mikeszekely

Cosmos already sold out?! I pre-ordered Clampdown, Road Hair, Override, and Burn Out. I reserve the right to buy the others if I see them in the store, but for now I don't really feel the need for another Blurr, I'm more interested in the rumored Flame War repaint of Arcee than Road Rocket, and that Scourge is just terrible.

In some ways, sure. The back's a little gappy, and the cab doesn't line up quite right, but for the most part the truck mode is better on the SS toy. But the MPM robot is more proportional, with the more organic legs, hidden wheels, feet that aren't so flat, smokestacks that aren't ben the wrong way, and a better torso shape. Totally agree. Unfortunately, ever 3P is also bigger, and out-of-scale with the other MPM (and 3P MPM-style) figures I have. This. Most of the MPM figures have had at least some compromises, and all of them have been lacking in paint, when compared to the regular MP line. I'd say the official MPM line has ranged from OK-ish to hot garbage. So let's step away from the MPM line and move on to the next DNA kit, DK-31. This kit is for the Kingdom Titan-Class Ark. We've got ourselves a pair of articulated hands, and the rest is all filler parts. We'll start with these fillers, a pair of long rectangles and a pair of smaller squares. For robot mode, you'll use the square peg on the smaller part to plug it into a square hole on the larger part. What you want to do, then is stick the combined parts onto the Ark's calves, with the smaller parts toward the ground. The larger part has some tabs on the sides. You'll angle them into grooves on the inner edge of the Ark's leg, then kind of push and wedge the other side behind the lip of the outer edge. It's only held in place by the top, so it can wiggle in place but it's secure enough that it won't fall out unless you really pull it out. And you'll need to pull it out for transformation, as this bit of the kit is unfortunately partsforming. Next up, we have these two panels with molded turrets on them. They're designed to look like the turrets already on the Ark. In bot mode, they just fill in these squarish cutouts near the outside of the Ark's ankles. Notice, though, that they're not identical. One part has one thinner tab and one thicker one, the other has a thinner tab and then a thicker tab with a hook on it. The one without the hook goes into the Ark's right leg. It fits securely enough, but you can glue it if you like because these parts are designed to stay attached. The other one, with the hook, goes on the left leg. That side has the flap you open to fold out the tower on the rear of the Ark. You want to open the flap, then stick the panel onto the end of the flap so the hook wraps under on the side pointed toward the big Autobot symbol. Again, you can use a little glue if you like. We'll come back to the last filler piece. First we have to install the new hands, though. Begin by removing two screws on the inside edge of the Ark's forearm, then gently pull the outside half off. Ideally, you'll want to leave the other half in place. Some things to be aware of, though... there's a gray part that will come with the half you're removing. Be careful not to lose it! One end plugs into a spot near the top of each half of his arm, and the other into half of his wrist. Two, be careful not to lose the white ratchet near the elbow on the side you removed, or the identical ratchet behind the half of the wrist part on the side you remove. Here's a look at the side of the arm you leave on. Note the bump out with the hole for the gray back of the arm on the wrist part, and the hole near the elbow for the other end. Anyway, take the original hand out of the wrist. Before you toss it aside, though, remove the screw on the white part, then pull the white part off. Place it onto the DNA hand, using the slots on the sides of the white part and the tabs on the hand to line it up, and screw it into place. From there, it's just a matter of placing the hand back into the wrist, then trying to line up both halves of the arm without anything falling back out (usually the ratchet, sometimes the wrist and both ratchets, or the back of the arm). Once you get it, screw everything back together and repeat the process on the other arm. So what's the benefit here? The original hands had all four fingers molded as one piece with a slight curve, pinned only at the base knuckle. The thumb was hinged at the base, too, but permanently folded over the palm like he's perpetually pretending to be a crab. The new DNA hands are fully articulated. Each finger is separate, with three hinged knuckles and even an additional joint that allows them to splay outward. The thumbs still have the hinge that lets them pinch along the palm, but there's a swivel and a hinge that lets out straighten the thumb away from the palm and another mid-knuckle hinge, too. And there's no issues transforming the Ark with the new hands, you just have to fold the thumb over the palm and curl the fingers slightly the way the original hands looked. And about that transformation... yeah, you have to remove the filler from the Ark's calves, and then separate the filler parts. The larger part will go back into his legs, along the sides on the rear of the ship. You'll stick the tops where the tabs are closer to the front, into some waffling near where his legs meet with his arms, then kind of shove the rest in. As before, if you pull they'll pop out but they're secure enough that they're not coming out accidentally, and they blend with the side enough. The smaller bit fits into the gap left by the back of the elbow. You just slide it in and push it until it clicks, almost like the Ark was designed for the DNA kit instead of the other way around. Once again, it'll pull off without too much effort but it's secure enough that it's not going to shake loose. As you can see from the before and after it does a really good job filling the unsightly gaps left by the Ark's transformation. My only real complaints are that the midsection doesn't look recessed enough, and I wish the rear fillers came to a narrower edge. Still a huge improvement. On, and that last filler piece we skipped in robot mode? Yeah, it just shoves into the hollowed out rear of the tower on the back of the Ark. You can also see in this photo the filler pieces with the turrets. DK-31 is slightly cheaper than the kit for MPM-12, at around $40-45. It feels like a much better value, though, as this time we're using all the parts. In robot mode, the new articulated hands are a huge step up from the original hands, and in alt mode the kit does a good job filling in the gaps along the sides and in the back of the tower. I think it might have been nice if this kit also had some kind of weapon for the Ark, and/or if it replaced the transforming toes with a fifth engine bell that split for transformation, sure, but those are more "would be nice" sorts of things that'd drive up the prices of the kit than "must haves," and I think DNA really addressed the "must haves" here. I realize that a lot of collectors found the Ark to be one of the less appealing Titans, but if you did happen to get one then I'd highly recommend this kit. Since it fixes the Ark's biggest flaws I'd say it's pretty much essential.

I dunno if 3P in general is slowing down, or if there's just fewer and fewer holes to fill in my MP display, but I finally shipped my stash at The Chosen Prime. And it's all DNA kits for official figures. So, I guess I'll go in numerical order, starting with DK-27 for MPM-12. When you open this kit up, you'll find that it actually replaces a good deal of MPM-12. There's a new head, new shoulder bits with the smokestacks, new forearms and hands, new thighs, and new knees. Plus there's a pin removal tool and a plastic brace. But... Well, I'm not seeing a compelling reason to use the DNA head (right). It doesn't really solve the original's dead eyes problem, and I think the details on the original are a bit nicer. So the DNA head stays in the box. Then there's the leg parts. OK, see, they're designed to solve a few problems. The new thighs have extra pieces that allow for a proper thigh swivel. The new knee parts add a second hinge, giving him deeper knee bends. And combined they add a bit to his height, which honestly does make him seem a bit less gorilla-armed. Unfortunately, I think they create a few problems, too. For one, replacing the knees means replacing the diecast bits outside of his knees with plastic bits that simply don't look as nice. While the extra knee bend does give him a bit more range on his knees, we're talking about going from 90 to 120, nothing too major. And the added height makes him taller than MP-10/MP-44/MPM-04, and that's something I can't really get on board with for my collection, otherwise I'd have bought a 3P Bumblebee Prime instead of MPM-12 in the first place. Plus, I'd argue that the truck mode is already on the long side as-is, making Prime's legs longer will only exacerbate that issue. So, yeah, not using those parts either. Well, I will use the new shoulder panels. They're a royal pain, though. First, you need to remove the top of the smokestack. No big deal, right? Then, you stretch the panel out and wedge it in the plastic brace. Line up the pin removal tool and hit it with a hammer to knock the pin out. Note that the instructions are quite clear that you want Prime lying face down. On my copy, though, that meant pushing the knurled end entirely through instead of pushing the knurled end out first, but you can't tell until it's almost entirely out. I suspect that made the process harder than it had to be. As the pin comes out, you'll probably have a spring fly out on you. Don't lose it! You'll need it and the pin! Take the original panel away, fit the new panel in place, then start to push the pin back in (the instructions will have you put the smooth end in first on the bottom hole if Prime is still lying face down. Leave enough room to put the spring in place, so that one hook fits into a notch on the gray hinge and the other sits in a groove on the flap, then push the pin the rest of the way back in. Then shove the top of the smokestack back in. So what was the point of all that? The new smokestacks have slightly different molding; I prefer the originals, I think. It also replaces the stripe pattern on the original with a single solid stripe. The stripe pattern on the original is more accurate to the scenes on Cybertron int he movie, but judging by the number of licensed 3P non-Transformable Optimuses I think the solid white stripe might be more Earth-mode accurate. Ultimately, I don't mind the change in stripe. But the biggest change is that there's now a hinge on the panel, which allows the top to fold over. We're also going to replace the forearms and hands. Fortunately, this is pretty simple. You need to remove two screws on Prime's arm, open the flap on the back of his arm, then separate the halves. The hand will be attached to the inner half. Find the little plastic bit with the nub on it; you'll have to put it into the same spot on the inside of the DNA arm. It's for the elbow ratchet. Otherwise, the DNA arm is mechanically the same for our purposes, so fit the two halves with the hand already attached together over the elbow and screw it back together. And what was the benefit here? From the top, the inside, or the outside the DNA arm (right) looks pretty similar to the stock arm; it's maybe a little thicker, and there's a flap that tucks into the corner that the original didn't have. I'll note that while the mechanical details on the inside of the arm look the similar, they actually have a hinge at that screw to fold some of it toward his hand. But really, you don't notice a huge difference until you get to the bottom. Where the original arm had a window and some of the side of the cab, the DNA arm has mechanical details meant to look at least somewhat more like the CGI model. That's not quite the only benefit, though. The new hands are similar in that the thumb is still just on a ball joint, and only the index finger is a separate digit from the other three. However, where the original's fingers were pinned at the base and permanently molded like he's tying on a keyboard, DNA put an extra hinge in their fingers, so Prime can actually stretch his fingers out or at least have a more relaxed bend. This means Prime can point now, and the DNA hands still have the slot for holding his rifle. The fit was quite secure on my copy. The new arms do necessitate a few extra steps for transformation. For one, you still open the back of Prime's arm and tuck the hand in. But, the panel spins 180 degrees after opening, turning the mechanical details to the inside and putting a window on the outside. The corner is on a hinge, you'll open it up so it can wrap onto the roof. On the inside of Prime's forearm you'll pull the dark part down, as usual, but then you'll swivel at the screw before flipping the panel the rest of the way. Oh, and those hinges on the shoulder panels? Flip the tops down against the back of the cab. No more cat ears in truck mode! I mean, that right there addresses my single biggest complaint with MPM-12. But that's the thing... this is a kit that was going for around $55-$60, and I'm sure a lot of that went toward parts I just didn't bother to use. Now, maybe you would use them. Maybe making MPM-12 taller doesn't bother you as much as it does me (but again, if you were open to a taller Bumblebee Prime you probably grabbed something else, like ToyWorld or Magnificent Mecha). This kit did fix the cat ears on the truck, and it cleaned up his arms, and if that's all it did and only cost maybe $30 I'd recommend it for sure. But, in my case at least, I feel like I'm paying a big premium for parts I don't want. If you already have MPM-12 and don't think you'll be replacing him, maybe you won't mind paying for very much improved hands, shoulders, and forearms, but I have to think sooner or later someone will do a 3P Bumblebee Prime that's MPM-scaled instead of ThreeZero-scaled.

The struggle is real! It's one thing to say "I don't want/need this" when you're looking at it online, it's a whole different story when you haven't had a fix of plastic crack in awhile and you're in the store with a toy you don't own in your hands.

Hey, wait a minute... You wrote that after I reviewed SS DotM Megatron. But... Maybe I should take this "I'm not buying it!" as another "I'm not buying it... right now. Maybe later."😆

Fair enough... I know I'm not willing to watch it, either.😄 But I do have UT's Nero to compare with... I agree, the Studio Series is too plain- they really used have used a brighter blue, and maybe added a few more gold accents. But the old AoE figure, as a course correction, goes too far in the opposite direction.

The truck, definitely. Especially if that's the Takara. But I personally think the robot looks a bit garish with too much blue and gold, and a very wide box on his back.

Well, it seems like more Studio Series stuff is starting to trickle out. Unfortunately, not my copy of Sludge, but you can't win 'em all, I guess. In the meantime, Voyager-class Galvatron arrived from Amazon today. Age of Extinction was when I really started to get fed up with the movie figures, so I don't think I actually bought any from that movie (except a crappy Voyager Grimlock), so unlike previous movie "Megatrons" I don't have the original to compare with the new Studio Series figure. I guess I'll just use the TLK Prime I custom painted (and whose decals are coming off). So looking at him, I dunno... I can definitely see that they tried. He's not a shellformer with a truck on his back, I mean, and I think the AoE designs are going to be harder to translate from film to toy simply because they never bothered to work out a transformation, they just designed a robot that flew apart into Legos that magically turned into vehicles. The fact is, a Hasbro Voyager isn't going to have the budget for engineering that Unique Toys gave to their Nero, so I do appreciate that they tried to hide as much of the truck as they could from the front and they tried to include some accurate details to his back. But I still have to ding them for the overly-rectangular torso, the panels wrapping around his calves, the wheels and the black plastic they're attached to dangling on the sides of his legs, and the awful hollowed undersides of his forearms. While he does sport a lot of silver paint, as well as some copper around his chest hole, the blue accents are fairly dull and kind of lost in the gray plastic. I could do with more paint, but he's not the worst off... I mean, here he is with my other Megatrons (I replaced the original DotM release with the Transformers: the Ride version), and I'd say that by now it's RotF Megatron that looks the worst for lack of paint*. Kind of makes you wonder why Takara released a barely-different version of the movie 1 Megatron in the Premium Finish line, when it alreayd head a ton of paint, instead of RotF Megatron. *Yeah, TLK Megatron looks pretty out-of-place there, too, but to be fair that's not a Studio Series release. I hope he does get a SS release eventually, though, even if it is the exact same figure with a nice coat of gunmetal paint on all that wonky gray plastic, because the underlying figure is still good. I digress. I guess the thing thing you notice about Galvatron specifically in this lineup is that he's kind of small. I guess that's accurate, though? Megatron was kind of big, hunched, and scary looking, but Galvatron was supposed to be one of KSI's "heroes" and sized more like Optimus. Anyway... Galvatron comes with two accessories. You get his hand cannon, which has a nice sculpt and some silver paint, but it's kind of lacking some blue and copper that would have helped it pop. He's also got a rack of missiles. They're just done in plain black plastic. I couldn't be bothered to remember how accurate that is. Compared to the other Megatrons, Galvatron's articulation isn't too bad. His head is on a ball joint. There's really not much tilt; he can look down slightly, but his head only moves up enough to clear the bumps on his collar, and nothing really sideways. It does swivel 360 degrees, though. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees, although the panels they're on actually limit lateral movement to about 45 degrees if he raises his arm and moves it laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 180 degrees on a double-hinge. No wrist swivel (which is dumb, because there's no reason he couldn't have except to cut costs). He does have a waist swivel, though, something the other Megatron's don't have. His hips can go over 90 degrees forward, and a bit under 90 degrees backward and laterally, which is perfectly fine for most poses. His thighs swivel around his hips, which again limits there range but should be adequate for most poses. His knees bend a bit over 90 degrees, and while his feet don't have any up/down tilt they can pivot almost 90 degrees. His hand cannon simply uses a 5mm peg to slide into his fist. It's designed so that it wraps around and covers his right fist only. The missile, on the other hand, has a tab on it. There's slots on either forearm that they can plug into. If you don't want him armed with the missiles you can open his chest and find a gaping void inside... with a slot. The same tab that plugs into his arms plugs into the slot inside, storing the missiles in his chest. I looked all over, but I could find any storage for the hand cannon. Transforming Galvatron is not exactly difficult, but not exactly fun, either. I mean, he's not wearing a whole truck on his back, sure, but a lot of the nose and roof are, and the side panels actually fill in from his legs. Lining all those thin panels up is a tad frustrating, especially because his arms kind of overlap inside of him and it seems to throw off the alignment on one side. Galvatron's truck mode seems to scale fairly well with TLK Prime (and Bumblebee Prime), but I'd expect that it's going to look a bit big next to any of the movie 1-3 SS Primes or DotM Megatron. And as we all know, Galvatron turns into that truck Dr. Eggman had in Sonic The Hedgehog. Ok, technically it's a Freightliner Argosy, and Galvatron came first (although, to my knowledge, it's the same truck in Sonic... I don't just mean same make and model, I mean the actual truck on set for AoE was re-used by Paramount in Sonic). And... yeesh. I mean, Hasbro actually got the license for this, and you'd think Freightliner would have been a bit pickier. Most of the gray plastic is too light, so the silver paint for the stripes doesn't have enough contrast, especially in photos. The black band on the sun visor shouldn't be just a band in the middle, it should cover the entire sun visor. The black on the grill should stop at that painted bar, and they did a poor job painting the grill in the first place so it looks like it stops well before it does with a random black stripe on the bumper. I think it'd have been nice if they used blue on the headlights, not just the marker lights. The black flap on the back of the cab fails to cover the hollow interior, nor does it cover mechanical details from his robot legs. But, lest you think I'm only nitpicking little details, oh yeah, you can't plug a trailer onto Galvatron because his giant robot feet are just sticking in the way. No, that's not mistransformed. There's really nowhere else for them to go, but that's more because of lazy engineering than the designers not having the space; the toes closer to the cab could have folded down more, between his legs, while the toes closer to the back could have been on double-hinges that could have turned them so what is currently their tops would point in toward each other, mating to be the hitch. He can use his weapons in alt mode, at least. The missiles can plug into a slot on either fuel tank, while his hand cannon can plug onto the roof. And hey, if a truck driving down the highway with missile launchers and alien cannons seems to defeat the whole "robots in disguise" thing for you, Galvatron's got storage for them, too. There's a tab right on the barrel of the cannon that allows it to plug into a slot on his feet, basically stuffing down into the space between his legs (where I wanted his toes to go). As for the missiles, if you flip him over and undo where his back plugs into his front wheels there's a void between the wheels. In this void, there's a square tab. That tab fits into a notch on the side of the missiles opposite the tab you use everything else. Sometimes I get to the end of a review, where I recommend a figure or not, and I kind of get stuck. Are you collecting mainline movie Transformers? Are you into the Studio Series? I can't say definitively, since I didn't have any of the other versions, but I'd venture that this is the best version of (AoE) Galvatron that Hasbro has done. Should I recommend him, then? But Galvatron was perhaps my least-favorite Megatron design of the five (I don't love movie 1 Megatron, either), and despite having better articulation I prefer the other Studio Series Megatrons, with DotM being my favorite. Maybe you are collecting some movie figures, but just the first one (because it was the best of the Bay films), or maybe just the first three (because DotM wasn't too bad, even if RotF was kind of trash, and that was before the design shift and the addition of Marky Mark). In any of those cases, if you think your collection is fine without Galvatron then I'm comfortable telling you that it's ok to pass on him, because he's pretty mediocre.

Cangjiao is a transforming J-15 (Su-33) from a different company (Bowu School) that's doing a line of military vehicles. The J-20 is from TFC Toys and significantly more expensive, but I believe it's larger and higher quality. TFC released a helicopter, too, and they were planning on doing the J-15, but I'm not sure how far along or if it's even still coming.

Oh yeah, Wheelie and Beachcomber are probably my two least favorite characters in the cartoon (whiny Season 4 Cerebros is up there, but Headmasters Fortress replaces him in my canon). But the fact remains he's the last of the "new" '86 movie cast that needs a proper doing in the mainline.

We're doomed to never have a decent Wheelie, I guess. This is supposedly an upcoming Studio Series Core-class one.

If some 3P like Unique Toys could figure out how to get G1 Megatron with some extra hip kibble and a cockpit next to the gun barrel on his back to turn into a Nighthawk, sure. Because that's pure anime magic there. In the meantime, not a Nighthawk, and not really even a B-2, but there's always GT's Megatron.

OK, I've got another transforming figure that isn't really a Transformer™. And while our corner of the internet is really replete with aircraft aficionados, I'll confess I was thinking of @M'Kyuun when I picked this up. This being Bowu School's 苍鲛 (Cangjiao). OK, before I get going too far, let's talk about the name. I found this guy at Show.Z Store under the name "CangJiao White Shark." The thing is, the Chinese "Cangjiao" is a little odd. The second character, 鲛(jiao), does mean "shark," but it's not really what you would say if you were talking about a shark in modern Chinese; that'd be 鲨鱼(shayu). I found the first character 苍(cang) is to be a bit ambiguous. It can be understood to mean pale blue, pale gray, deep blue, or deep green... colors which are not exactly the same, and all of which have other more common names in Chinese. However, it's often found with other characters to make different words. For example, 苍天(cangtian) means heaven, 上苍(shangcang) is something like "god in heaven", and 苍蝇(cangying) is a housefly. It's that last one that has me thinking this is some kind of Chinese play on words, which I'll explain in a bit. Anyway... a lot about Cangjiao makes me think that Bowu School is a company that was trying very hard to make something appealing to collectors in China with no real experience in actually making transforming toys for adult collectors. I mean, on the one hand, they clearly put a lot of work into the aesthetics. Cangjiao is one part Autobot, one part mythic Chinese warrior, blending mechanical detail on his knees and lats and visored robot face with shoulder armor, chest armor, and hip skirts that look like old Chinese armor. Even the helmet part of his head seems to blend elements of Chinese fantasy with Gundam. And he's painted from top to bottom- not just the gold filagree or the blue accents, but all the off-white and gunmetal is painted, too. However, there's a certain amateurish nature to the underlying design. He's got huge feet, undersized arms, and positively tiny hands. You have to bend his knee to get the kneepads out of the way if you want to raise his hip skirts in the front. And, let's say I let the wings dangling from his hips slide as being Kawamori-esque, and I similarly overlook the only-slightly-folded tail on his legs as common Transformers design, there's still an abundance of kibble that doesn't really do anything, like the portion of the jet's spine stuck on the inside edges of his legs or the canards poking straight out of his back. I can't really show it in pictures, but it's in the way that Cangjiao feels, too. The plastic feels a bit more brittle than something HasTak or some of the more popular third party companies might use, and I had a couple issues with my copy right out of the box that we'll get to as we go over this figure, but from the start I'll mention that the transparent canopy on his chest fell off. I wound up gluing it in place- don't worry, it's not designed to open or anything. Oh, and size-wise, I'm not sure how he'd fit into your collection. He's a bit taller than even Maverick here, which puts him a little over a head taller than even a bigger mainline figure like Galvatron, but a little shorter than an MP Seeker. We've got a few accessories here. The largest and most obvious accessory is a large pole with some silver and gold paint at one end. There's also two translucent blue flame effects- they're a hard plastic, not the rubbery stuff that you might get with a Hasbro Transformer. I'm not really a fan of the sculpt, or how hollow they feel. Lastly, you get two larger missiles (presumably YJ-83 anti-ship missiles) and two pairs of smaller missiles (PL-8 air-to-air missiles) permanently attached to gray racks. Cangjiao's head is on a ball joint that can swivel and has more sideways tilt than you'd likely need, but due to the shape of his helmet has a mediocre upward range and a fairly limited downward tilt. His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees; there's a ratcheted transformation hinge where the arms attach to the torso that you can use to go beyond 90. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on a soft ratchet. His wrists swivel, and his fingers are a bit like the old MP cars or Earthrise Optimus' where they're molded as one piece in a permanent curl but hinged at the base, with a fixed thumb. There's no waist swivel or ab crunch. His hip skirts, front and back, hinge out of the way so his hips can go 90 degrees forward and a little less than that backward on friction joints, then the wings on his hips are on ball joints so they can get out of the way for about 90 degrees of ratcheted lateral motion (with a bit too much of a gap between clicks for my tastes). His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on soft ratchets. His feet are on ball joints so they have a little up/down tilt, a little under 45 degrees of pivot, and the ability to swivel. On my copy the right foot feels fine, but the left is extremely loose or possibly broken. It's just tight enough that I can pop the ball out of the socket for fear of breaking it, but so loose that it just flops freely with no resistance. You can take one of the two effect parts and attach it to the painted end of the pole, and it makes a sort of spear weapon for Cangjiao. Although his palm looks like Bowu School tried to cut out a 5mm port in his hand it's simply too open, and there's no tabs or anything to lock the spear in place. That said, I haven't had too much trouble just putting it in his hand and closing his fingers around it. The tension should be enough to keep the spear in place, as long as you don't bump it. As for his missiles, the smaller ones use a small tab to plug onto his forearms, and the larger ones plug onto his back for storage. I couldn't find any storage for the other effect part, though. Transformation was a bit iffy for Cangjiao. Parts of it are pretty basic, like the way the legs plug together and do the combiner wars bit of opening the lower legs to fold the thighs down inside. Parts of it are kind of interesting, like the way his spine stretches or the way his lats spin around to form intakes. The problem, though, is that too much of it (the wings, the hip skirts, the backpack) involves moving and trying to lock in very thin pieces of plastic that, again, feels a lot more brittle than you might be used to. But... ok, that alt mode is pretty gorgeous. Bowu School apparently got a license from Shenyang Aircraft Company to make Cangjiao. Which brings me back to that name, Cangjiao. See, his alt mode is the J-15* Flying Shark (飞鲨, Feisha). And remember, 苍 that's part of "fly" like a housefly, and 鲛 that's a word for "shark" that people don't actually use? Making Cangjiao read like "flying shark" is a very roundabout way. It'd be a bit like an American company making a licensed transforming F-35 and calling it "Sky Electricty". *While I'm guessing a lot of MWers already know about the J-15, maybe there's a few readers looking at this thing and saying, "isn't that a Flanker?" Funny story, that. See, at one point China was looking for a fighter that could operate from a carrier for its Navy, and they wanted to buy the Su-33 from Russia. For whatever reason- I've alternately heard that Russia was mad that China reverse-engineered the Su-27s it'd previously sold them and/or that Russia wanted a large up-front payment and a large minimum order to re-start the Su-33 production lines and China didn't want to commit- no deal was ever reached. So instead China managed to get a Su-33 prototype from Ukraine and gave it to Shenyang, the company that'd previously reverse-engineered the Su-27 to make the J-11, and Shenyang turned out the J-15. So, yeah, with a licensed alt mode Cangjiao is looking pretty darn good from most angles. There's not a ton of details like lights or warning marks, but the red band with the star is what the Chinese Navy actually uses and that shark emblem on the tail has been used on at least one of the 50-ish J-15s Shenyang built. The shape of the plane is mostly accurate, too, with just a little robot elbow peaking out from under the wings and a tail boom that sticks out a bit too far. Even from the underside, where there's a bit more obvious kibble in the form of the back of the robot head, some visible shoulders, arms, hands, kneepads, and feet, Cangjiao is certainly a lot more transformed and better integrated than a lot of the boxy robots dangling from the underside of a jet that we're used to with even some Masterpiece figures. While we're looking under there, you'll note that the spear splits into two halves, and one end plugs into the side of the other, so the butt of the spear is the J-15's tail boom. Frustratingly, you can see that there's a square hole that plugs into a peg on Cangjiao's underside, with the split ends right up against his crotch; if there was just room and a way to tuck a bit more of it under, or if the boom collapsed a bit, it'd be just about perfect. Alas. His missiles can also store under the wings, using the actual configuration a J-15 would to carry four PL-8s and two YJ-83 missiles. The underside of his two small rolling wheels, and there's a landing gear with rolling wheels between his intakes. The landing gear can't fold back to further tuck between them, and his robot head is in the way in the direction it does fold, so the landing gear is basically permanently deployed... which would bug me more if I wanted to display Cangjiao in jet mode on a flight stand. But he doesn't come with a flight stand, so... *shrug*. I did get him to sort of balance on the stand that comes with MP Tracks. There's no place to plug the stand into, though. So those effect parts... the reason you get two is because they're meant to plug into his exhausts. And, wouldn't you know it, I've run into another issue. One part fits perfectly fine. The other, though, was either misassembled, or the halves where misfit when it was glued together, but the rear has a gap and it's too wide to plug all the way in. As such, it just falls right back out. And where does that all leave us? On the one hand, a robot that's not a G1 Transformer with some mythic Chinese aesthetics I'm not loving, on a figure feels a bit fragile and already came with a few QC issues out of the box. On the other hand, one of the better jet modes we've seen on a transforming toy since probably Maverick and an actual, licensed jet mode to boot, and priced the same as a Hasbro Leader-class toy. I'd ultimately say that Cangjiao's not going to be for everyone, but I think I'd recommend it if you really like transforming jets. Cangjiao's got enough going for him and a low enough price tag that I'm willing to forgive his flaws. Oh, yeah. And for those of you curious... this is unfortunately the only jet from Bowu School, but they do have a few other transforming figures. Currently there's also a pair of tanks, a Type 15 light tank and a Type 96 MBT (although Show.Z is sold out of both of those), and you can preorder a pair of trucks (a PHL-03 twelve-tube rocket launcher and one hauling a DF-41 ICBM) that turn into robots (like Canjiao and the tanks) and a Chinese-style dragon that turns into that Tiangong space station they're building.

Car's not the best I've seen, but not the worst either. Solid bot mode. Impressive that NewAge can apparently pull of Arcee better at Legends scale than most companies could at MP scale.

Saw it this afternoon. And it was... kind of ok. I guess? I mean, Hemsworth does a great comedic Thor, especially with Waititi's Korg to play off of, but the film leaned to heavily on it. As @Dobber says, it kind of undercuts some of the more serious aspects of the story, but more than that I was thinking that there's really not a ton of action... it's mostly characters conversing with each other. You could probably edit it down to one 40-minute pilot of a new Thor TV show. Two, as a dad whose 7yo daughter is his only child, I related to Gorr. It's disappointing, then, that he spent so much of the movie as a cartoonish villian.

Well... I'd still like to know how all the Youtubers are getting Motormaster and Blitzwing already and I'm not... but I did get my hands on my first Legacy Wave 2 figure. And wouldn't you know it, after talking about Legacy Starscream and how it replaces the Thrilling 30 version the figure I got replaces T30 Starscream's mold mate- it's Voyager-class Jhiaxus! So... it's hard to say if Jhiaxus is a major or minor character. On the one hand, he was the main villain for most of the Marvel Comics Generation 2 run... but on the other hand, Generation 2 hit a rough point in Marvel's history, was only guaranteed a 12-issue run, didn't meet expectations, and was canned. Indeed, Jhiaxus' name came from writer Simon Furman's feelings dealing with Marvel- it's read as "Gee, axe us." So the new Decepticon big bad appeared in what wound up being a comic book miniseries, had no toy, and might have faded into obscurity... except that a little over a decade later he was again writing Transformers, this time for IDW, and he brought the character back. It was technically the IDW Jhiaxus that got the Thrilling 30 toy, and his in-comics appearance was even changed to look like the toy for the "Dark Cybertron" arc. Then almost another decade goes by, and Hasbro's bringing Jhiaxus back again, only this time the comics have nothing to do with it. Or rather, "G2 Universe" Jhiaxus is based on his slightly Seeker-ish, slightly ridiculous Marvel Comics G2 artwork. And, at least in robot mode, Legacy Jhiaxus is kind of brilliant. Depending on the issue he might have a bit more yellow on his torso than the comics, and his biceps and the white parts of his shins are maybe not as rounded, but for the most part he's extremely accurate the comics, down the exposed wiring and little bat wings on his shins. Furthermore, he's a pretty clean robot, with a minimal backpack and almost none of the plastic-saving hollows you find on most modern Hasbro Transformers. Even his forearms have panels that open to let the wrists fold in then close back up. He's even got a fair amount of paint on him, as most of the yellow on his legs, feet, torso, and face is painted on white/white/translucent/red plastic, plus there's silver paint on his shins and the hoses on his head, green paint on the sensors on his right side, and orange paint in his alt mode thrusters (as we'll see later). Oh, and if a Jhiaxus/Jhiaxus size comparison isn't super useful for you, here he is with the other Generation 1 leaders. I think that works for me. Oh, and if you happen to have the Studio Series Starscream that comes with the throne, Jhiaxus fits excellently on it. Jhiaxus comes with a pair of guns. Curiously, while one is larger and plain red plastic and the other is smaller with silver paint on smoked translucent plastic, the sculpt of the guns is basically the same sculpt, down to them both having a peg on the same size. There are a few differences, though, like the magazine peaking out of the bottom of the red one, the fact that the smaller one has a peg hole on the side opposite the peg, and the red one has a 5mm peg on the butt. I'm unsure where the design comes from- in the comics, Jhiaxus fought with his bare hands. Jhiaxus' head is on a ball joint with little downward tilt due to his chin, but some upward and sideways tilt in addition to rotation. His shoulders can rotate, and they can move laterally about 75 degrees (although you can kind of get it to 90 by pulling out the transformation hinge), but unfortunately like Hot Rod the joint for lateral movement is in the chest, not the shoulder, on the wrong side of the rotation. His biceps swivel, and his single-jointed elbows bend around 120 degrees. His wrists swivel, and he's actually got a piun through his fingers so he can open and close his hands like Earthrise Optimus. His waist swivels. His hips can go forward over 90 degrees, backward about 45 degrees, and laterally a bit under 90 degrees- a bit less than we're used to, but enough for most poses, I think. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend around 120 degrees. His feet don't really tilt up, but they can tilt down, and he does have ankle pivots. He can hold both of his guns just fine in either hand. Additionally, Jhiaxus has a 5mm port on his back, on the outside of each shoulder, on the outside of each forearm, on the outside of each leg, and under each heel, if you need places to store his weapons. Actually, you can store both on his back if you put the smaller gun in first, then plug the red gun into the peg hole on the smaller gun. Jhiaxus turns into a Cybertronian jet of some kind. The process wasn't immediately obvious to me by looking at pictures, but in-hand it's pretty straightforward. I'm not loving his visible face behind the translucent canopy, and unfortunately you can't simply turn his head around or his arms won't fit properly on the underside of the jet. Speaking of those arms... it might not be the sleekest, but Jhiaxus almost does a good job of turning into a jet, instead of a wearing a jet that carries a robot underneath in alt mode. Almost. But his arms had to go and spoil it. They shift backward and they tab in place, so the whole thing is solid, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a jet with two big ol' arms hanging on his underside. And, ok, I get that his arms are far to big to fit, but having these big blocky arms just hanging there while a good portion of the front of the jet is actually hollow kind of adds insult to injury here. Oh, and Jhiaxus' jet mode isn't even all that accurate to the comics. In broad strokes, sure, it's white and gold with a red nose, a long narrow fuselage, and green scalloped wings at the back. But it's missing the eyes or weapon ports or whatever they were near the nose, it has a canopy the comics didn't, and it has a vertical tail instead of two struts holding up a cylindrical nacelle. I'm going to cut Hasbro's designers a lot of slack here, though, as they're probably the first ones to give any thought as to how G2 Jhiaxus was supposed to transform, and they at least got something in the ball park. Without any landing gear, Jhiaxus more or less just rests on his arms. This effectively makes all four 5mm ports on his arms unusable in this mode. The short pegs on the guns and the bump for the hinge on his back also makes the port on his back a poor place for alt mode weapon storage. This effectively just leaves the ones on his legs, now situated right above his wings, and a newly-revealed port under his nose the only places to store his alt mode weapons, and even then the wings can get in the way a bit. Officially the instructions suggest plugging the red gun into the nose using the handle, and the peg on the side of the smaller gun to plug it in upside-down over his right wing- the peg handle prevents it from going in right side up on the other side. The smaller gun can also plug in under the nose via it's handle, or either gun can plug into the nose using the peg on the side, and both guns can fit sideways above the wing if you use the handle peg pegs instead of the pegs on the sides. Jhiaxus is, at the end of the day, a character whose place in Transformers history may not appeal to fans who only care about the cartoon, and that's fair. Maybe he's not for you. But I'd say, regardless of who he is or where he came from, he's a pretty great robot with a not-so-great alt mode, and I'd recommend him if you're interested. Personally, I'd love to see more Marvel-only characters like Straxus and Emirate Xaaron, get modern toys.

I sure hope @Keith lets us know if that's it. I was up until 3:00am Googling for an answer that wasn't Susie Q.

The bit about the girl being a ghost who died in the '50s sounds like Susie Q, but that's from the mid '90s, not '80s. Do you remember anything else about the plot?

I'm cautiously excited for this. Robocop is one of my all time favorite movies, and the game is coming from the people who did Terminator: Resistance- a decidedly solid game made by people who were clearly fans of the source material.

Toy Wolf actually did two more figures in the series. Stay tuned...😉

Ok, this one's not actually Transformers, but it's Transformers-adjacent, maybe. It's from a company called Toy Wolf. I've seen it listed as "Dirty Man," but the printed name is 汚大將, which translates to something more like "Dirty General" in Chinese or "Dirty Lieutenant" in a Japanese way that they don't actually use in the JSDF... the figure's made in China and Toy Wolf seems to be Chinese, but there's other Japanese writing on the instructions, so... I dunno. I'm going with the Chinese Wu Dajiang. So... yeah. Like I said, not a Transformer, but he does give me some serious Bayverse vibes, what with his squat proportions, three-fingered hands, little not-quite-digitigrade-but-not-normal legs, and (although you can't see in this picture) four eyes. Specifically, he kind of reminds me of the first film, when the bit of Allspark starts turning random appliances in Sam's house into Transformers. Of course, he's not simply one of the metal alien bugs from the Bayverse. Our little Dirty General has a distinct samurai vibe going, with a head and face modeled after a samurai helmet and mask, details on his arms akin to a samurai's armor, and a kamon emblem on his belly. Heck, I'd say that the large panels between his torso and arms are even a bit reminiscent of a surcoat. The Dirty General comes with a few accessories... first up, we have a pair of katana. While every samurai would have one, it might have been nice of the other was a shorter wakizashi as the long/short pair was the standard during the Edo period. There's a red tengu nose, and a pair of sashimono banners with the same kamon as his belly... and yeah, his clan emblem is a poo. Which is why he also comes with an oddly gunmetal poo, a roll of toilet paper, and a plunger. The Dirty General's head is on a hinged ball joint. He can look up a little, down a fair bit, and swivel his head to look sideways a bit less than 90 degrees... less than we're used to, I suppose, but perfectly adequate. His jaw is hinged so he can open his mouth. His shoulders are on ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. He's got a dedicated bicep swivel and single elbow hinges that still bend 180 degrees. His wrists are ball joints that swivel and give him some up/down/in/out wiggle. No waist swivel. His hips are, you guessed it, ball joints that bend a little short of 90 degrees forward/backward/laterally. Unfortunately, what swivel they have on the balls is all the thigh swivel we get. They bend slightly a hinge where the black meets the white on his thighs, but most of his knee joint is actually on the back of his leg, and it can bend slightly forward and almost 180 degrees backward. His ankles are ball joints which allows them to swivel, tilt up or down, and and pivot. His fingers aren't articulated, they're molded into an open 5mm port. This means he holds his swords simply by plugging them into his hands. It also means his accessories are compatible with actual Transformers that use 5mm pegs for their accessories. The sashimono banners are properly pegged onto his back using the top two holes on his backpack. A third hole allows you to also store the toilet paper, and the hole in the toilet paper's "roll" can in turn be used to store the plunger. Sadly, there's no way for him to wear his katana on his hips, or even to properly store them at all (you can kind of slide them into the gap between his back and backpack). The sashimono have 5mm pegs pointed down as well as inward, so he could carry them in his hands, if you like. He can also hold the plunger by it's handle, or the toilet paper roll by the same peg you use to plug it into his back. The plunger itself has a 5mm port in the cup, so you could plug a sword or the toilet paper onto it, too. I think I'm inclined to display mine with katana and the plunger in place of a wakizashi. I may give his other katana to a figure like Titans Return Windblade. As for the rest of his accessories, you can pull the part of his mask with his upper jaw and nose off (see the four eyes now?). Then the tengu nose simply plugs in its place and... yeah, I can see what they're going for. But the nose can't stay on for transformation, so frankly I'm inclined to leave it in the box or a drawer and keep the regular mask. Lastly, there's the poop. It's a bit of an odd accessory... there's a small rim around the bottom and a hole on the bottom. But the rim is too large for it to fit on the plunger, and the hole is too large to fit on a 5mm peg. At first I didn't see much of a way for him to interact with it at all, but then I realized the rim is just the right size to allow you to plug the poop on top of his head. Well, let's get to the elephant in the room... the Dirty General's alt mode is a toilet. Even if you hadn't heard of this thing, I'm thinking by now you had to have seen this coming. Specifically, judging by the differently-sized molded and silver-painted buttons on top, he's a one-piece, dual-flush commode. Oh, and I'm just guessing, but I doubt that this was the company's first product... maybe just the first under the Toy Wolf banner, but whoever designed this toy clearly has experience as the transformation is smooth and effective, going from a solid robot to a solid toilet. One of the sashimono has small pegs on it, and the other has corresponding holes that allow them to be stuck together, then flipped over to reveal a nice tile floor that the toilet attaches to. The toilet paper, meanwhile, can stay plugged into the same spot as his robot mode, now on top of the tank. The poo doesn't have any place to attach to, per se, but the lid does open and you can drop it into the bowl. And if we spin it around and take a look at the back, well... ok, it's a bit messy and you probably don't want to do that. But I'll note that the General's arms leave a gap between them, and his katana can actually be stored in between them due to their slightly off-set blades by plugging the handles into the ports where the sashimono go in robot mode. The only things you can't store in this mode, then are the tengu nose, which I wasn't going to use anyway, and the plunger, which is is probably my biggest disappointment with the alt mode. Then again, if I'm only going to use one katana I guess there's nothing stopping me from plugging the plunger into the space for the other... I'm sure you probably saw that the Dirty General is a bit shorter than a Deluxe car. Yeah... turns out he's just the right size to turn into a toilet that's about the right scale to use with most popular 6" action figures (like the Star Wars Black collection, Marvel Legends, the Ghostbusters Plasma series, or in my case, the Green Ranger from the Power Rangers Lightning collection). Although, while the lid does open, there's no seat over the bowl. If you only collect transforming toys, though, you might have a harder time getting one to sit. Most Voyagers (and larger) are simply too big, and their hips don't bend enough to do more than hover. Deluxes are a little too small; Sideswipe here sat, but his feet don't touch the ground. And even that assumes you're using a figure with minimal backpack, as the bowl's not very wide. Of course, just because a Transfomer can't sit, doesn't mean you can't still find other poses that do work... OK, so what can I really say about this one? I mean, it's a ridiculous samurai goblin that turns into a toilet... I mean, where does that even go in one's collection? Who actually needs this? And yeah, that's probably why I ignored this thing when it originally came out three years ago with a price tag over $100. On the other hand, he's a ridiculous samurai goblin that turns into a toilet, and I love him for that. And at the current sale price over at Show.Z Store under $55, well, suddenly I'm the guy that needs this. So, I guess it really boils down to this... just look at the thing. Do you see something crass that has no business in your collection? Then it's not for you. But if you see something charmingly amusing, or amusingly charming, and you can find a place in your heart and shelf for this little guy, then I'm going to definitely recommend it. Because ultimately it's a very well-made, solidly built, appropriately detailed toy with a simple, fun transformation that happens to turn into crapper.

Probably. The new Voyager had more paint apps and red feet that make it more cartoon accurate overall, though. And it eschews the streamlining the T30 toy did and goes back to the original "just leave the arms dangling under the wings" thing, which again is technically more accurate. Plus it'll be bigger and have ankles. That's enough of an improvement to get my money.

A long time ago I had an opportunity to pick up either Fans Toys Hydra or DX9's Hanzo for around the same price, and I ultimately chose neither Really, I think my MP collection is fine with just Season 1-3 characters; I prefer the Japanese fiction to Season 4 or the Marvel comics, but also have no particular attachment to it. I just didn't need an MP Sixshot. It seems there was a recent reissue, or DX9 found a bunch in a warehouse, because I recently found him at Show.Z Store for a mere $80 (because, let's be honest, $80 in 2022 just isn't that much anymore). So how is Hanzo in an MP collection today? Out of the box, my initial impression is that he looks pretty good. I know some people prefer a greener color, like the Titans Return toy/Sunbow animation/G1 toy, and Hanzo was available in that color, but I do prefer this Headmasters-esque teal. I have to really start digging into all three sources (G1 toy, "The Rebirth", and The Headmasters) to start picking things apart. So where do things start breaking down? He's got some painted details on his knees that's pretty G1 toy, as is the the sculpt on his chest. The chest wings have some gunmetal paint that I'd assume recalls the G1 toy's stickers, but only the foil background and none of the details. Fine, I suppose, since neither the US nor Japanese animation had any color but black. There are the black cylinders on the corners of his chest, that's a toy detail that was simply omitted in Japanese animation and made white for some reason by Sunbow. His crotch has some details added that aren't really the cockpit details of the G1 toy nor the plain white void of either animation, but no, I'd say things really start breaking down when we get to his legs. He's got some small white cockpit kibble on the outside of his legs were the G1 toy and both animation models had some larger black and white kibble, and a large part of the front of his shins is black instead of purple. And then there's the wheels... like the G1 toy and the animation models, Hanzo has wheels on his shoulders and forearms, but the ones on his forearms are fake, necessitating another set of wheels on his legs that no other Sixshot has. Out of the box they're flat along the sides of his legs, but per the instructions you can rotate the whole armature around and then fold the wheels back over his calves. While that makes them less obvious from the front in robot mode, the tradeoff is that they stick pretty far behind his legs, farther even than his heel spurs. Hanzo comes with a number of accessories. We get a pair of chromed rifles that are somewhat similar to the ones that came with the G1 toy. Then, leaning into The Headmasters' fiction depicting him as part of a ninja clan, we get two chrome swords, two black kunai, and two black shuriken. Oh, and I suppose his fake wheels are accessories, too. Hanzo's head seems to be on a ball joint, with some upward range but very limited downward or sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate on ratchets. Due to his large shoulder bits with the wheels, best I can get his shoulders outward is about 60 degrees. A more frustrating issues is that in addition to that hinge there's another pair of them, one a tight ratchet and the other simply friction, that shift his arms up and down for his various alt modes. The hinge closest to his body is friction, and it's pretty loose, causing his arms to droop at his sides. His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows, both friction, that get you just about 180 degrees of bend. His wrists swivel. His fingers are individually articulated, with a ball joint at the base of the thumb and one hinged knuckle, then hinges at the base and two knuckles on each finger. His waist swivels, sadly there's no ab crunch. His hips go 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, and a little short of that backward, all on ratchets. His thighs swivel, and then there's a second swivel below the knee that's more for transformation. His knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. His feet can tilt down, his toes can tilt up, and he's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Ready for more disappointment? He holds his accessories very poorly. The rifle's have little slots on the handles that fit onto tabs on his palms, but they're not the best fit and just closing his fingers around the handle is likely to pop them out. It's worse for the swords and kunai, as they lack even poorly-toleranced slots for his palm tabs, so it's only the friction in his fingers holding them. At least he has storage for his weapons. There's pegs on each hip that can mate with the butt of either rifle, a hole near the base of the blades on his swords, or a hole in the pommels of his kunai. There are also pegs on the fronts and sides of his shins, although they're more for alt mode, and pegs on the outsides of his forearms. The ones on his forearms are needed for the faux tires. The tires do not attach directly, though; first, you have to put the shuriken inside each tire with a small peg, then the other side of the shuriken has the larger peg hole for the pegs on his arms. Sixshot has a lot of alt modes, so we're going to have to fly through them. First up, his car mode. If you follow DX9's instructions, the wings are pointed backward compared to G1/Sunbow/Headmasters/Titans Return, and the only way to make the rear wheels touch the ground is turn the green part so it's sloping down, then fold the wheel back out. There's also the fact that the cab is black instead of purple, and a kibbly roof with his robot feet dangling off the back. I think the basic silhouette is there, but it's not one of his more accurate modes. There's pegs on the sides of the cab and one (but only one) of his wings. Ostensibly there are holes in the tips of the wings, and the rifle handles fold in to reveal a peg. Problem 1: the hinge that folds the handle in is way too tight. Problem 2: the holes in the wings aren't actually big enough for the pegs on the rifles. Oh, there's the pegs for the faux wheels, too. If you leave them in place Sixshot has too many wheels, but what else are you going to do with them? Jet mode. At first I was thinking that Hanzo's jet mode looks kind of stumpy, but then I realized it's from just two issues. First, instead of having his arms hang straight out the back like engine nacelles Hanzo's arms curl around and meet behind the jet. Maybe DX9 thought that'd give the jet a more streamlined appearance? It's just wrong, though. The other issue is that the wheels on his legs don't really have anywhere to go, so they're just laying on the top... right about where his cockpit crotch should be. So instead of a cockpit crotch he's got a cockpit made from leg kibble right where the purple meets the black. Straighten his arms, loose the wheels on top, and move the cockpit back and this would probably be his most-accurate mode. To copy the G1 look, the guns again need to peg into the wings, but again, they don't really fit. There's a few other pegs you can use to store his accessories, though. Next up we have his wolf mode. I've heard a lot of praise for Hanzo's wolf mode. The front half is indeed quite nice- good likeness on the head, which can look down a little and open its jaws. Accurate colors, with some added silver on the claws. It's the back half that's the problem. For starters, there's the rear legs. A lot of people like them, because they better resemble a wolf's legs than the bent-the-wrong-way-at-the-knee robot legs that the G1 toy/cartoons/TR toy has... but that's just the thing. By being more wolf-like, they're less Sixshot-accurate. There's also the fact that the jet nose, which should be alongside his legs, are folded onto his butt, and the wheels they added to his robot legs are stuck, again, on his back. What's more, the engineering involved in unfurling the wolf legs from the inside of his robot legs is responsible for some of the issues he has in other modes- that's his wolf legs draped across the roof of the car, for example. (I'd say the bulk of his other issues are folding his jet nose into his legs instead of alongside, to make room for a fake cockpit instead of just using his crotch, because they added wheels to his legs and made the ones on his arms fake). I'm not exactly sure what the ideal weapon placement his for wolf mode. While you can omit the tires on his arms/forelegs if you wish I like leaving them there- it's G1 accurate. There are pegs on his robot hip skirts and the front of his wolf hips, too, and one on the inside of one of his wings, too. Hanzo's tank mode gets a lot of flack for two reasons. First, there's those blasted wheels on his legs again. With nowhere better to go they're just left along side the turret. Two, there's no cockpit for the tank. This one seems fairly egregious; I don't see why DX9 couldn't have molded something onto that plain black flap on his back. There's only one mode I can think of where it might possibly interfere, and even then it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. I might also point out that while the barrels that fold out of his toes and make up his heel spurs are accurate enough it might have been nice if his toes also folded up to give the turret a sleeker look. Those gripes aside, though, it's a pretty accurate tank mode. There's not much in the way of accessory storage in tank mode. You do have the pegs on his arms, and there are the ones on his car-cab-shins. I like to put the guns on those ones, I think that's the most G1-accurate choice. Finally, we have his submarine mode... Just kidding. G1 gun style, baby! To be fair, this was always Sixshot's most-questionable alt mode, as it was pretty much always Sixshot lying down in bot mode with his arms turned and his wings folded down to make a handle. The tank barrels do poke out, and all of that is pretty G1-accurate. Going purely by the instructions, Hanzo's forearms and bent inward and clipped to his shoulders, as they are for jet mode, instead of sticking straight out the back. It's not accurate, sure, but I don't mind it (and there's really nothing stopping you from straightening them). While I wish his rifles had some way to plug into his feet between the tank barrels, which I believe was the official G1 transformation, they can plug into the sides of his legs (as in tank mode) which, if I recall correctly, was how The Headmasters was animated, so I won't even call it wrong. It's just those stupid leg wheels again, and the fact that the toes on his feet can't fold away. Oh, and I suppose the lack of a trigger, but to my knowledge only the G1 toy had that. I don't think accessory storage was a priority in this mode, but you can pull it off if you're creative enough, as his shins and robot hip skirts have available pegs and the faux wheels can stay on his forearms. To be honest, though, I think the best storage for the swords and kunai is back in the box. G1 Sixshot didn't have them, Titans Returns Sixshot doesn't have them, and Hanzo doesn't need them. Meanwhile, while he can't hold them so great, his rifles are meant to integrate with his alt modes, and that was true going back to the G1 toy. So where do we stand with Hanzo, then? Well, I'm glad I didn't pay more for him. There's no diecast, and there's not a lot of paint on him. Not that I think paint and diecast are the be-all, end-all the way some collectors do, but when you couple that loose hinges in his shoulders and wolf paws, tolerance issues plugging his guns into his wings, more tolerance issues plugging his guns in his hands, and a lack of any ability to plug his other accessories into his hands and Hanzo definitely isn't striking me as a "premium" sort of figure. Then I find myself lamenting DX9's design decisions, like the less-accurate, more-realistic wolf legs, the faux wheels on his forearms, and the addition of actual wheels on his legs to make up for the ones on his arms being fake. Indeed, Hanzo's kind of doing something I didn't expect, and he's making me wish I would have bought Hydra when I had the chance. Of course, the ridiculous aftermarket on Hydra (one of the reasons why I'm not keen on Fans Toys in the first place) isn't going to keep Hydra well away from my shelf, and then we circle back to why I did ultimately buy Hanzo- price. If you don't already have Hydra and you decide you want an MP Sixshot you can either buy an imperfect but still good-looking Hanzo for a low price that feels fair enough, or you can dump $300 plus chasing Hydra on the aftermarket. Put that way, I think Hydra might be better, I wish I'd bought Hydra earlier, but I'm definitely not buying him now and I'm not sorry I bought Hanzo now. I guess I'll call that a recommend, but with a big ol' asterisk.

Ratchet's going to be one of those thinks like Shockwave, where I don't plan on buying one but wind up seeing him in the store and thinking "why not?". I'm in for Starscream and Inferno, but definitely looking forward to Starscream more. I didn't collect at the time Armada came out, and when I did see the show I thought it was terrible, but I actually do like a lot of the designs in it, some of them were the best of the Unicron Trilogy. Looking forward to replacing the old Generations Deluxe. I find it amusing, actually, that both versions of that mold are getting replaced since we're getting Jhiaxus, too (as soon as this Friday, maybe, according to Amazon- hope the rest of wave 2 starts shipping early!).

The fandom: how about a Studio Series 86 Ratchet, since the Siege Retool wasn't the greatest and kind of hard to get? Hasbro's Monkey Paw: Granted- but Core class.