arcee called Angel Engine, because even though she had a much better paint job than the original toy there were apparently some QC issues, and I happen to prefer the Robots in Disguise version over the First Edition. But I'm back on the APC train tonight with Demonic Whisper, their version of Prime Soundwave. A word, before I get too far into this... Demonic Whisper is actually APC's second crack at Soundwave. You may also see listings for Soundwave under Evil Voice. As near as I can tell, they're the same figure but Demonic Whisper has a slightly more subdued but more cartoon-accurate deco. Deco is also the first way that Demonic Whisper differs from the original Hasbro toy. Some joints in the shoulders, biceps, and hips that were black on the original are the same color as his body. He's got more purple energy lines, in place more correctly. Then he's got some additional gunmteal paint on his knees, feet, cheeks, crest, and upper torso. While the deco is better, there actually isn't much that's actually changed with the mold itself. There's no improvements to give him wrist articulation or ankle pivots, for example. The only real difference I could find is that his head isn't permanently thrust forward in a bit of a slouch. I don't think they modified any joints for that, though, they merely did away with a spring mechanism that shot his head out when you opened the backpack up. Of course, I may be burying the lede. The biggest, most obvious change isn't a missing spring or a new paint job. Demonic Whisper is a little bigger than the Hasbro version. Now, I don't have a scale chart for Prime, but the gist seems to be that Soundwave should be as tall (or even slightly taller) than Starscream, and the original definitely was not. But Demonic Whisper seems about right with First Edition Starscream and APC's own Dark Master. As a somewhat-enlarged, better-decoed, but otherwise mostly the same version of Hasbro's Soundwave he retains the chest that detaches and turns into Laserbeak. Like the Hasbro release, Lasberbeak is missing a few details, largely due to the mold not being changed aside from size. Laserbeak can use the same peg that attaches him to Demonic Whisper's chest to also attach to a hole on his wrist to make it look like he's perched there. We're not done, though. APC continues the trend of giving you a bit more than a simple KO of Hasbro, this time with what I believe are some totally original accessories. These accessories are a pair of cables, a pair of claws, four wire parts, and a plate with some peg holes. The plate with the peg holes works by simply plugging into a screw hole on Demonic Whisper's butt. The two peg holes now on his back are where we can plug in the cables. The cables themselves have bendy wire inside, so they'll hold a pose. Then you can pop the claws on the other end. The claws have another hole that you can use to attach two of the wire parts, if you like, to give Demonic Whisper the tentacles that Soundwave used in the show. Unfortunately, while the claws use some of that gunmetal paint (which is close enough to the silver of the cartoon, I guess), the cables are wires are simply black with none of the purple seen in the show. Demonic Whisper's articulation, by the way, is pretty much identical to the Hasbro release. But since I never covered the Hasbro release here, real quick, head's on a hinged ball joint that can look up slightly, nothing really down, decent sideways tilt, slight left-right swivel. Shoulders swivel and can move laterally a bit under 90 degrees, but the lateral hinge is outside the swivel. But then there's a ball joint that gives him some inward bend, and is maybe supposed to be part of his shoulder as it allows you move most of his arm below the hinge forward or backward and it sits about his bicep swivels. Below the bicep swive is another hinge that I'd say is 90 degrees of elbow bend. No wrist or hand articulation. His waist is tight, but it does swivel, and there's a slight ab crunch to give him a slightly hunched posture. His hips are ball joints that allow for over 90 degrees of forward motion but very little backward or laterally. His thighs swivel, but are limited by the kibble on the backs of his thighs colliding with his butt. His knees are also fairly limited. His actual knee is bent back as far as it goes already, and the digitigrade joint below it can't go too far backward due to kibble. His feet have a slight downward tilt and a ton of upward tilt, but no ankle pivots. All-in-all, I do wish they could have made a few more mold changes to improve his articulation below the waist. Transformation is identical to the Hasbro toy. Again, the changes are mostly minor deco ones- a grayer blue plastic, gunmetal on the engine, different purple lines. I'll note, though, that APC used a harder plastic for the vertical stabilizers. Not as safe for kids, but as an adult collector I'm happy Demonic Whisper doesn't have the droopy warped stab my Hasbro version does. Also, not pictured, but you can still attach the plate and tentacles while he's in drone mode. Doesn't interfere with anything. In some ways, Demonic Whisper (or Evil Voice) is a harder sell than Attack Prime and Dark Master. Attack Prime was based on a fairly limited release figure, and Dark Master replaces the Hasbro Voyager release with a better-scaled version of the superior Deluxe-class toy. Demonic Whisper has a better deco and is a bit bigger so he's more in-scale, but aside from some new tentacle accessories doesn't really do anything to fix my other complaints with the Prime Soundwave toy. If you already have that Soundwave and you're not too bothered by scale then you might not need to upgrade. However, if you're years late to the party Demonic Whisper goes for roughly half the $80-ish you might expect to pay for Prime Soundwave on the secondary market and you get a better toy to boot.

I mean, it's something. I just wish it were a sequel to the PSP Frontier games instead of a vertical shmup.

I mean, it's gotta be better than Rise of the TMNT, right? I could go for a new Streetsharks. Yes, absolutely! Also SWAT Cats.

Could be. I definitely think they'd have been better off with a cartoonier lion face, like the original BWII toy. The shoulder joints don't bother me too much. I guess I'm too used to modern Japanese mecha designs like Gundam Barbatos and Gundam Aerial with thin, sometimes exposed joints. But yeah, the proportions are goofy. I don't know if it's just that the arms are too big or if the thighs are too short. I mean, everyone's entitled to their opinions. But no, definitely not. I suppose you could try using some Perfect Effect kits, if you have them, but it's kind of a lipstick/pig situation. I mean, CW Menasor also has weird proportions, but compounded by weird joints and stability issues. And, for those that it matters to, Legacy is definitely more cartoon-accurate. The Stunticons themselves have better articulation, accessories, and cartoon accuracy. CW Breakdown might actually have the better alt mode than Legacy Breakdown. But Legacy wins the other four. All-in-all, the Legacy Stunticons are by no means perfect. I definitely have my issues with them, and the biggest is Breakdown being so minimally retooled from Wildrider. But, especially given the constraints of Hasbro's budgeting, they're miles better than Combiner Wars. I still love the original G1s, though... I don't know about an entire new trailer/Menasor skeleton, but DNA has an upgrade kit that just released. I'm waiting for TCP to get it in stock, but I'll be taking a look for sure.

I tried one of the early Monster Hunter games on the 3DS, and I couldn't get into it. Maybe because I only play single player? Still, it's on Game Pass, so I'll check Rise out. Also on Game Pass (and out for all other major systems) are Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal. All three are excellent games, but P4G is my favorite. Even though they're on Game Pass I'll be buying P3P on Steam to complete the trio on PC. Thinking I might get a Steam Deck anyway, could be fun to play there.

To continue with Legacy Evolution, we're going to need a Repaint Roundup. Up first isn't Evolution, but rather from Walmart's Velocitron Speedia 500 line we've got Leader-class Galaxy Shuttle. He's mostly Siege Astrotrain with a new head. And... well, the best thing you could say about Astrotrain was that the robot mode was a pretty good Astrotrain, but aside from both turning into a space shuttles and both having wings on their backs, Galaxy Shuttle and Astotrain aren't all that similar. I mean, the nose of the shuttle should be Galaxy Shuttle's torso, which is not the case with Astotrain. Velocitron Galaxy Shuttle is missing a lot of the markings you'd expect, too, and the new head has the exaggerated ear points of the box art that neither the toy nor the Victory cartoon really had. As a Leader-class, Galaxy Shuttle comes with all the accessories Astotrain did- four guns, a missile launcher, and a box to store them all in. I wonder if the used so much blue plastic on the box because they wanted it to represent the Autobot's Shuttle Base? But the real question is why three of the guns and the missile launcher are red plastic, but one rifle is black? None of them have the engine bell or tail that G1 Galaxy Shuttle's gun did. Galaxy Shuttle has the same "wear all my accessories" gimmick Astrotrain did. But I don't recommend it- on my copy, at least, the knee joints are far too weak, and the weight of the box on his back makes him fall backward. I think, maybe because Galaxy Shuttle rarely appeared in robot mode and spent most of his time hauling the Autobots around in shuttle mode, that it was their priority mode for this release. The colors, the placement of the Autobot symbols, even the hints of blue and yellow on the sides are a lot more accurate than the robot mode. Unfortunately, the weird gaps and exposed hinges made the back of Astrotrain's shuttle mode look extremely unfinished, and it's not something they fixed for Galaxy Shuttle's release. You could mitigate that a lot by keeping Astrotrain's chest in its robot-mode position, filling in that section, and filling in the back with a 3D-printed part with a new tail. Unfortunately, I don't believe such a part exists for Galaxy Shuttle yet (although I suppose you could buy an Astotrain one and repaint one yourself). Train mode was Astrotrain's weakest mode- it's almost ok, but for whatever reason instead of making the front of the train flush with the bottom of Astrotrain's legs they felt some need to put the swivel point for the shuttle nose in the middle of a larger part, which means that the front of the train looks like a smaller train that isn't even touching the ground bursting out of the front of a larger train. Oh well, Galaxy Shuttle isn't a triple changer and isn't supposed to have a train mode anyway. But... seeing the black locomotive, and the white-and-black shuttle, kind of makes me think this release should have had an all-white head with a red visor, and it could have been Astrotrain in his original Japanese toy colors. But mostly this release reminds me that Hasbro kind of over-engineered Astrotrain in ways that totally worked against his alt modes. Really the only thing I do like about this mold, the robot mode, doesn't really work for Galaxy Shuttle anyway. I'm glad that Hasbro is paying attention to Japanese G1, but you can definitely skip this release- all it really does is make me want Hasbro to do a new SS86 Astrotrain that doesn't suck. OK, now we can get to Evolution, with Deluxe-class Breakdown. Breakdown is my favorite Stunticon, so why is he the one that keeps getting screwed? The Combiner Wars Stunticons weren't the best molds in general, but Breakdown was probably the worst of the five. Legacy Breakdown fixes some of CW's issues, like his whole pelvis is white now, his fists are blue, and he's got better proportions without those weird hips. But why are his feet white now? Why are his eyes yellow instead of purple? But my real complaint is just how much Hasbro reused parts from Wildrider's mold. I mean, I figured that they'd reuse the engineering, just like Dead End used Dragstrip's. In robot mode, you can see that he's got a new head, chest, and waist- and those parts look great! But the arms, the crotch, the thighs, the shins, and the feet are all Wildrider. Now, the shins I can almost forgive. Wildrider had a vented pattern that really belonged to Breakdown in the first place, and although he's got Wildrider's protruding knees if I squint I can imagine it's the flatter squares normally drawn on Breakdown. Breakdown's wheels should be on the insides of his legs instead of the outside like Wildriders... but that complaint applied to Dead End, too, and I think it might be a bit much to expect from a Hasbro Deluxe. I can forgive the arms- the linework doesn't really belong to either Stunticon, who had smooth arms in the cartoon. I might point out that Breakdown is missing his shoulder wheels, but that complain would also apply to Wildrider. Again, maybe it's a bit much to expect from a Hasbro Deluxe. But I don't really understand, given that his waist and crotch are on the same part, why they only remolded his waist? They could have keep that lined pattern on his crotch, too, and it would have been more accurate. I also wish they'd have remolded the thighs. I get that it's probably one of the parts that most people wouldn't care too much about, but the octagonal bit is 100% Wildrider, and to me the rectangle with the two circles is one of his more memorable traits. Well, one thing Breakdown didn't reuse is Wildrider's guns. Instead, Breakdown gets a totally new one... but just the one, where the others had two. Instead, Breadown's other accessory is... his spoiler? Like, I'm glad that means his alt mode has its spoiler, but you have to remove it for robot mode and then, do what? Have him hold it in one hand like some kind of boomerang, apparently. Alternatively, his gun's barrel is 5mm peg-shaped, and there's a port on one side, so you can combine his gun and spoiler into a pickaxe. Still, I don't know why they didn't just make the spoiler two pieces. Then it could have stayed in exactly the same place it goes for alt mode- no need to remove it for transformation. Speaking of transformation... to quote Sesame Street, "one of these things is not like the other." Hasbro painted the trapezoid on the hood, and the blue around the skirts and bumper (well, they actually missed the blue on the back on one side of mine), and he's got his spoiler, but that's so not a Lamborghini. Like, not even a "legally distinct" Lambo like Combiner Wars Breakdown or Earthrise Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. They actually did remold part of the back of the car, so the vents over the rear wheels and the engine are more Lamborghini-esque, and the position of the 5mm peg holes is different so the spoiler can plug in. But from just in front of the rear wheels to the front the rest of the car is 100% Wildrider, and he looks more like Wildrider in white than Breakdown. Could Hasbro really not have found the budget to have at least remolded the nose to look more like a Countach? Heck, even painting some extra lines on the side windows to look more like a Countach's would have helped. Oh, if you're thinking, "hey, Wildrider stored his guns on the 5mm ports on his rear, but Breakdown needs them for his spoiler!" don't worry. Hasbro's still got that covered. There's a protruding chunk on one side of his gun, and it fits into a cutout on the nose's armature to fit just under his front end. The gun can even stay plugged in when Breakdown is combined to Menasor. Speaking of Menasor... I'm guessing Hasbro held Breakdown for last because we'd be the least satisfied with him as an individual, but a lot of people will plug him onto their now-complete Menasor and forget about it. Speaking of Menasor, although he's just now complete I think I covered him pretty well when Motormaster was released, since he basically transformed into a 90% complete robot just waiting for cars to stick to his limbs. Suffice to say that he's a huge improvement over Combiner Wars Menasor, but his shins look a bit plain and his proportions are a bit off. I'm not usually a fan of this much of the gestalt not coming from the limbs members, but I think it works for Menasor to use the trailer in this way. I just wish they'd used all the trailer instead of leaving that gun tower. At least it gives you a place to store the cars' weapons. But as for Breakdown himself, you kind of have to buy him if you want to complete Menasor, or even if you just want to complete the team. But Hasbro really pulled a fast one on us here, by releasing their better efforts first then half-assing it once we'd bought Motormaster, figuring at that point we'd buy Breakdown even if they didn't retool Wildrider at all. But it leaves me very angry. Even more so because Hasbro will undoubtedly use budget as an excuse. Fact is, Hasbro found the budget to scrape the bottom of the G1 barrel with Needlenose, to start catering to Armada fans with Hot Shot, and to create brand new characters no one asked for with Scraphook, and they cheaped out on Breakdown because they knew he's sell anyway, even they could have made Breakdown a totally new mold then retooled and repainted all five Stunticons with G1 toy and G2 decoes to get their repaints out of them. In a just world, no, I would NOT recommend buying Breakdown and rewarding Hasbro for this farce, but four out of five Sunticons in and Hasbro's got us all by the short and curlies. Hopefully someone like DNA will make a new nose for the car and a split spoiler, even if replacing that nose is going to require removing a pin.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly it. A pen filled with a liquid resin, on the other end is a little UV light that cures it. It's apparently very similar to what your dentist might use to fill a cavity. My experience with it is mixed- it's not as strong as a glue, and because you have to be able to shine the light on it it's pretty useless for some things. But I've had luck using it to repair cracks like the one on your Pointblank. The one I got came from Amazon under the name Bondic. Well, since Amazon stopped sending me Evolution figures I guess I'll take a little break from them and cover a 3rd party release. See, back in November I reviewed Studio Series Hot Rod. And I compared him with Studio Series Lockdown... which got me thinking about my copy of Unique Toys Peru Kill. And that made me decide to buy DX9's La Hire, their version of an MPM Hot Rod. You might recall that Studio Series Hot Rod was only half a head shorter than Lockdown, who were both Deluxes. But... Hot Rod was around the same size as Bumblebee in The Last Knight. But, in Age of Extinction Lockdown was just a little shorter than Optimus... so shouldn't the size difference between Hot Rod and Lockdown be greater? Probably! And indeed, La Hire only comes a little less than halfway up Peru Kill's chest (to be fair, I don't think Hasbro's Hot Rod is too big, I think their Lockdown was too small). As you'd expect from something aimed at the MPM market, La Hire is a lot more screen-accurate than Studio Series Hot Rod, too. As a matter of fact, La Hire was apparently done in collaboration with Unique Toys, and while I'm not exactly a fan of the Bayverse designs, the figures I've got from them (Nero, Challenger, Dragoon, and Peru Kill) have been extremely impressive, with screen-accurate robots that don't even look like they should transform but cleverly do into vehicles that barely look like they transform. And on that first point, robot that doesn't look like it should transform, La Hire nails it. Like, from the front, I have to start nitpicking little things like the orange bits on his waist should be black, and they probably should have painted some silver on his biceps. From behind he's nearly as impressive, as he doesn't have a big chunk of folded-up car for a backpack. Instead, he's got a movie-accurate engine on his back, and although they're a bit smallish here even diecast movie-accurate buttocks. The backs of his biceps, forearms, and thighs lack much of the mechanical details of the CGI model, though, and the GGI's almost Gundam-esque orange heels are black vents here, one of the few concessions to car kibble that wasn't present on the CGI. That said *looks at MP-44* it's a lot more effort into a screen-accurate back than most companies do. La Hire comes with a few accessories. You have a faceless girl in a black jumpsuit- presumably Viviane, although I don't recall if the outfit is screen-accurate (wasn't it sleeveless?). You get a replacement set of wing mirrors, and a translucent yellow blast effect part. Finally, you get a pair of guns. You might recognize one as his "stop ze time!" gun, and just assume the other is his regular gun. Actually, both guns are identical- the magazine under and the... I dunno, time grenades? around the one are removable. The underlying gun is the same as the naked one. La Hire's head is on a hinged swivel. He can look up maybe 30 degrees and turn his head, but that's about it. His shoulders swivel and have a hinge for 90 degrees of lateral movement. However, the swivel is on the wrong side of the hinge. Normally, that'd mean swiveling his shoulder then trying to get some lateral movement would be impossible (liek Studio Series 86 Hot Rod), but fortunately La Hire has a backward butterfly that will still provide some lateral movement. His biceps swivel. His elbows are double-jointed and good for basically 180 degrees of bend. His wrists swivel. His thumb is on a ball joint with one additional hinged knuckle, while his fingers are pinned at the base with one additional hinged knuckle. The index finger is separate, but the other three are molded together. His waist swivels. His hips go about 90 degrees backward or laterally, and just a bit shy of that forward. His thigs swivel, and his knees bend maybe 125 degrees on a single hinge. His toes have a very slight upward tilt, and his ankles can pivot up to 90 degrees. His guns tab into his palms using the time-honored method of plugging little tabs on the handles into slots on his palms. The blast effect can plug into the barrel of either gun. I guess he can pick up Viviane, but there's really not a lot you can do with her in this mode. So we'll go to his other mode! And... maybe this is why Unique Toys let DX9 put their name on this one. There's some of the same Unique Toys' trick of basically turning inside out, but it just doesn't feel as elegant or refined as UT's efforts. It's also not as intuitive- it's been forever since I've handled Peru Kill, but I had no trouble figuring it out again after all that time without any instructions. I needed the instructions to figure out how to transform La Hire in the first place, then just a few days later I still needed the instructions to transform him again. Oh, and we can see how UT was able to make Peru Kill so big while La Hire is so much smaller... these cars are definitely NOT in scale. Peru Kill is noticeably larger, but in real life his alt mode is around 9" shorter than La Hire's. And what is La Hire, exactly? He's a Lamborhini Centenario, and if you ignore all the seams he's a fairly accurate one, too. He's even got the retractable spoiler (although it doesn't extend super far). Only thing he's missing is the Lambo badge on the nose, and that's likely because DX9 is more afraid of Lamborghini taking legal action than Hasbro. Not only does the spoiler work, but the doors open. And in a refreshing change of pace, they don't just open on robot kibble... there's seats in there, and you can fit Viviane inside. Sadly, though, there doesn't seem to be any place to store his weapons in alt mode, which is a bummer. Ultimately, La Hire sits in a somewhat awkward position. If you're a fan of the Bayverse designs then you'll probably love La Hire. He's got a screen-accurate robot mode that's a step up from a lot of the official MPM stuff and turns into a very nice Lamborghini. However, if you're less a fan of Bayverse designs and more a fan of what Unique Toys specifically does with them, you may find La Hire a tad disappointing as he lacks some of the refinement that gives UT's figures that "wow" factor. Still, I'd say he's better than the only other non-HasTak and non-UT MPM-style figure I have, NewAge's Mista, and ultimately I think he's worth checking out.

Yeah, weird, mine still hasn't shipped but it's supposed to arrive tomorrow? I'm skeptical. I actually went out for a bit today, since I needed to pick up a prescription. It's weird, last time I was in Target they restocked with a bunch of Buzzworthy stuff (NEST Bonecrusher, Jetwing Prime, and the Bumbleswoop set from Cyberverse) and Earthspark stuff. Today, they had a few Studio Series Arcees (the one from Bumblebee, not 86) and some Earthspark 1-step changers, but the rest of the Earthspark stuff and all the Buzzworthy stuff except Bumbleswoop was gone. Walmart had a lot more stuff, but they're still choking on those Kingdom repaints (Sandstorm, Buzzsaw, and Nightprowler), and weirdly, a few Legacy Arcees from way back in the first wave. I think those Kingdom repaints have been pegwarming for so long that my Walmart didn't even bother to get the other waves of Legacy Deluxes, so sorry, still no Dead End. The rest of their Transformers section had a few leftover Velocitron Blurrs, Road Haulers, and Burn Outs, a couple of Blitzwings, and a ton of Jhiaxuses, then a ton of Core-class stuff. I'll still keep an eye out, though. There's another Walmart out by my buddy that I stop at sometimes when I go over to play D&D, they usually have a better selection (my Walmart is like the worst one in the area).

Well, Dead End's not really the last, Breakdown is. Granted, Dead End hasn't been out for super long (I got my preorder in and reviewed him mid-November), but that might be why you're having a harder time finding him. Last time I checked Target they were pretty empty, but I'll keep an eye out there and Walmart, if I see one I'll grab it for you. Supposedly my copy of Breakdown is set for Wednesday from Amazon, but since they haven't actually shipped it yet I'm a tad skeptical. Tarn and Scraphook are still saying March, but I'm hoping to see them sooner than later. Along with a Fan First Friday to announce the next wave, and maybe some Studio Series stuff. I had like two pages of preorders before, now I'm down to just those last three Evolution figures and the four officially-announced Studio Series ROTB figs.

Legacy Evolution is continuing to slowly trickle out, one figure every few days, from Amazon. No sign of the other Deluxes, but today we've got our first Voyager-class release with Leo Prime. Leo Prime is about the same height as fellow Maximal leader Kingdom Optimus Primal, which you may recall from that review is a tad shorter than Earthrise Optimus Prime. Curious, how the Maximal analogs of Optimus Prime are shorter than the Autobot leader, but the Predacon named Megatron is bigger than his Decepticon namesake (when the Beast Wars cartoon depicted both as significantly smaller than their ancestors). I'm not very familiar with the Japanese Beast Wars sequels, but AFAIK Leo and Primal being around the same size squares with with the theatrical story "Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger". So, for the parts of Leo Prime that are the robot, he looks pretty good. The proportions are better than any Leo Prime save the MP version, the head sculpt is strong, and there's a decent amount of paint on him meant to get his colors right- they even painted parts of his gray-molded hands blue The aesthetic issues I have with this guy are more due to the lion kibble. Not in the sense that he has it- it's simply a fact of life that the Beast-era animation may have fixed some proportions but was generally much more accurate to the toys than G1, kibble and all, so I expect the head on his right shoulder, the butt on his left, and lion arms dangling off the backs of his forearms. No, it's more that the aesthetic established with Kingdom with more realistic animal modes has a somewhat detrimental effect on that kibble. The lion's face as mane lack the almost mechanical look of the animation. This isn't limited to the head, either, but the bits of mane on his forearms, which were much sleeker in the animation. On his left shoulder, the irregular shapes of the lion's back half stack awkwardly on top of each other rather than nestle together like overturned spoons to form a nearly continuous, domed shoulder pad. Then there's the lion legs on his forearms. Traditionally the lion's legs look like they're coming straight out from under the mane, but this time he's got a more realistic-looking lion shoulder. While the leg can kind of curl up behind the shoulder, the whole thing sticks out a bit further on a ball joint and gets in the way more than designs that have the lion leg laying more flush against his robot arm. There's the backpack, too. It's a chunk of the lion's back that just kind of lays there without tabbing into anything in this mode. I get that a Voyager-class toy isn't going to have the budget that an MP does, but I do wish that Leo Prime maybe borrowed a little more from MP-48 in these regards. Leo Prime comes with a few accessories. They're unfortunately all molded from the same gold plastic as his mane, so the colors aren't cartoon-accurate (but they are Robot Masters accurate), but the accessories themselves do appear in the cartoon. The two smaller ones have 5mm pegs, while the longer ones just have little tabs. Weirdly, the shorter ones have slots on them, but the tabs on the longer ones do NOT fit into them. Nothing does. Those slots seem to exist solely to conserve plastic. They lack any sort of missile-firing gimmick, but are otherwise roughly in-line with what the original Lio Convoy toy came with in 1998. That said, I do wish he came with one more gun... I don't know if he used in the cartoon I never watched, but both the Robot Masters Lio Convoy and MP-48 had it. Leo Prime's head is on a ball joint with some up/down tilt, but nothing really sideways. His shoulder kibble has hinges to tilt up toward his head, as well as hinges to fold back off of his shoulders (with the lion head even being on a slider to ensure that the mane clears his backpack). This allows the shoulders themselves to swivel and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but his waist has a swivel. His hips can go forward and backward about 90 degrees, and laterally slightly over 90. His thighs swivel. His knees bend 90 degrees. It's more for transformation, but he does have an ankle swivel, and his ankles pivot up to 90 degrees. His feet do not have any up/down tilt, though. He can hold the smaller weapons via their 5mm pegs as pistols, which is good enough, I suppose. The tabs on the longer weapons do not allow Leo Prime to hold them in his 5mm fists. Indeed, there's a relative dearth of of 5mm ports. The only ones immediately visible are on the outsides of his knees and under his heels. To use the larger weapons, you flip the bits of mane on the sides of his forearms down, revealing... 5mm ports? It's kind of weird that the tabs on those weapons don't fit into Leo's fists, but do fit into these peg hole holes, but for what it's worth those peg holes are the hexagonal kind. So, they work with the larger weapons, but if you like they also work with any 5mm-pegged accessory, including the ones on the pistols. Another gimmick from previous toys and the cartoon is that you can flip the lion legs around, and on the backs they have fold-out claws. They don't have the swivels that the MP does, so the only way to get the claws to curve toward his fist as they do in the cartoon is to turn the whole leg around. All of his accessories have storage in robot mode. There are panels in the top of the lion's mane that flip forward, revealing 5mm peg holes that the pistols can plug into. On the inside of his backpack are two slots and two tabs- the tabs on the longer weapons (I believe they're supposed to be missiles, but they have the little nubs on the tips for blast effects like guns) go into the slots, and the tabs on his backpack fit into slots near the tips of the weapons. This leaves the tips pointing downward in bot mode, so if you wanted to stick some blast effects on them you could pretend Leo Prime has a jetpack. And you wanna know the best part? His accessories can stay in those spots even through transformation. I love me some concealed alt mode storage. Leo Prime's tail can flip out of his left shoulder, which I guess is an attack from the cartoon? The sides of the lion's mane are not hinged, though, so he can't do the "Lio Typhoon" thing. But he does have one final robot gimmick- the panel on his left breast opens to reveal his Energon Matrix... which I guess is something the Beast Wars II writers decided all the Maximal leaders have, so there's more than one, but I'm not even clear is a physical thing that could be removed (it's not removable here, at least). But anyway, you can open the door and look at it. Well, you can actually do slightly more than that... there's one of those little nubs on it, so you can stick a blast effect (not included) onto it. Is shooting a blast out of his Energon Matrix something Lio Convoy did in Beast Wars II? Sure would be nice if someone like Shout Factory would sub Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo for the US. Transforming Leo Prime into a lion is mostly pretty easy once you know what you're supposed to do. There's only two problems- the first is that you need to tab his wrists into an armature under the lion's head, and once everything is secure and in place it'll be fine, but they like to pop out while you're lining everything up and securing it into place, giving him a touch of fiddliness. The other issue is that the instructions aren't super clear on what it is you're actually supposed to be doing, making the first time transforming him a little confusing. Aesthetically I have some mixed feelings. As I previously noted, the designers opted to keep the more realistic animal style they started with Kingdom, and it's not doing Leo Prime any favors in the head department. The original toys and the cartoon had a face that was very cartoony, almost Kimba the White Lion-esque that conveyed a sense of intelligence and heroism, but Evolution Leo Convoy just looks kind of doofy. I know @Scyla suggested that the face looks kind of squished, but lions don't actually have very long faces. In fact, if you take the following picture of a lion and hold Leo Prime at a distance from your screen such that they're the same size, you'll find that they have nearly identical proportions. However, you'll also find that the real lion's mane also covers his cheeks and jowls. Leo Prime's mane is simply back too far, giving him the appearance of sunken cheeks and narrow jaws. Combine that with eyes that are just gold orbs with no pupils and, yeah. It's not the best. Aside from his head, though, I think he looks pretty good. Sure, there are seams where his body panels line up, and some inevitable robot bits showing on his pelvis, chest, and the backs of his legs- that's part and parcel of robots turning into "real" animals, I'm afraid (and one of the reasons Beast Wars initially bothered me so much but stuff like the G1 Predacons never did). If I'm being totally honest, though, the seems are a lot better, the lion's flanks look a lot more like an actual lion, and the parts of his mane that were on his forearms are actually integrated into the rest of his mane, which are actually significant improvements over MP-48's lion mode. Articulation in lion mode, however, isn't so hot. He can open his mouth a little, but has no other head articulation. His front legs can bend forward at the ball joints, which work out to be his lion elbows, but the forward range is fairly limited. They have swivels, but as they're below the elbows I guess they're technically wrist swivels. The paws themselves have no articulation, which is a bummer, although you can still deploy the claws, I suppose. Back legs are a bit better, due to being his robot legs. His hips have a little bit of swivel backward, lateral extension, thigh swivels, digitigrade knees that bend forward plenty but only a little bit backward before his robot knee pads get in the way, ankle swivels, and ankle pivots. His tail is technically hinged at the base for transformation, but using it to articulate the tail in lion mode breaks the sculpt. But hey, you can have a gorilla riding a lion, and that's never not cool. Although everything stores in lion mode, you might want to have it deployed while in lion mode, which is something that the older toys and cartoon did. For the pistols, you just flip over the top of his lion mane again. For the longer "missiles" you'll have to dig them out of his back, then fold over the parts of his mane that were on his forearms and plug them into the revealed 5mm ports. I've kind of always liked Lio Convoy (once I discovered him). A lion just seems cooler to me than a gorilla (and gives him an alt mode that makes a bit more sense than starting with a humanoid form and transforming into a slightly different primate), and I really like the more traditional Optimus colors on his robot bits mixed with white. I think he's cooler than Optimus Primal, and I like this figure better than Kingdom Primal. That said, despite being very popular in Japan he's a touch more obscure in the West, and I could see even the Beast Wars fans among us being a bit turned off by the somewhat static lion mode with the doofy face and the kibble on his robot arms. I'll say I like him, and I'd tentatively recommend him, but I'll also say he hasn't dethroned Needlenose as my favorite of the wave and note that in general Legacy and Evolution haven't generated the same excitement for me that War for Cybertron and Studio Series 86 has. That said, I hope you guys like this mold. I have it on good authority we'll be seeing the guy who really started the black, gray, and teal repaints of Primes, Copy Convoy/Black Lio Convoy, later in Evolution under the name "Nemesis Leo."

That's unfortunate. I had one go on like a glove, the other was so tight it wouldn't go at all until I filed the peg down. Do you think you might be able to repair it with one of those UV resin pens? Mine's out, because Pointblank needs a weapon. I just don't take him out of gun mode. But Nonnef has hinted that he's planning on making some Targetmasters, starting with Peacemaker.

Taking a break from reviewing new Legacy Evolution figures in the official thread to take a look a 3rd party kit for a non-evolved Legacy figure. This is Nonnef Production's upgrade kit for Legacy Pointblank. You'll get three sprues with this kit, two blue with most of the parts but a black sprue for the elbows. Nonnef made a limited number of the elbow sprues in red and blue as well; while supplies last, if you have the basic kit in your cart you can add a set of the red or blue elbows by going back to the Pointblank upgrade page and selecting the color you want from a dropdown menu. As you can see, I opted to go with the blue elbows. To get started you'll need Pointblank in robot mode. Turn him over and there's a pair of screws on the back of his shoulder you'll need to remove. Once you've done so, the front of the shoulder and his whole arm will come off. The arm is attached to a post on the front of the shoulder, go ahead and wiggle the arm off. For the next step, you'll need one of the two parts with this gear-shaped hole, and two of these round bits with half a peg on one end. It doesn't matter which ones, as the they're the same for both arms. Note that the gear-hole part has one side that's flat, and one side with a lip. Install the flat side toward the front of the shoulder (that is, away from you) by sliding it on the peg the arm just vacated. Take the round bits and fit them onto the pegs on the bottom of the gear-hole part such that the peg halves become a whole mushroom peg. Make sure you slide those parts onto the gear-hole part all the way, but don't worry too much if there's a slight gap on the peg you're making. Ok, now go back to the arm you removed. You'll find a screw on the inside of the forearm. Remove it, then slide the blue part of the forearm and fist off. Then, remove the other side of the forearm with the car hood by working it off the elbow peg. Hang onto the forearm parts, but we don't need the rest of the arm anymore. OK, whether they're black, blue, or red you're going to need two of the elbow parts. One should be smooth, the other should have grooves molded into it. Take the one with the grooves and set the mushroom peg you just built into it so that the grooves are facing the front of the shoulder (and away from you). Use the smooth elbow part to finish capturing the mushroom peg to form the new elbow, then slide the blue part of the forearm over the peg on the inside edge of the elbow to hold it together. With the forearm in place, put the red part on by feeding the screw post though the forearm and stuffing the peg on the other side of the elbow into the peg hole, then replace the screw in the forearm. Reattach the arm by capturing the mushroom peg on his shoulder socket with the front with the arm and the blue back, then replace the screws. Here's the arm with the upgrade on his right (our left), and the original arm on his left (our right). Well, we can see the first problem with this kit, and that's that the blue of Nonnef's plastic does NOT match Hasbro's blue plastic or paint. It's noticeably darker. If I'm being honest, though, I'm glad I went with the blue elbows, because I personally think the all-blue arms look better, even if the blues don't match, than blue with a black line through the bicep and a red chunk in the forearm. I also like that the new Nonnef elbow is flush with the forearm, were the original stuck out quite a bit. Aesthetic improvements are subjective, what's objectively better is the articulation. On the original arm the elbow bend is the black hinge in the bicep, and clearance between the protruding red chunk and the wheel on his shoulder pad meant he had less than 90 degrees of elbow bend. Plus, he had no bicep swivel, which was a big no-no. Nonnef's kit adds the bicep swivel- it's around that mushroom peg we built. But what's more, since Nonnef's new elbows are flush with the forearms the forearms can bend on the elbow pegs around the new elbow. This puts the elbow bend in a more natural position, and gives him a deeper elbow bend using just that joint. However, their is still a hinge in the new bicep as well. You can use it as a double elbow hinge for some poses, just be aware that the second hinge is above the bicep swivel so it's not useful for some more extreme poses. Now, I should say that at this point Nonnef's kit has address my number one complaint with Pointblank, but it's not without a cost. Those protruding red elbow bits formed the car's front grill. While the grooves Nonnef molded into the new elbow parts is meant to look like a grill, it's not quite as detailed, and it's noticeably more recessed. This is likely to bother some people. However, I don't think the original grill looked all that great to begin with. The minor downgrade in the car's appearance is a small sacrifice for the greatly improved robot mode, in my opinion. While we're in car mode, we can look at Nonnef's attempt to address my third-biggest complaint with Pointblank- the lack of his engine wing thingy. You'll need these two parts, and they fit together by taking the part with the wings and fitting the peg into the hole on the with the hole. Just make sure that the 5mm peg on the underside of the hole-part is pointing toward the back. Install it onto the car by plugging the smaller peg in the middle into the screw hole on Pointblank's butt. And ok... that looks pretty decent. The blue is a little too dark, the molded detail is a little soft, and the wings are a little small, but it's decently G1 accurate. But... ...the wing doesn't have enough clearance for Peacemaker. You can still tab him onto the back, but the barrel will be forced upward at least 45 degrees. I supposed you could think of it as an AA gun for shooting Seekers. Or maybe flip the barrel back in and just pretend he's a big, un-aerodynamic engine block. Nonnef did come up with a solution, but it seems like an afterthought. See, there's one more piece in the kit. To use it, you'll have to pry the wing apart again, then sandwich the third part between them so that the bigger hole is pointing toward the front, and the wing plugs back in to the smaller hole. Then the whole thing can plug on as usual. But this forces the wing up higher and back further, with a large gap under the wing. The peg hole itself sticks out kind of far and doesn't seem to line up with the bottom part. The peg hole at least allows you to plug Peacemaker into it in front of the wing. As a bonus, by using a peg hole and working with the 5mm peg on Peacemaker instead of the tabs that go into Pointblank's knees, you could plug in other weapons or Battlemasters instead of Peacemaker. Still, I can't help but thing that a far better solution would to have made the bottom piece a little longer and thicker at the rear, then putting a 5mm peg hole just behind the 5mm peg. Maybe Nonnef didn't want to change the shape of the bottom part because he was concerned with robot mode storage? See, he designed this kit so that you can plug the wing part into his butt, and the base into his back. The base doesn't actually plug in securely, since it fits by putting the smaller peg into a 5mm port, and relies on the chunk of windshield to pinch it into place. This solution leaves a bit to be desired, I feel, as I'm not a fan of pulling the pieces of the wing apart, and there's nowhere to put the third part with the 5mm peg hole. The alternative is to build the wing, with or without the peg hole adapter, and have him hold it in his fist. It's not pretty, I wish there was some way to attach it to his forearm like a shield, but if I'm being fair to Nonnef plugging the wing into his fist is how the G1 toy did it. One final note about this kit. This is really just me being petty, but Nonnef did NOT address my second-biggest complaint with Pointblank: the awful Sunbow head. I really, really want a head for this guy based on the G1 toy/Headmasters anime, so it's a bit of a bummer that I fixed two issues I have but not that one. So where do we stand? This is kit definitely has a few issues, like the blue plastic not matching, what it does to the car's grill, and being forced to choose between a more-accurate, better-looking wing and getting issues stowing Peacemaker or building an ugly wing but one with a 5mm port. That said, if you're in the US I'm still going to recommend you get this kit. The improvements to his arm articulation more than make up for every issue I have with the kit.

I agree. In this case, I think Wonderful Trans would have been better off designing an original Drift that used more of the Asurada's parts, or an original car that used more of KKK Drift's parts, instead turning everything inside out.

I think it's impressive that they took Flame Toys' non-transforming Drift and not only made it transform, but made it transform into the Asurada from Cyber Formula. But just because something is impressive doesn't mean it's good, and just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. As you said, the transformation looks like a fiddly nightmare with too many sliders, weird clearances, lots of twisting, and the kind of transformation where everything kind of explodes then has to be lined up just so to tab in a bunch of thin panels in just the right order or things won't tab in without gaps. Honestly, I was watching Ben's video and thought, "ah, that's not that bad" until he got to the stuff below the waist. Still, it seems pretty solidly built and decently articulated. Might still be worth checking out, even if you don't plan on transforming it. Ronin goes for something like $110... you could buy like three for the price of Flame Toys, assuming you could even find a Flame Toys at the original list price.

My Leo Prime should be here tomorrow maybe, so I'm really trying to avoid any other reviews lest the unconsciously bias my own. While we wait for Leo Prime, though, I do have Legacy Evolution Deluxe-class Hot Shot to look at. A complaint I often hear is how Transformers are getting smaller, so I was kind of surprised to see that Hot Shot is the same height, more or less, than the original toy (or the Powerlinx repaint). For that matter, he's pretty similar in height (to the top of the head) with the 2008 Universe release, which I never bothered with. As far as more modern releases go he's a head shorter than Hot Rod, but right in line with the Autobot cars or the Stunticons. Where Evolution Hot Shot differs from previous takes is how much bulk he has (or rather, hasn't), and where that bulk is kept. His shins are a bit narrower, and his arms are downright thin compared to the original toy. Thing is, for most of his body, I actually think the new proportions work pretty well for him. I do wish his arms were a bit thicker. Of course, a lot of the reduced bulk on his arms is because they're kibble-free. If you look at the insides of his forearms they molded fake car windows, but that's it. You may also notice that his back's a bit different, and he could use some gray paint on the circles on his shins. Look a bit closer and you might notice that the bit of tire that pokes out from his shin flaps is on the inside edge of his leg instead of the outside, because on Evolution Hot Shot the hood of the car is on the outsides of his legs instead of the inside. His calves are now dominated by the the top of the car kibble that used to be on his forearms. Hot Shot's lone accessory is his engine gun. It's decently painted, given that it's molded from red plastic, and looks pretty good. Armada fans hoping he'd come with a new Jolt Minicon will be a bit disappointed, but probably not surprised since Legacy Starscream didn't come with Swindle. So, why all the minor aesthetic changes, you might be asking? The answer, plain and simple, is articulation. The original toy barely had any. The 2008 Universe toy had it in theory, but in practice the kibble was constantly in the way and loose joints made him difficult to stand and pose. Evolution Hot Shot's articulation is fairly average for a modern War For Cybertron/Legacy toy... but that makes him among the most-articulated Hot Shots you can get. His head swivels, no tilt. His shoulders can swivel- his backpack and the shoulder pads are going to get in the way such that he can't swivel them 360 degrees, but you get get at least 30 degrees back and over 90 forward, and up to 180 if you unplug and move the shoulder pad. His shoulders also move over 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but his waist swivels for the first time on an Armada Hot Shot. His hips can go forward or laterally just a bit over 90 degrees, and backward just a bit under. His thighs swivel. With the kibble on his calves properly in place his knee bend is fairly limited, maybe 30-ish degrees. If you use the ball joint to move it to the side of his leg, though, you'll get nearly 90 degrees. Untabbing his knee from the top of his shin will allow you to use a transformation joint as an additional knee hinge, pushing the total range to nearly 180 degrees. Speaking of transformation, his feet can tilt downward due to how he transforms, and Hasbro managed to work in 90 degrees of ankle pivot. His gun has two handles, because I guess that's how the original toy was. You can use either one to plug the gun into either of his fists. Both of the gun's barrels have the little nubs for blast effects (not included). Oh, and you guys remember that Star Saber sword that Starscream came with, that everyone thought was kind of small for him? Turns out it's just the right size for Hot Shot. But wait, there's more! Despite the lack of Minicon, Hot Shot does have his axle bazooka gimmick. Rather than being some kind of spring-activated thing, though, you manually fold the axle over and spin it around so the wheel with the 5mm port is facing forward. Said port will make the axle bazooka work with blast effects (again, not included). You can flip his visor down over his face, too- I don't remember when he did it in the cartoon, but I figured I'd pose him like it's a targeting computer or protective eyewear for firing the axle bazooka. What he cannot do is wear his engine gun on his chest. I don't recall him doing that in the cartoon, but frankly, it's been years since I watched it and I didn't really like it anyway. But I do understand it was something the original toy could do. Speaking of stuff the original toy could do that this one can't, you might have noticed a distinct lack of Minicon ports. There's nowhere on his bot mode that's compatible with original Armada Minicons. That said, he does have 5mm ports on the sides of his spoiler where the original toy had Minicon ports, on the outside of each forearm, on the outside of each leg near his calves, under each toe, on his back behind his axle bazooka, and on each side of his axle bazooka (one side of which is exposed on his back when the bazooka isn't in firing mode). I'll remind you that all the Siege Micromasters had flip out 5mm pegs that allowed you to attach them to the larger figures. I don't recall a helicopter that could pass as Jolt, but nothing stopping you from jamming Roadhandler onto Hot Shot. Hot Shot's transformation is a bit more involved than the original figure, but a lot less so than the Universe version. In broad strokes, it's pretty obvious what you're supposed to do, but it's easy to get hung up on certain little details, like if his arms aren't turned the right way the doors can't tab in, or if you had his axle bazooka turned the wrong way on his back the rear of the car can't fold down the whole way, or remembering to flip out the little yellow bits on his roof. I was a bit surprised by how much smaller he gets in car mode- significantly smaller now than the old Armada toy, but pretty average for WFC/Legacy. I think his car mode is decent. The overall shape is pretty close to the original, and he's got translucent windows instead of painted ones. I have a few minor criticisms, though. The silver on his headlights and front grill is fine, but the silver just above the grill should probably have been yellow, and the yellow spot with the peg holes is where that silver should have been. His front bumper is black, and they painted the skirt along both sides black, but his rear bumper is simply missing. Likewise, they painted the lines on his roof, but not the vent in front of his spoiler, which was black on the original toy. Finally, aside from the Autobot symbol (which is nice and clean on this figure), there's no red on him. The original had red taillights and red marker lights on the front bumper, plus red on the center of his wheels (which otherwise had silver rims). I can live without red on his wheels, though. As far as alt mode gimmicks go, you can still plug the engine gun into its spot on his hood. You can still open his bumper up, but rather than painted claws you just have the 5mm ports that are under his toes. The 5mm ports on the sides of his spoilers that replaced some Minicon ports are also available. Curiously, there is one post with a hole on the rear. The post is 5mm, so you can plug in any accessory that has a 5mm port that fits between the halves of his spoiler, like one of Wildrider's guns or Earthrise Optimus' Matrix of Leadership. I suspect but can't confirm (because the Powerlinx Hot Shot I have is a junker someone gave me sans accessories) that the hole in the peg might make him compatible with the original Armada Minicons. In some ways, Hot Shot is a lot like Needlenose. I don't have a ton of attachment to him- Needlenose doesn't have a cartoon presence but at least he's G1, Hot Shot isn't G1 but at least he's one of the main characters in the Armada cartoon. My lack of attachment meant that I wasn't super excited for him, but in-hand he's a pretty decent, fun little figure. He might not be for you if you're strictly into G1, but Armada fans should be pretty happy with him. And even if you're not big on Armada, he's fun enough and aesthetically close enough to retroactively decide Hot Shot was a G1 character all along, like Legacy Bulkhead or Knock-Out.