mikeszekely

I wonder if there was some kind of stoppage in Hasbro's factory, or maybe a shipping backlog. Aside from the first wave of Velocitron things were pretty quiet after the second wave of Legacy (which itself was so low key that you're more likely to find leftover wave 1 figs like Dragstrip, Kickback, Skids, and Bulkhead than any wave 2 stuff if you're actually checking shelves at my local stores). Then Hasbro spent the back half of October slamming me with GI Joe crossovers, Shattered Glass repaints, Pulsecon sets, more Walmart and Walgreens store exclusives, and Studio Series figures. And it seems like they're not slowing down, as they've said they're trying to get Victory Leo into people's hands before the Haslab for Deathsaurus ends, and I woke up this morning to emails saying that stuff from one particular order is going to ship soon... that order being basically everything from the third wave of Legacy. Yay to new Transformers, but man is my wallet getting slammed. Of course, before the deluge that the third wave of Legacy will be, we still have some of the aforementioned Studio Series. Arriving with the Fallen yesterday, I also got Deluxe-class Crosshairs. I'm too lazy to look into it, but did the designers change between Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction? Because, while I remember the latter two Bayverse movies themselves as being generally even more bland and poorly written, I'll note that the Transformers ditched the alien chicken-legged, many-fingered designs encapsulated so well by the Fallen we looked at yesterday in favor of more humanoid designs. And in the case of the Autobots, more colorful designs at that, with simplistic but distinct personalities that, at the very least, made Prime's crew in the AoE and The Last Knight more memorable than the Autobots added to the cast in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon. And in terms of sculpt, SS Crosshairs does a really good job of matching the movie designs. You can even move the car panels on the front of his body to see the ridged details on his thighs. My biggest gripe with the aesthetics of the figure is one that I've found myself repeating over and over with these Studio Series figures- lack of paint. His pelvis and abs are a wall of gunmetal, with none of the silver highlights. Pretty much every part of him that's green could use some black accents, with silver on his toes. His head has just the tiniest bit of green paint, omitting any green from the back of his head. Plus his mustache is lost in the silver of his face because it's not properly darker. All of that stuff could have been painted, because you don't really see any of it in alt mode. Indeed, almost the entire alt mode is hanging from his back like a kibble cape. To be fair, the VFX team somehow movie magicked all of that into a soft goods trench coat. Short of making most of the alt mode a rubbery plastic, I don't know how else you're supposed to mimic that. The design team for the toy tried, folding the roof, the entire rear, and some of the hood into most of the back of the coat, with the sides of the car acting like the flappy sides of the coat and some of the hood lying in front of his hips and thighs for the front of the coat. Crosshairs comes with a pair of TEC-9-ish pistols. They're not exactly movie-accurate, but Lana Kane would approve. You might expect that all that kibble would impede Crosshairs' articulation, and you'd be right, but probably not in the way you'd expect. His head is on a ball joint and can look up and down a bit, no real sideways tilt, and although he can swivel his head his collar limits how far he can turn. His shoulders are on ball joints that are angled slightly forward. Rotation isn't an issue, but he's got very little lateral shoulder movement, maybe 30 degrees at most. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel or waist swivel. His coat kibble has a hinge that allow some of it to bend up, or the entire thing can hinge to the side, so it doesn't really interfere with his hips. Said hips are ball joints, and they can go over 90 degrees forward, just a little bit backward, and nearly 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees are double-jointed and capable of bending until his calves meet the backs of his thighs. His ankles are ball joints, so his feet can tilt up and down a little, swivel, and pivot 90 degrees. The flaps that came the sides of his coat are hinged so they can can flare out for more dramatic action poses. And if you find that the rest of the car kibble making the back of his coat is simply getting in your way, it's attached via a ball joint and was designed so it can be removed. The spoiler also likes to come off. I don't know if that's an intentional design or not. It's pretty annoying if it is, because I've had it just fall off every time I've transformed him and a couple of times just while posing him. Crosshair's can hold his guns in either hand. Or, for storage, there are tabs on the sides of his "coat" that fit into slots on the sides of the guns. Transforming Crosshairs can be a little annoying. That simply because transforming his robot parts is mostly about scrunching them up so they fit properly under the shell that is his alt mode, while the rest is about unfolding his coat and lining up all the kibble bit so they fit together properly. Crosshairs winds up a little bigger than Sideswipe, who's also a Corvette, but they're not so dissimilar in size that I can't write off the difference as part of five years of design changes. Honestly, Hasbro tends to shine when they do actual licensed cars and Crosshairs is no exception. My daughter (who simply wanted a shiny green car to play with at the time) actually has a slightly larger non-transforming diecast version of Crosshairs' Corvette mode, and Hasbro did a great job getting the molded details right, even a tiny black Autobot badge in place of the Corvette flags just in front of the driver's side door (accurate for The Last Knight, which this figure aims to be). My only complaints are the unpaintable gray hinges in the roof, which I could live with since that's probably a structural necessity, and the unpaintable gray spoiler, which is just ugly and not-at-all accurate. Crosshairs' guns do store in alt mode- you simply plug then into the sides, same as bot mode storage, during transformation. During, because if you forget you'll have to undue a lot of the rest of the car kibble to open up the sides if you forget. Some of Crosshairs' head is visible through the rear window, but I don't honestly mind it. The window covers the rear-mounted engine, and while not accurate it's not hard for me to imagine it blending into the engine. I know that the Bayverse is a hard sell for a lot of us older geewunners, and the two films with Marky Mark were probably the worst of the Bayverse, making those characters probably the ones that you guys would be the least interested in. I have to say, though, that Crosshairs is honestly pretty good. The limited shoulder articulation and lack of waist swivel aren't ideal, but the strong leg and ankle articulation combined with the dual guns and coat give him enough personality that you can work with. I'd have definitely liked more paint on the bot mode- I may even try to add some myself, but the sculpt is at least on the money and the alt mode looks pretty great. I'll go ahead and give him a recommend, and I'll say they put out a new Hound and Bumblebee to go with him and Drift.

Simon Furman contributed a lot of what's become the accepted standard for the various Transformers mythologies. Primus and Unicron as opposing godlike beings, Primus creating 13 original Transformers, one of those primordial Transformers turning against the others and becoming "The Fallen," the concepts started to emerge late in the Marvel G1 era and were eventually solidified in the Dreamwave comics and the DK book The Ultimate Guide to the Transformers, and have gone on to influence later IDW comics, Transformers: Cybertron, Robots in Disguise, and yes, even the Bayverse films. And that's why we're looking at Studio Series Leader-Class The Fallen. In his earliest comic book appearances, the Fallen's design cues fit with the psuedo-G1 Dreamwave aesthetic. He was big, he was boxy, and the only conceit to the idea that he was some kind of evil Transformers demigod was the fact that he was perpetually on fire. The artists who worked on the early Bayverse films seemed to treat the idea that cars and planes that turn into boxy robots with identifiable alt-mode parts as childish or silly, and leaned hard into a late aughts conceit that treated "alien" as a synonym for "impractical technorganic design." And, in many ways, the Fallen of the Bayverse is the apotheosis of this design mentality. He's a mix of organic curves and sharp edges, with a neck set in his torso instead of above it, eight-digited hands with an opposable thumb on each side, and digitigrade legs. His face is meant to designed from the Decepticon symbol to serve as an in-continuity explanation for it, but the design team couldn't resist stretching it, wrapping it, and adding weird fins to it, until it's kind of an incoherent mess. But the worst element of the Fallen's design as to be the second set of shoulders in the middle of his back with their own thin biceps that connect into the same forearms as his real arms. I mean, while you might think that creatures that grew and evolved in a totally alien environment would be very different from life on Earth, but convergent evolution is a thing because evolutionary pressures find efficient solutions to similar problems, and quite frankly I can't think of any evolutionary advantage to having two shoulders and two biceps that merge into one forearm... that just seems like it'd hinder mobility. While I might argue that Hasbro probably should have had a stronger say in the designs that went into the movie, there's not a lot of point in beating them up about it now. The question really is how well does this toy resemble what we see in the movie. And to that I think they did a fair job. The black plastic lacks the metallic sheen of the film, but the metallic blue and silver are nice touches. There's some orange paint in some places, too, but it looks more like he had some orange markings and less like the inner glow the CGI had. There are some parts made from an unpaintable dark gray plastic, though, most notably his hands, that clash with the rest of the figure. The Fallen comes with his staff, which is made of a bendier plastic and comes in two parts. Remember what I said about his arms having trouble with mobility? Yeah. His head is on a ball joint, and he can use it to look up and down a bit, swivel his head left and right a bit, and tilt his head sideways so much he can turn his head upside down. OK, now, his shoulder joints have the range to rotate and move laterally 90 degrees, his biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and can curl up 180 degrees. And his lower arm bits try to accommodate this as best they can, with a hinge on each side near his back, a ball jointed-shoulder, and another ball joint that plugs into his forearm just under his elbow. In practice, though, the weird arms are going to have limits, plus I found while posing him I'd often have them pop off his back, have the ball joints pop out at the elbow, and the shoulders would bend at a transformation hinge instead of the shoulder joint. It's easiest to disconnect the lower bits, pose his arm the way you want it, then try to connect the lower bits back. Anyway... his wrists do swivel, and there's a hinge that lets them bend inward. No waist articulation. His hips can go forward and backward over 90 degrees, and laterally a bit under. He's got a thigh swivel just above his knees, which can bend 90 degrees but can't straighten to more than a 45 degree bend. There's another swivel at his anatomical ankle, but no bend. Instead, where his toes connect to his foot is a ball joint that tilts his "foot" up and down and acts as an ankle pivot, plus for transformation on each foot his big forward toe is on one hinge, his outer toe is on one hinge, and his inner two toes are on one hinge so they can bend down. I found the easiest way to get his staff into his hands is to slide a half through one side, then link the middle sections. Once the halves are combined you can slide the staff in his hands to get the pose you want. And, in one nice, slightly spoilery nod to the movie, the Fallen's face can be removed, and you can see the movie-accurate "skull" behind it. There's even a hinge in his jaw so you can open his mouth. Hasbro faced the same dilemma with the Fallen that they did with the Quintesson judge... in a line of transforming toys, even the non-transforming characters have to have an alt mode. And, again like the Quintesson judge, the Fallen's transformation is less an actual transformation and more a weird yoga pose. Again, this was an issue that could have been solved by Hasbro execs going to the VFX team back in 2008/2009 and saying something like, "how the heck are we supposed to make toys out of this garbage? Go back and do it again!" But given that the garbage was already on screen and we're over a decade late to do anything about it, I guess they tried? I mean, his chest and belly hinge up over his head to reveal a little cockpit, and the back of his head has something like a thruster port. With his legs splayed to the sides like wings, I guess it's a jet, if you squint hard enough. But ultimately the alt mode is terrible, because the robot was designed to be "alien," not something that actually transformed. It's very likely that you'll transform him once just to see it, then you'll change him back to a robot and never transform him again. If you're like me, you want some kind of alt mode accessory storage, and the Fallen has it. You split the staff in half, then on each half you find a peg. These pegs fit into slots on his leg-wings. I find that they neither add nor detract to to the believability of his jet mode, so good enough, I guess. I'm not sure what the best way to look at the Studio Series The Fallen is. On the one hand, it's a fairly expensive figure with a feeble transformation into a "we had to make him turn into something" sort of alt mode, with some annoying articulation issues centered entirely on his weird arms. On the other hand, he's a screen-accurate robot depicting a major villain, with a gimmick that homages the film's "give me your face" bit, and you can get him into some decent poses if you're willing to work with him. I guess I'd have to say that as a Transformer he's one of the worst figures I've looked at this year, and if you can live without a Fallen in your collection you're better off skipping him. However, as a representation of the character for display, he's pretty adequate.

It's an unfortunate setup by a someone clearly not familiar with the figure (as evidenced by a mistransformed waist in one of the pictures). That storage is on the Earthrise trailer (of which Holiday Prime's trailer is repainted but not remolded in any way), and unless the modified the blaster it folds over on itself to better hide between the wheels.

I mentioned when I reviewed the Megatron H.I.S.S. tank that I'd hoped it might make for a better CHUG Megatron than Earthrise Megatron. And I elaborated on my issues with Earthrise Megatron earlier when I reviewed an unofficial Megatron that does turn into a gun but isn't particularly good... my second such figure, as it were. Why is it that we have a pretty great Optimus with Earthrise, but the best we can do with Megatron is a kibbly partsformer (Earthrise), a so-so also kibbly unofficial figure that actually turns into a gun (ToyWorld Hegemon/Zeta Mega-Tron), or 3P stuff that's great but not at all an aesthetic match (MMC Tyrantron, Maketoys Despotron)? I got so desperate that I started looking at the R.E.D. Megatron. I stopped caring if he transformers (especially if he's going to wind up a tank), as long as he was G1 cartoony and had adequate articulation. Oh, but it turns out the R.E.D. figure is like a head or so smaller, and while I can tolerate a Megatron that's slightly bigger than Optimus a Megatron that's slightly smaller is simply too small. But, you know who is the right size? Earthrise Megatron. And as an official WFC figure he's got the right mix of Sunbow and greebles. He's just got that backpack kibble and the crappy partsforming bits for his tank mode, but if I don't actually care anymore about a transforming Megatron could I "fix" ER Megatron? Turns out, yeah. Kind of. Here's what I did... (1) Since I don't need it to peg into his other arm, I grinded down the peg on top of the fusion cannon to more closely resemble the dial on the G1 toy. (2) I painted the red bits connecting his shoulders to his torso gray. (3) I tossed aside the tank barrel and rear filler entirely. No tank mode means we don't need it anymore. (Not numbered, because I nearly forgot I did it) I painted the silver square on Megatron's abs red, to better resemble the Sunbow model. (4) I painted his flanks red. (5) I pained the black part his arms are attached to, and the entire turret base, gray. It's not a perfect match, but a, when does Hasbro match their own paint and plastic, and b, a not-quite right gray is still closer to the gray plastic than black. (6) I used a rotary tool and cut off the panel with the tank treads entirely. (7) I painted the black backs of his arms gray. (8) Where Hasbro only painted the front of Megatron's biceps red, I painted the sides and back. (9) I painted the black heels gray. (10) The big flap on his back that forms the front of the tank? I picked a spot near the small of his back, just above an indented spot, and used a rotary tool to cut through it. The idea is to leave enough to cover the hollow areas on the back of his torso but to create more clearance for the waist swivel and to minimize what can be seen from the front. (11) The finishing touch... on what was left of the flap, I drilled a 5mm hole. Then I went on got one of those folding pistol things that came with Siege/Netflix/Legacy Soundwave or Siege Soundblaster. I unfolded it, then cut off the end below the 5mm peg. Technically, I even ground the peg a little shorter and sanded off some of the molded detail to fit the thing more flush in the hole I'd made on Megatron's back. It's a tad thinner than I'd really like, but it gives Megatron his back-mounted gun barrel. Speaking of gun barrels... like I said, this pretty much ruins his ability to transform. But, when Megatron transformed in the cartoon he didn't turn into a tank, he shrunk down into a gun that Starscream or Soundwave could hold. And while my post-op Megatron can't shrink down and transform into a gun, you can swap him out with a gun that other figures can hold when you need Megatron to have an alt mode. Two examples that I have at home are the Megatron gun that came with a reissue G1 Starscream, and a Megatron gun that came in a pack with the Generations Selects Centurion drone. You have to remove the stock and set it aside for the former, as your average WFC figure doesn't have the little tabs on the bottoms of their fists that the reissue Starscream does, but as you can see here Earthrise Starscream can hold the gun part just fine. Meanwhile, the Centurion Drone one simply has a 5mm handle and no stock at all, and it's designed specifically for WFC figures. If you don't have either of these, there are other options. Dr. Wu created something like this years ago, and while you're unlikely to find an original Dr. Wu Megatron gun these days I was able to find knock offs of the Dr Wu, the Centurion Drone, and the Starscream reissue Megatron guns on Ebay. So... yeah. I'd still love for a better 3P Megatron that checks all my boxes- scale, articulation, cartoon look, turns into a gun, doesn't suck. I keep thinking a WFC-scaled version of Magic Square's Megatron without that nylon plastic would be the bee's knees. Until then, though, I can live with my non-transforming fixed Earthrise Megatron and a separate non-transforming Megatron gun that Starscream can hold.

I'm not a huge of an Earthrise Megatron. I mean, I guess I like it better than the Siege version- it's a bit more cartoon-accurate, has head sculpt I prefer and a better fusion cannon, and based on my personal copies is a lot less floppy than Siege. But, while the barrel on Siege turned into a passable sword the Earthrise toy was the barrel and a chunk of the turret, plus a black filler piece, that are pretty much unusable for anything in robot mode. And I can't decide what's worse, that you have this pretty egregious partsforming at all, or that you have this partsforming but he still has to carry those big tank treads on his back. Maybe I'd have been happier if you had a more Sunbow Megatron with a turret along the lines of the one you could form with the G1 toy's stock and silencer that partsformed into like half the tank. I dunno. Regardless. My dissatisfaction with Earthrise Megatron has already caused me to pick up the Zeta Toys Mega-Tron, basically a reissue of ToyWorld's Hegemon. And it's OK, but it's hampered by an older design and hampered by a few issues with kibble, articulation, and a few transformation annoyances. Then someone told me about the Zhan Jiang MO1 Mechinic* Master. Could this be the War For Cybertron-style Megatron I've been looking for? *Yes, that's how it's spelled on the box. Well, out of the box we're already not off to a great start, as Mechinic Master is quite a bit taller than either Earthrise Megatron or Hegemon. I don't necessarily mind a Megatron that's a head taller than Prime- Hegemon makes the cut, I think- but Earthrise Prime's eye level is right at the bottom of Mechinic Master's chest. That makes him a bit too big, I think. The proportions aren't great, either. I think he looks great from the waist down, and his chest is pretty on-point, too. But his head is a little squished, his face a little too recessed. His midsection is too long, and his arms are way too big. Plus his hands look terrible, and the gun barrel on his back is too thick and too far to his left. There's quite a bit of kibble on his back, too, and weirdly hollowed-out forearms. My copy also came with some grunge on his left leg out of the box. I can't speak to the grunge, but I think some of his aesthetic issues, especially the hands, come down to the fact that his is a figure that was never meant to be this size. Rather, this is a pre-built, upscale KO of the Legends-sized "Mega Sorry" model kit mini-figure that Generation Toy designed back when they were releasing their Gravity Builder figures. In other words, this is a toy from an era where G1-style transforming Megatron figures were limited to MP-05, Hegemon, and Apollyon. I'd argue that a great G1 gun Megatron hadn't truly been done yet in the MP scale, let alone a tiny Legends figure. Mechinic Master comes with a few accessories. You get the barrel for his back, which tabs into the side of his back kibble (hence why it's out-of-place vs the usual right side). You've got a fusion cannon, which looks ok but I wish the convex purple lenses were either concave or set more deeply in. You get a silencer piece. You get an alternate back of the head in translucent purple, in case you'd rather Megatron have light-piped purple eyes than solid red ones. You get a mace; I'm not sure if this is a fresh design or a KO. And finally, you get a sword that looks to me like a KO of Dr Wu's Dark Star Saber. In addition to size, we're about to run into more problems, as the articulation on this guy isn't great. His head is a ball joint. It can swivel, tilt sideways a little, and tilt down, but nothing really up. His shoulders can rotate and extend laterally around 75 degrees. However, the way the joints are designed, he can't really rotate his shoulders and use the lateral movement at the same time. Plus, on my copy the rotation is pretty loose and has a hard time supporting the weight of his arms. His biceps swivel. His elbows bend a little under 90 degrees, but there's a little wiggle at the top of the bicep that you can use to fake a 90 degree bend. No wrist articulation. His waist doesn't swivel, either, but for some reason he's got a ball joint in his crotch that gives him a limited swivel and teapot joint. His hips are ball joints that get about 75 degrees forward and backward but only about 45 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little under 90 degrees. His feet have a hinged ball joint for transformation, but the shape of his leg armor around the foot pretty much limits him to a downward tilt, nothing up, and no ankle pivot. His huge, ugly hands are still basically 5mm ports. So the mace and the sword just slide into his hands. Or, you can give them to any other Megatron toy that has 5mm fists. Transforming Mechinic Master into a gun is similar too, but kind of simplified from, Hegemon. In both cases one arm has to move to the other side of the body, their forearms form the back of the gun instead of the shoulders, the legs collapse and connect to each other at the calves to form the grip, and the trigger is part of the back kibble. The biggest differences are that the hip kibble that helps fill in the top of the grip on Hegemon is also part of the back kibble, and where Hegemon just left Megatron's midsection showing Mechinic Master has flaps silver flaps that fold up over it. Oh, and Mechinic Master has one arm on top of the other, hence the long midsection, where Hegemon has one arm on either side like the G1 toy. While Hegemon's barrel and scope can remain attached for the entire transformation, both of those things have to be removed and partsformed into place on Mechinic Master. Another mild annoyance... Hegemon's silencer fits over his barrel, and although it's kind of weird he has the stock attachment. Mechinic Master doesn't have a stock, and if you want to use the silencer you have to pull the tip of the barrel off and replace it with the silencer. It's ultimately short and not worth the hassle, IMHO. All of the shortcomings I've mentioned so far are leaving out what's probably the biggest one, and that's the quality of the materials. Mechinic Master is made from a light, brittle-feeling plastic, and there's parts of the transformation where it feels like you're definitely going to break something the first time you run into a little resistance. For the low price (I got this for under $50 shipped), I don't really regret buying Mechinic Master. Despite his proportions being a little off, in some ways he does look pretty good. With slightly smaller arms and a shorter midsection I'd argue that he'd look better than Hegemon, and has an easier transformation to boot. He's ok as a one-off display piece. But the size, limited articulation, loose joints, and icky plastic unfortunately mean he's not quite the Megatron I'm looking for.

So, the guys over at Linus Tech Tips did some estimates based on their benchmarks with the 6950 XT and AMD's "up to 1.5/1.7/whatever" claims. Of course we should take these sorts of estimates with a big ol' grain of salt until real benchmarks start coming, but the gist is that in terms of raw rendered frames the 7900 XTX could actually be very close to the RTX 4090, and unlike Nvidia AMD is supporting Display Link 2.1. Plus, the reference cards are close in size to the 6950 XT and use the same pair of 8-pin connectors, so gamers looking to upgrade are less likely to need a new case and/or PSU, too. The catch seems to be that there's more to it than just drawing frames these days, and again based on AMD's own performance claims over the 6950 XT, the 7900 XTX will lag significantly behind the RTX 4090 with Ray Tracing (they expect around half the framerate you'd get with a 4090). It also sounds like they're not super enthusiastic about FSR 3 (although, to be fair, their concerns seem to be how FSR 3 will generate extra frames, and they have similar issues with DLSS 3). Finally, while the 7900 XTX looks like it's going to be great for gaming, a lot of non-gaming GPU-intensive stuff is designed specifically for CUDA, so for stuff like Blender the 7900 XTX might still underperform even compared to a RTX 3090. Still, unless you're a money-is-no-object type or a professional creative, it looks like the 7900 XTX is going to be a better bang-for-your-buck choice than Nvidia's RTX 4000-series, benchmarks pending. And this is coming from someone who's used Nvidia exclusively since the newest Windows was XP SP 3.

Was it though? Let's take a more in-depth look at the Transformers X G.I. Joe Bumblebee A.W.E. Striker. My initial impression is that Megatron looks better. Some extra details on his hips and some extra tread on his legs aren't a huge deal. For the most part, he looks like Megatron, just with some extra back guns and some new shoulder kibble. Bee, on the other hand, looks like Hound and Beachcomber had a baby. Little splashes of yellow and a Bumblebee head are all that really make him Bumblebee; they could have easily painted the chest blue gray, slapped a different head on him, and called him Kup. And no matter who he is, his proportions are terrible. I can't tell if his arms are weirdly long or not, but his torso is definitely like half the length it should be. Some of the bigger gripes with Megatron were the alt mode kibble hanging off his back and shoulders, and the hollowness of the figure. Bumblebee is, arguably, slightly less hollow- there's some hollow spots in his feet, forearms, biceps, and fists, but this thighs and legs are pretty filled in. Of course, his thighs are also super thin due to transformation, so there isn't much to hollow out. I'd argue, that the kibble, though, is worse than Megatron's. Sure, he's got big shoulder pads and a mahoosive backpack, but those things stay pretty much out of the way. Bee, meanwhile, has massive tires on his shoulders and knees that prevent him from even bringing his arms the whole way down. And while his backpack doesn't jut out nearly as far as Megatron's, the roll cage dangles down past his knees, and the ends constantly bump into or get caught up on those knee wheels. Just a few more hinges to collapse the roll cage would have made all the difference, but, SPOILERS, like Megatron Bee's more concerned with being replica of a 1985 G.I. Joe toy than a Transformer. Be comes with a bit fewer accessories than Megatron. There's just the one gun, where Megatron had three. Bee does come with a retro-style G.I. Joe, but even his human has fewer accessories as he's got a stand and a rifle but not a backpack like Barnoness. Side note... I wasn't a huge G.I. Joe fan. I was aware of some of the more popular ones- Duke, Snake Eyes, Shipwreck, Roadblock, Scarlet, Flint, and Lady Jaye on the good guys, Cobra Commander, Destro, Zartan, and the Baroness on the bad guys. This guy here is apparently Stalker, whom I'm totally unfamiliar with... but I love this guy! He doesn't have any gimmick. He's not a ninja or a member of the Village People. He's just a guy, in generic army fatigues, with the sort of mustache popular with black actors in the late '70s and early '80s. I mean, if you told me that this wasn't a G.I. Joe, it was actually George Dillon (played by Carl Weathers) from Predator, I'd totally believe it. Moving along. On paper, Bumblebee actually has better articulation than Megatron. His head swivels. His shoulders rotate and, in theory, can move laterally 90 degrees. In practice, the back kibble and big shoulder tires are going to get in the way. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. He actually has wrist and waist swivels. His hips can, again in theory, move 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally, but again good luck working around the back kibble and big tires on his legs. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend slightly over 90 degrees. No foot or ankle articulation, which is kind of unacceptable on a $68 figure. Something else worth noting... Megatron may have fewer joints, but the joints he has are nice and tight. Bumblebee is really floppy. On my copy, the lateral shoulder joints can't hold up the weight of the arms, and a gentle shake will cause his hips to flail like a little kid pretending to do karate. The gun has a peg on it that can be used to plug it into his hands. There's also a peg on his backpack that lets you mount it like a shoulder cannon. A small protruding bit with a peg on it allows Stalker to ride on Bumblebee's back and man the cannon. Another complaint about Megatron is that a lot of the vehicle was formed from his backpack and shoulder pads, with most of the robot stuffed between the treads on the bottom. Bee does make up more of the vehicle here, with the legs and feet forming the front 2/3rds of the vehicle. His backpack, if you ignore the roll cage, is pretty much just the engine compartment and rear fenders. As was the case with Megatron, Bumblebee doesn't simply turn into a vehicle from G.I. Joe, he turns into a pretty convincing replica of a 1985 toy that 3.75" G.I. Joe figures could ride in. It's hard for me to tell, maybe the green is a little lighter than the original toy (but close to the reissue), and some details that were stickers on the original are tampoed on Bee. He's even got the steering wheel, camera, and antenna of the original. There is a bit of extra material sticking up behind the seats that's not on the original- that's the platform Stalker can stand on when Bee's in robot mode. And the engine cover isn't removable on Bee, since instead of an engine you'd just find Bee's head. Whether Bee was holding the gun or wearing it on his backpack, you'll have to pull it off and partsform it to the top of the roll cage. Then Bee's got plenty of space for Joes to ride- two seats in the roll cage, plus pegs on the floor outside the cage for joes to ride on the sides. Another peg on the engine compartment allows a fifth Joe to man the cannon. I guess a lot of what I have to say here is going to carry over from my Megatron review... a Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover makes a lot of sense, but it'd work better if the robots (whether original characters or repurposed existing ones) scaled with the mainline Transformers, the way the other crossovers have, and make them Transformers first, vehicles second, and skip compatibility with 3.75" figures. The way they did it, focusing on a toy replica that happens to transform, makes for a poor Transformers experience, while Joe fans could simply buy a reissue A.W.E. Striker for less than half the price and not have to put up with it turning into a sub-par Transformer. They could have saved a ton of money and made a much better Transformer if they'd simply repainted Maverick as the G.I. Joe Sky Striker. So, no, I don't think Bumblebee is better. His floppy joints, weird proportions, and more in-the-way kibble make me like him a lot less than Megatron. I can't honestly recommend this to anyone, be they Transformer or Joe fan, unless they're a super hardcore fan of both franchises who can remember playing with the A.W.E. Striker back in the '80s and thinking to themselves, " this is cool, but I wished it turned into a robot."

I liked Shin Godzilla, but I liked (almost) all the Godzilla films. That said, I could go for a Showa-style thing where different kaiju carry their own films, not just turn up as the heel in the latest Godzilla vs film.

Like, if you're in for $900 already I don't know why would wouldn't spend the extra $100 for the extra 12 compute units, slight clock speed bump, and 4 extra GB of VRAM and get the XTX. I'm really looking forward to seeing real-world performance, though, but I'm guessing a bit better than a 4080 for quite a bit less money. Of course, I'm guessing that'll just be in raw performance. Nvidia's still got a pretty big edge with DLSS 3. Not necessarily a $200-$700 edge, though.

Before I get started, a quick PSA: Jetfire isn't the only Commander getting reissued. BBTS, Entertainment Earth, and The Chosen Prime all have preorders open for Sky Lynx, with a February release date. With that out of the way, we can now look at Legacy Core-class Bomb-Burst. Bomb-Burst, like Iguanus before him, doesn't do the Pretender gimmick. Instead, he replaces his generic inner robot with a form based on the more recognizable shell (especially true given that the Pretenders didn't appear in the Sunbow G1 cartoon, but featured prominently as Blood in the early arc of Masterforce). Frankly, while the idea of Transformers disguising themselves as humans wasn't the worst idea, giant monsters weren't much of a disguise and I wholeheartedly approve of Hasbro's modern approach. And with that in mind, I think Hasbro did an ok-ish job capturing the look of Bomb-Burst's Pretender shell, but something seems off about the proportions. Also, from behind you can see that he's traded his wings for a blue backpack. Legacy Bomb-Burst comes with pretty much the same accessories as the original 1988 version- two guns, and something like an axe or a pick-axe. Bomb-Burst's head is on a swivel- there's no tilt, and even more disappointingly his jaws are fixed. His shoulders are ball joints for swiveling and moving laterally just under 90 degrees. His ball-jointed elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees and double as bicep swivels. No wrist swivels. His waist swivels, at least. Ball-jointed hips can go 90 degrees backward, a little more than that forward, and a little under that laterally. Ball joints at the knees bend 90 degrees and serve as thigh swivels. His feet can tilt up and down about 45 degrees, and his ankles can pivot a little less than that. The guns have 5mm peg holes underneath that allow them to attach to pegs on Bomb-Burst's forearms, which is how they attached to the inner robot on the G1 toy. There are also 5mm pegs on the backs of the guns, but it's not clear what purpose they serve. They do not have the ability to combine into a larger gun the way the G1 toy did. There are small pegs on the tips of the barrels. These tips are almost certainly for attaching blast effects, but they happen to be the right size for Bomb-Burst to grip, allowing him to use them as big axes. Or, you know, he could just hold the little axe. Unlike the G1 versions, Legacy Bomb-Burst's guns have gray paint and some skeletal details molded onto one side. There's some 5mm pegs on the sides of his backpack. The instructions indicate that you can plug the guns into the backpack, and hey, it's kind of like his wings! Except the drawings in the instructions make it seem like a great fit, but in practice the intakes on the sides of the cockpit force the guns to be attached at a 90 degree offset. So if you want the guns to be his wings, you have to start undoing his backpack, and even then the wings wind up pretty far from his body and will sit at an angle. It's really too bad the wings couldn't detach from the guns. With the engineering of a Core-class figure you don't expect a ton from the transformation, but Bomb-Burst is basic even by Core-class standards. The cockpit on his backpack folds up and over his head, his waist rotates 180 degrees, then his legs curl up under him. The guns on his arms form the wings, but the arms themselves just hang back. They don't even tab into anything. Maybe I shouldn't complain too much... Legacy Bomb-Burst is kind of backward from the G1 toy, whose head was at the back and hips were at the front. And yet, we've got the 5mm pegs on the sides of the cockpit where the original's hip joints were, and his pelvis where the G1 toy's head was. It's blue where the original was blue, and gray where the original was gray. It's honestly not that different, and what differences are there are mostly improvements. Legacy Bomb-Burst has a longer cockpit, and his feet are tucked under more neatly than the original's thighs. Speaking of thighs, Legacy Bomb-Burst's hips and thighs help fill in the space between his arms and pelvis, where the original just had a big gap between his arms and head. These minor changes add up to an alt mode that's basically the G1 toy, but sleeker and more cohesive. My only complaint is that G1 Bomb-Burst had a fin on the back of his head that became his alt mode's vertical stabilizer, while Legacy Bomb-Burst lacks a vertical stabilizer entirely. That may be for the best, though, given that it'd be sticking out of his crotch. Bomb-Burst's guns, as mentioned, are his wings, but his gray axe has alt mode storage, too. The two points fit into slots on the underside of the mostly-hollow cockpit. This leaves just a little of the handle sticking out the front like a nose gun, and it's even compatible with blast effects. When Skullgrin was announced as a Deluxe in Legacy's third wave I complained that was taking up a Deluxe spot when when there are still cartoon characters like Gears, Windcharger, Brawn, Sandstorm, Octane, Broadside, and basically every combiner that isn't the Stunticons that need updated. After having Bomb-Burst in hand, though, I think I'll have to walk that back. Bomb-Burst winds up being a fairly mediocre character with a too-simple transformation, weird proportions, and a lot of floppy ball joints. It's a toy that'd almost certainly have benefited from the greater engineering that comes even with the Deluxe-class. Scale is a factor, too; even if I might have bought into the idea that the Pretenders were naturally smaller than just about everyone else, now I'm forced to reckon with the idea that Skullgrin is like twice the size of Bomb-Burst, even though Blood and Dauros were definitely the same size in Masterforce. I think the Core-class is fine for really small characters, like Wheelie or Rumble, or for doing large characters in a smaller scale for posing with Titans like most of the other Core-class releases. But I'm no longer in favor of using the Core-class as a dumping ground less popular characters. Bomb-Burst should have been a Deluxe. Iguanus should have been a Deluxe. Buy Legacy Bomb-Burst if you're a completionist, or because you know it's unlikely you'll get a better one any time soon. But if you don't need a Bomb-Burst in your collection, then you definitely don't need this one.

Details are still pretty sparse at this point, but it's unlikely. Toho's Keiji Ota is or was less in favor of a Shin Godzilla sequel and more interested in building a kaiju cinematic universe.

Full-length. And it will be released in theaters on the 69th anniversary of the original film.

It's a new film from Toho, not Legendary. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki (Dragon Quest: Your Story, Space Battleship Yamato, Lupin III: The First).

Yeah. The leg fillers aren't the greatest and have a tendency to fall off, but the spoiler and wings are absolutely worth it. I don't think I'll invest in more for Exhaust or Slicer, though. A few were necessary to fix the number and what not, but I still wanted a cleaner Sunbow look than the total racing livery. But buying an expensive sheet that I only need a fraction of the stickers is kind of Toyhax's MO these days. Which one? While I love Go Better's kits of Sunstreaker and Wheeljack I kind of prefer Nonnef's Lambo spoilers. The shoulder missile launcher is a wash, but Nonnef's gets you a G1 rifle, too.

The flood continues. Today, at least, we have a new mold... it's Studio Series 86 Voyager-class Ironhide. SS Ironhide shares no parts with the Siege-retooled Earth-mode Ironhide that came in an Amazon-exclusive pack with Prowl two years back, and side-by-side the differences are pretty striking. For one, the colors are much better, with dark gray on the shoulders and hands instead of black and light gray for the thighs and pelvis. The headlights and the bit of grill on his chest are silver instead of black. For two, the sculpt and proportions are better. His thighs are a little longer. His shoulders don't stick up quit as far. He's got a slightly larger, slightly wider new head. While he does have more greebles than a Sunbow purist might like, he's got less of the overdone Siege ones. Plus, the greebles on his shins don't have any van details. His pelvis flap is both present and cartoon accurate. His chest has a better shape, more actual chest and less beer gut, and is actually more accurate than even MP Ironhide. Oh, and I nearly forgot since I painted my Earthrise Ironhide, but there's no black hinge in the middle of his torso, and the Autobot badge is tampoed on so I didn't have to apply it myself (although the factory did it a little off-center). Despite having similar kibble flaps on the sides of the legs, and despite still having a backpack with the front bumper and wheels, SS Ironhide manages to look better even fromt he back. You can see better the tweaked torso and thigh proportions, and the kibble flaps actually hide most of the tires on his calves. His butt doesn't look like he's wearing a Depends in need of changing. From the side you can see that the tires and bumper stick out a bit further than they did on the Earthrise mold, but there isn't that gaping void in the middle of his back. There's still a little hollowness in the backs of the forearms and the hands, but at least this time you need that space in the forearms for transformation. Likewise, there's still a little hollowness to the thighs, but this time it's on the inside of the thighs, not the back. On aesthetics alone, SS Ironhide is a huge improvement over the Earthrise figure. How about accessories? Well, you get two cartoon-style pistols. That's probably less plastic than went into the hammer/missile launcher that came with Siege Ironhide, and definitely less plastic than came with the toy-style gun and enitre roof that came with the Earthrise version. If you liked using the roof as a shield, or perhaps adding some Nonnef accessories and turning it into a G1 toy-style sled, you might find the guns a bit disappointing. On the other hand, if you hated looking for a place to stash the partsforming roof in bot mode, you'll likely be much happier with the simple pistols. Articulation on this Ironhide isn't all that different than the Earthrise one, which is to say that it's perfectly fine. His head is on a hinged ball joint with some good up/down tilt and a swivel, but it's not really cut to allow any sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and can extend 90 degrees laterally. His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees. His waist swivels, and due to transformation he can even arch his back. His pelvis his hinged to move out of the way for his thighs, but unfortunately it's a single piece. Once it's out of the way, his hips can go just about 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. Due to his transformation, he's got several hinges in his feet. You get get about 45 degrees of upward tilt, over 90 degrees of downward tilt, and around 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Ironhide can hold his pistols in his hands just fine, but you might have noticed that as a Studio Series figure he lacks the 5mm ports on his legs, forearms, shoulders, and back that the Earthrise mold has. Don't fret, though, he's still got other options for storage. There's a slot molded into the sides of the pistol, just above the handles. In robot mode, these slots can grab onto tabs on his calves or on his backpack. If the aesthetic upgrade alone isn't enough to overcome the Voyager price tag and get you to upgrade, then perhaps the engineering will? The transformation starts off similarly, and at first I was thinking, "is this a another retool of the Siege mold after all?" I mean, you fold back the bumper on his back, and his arms hinge around to tab together behind his head. You need to open his chest window so you can fold his head inside... but that's when things start getting different. It's not just a window; the front section of the roof also unfolds from inside his chest, and front under it you unfold two more bits with some of the side windows. Rather than sticking straight back, you have to line up the shoulders and bend the elbows just right, because his forearms are also part of the roof. Flaps open on his shins to allow armatures to move his feet; the tops plug into the forearms and form the back of the roof, the soles of his feet fold down to become the rear of the van, and some flaps squished in there make some windows. The kibble flaps on his legs unfurl, filling in the side of the van that includes the bottom from the hinge to the front tires, the middle windows, and section of the roof between his forearms and part that was inside his chest. You get a complete van, with translucent blue windows, and zero partsforming. The van mode isn't perfect. There's those to translucent nubs on the roof- they do have a purpose on Ironhide, but I can tell you that they're not necessary and are almost certainly there as attachment points for the inevitable Ratchet repaint. He's got two large hinges breaking up the sides of the van, but the Earthrise mold has one plus an out-of-place visible shoulder, so I can't say that's worse. The back window is molded in place, but not painted And, although there's molded lines for it, the yellow stripe is missing from the sides. However, it's still an improvement from Earthrise. The wheels look like Earth tires instead of reusing the Siege ones, and Hasbro painted the rims (saving me the trouble). The front end, with the silver bumper and grill, lack of black hinged part, and tampoed Autobot insignia is more accurate than the Earthrise version. There's no pipes on the back of the roof. And the back of the van is actually molded to look like the back of a van (even if the rear window is molded but uncolored), so you don't have to buy replacement feet just to avoid the back of the car being totally out-of-place robot feet. So, those roof nubbins? They can be used as a place to store the gun if you want Ironhide to do some drive-by shooting at Decepticons. But again, they're not necessary. Feel free to Dremel them off and touch up the paint... ...because there's storage underneath the van, too. The spots on his backpack wind up just under the front bumper, so he can still drive and shoot. Want more emphasis on the "disguise" part of "robots in disguise?" Another set of dedicated tabs near the back of the van can be used, too. This allows just a little of the barrels to stick out the back like exhaust tips. If you read a certain Transformers message board you may find that this is a bit of a contentious release. "I just bought an Earth-mode Ironhide two years ago! And it was a Deluxe! This thing is (choose one) the same size/smaller! Hasbro is ripping us off/I'll just stick with the one I have." All I can do is remind you that "Voyager" isn't a size anymore, it's a budget that allows for Ironhide to have better paint and engineering than his Earthrise counterpart, and he's a huge improvement aesthetically across the board. If you're going to settle for what you already have you might as well have not bothered getting Earthrise Ironhide, you could have just stuck with the crappy Universe toy. Because Studio Series Ironhide is the same leap in improvement over Earthrise that Earthrise is over universe. If this is the quality I'll get, I'll happily shell out Voyager money for more figures this size. Ironhide might be the best Transformers figure Hasbro released in 2022, and I strongly recommend him.

I ordered both Prime and Magnificus. As of writing, both are still available on Pulse. Speaking of Pulse... I got another pile of figures from them. Hasbro really likes to release everything all at once. I'll have some reviews for new molds later, but for now I've got another Repaint Roundup. We'll cover the store exclusives first. From the Walmart-exclusive Velocitron Speedia 500 collection we've got Deluxe-class Shadowstrip. Shadowstrip's packaging and instructions proclaim that he's from the G2 universe, which makes sense because "Shadow"strip is Legacy Dragstrip with no mold changes and the same accessories, just with a new deco based on the unreleased G2 Dragstrip toy. I don't have a ton to complain about here. Dragstrip was a pretty decent figure, and swapping the yellow for black and the orange stripes for gold just looks sharp. There's some extra gold accents on the rims and near the cockpit, and some extra blue in front of the cockpit and replacing the orange and purple on his head. It all looks good! The basic checkerboard pattern on the sides of the original prototype have been replaced with a design that looks more like a flag, which I don't mind at all. If I'm being nitpicky I'd maybe point out that the prototype also had a red and white checkerboard on the rear spoiler instead of stripes, but it really doesn't bother me. As the mold itself is unchanged Dragstrip can still split in half at the waist, and you can use him in place of regular Dragstrip on Menasor's right arm. What you can't do, though, is use Dragstrip on one arm and Shadowstrip for the other. The remolded bits on Dead End are apparently slightly different, so the front half of Drag/Shadowstrip doesn't sit flush on Menasor's left bicep. Shadowstrip's far from essential, but as I said Dragstrip was a pretty decent figure already and the black and gold color G2 color scheme looks great (even if you're not a native fan of Pittsburgh sports teams). Recommended from me. Also from the Velocitron collection, we've got Deluxe-class Crasher. I've probably already offered my feelings on this... once upon a Classics time, Hasbro repainted Classics Mirage with a color scheme based on Crasher as Fracture to help fill out the movie line. And, ok, at the time it was cool to get almost any acknowledgement of the Gobots at all. But I'm older and more cynical now, so let's consider the following: 1. Siege Mirage was one of the weaker releases from that line, but we let it slide because it was technically supposed to be like a Cybertronian mode. 2. Retooling the Siege mold instead of starting from scratch emphasized its flaws. 3. Crasher was never a Formula-1 car, and shackling her to Mirage repaints for all time just because of one homage 15 years ago is doing her a massive disservice. And yet, here we are, with a figure that is Earthrise Mirage from the neck down, with the same accessories as Earthrise Mirage. Mark did a pretty good job getting a deco that's pretty close to the character on the Gobots in bot mode, but aside from being black, red, and white the alt mode isn't and never will be Crasher. Ironically, the one time Hasbro did make a figure with an alt mode that's super close to Crasher (PotP Jazz) they didn't bother with the redeco. The only part of Crasher that isn't from Earthrise Mirage is her head, but even that's not new. It's the toy-deco head that Hasbro used for the mostly-clear Mirage repaint that came with the IDW Impactor from that one Amazon line. Sure, the wider, rounder head does have Crasher's shape on the most basic level, but giving her some black eyeliner and a pink face doesn't really make her look all that much like Crasher with her narrower face, bandit mask, and pupiled eyes. All-in-all, then, it's a mediocre repaint of a mediocre figure. Crasher deserves better. Do not recommend. Moving from Walmart to Walgreen's, this one is Deluxe-class Minerva. Aside from the head, Minerva is straight redeco of Legacy Elita-1. A lot of the details on her limbs, which seem to have been designed more with Elita-1 in mind, are more suggestive than G1 accurate. There's engine vents on her shins, no headlights or wheels on her wrists. Her fenders hover behind her shoulders on her backpack instead of sitting directly on her shoulders. Still, her torso seems very evocative of Minerva's, even if the details aren't exact, and the new head sculpt is excellent even if it's not a detachable Titan Master. It seems to me that Mark wanted a new Minerva, and the only way he could get her greenlit is if he could work her into a repaint of Elita-1. And thus, Minerva had to give up a few things like the Headmaster gimmick, and Minerva's eventual retool was worked into Elita-1's design from the start, hence the design of her backpack. Mind you, you can make them a bit more visually distinct by folding down the fenders on Elita's backpack. You probably noticed that Minerva and Elita-1 have the same guns, but there is one difference in their accessories. The weird antenna thing shaped like the top of Elita-1's head has been replaced with a lightbar. I'm hesitant to call either accessories... sure, they're not attached in the box, they plug into a 5mm port, and could easily be removed and held in their fists. But the only reason they're designed to attach via a 5mm port is precisely so you can attach the antenna to Elita and the lightbar to Minerva without changing the actual mold of the base figure. Once they're installed, they never actually need to be removed. I guess the real question is whether or not Elita-1's alt mode is actually a good choice for Minerva's. Well, it's certainly no Porsche! I guess it ultimately comes down to what kind of fiction you want to use for her. Is she the IDW Minerva seen in The Wreckers: Tread and Circuits miniseries? Then you could probably accept this as a Cybertronian alt mode (as well as the lack of a Headmaster gimmick). If you want her to be Masterforce Minerva, though, where the car was a Transtector built on Earth and Minerva is actually a human girl that turns into a head for the Transtector, then a Cybertronian alt mode and the lack of a Headmaster gimmick make a lot less sense. Unfortunately, unless Hasbro makes a new Nightbeat to properly repaint into Minerva, this is as good as we're likely to get. I guess I'd recommend her. Last one for today, we've got Shattered Glass Slicer, who maybe makes even less sense than Flamewar. See, this time I went ahead and read all the comic books. Flamewar kind of checks out, if you just assume that she has the same deco in the regular G1 universe and the Shattered Glass one, because in the regular G1 universe she's an evil Decepticon working for Megatron and in Shattered Glass she's a heroic Decepticon working for Megatron. But Slicer? If you're unfamiliar with the character you might think to yourself, "Well, isn't that like a Shattered Glass Wheeljack?" That's sort of how he comes across in the comic book, and the figure is Earthrise Wheeljack- the only new parts are two new translucent guns. But, to really be Shattered Glass Wheeljack, he'd have to be an evil Autobot- which is what the comic book does. However, the toy clearly has a Decepticon badge on his shoulder. This is because Slicer isn't a new Shattered Glass character, or even a new pseudo-G1 character BotCon repaint. Slicer is a G1 Action Master from all the back in 1991. The OG Slicer was a redeco of Action Master Wheeljack, sure, so redecoing Earthrise Wheeljack makes sense. But it means that Slicer is really a G1 release, not Shattered Glass. The only way I can think of for this to really be a Shattered Glass figure is if they're going to make the claim that Shattered Glass Wheeljack changed his name to Slicer, crossed over into the G1 universe, then joined the Decepticons. Oh, and those two new weapons? They're actually based on the ones that came with Energon downshift, a figure that was repainted as Slicer for BotCon 2010. That reinforces the notion that this figure is G1 Slicer, and only worked into the Shattered Glass line by stuffing G1 Slicer into the story in place of Wheeljack. I'll give Hasbro some credit, though. A lot of times when Hasbro tosses in accessories like this they're kind of an afterthought. Hasbro could have just tossed in two new guns and left it at that, but they designed the guns with hinges. This allows them to peg into the 5mm ports on the back of the car and wrap around the sides so they're still pointed forward. Anyway, Slicer comes with his Exo-Suit. On the original toy, his Exo-Suit was like this pink-and-red dune buggy thing with guns and tire spikes that he could drive around in that transformed into a suit of armor. Here, it's a repaint of Fasttrack/Black Roritchi (with the antenna-less Roritchi head). While the color scheme certainly homages the G1 toy, suffice to say that Slicer will not be riding around in that alt mode. Of course, as a redeco of a Weaponizer you can pull him apart and use him to arm up Slicer in a variety of ways- these four are the ones specifically suggested in his instructions. In most configurations you'll likely find a free port or two to even include his extra rifles. Some of the options, like the big sword, are a bit ridiculous as Slicer's arm joints aren't able to support the weight. And none of them really recreate the armored suit of the original Exo-Suit. Despite my complaints that Slicer doesn't actually fit into Shattered Glass, I think the fact that he's actually a G1 character might be a boon as there are a lot of collectors who couldn't give a crap about Shattered Glass but will buy even the most obscure G1 characters. He's a decent mold, with decent colors, and while his Exo-Suit isn't really an Exo-Suit it's still a pretty rad deco for Fasttrack that can still be used to arm Slicer up. I'd say he gets a recommend.

I carved this one this year. Other than that, I didn't do too much. I have a few neighbors that really go all-out on their displays, and unless you're willing to spend thousands of dollars to keep up with the Joneses all we've got is a big cute spider and a Mandalorian holding up a sign that says "This is the way (to candy)". But I still enjoy walking with my daughter in my David Pumpkins suit while she trick-or-treats... even if she is getting to that age where she'd rather go with her friends because she doesn't need her old man in case she gets scared.

Some clearer looks at Holiday Prime. And with that clearer look, I'm starting to think that the entire robot is a totally new mold, just with similarities to Laser Op in the shape of the chest and similarities to Motormaster in how the wheels store on his back and how the cab is mostly just the lower legs. Even the head and thighs look like new parts, which is great considering how many times Hasbro has used the Siege Optimus legs after Siege. Also, this was revealed with Prime but, being a previous and expected leak didn't have quite the same impact... it's Magnificus. Prime should be $55.99, Magnificus $24.99. It's not clear if Prime will be available at multiple stores or not, but Magnificus is definitely a Generations Selects release on Pulse. Both figures will be available to order tomorrow... no time was specified for Prime, but Magnificus goes on sale at 1:00pm EDT. I'm not clear if these will be preorders, or if like Minerva, Crasher, Shadowstrip, and Bomb Burst they're skipping the preorders and they'll actually ship after ordering.

Oh, I still have my Hero Prime, and I would love a new version to go with my new Laser Prime.

Coming Tuesday to Hasbro Pulse... Some interesting things to note here... 1. You'll recall awhile ago I talked about a rumored Amazon Prime crossover? Holiday Optimus looks an awful lot like a Volvo truck Amazon uses. I wonder if they were working on something, the deal with Amazon fell through, and this is Hasbro recouping the mold? 2. It's hard to tell, with the blurry cell phone photo of a slide at a show, but it's a Frankenstein of a figure. I mean, the trailer is Earthrise, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw that head already (although the chin is looking a bit flatter than Earthrise). The front of the torso is Legacy Optimus. The pelvis and thighs. The arms and backpack are Motormaster. The legs from the knees down are new, though. 3. Fold the truck's grill over so it's flat against the thighs, and articulate the knees the other way, so the cab of the truck is on the front of his shins. Give him a flat trailer with backpack that can clip over the wheels on his back and a cannon for his arm with a hose. It'd be a passable G2 Hero Optimus Prime.

I gotta love how Hasbro Pulse lets me accumulate so many preorders that I have to make a spreadsheet to keep track of them all, then decides to ship a butt load of them at once so instead of getting a $50 bill here or a $60 bill there I get hit with $250 in one week and my wife flips out on me. Anyway, with some arrived and some more on the way next week it's probably a good time for a Repaint Roundup. First up, we have a brand new Masterpiece Optimus Prime! Yeah, newer even than MP-44 (and no, I'm not talking about a 3P effort like the new Magic Square one). Actually, I'm not really sure why Hasbro put a slip case on the box with the "Masterpiece" branding. The inner Takara box doesn't have any such thing on it, and what we've actually got here is a repaint of Earthrise/Shattered Glass Ultra/Delta Magnus, just without the trailer that turns into armor and painted up like Optimus Prime. The paint on Prime is a step up from Ultra/Delta Magnus, I'll give them that much, although I kind of wish that Takara took advantage of the stockier shape and done more to differentiate this Optimus from the Earthrise release by giving him a more G1 toy deco. For the curious among you, Optimus works with the Earthrise trailer, the Siege trailer, or the Galaxy Upgrade trailer in truck mode., although you'll have to find another place to stow the bumper pieces on that last one. And, naturally, you could put the Earthrise armor on him in bot mode. The Siege armor just does not fit, though. The Galaxy Upgrade armor almost works... the part with the head does clamp onto his spine ok, and the chest does fold over, but it doesn't lock in. The main reason this seems to exist at all is because Takara designed some new tensegrity-style Tenseg bases to be used with Transformers. You can buy just the base in Autobot red or Decepticon purple, but the only way to get the gray one is to buy Optimus. Now, originally I'd thought I'd hold off, build the stand, and review it with this Optimus. But, honestly? Building the stand involves carefully measuring, cutting, and attaching the included wire. And, frankly, I don't see myself doing that. I mean, sure, if you do build it properly with the clear on the bottom and the colored plastic on the top it'll look like the colored plastic is floating... but, as the gray and clear parts are actually mirrored, seems to be you could instead build two separate, normal stands, one clear and one colored. That seems like better value than a gimmicky tensegrity zero-gravity thing. As for Optimus himself, I'll not sugar coat it... this mold is objectively much worse than the Earthrise mold. Especially without a trailer to hide his arms in truck mode... and why didn't he come with a trailer? Yeah, I know it wouldn't really be accurate but slap a new head on the Earthrise Magnus armor and repaint it to look like Powermaster Optimus, I'd have been into that. Really, I bought this for one reason, and that's that I would someday like to have every variant color of the G1 toy in a modern mold (although I fear we'll never see a new yellow Shining Magnus). Ideally, that'd be a red, blue, white, black, yellow, and purple Earthrise figure, but I'll take what I can get. You, however, probably shouldn't, as it's a bit hard to justify the $60+ price tag. Especially when you can buy just the red/purple Tenseg bases for $18 each, if it's the stand you're after. Next up, we have Deluxe-class DK-3 Breaker. And, frankly, I don't have a ton to say about this one. It's Earthrise Trailerbreaker, but with all of his black plastic cast in blue instead. The deco is almost exactly the same, too- the only differences I could find is red paint on the eyes instead of blue, and the silver paint that was on Trailbreaker's rims went to his shoulder missile and ears instead (I painted my Trailbreaker's shoulder weapons myself). Oh, and his taillights aren't painted the way Trailbreaker's are. So, yeah, if you have Trailbreaker you pretty much know what you're getting with DK-3 Breaker, and I'll say that I picked him up because I do dig the Diaclone releases and I honestly find it amusing how much of the Autobot army I'm going to have in two colors. But I'll confess some disappointment that they didn't give him a new, more toy-accurate head and that they didn't go for the much more visually interesting/distinct yellow Diaclone version. I guess I'd recommend him if you liked Trailbreaker and/or you're really into the Diaclone repaints. Most fans can do without him, though. Moving along, here's the 4th of the Shattered Glass II releases (the 3rd apparently released at the same time, but won't arrive until tomorrow at the earliest), Deluxe-class Flamewar. Now, I haven't read the comic included with her, but this release is kind of interesting. See, Prime, Ratchet, the first Pulse-exclusive Shattered Glass quintet, and Blaster from this set are all, very clearly, the Shattered Glass counterparts of regular G1 characters. And while Delta Magnus could simply be a War For Cybertron version of the G1 character created when Takara decided to release MP Magnus in Diaclone colors, with the alternate head the Diaclone colors are also Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus. But Flamewar? She's been kicking around as a pseudo-G1 character since BotCon '05. She's always been a Decepticon, she's always had something close to this color scheme, and she's always been a repaint of an Arcee that turns into a motorcycle (first Energon Arcee, then in 2014 and reissued in 2015 from Beast Hunters Arcee). Flamewar has appeared in comics as recently as Fate of Cybertron, the official end of IDW's rebooted G1 continuity. So a Decepticon repaint of Legacy Arcee in these colors really should be a standard Legacy, non-Shattered Glass Flamewar, and I'm going to treat her as such. On that note... I dig this figure. I mean, she's a repaint of Arcee with no new tooling, but the colors just do it for me. Plus, I really like the versatility of this mold's backpack. Remove the front wheel entirely and you can give Arcee her wings. Spread the wheel and plug it into the back of the neck, then fold the backpack up tight and you've got something close to G2 Road Rocket's shoulder wheels. Or do both for Flamewar, and homage both her wheeled Energon repaint and her winged Beast Hunters repaint. Flamewar does come with the translucent blades that combine to form a disk that Arcee and Road Rocket came with. But, she also comes with Fireglide, a little pterodactyl that's been sold in purple and white as Terror-Daxtyl with Siege Skywarp, in translucent yellow as Enerax with Netflix Optimus Prime, and in blue and black as Sights with Golden Disk Jackpot, which means if I look around I should have every copy of this mold. Anyway, Fireglide's head and feet tuck in and a handle folds out from his back, and boom, you've got an axe, complete with an effect part that tabs onto his wings/blades. Flamewar looks just as good in bike mode as she does in robot mode. It's a bit tricky to find a place to slow Fireglide, as he wasn't designed for this mold, but there is a peg under his neck and the axe handle does double as a barrel. And while it doesn't actually tab in, you can put the fire effect under a wheel and she's got sort of a Ghost Rider thing going. I love it. Hasbro's definitely charging a premium for the paint, the extra Battle Master, and the packed-in comic book that may make it hard to justify the price of what is, ultimately, a Deluxe-class figure. That said, Flamewar is absolutely my favorite use of this mold so far. Recommend from me. Finally, we've got the Pulsecon-exlcusive "A Hero is Born" pack. This pack gets you two figures, and we'll start with Orion Pax. Pax is a retool of Studio Series 86 Kup. This is trend that began back in 2005, when the G1 Kup toy was reissued in red, white, and blue as Orion Pax. Did someone at Takara think the animation model for Orion Pax looked like Kup? I'm not sure how well it worked using a straight repaint of the G1 toy, but SS Kup's rounded limbs do work with that organic Floro Dery style, and Hasbro actually did remold a bit. He's got new forearms, a new head, a new chest, and new shins, plus Hasbro was able to get a slightly different look to his shoulders and hips simply by flipping them around. The result is a figure that is a bit broader in the shoulders and narrower in the hips than what we saw in the cartoon, but it's fairly animation accurate. I still kind of like the old Generations figure myself, but if you want Sunbow this is Sunbow. Differences are more minimal in alt mode, as it's really just the nose of the truck made from his chest that shows now. A part of me would prefer a more unique alt mode for Pax, but since we don't actually ever see Pax's alt mode I can't complain that it's not accurate. Maybe, just as the Seekers share a body type, Pax and Kup were a particular model. I dunno. What I do want to know is who Hasbro can repaint into Dion, Ariel, and the generic Decepticon troopers from the same episode, "War Dawn." The other figure in the pack is, of course, Alpha Trion. Trion is, for me, the more exciting figure as Alpha Trion made enough appearances on the cartoon that I wanted him as a kid. It took until 2007 to get even a BotCon repaint version of him, and 2016 before we'd see a dedicated Alpha Trion that was... not the best. This time, he's a remold of Studio Series 86 Scourge, and as such he's not exactly cartoon-perfect, but he's actually a lot closer than the dedicated Titans Return version. His pelvis is a little off and lacking some colors from the cartoon, his lower legs, knees, and feet don't have exactly the right shape and his feet are missing some color. He's got a lot more back kibble than he did int he cartoon. However, he's got a new front torso and new shoulders and biceps that better represent the cartoon, even using some molding to mimic the way his shoulder armor wraps onto his chest. He's got new thighs, for some reason, and the outermost wing panels have been replaced with something better approximating his cape. He's also got a new head that better matches the Sunbow art... although I'll point out its the head you see in all of his appearances except from "War Dawn" when he turned Pax into Optimus. Technically, if they were truly going to recapture that scene he'd have a younger face with a smaller mustache and no goatee. I'm actually glad they did it this way, though. Like Pax, Alpha Trion didn't transform so we can't really say if a flying soap bar like Scourge's alt mode is appropriate or not (depending on which legend of the 13 you buy into, if any, he might not have had an alt mode at all, but interestingly enough he did have concept art of a hovercraft alt created for the IDW mini-series Transformers: Ironhide back in 2010). Given that they could have therefore gotten away with using as much of Scourge's alt as they could, as they did with Pax from Kup, it's a bit surprising to see how much they did change. Almost all of the red plastic parts are new. The middle engine nacelle has been replaced with a larger, rectangular block, and the panel that cover's his face his wider, more rounded at the top, and with a deeper molded indent. You could probably argue that remolding those parts was necessary to accommodate Trion's head, but they further went and remolded the panel directly in front of the face covering, too, with little windows molded and painted on. Orion Pax has the same rifle and box of energon goodies that Kup came with (although the goodie that's protruding from the top has been painted... are we know supposed to pretend it's a communicator or something?), and he's got the same limb removal gimmick. The right arm on my copy is, in fact, a little loose. And Alpha Trion comes with the same rifle Scourge did. However, you'll notice that Trion has both the open hands from Scourge and the Sweep, and none of the closed fists. That's where the new accessories come in. You get a gold-painted, textured orb that's meant to be the Vector Sigma computer, with a clear stand for it to "float" on. Also included is a gold-painted key for Vector Sigma. There's a slot on top of Vector Sigma for the Key to plug into, however, the size is just right and the shape of Trion's hands just so that he can hold the key, and quite securely I might add. Characters like with articulated fingers like Earthrise Optimus, Hot Rod, Rodimus, and Jhiaxus can also hold the Key, albeit less securely. Closed fist characters like Megatron are SOL, though. I think this is a pretty well-done set. You are paying maybe $9 over just buying one retail Deluxe and one retail Voyager, but both Orion Pax and Alpha Trion are fairly extensively remolded, plus you get Vector Sigma and the Key with them. While I've always thought that Dery's Pax design is a little too goofy to become Optimus Prime, Alpha Trion and Vector Sigma were plot points enough times in the cartoon I think finally having a decent representations of both make this set worth picking up, and as of writing it's still available on Hasbro Pulse.

Depends on how you define "success." Mark my words, Deathsaurus will get funded... they're already almost halfway there, and it hasn't even been a day. Get a few more people over the next month and a half, then that big bump from the retailer orders, and 11,000 is pretty much inevitable. I think odds of the living metal cannon and flail happening are reasonable. But I could see it maybe not hitting both stretch goals the way Victory Saber did. Inflation is real in the States, too, but I dunno. The amount of money some people in this fandom are willing to spend, inflation seems as likely to help some people justify getting so little for so much as it does to turn people off entirely. Anecdotal, I know, but I personally was thinking I wanted a Deathsaurus to go with my HasLab Victory Saber, and I was just about set to buy MMC's D-Zef Continuum to fill that role. Backing the HasLab one instead will save me around $25 or so and likely be a better aesthetic match, so... Shout Factory released Headmasters, Masterforce, and Victory on DVD in the States, both as three sets for each individual series and one box set with all three. AFAIK, though, we've still never got Zone, Beast Wars II, or Beast Wars Neo in any official capacity. It'd also be nice to get them all on some kind of streaming service, or at least Hasbro's YouTube channel. Like, who is even in charge of the brand at Hasbro anymore? The designs for Cyberverse were supposed to be simultaneously G1 enough but generic enough to be their evergreen, standard designs. So they follow up Optimus' Cyberverse design with the same robot, but now he has TF Prime's alt mode? Generally, the new Earthspark toys look like a continuation of Cyberverse, but somehow worse. I'm wondering if some of those aren't Warrior or some other gimmicky figures and not Deluxes (although that Shockwave is a repaint of the Cyberverse Deluxe). I bought pretty much all the Cyberverse Deluxes, and while some of them were pretty cool I'll probably stay away from Earthspark, or maybe just grab Prime for my ever-growing army.

I managed to get Shadowstrip, Minerva, and Crasher. I guess technically they have Core-class Soundwave, too, but I didn't mention him because I don't think there's a lot of interest in the Core-class guys that already have bigger figures, it's a reissue of a figure that came out during Kingdom, and I already bought one then. And Walgreen's is such a crapshoot. I found Brainstorm at my local store, I managed to get Ratchet at Walgreens.com but never saw one in a store, and I didn't see Bluestreak for a long time, got FOMO and overpaid on Ebay, then found like 20 of them a week later. Never saw Red Alert in stores, but thankfully I'd gotten him on Pulse. Well, like I did with Cosmos, if I happen to find any Minervas in stores I'll nab 'em and offer them here at cost+shipping.

I missed the Pulse thing because I had to take my kid to the doctor. It looks like the only Transformers thing announced was a HasLab for Deathsaurus. If he hits 11,000 backers he'll come with a sword, an arrow, a shield and both BreastChestmasters. 14,000 gets you his living metal cannon, flail, and some blast effects. 17,000 gets you a throne and a display stand. The Haslab ends December 12th. I'm going to have to think on this. I backed Victory Leo, and I was thinking about getting MMC's D-Zef for Deathsaurus. But now that there's an official one... EDIT: Shadowstrip, Crasher, Minerva, and Bomb-burst are all available on Pulse now.

I mean, yeah, Nintendo sold some systems in Europe. European NES was definitely a thing. But you probably didn't notice it because Nintendo wasn't able to exert the same level of control over the European market, eventually outsourcing NES distribution to Mattel and a few other local companies. But between the distribution issues, higher prices in Europe, and the aforementioned competition from a thriving home computer market meant that the NES was never force there that it was in the States. The NES didn't just dominate sales here, it was a cultural phenomenon. We had cartoons (Super Mario Bros Super Show, Captain N, The Power Team), we game shows like Video Power, we had clothing and merchandise, heck, we even had the Nintendo Cereal System. In addition to Nintendo Power we had hint books, we had novelizations of NES games. You didn't just know somebody who had a Nintendo here, you owned one because everybody had one (lifetime sales are something like 33.5 million units in the US- that's more than the all of the European NES sales and the Japanese Famicom sales combined). In the late '80s and early '90s if you between the ages of 7-15 if you weren't playing Nintendo, chances are you were thinking about playing Nintendo or talking to your friends about Nintendo. Like you, I'd eventually move on to the SNES, and I have a lot of great memories there (on in particular is bad winter storm hit just before winter break ended, forcing the local schools to remained closed for over an extra week... I'd gotten A Link to the Past for Christmas and spent the entire extended break playing it from start to finish). But, partly due to the larger cultural impact, and partly due to my age (I got an NES when I was 7, and the SNES when I was 13, so the NES was definitely my more formative years), I get a lot more nostalgic for the NES. Incidentally, I'm not surprised that the Gameboy made more of an impact on you. I'm not sure what exactly changed, if Nintendo was able to get distribution back under their own roof or what, but lifetime Gameboy sales between North America and Europe are much closer, at around 43 million to 40 million. Anyway, I finished Blaster Master Zero (got the good ending, too) and I stand by my recommendation. I'll start BMZ2 tomorrow.