mikeszekely

I dunno, I kind of think the Moon Studios version looks better. I'll say that Takara is making better-looking trains, but it seems to be at the expense of their robot and combined modes, which I really don't think is the right approach for a combiner. Doesn't matter much to me, I don't have any real attachment to Raiden and I couldn't tell you the names of the individual guys aside from Shouki, so I don't think I'm in for either.

38,500 yen works out to around $300 US, but I see BBTS is already taking preorders at $269. Considering how expensive stuff like MP-44 was that's surprisingly reasonable.

I'm in pretty much the same boat. Phoenix is on a display behind my desk, and I keep swiveling to alternate my gaze between the photo of MP Skyfire and Phoenix. I guess options are good, and I'll watch to see how Skyfire shakes out, but I don't think I need this.

Supposedly he'll be in the regular retail wave 4 for Legacy.

Still available to preorder from Pulse. I meant to post about it earlier, but I was trying to order mine with spotty cell reception at the Pittsburgh Zoo this afternoon.

To be totally fair, as a concept I don't hate it, and if it were the alt mode for another Transformer, say, Nautica, I might dig it. I just don't see it as dumpy old Seaspray. To me, it's akin to making a red and white F-16 and calling deciding it's Powerglide. Just doesn't work for me.

Way back in 2014 I bought my first two unlicensed, third-party figures. One of those figures was ToyWorld's Hegemon, an alternative to Classics Megatron with a more G1-inspired appearance. I even posted about it here, although the more uniform structure of my later reviews was still a ways off. A few years ago, after dealing with some frustrating distribution issues that had a lot of the Thrilling 30 figures just never turning up in stores, a dissatisfaction in the quality of the Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes lines (that partially caused me to skip a lot of Titans Return, only to later discover that Titans Return was pretty decent), and a sense that 3P was moving toward MP and I was never going to have the collection I wanted from CHUG-style stuff I swore off the mainline and sold a lot of the 3P stuff that I had that actually did work, like my iGear Vannettes, iGear Raptor Squadron, my Reformatted DJD, and, yes, Hegemon and started collecting MP-style figures. In the years since I bought Hegemon ToyWorld had a fallout with their designers, who split off and became Zeta Toys. While Zeta made a name for themselves by releasing both a Bruticus and a Superion at the MP-scale, they also quietly began reissuing figures they'd designed for ToyWorld under their own Zeta EX label. Interestingly, the Zeta EX stuff is coinciding with another shift in my collecting habits. Hasbro launched the greatly-improved (for the most part) War for Cybertron lines while the unlicensed 3Ps began focusing more on Legends-scale stuff. Suddenly my dream CHUG-style collection seemed like a very distinct possibility even as I found myself less than thrilled at watching X-Transbots and Fans Toys duke it out for the last few gaps in my MP collection. War for Cybertron did give us a new, G1 Megatron, at least in robot mode. Two, actually, with Siege representing a more Cybertronian alt mode and Earthrise representing his Earth alt mode. Except, of course, those alt modes were both tanks. In some ways, the tank alt mode just makes more sense; it's powerful, doesn't require mass shifting, and doesn't require a minion to wield him. It's the alt mode that was pushed in the G1-ish Devastation game, the sort of G1, sort of Prime War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron games, and the G1-adjacent evergreen Cyberverse. But as much as Hasbro wants to retcon it, it really isn't G1 Megatron's alt mode. And on a whim, I found myself looking through the Zeta EX line for their reissue of Hegemon, and I came away with the awesomely-named McTron. McTron seems bigger than I remember. He's a full head taller than Siege/Kingdom Megatron and taller even than Classic Megatron. Kingdom Megatron technically scales more correctly with other mainline figures since Siege, but if you don't mind Megatron being a bit taller than Prime and you did mind Megatron being shorter than Galvatron than McTron will be a good fit for you. McTron isn't a straight re-release of Hegemon (even if the inside of his chest compartment still says "ToyWorld 2012 TW-01"). There's actually a few deco changes. For one, all of the translucent plastic on Hegemon has been replaced with a (hopefully sturdier) solid red. For two, all of the gray swirly plastic used for the head, torso, arms, thighs, and feet are painted silver on McTron. For three, small details that were painted red on Hegemon's feet, crotch, and chest are not painted on McTron. Likewise, the gunmetal paint on Hegemon's lats and shins is not present on McTron. However, the little rectangles and circle molded onto the abs that weren't painted on Hegemon finally are on McTron. Finally, I'm not totally sure on this one, but I think McTron might have a slightly re-sculpted face, as it seems like the mouth looks more natural, but I could be mistaken. While Zeta might have released McTron in more recent times, the figure is still largely a ten year old design now, and it shows as you turn him around. He's not worse than the old shellforming wings and trigger on the back of Classics Megatron, but his trigger and butt flaps are definitely a bit more kibbly than the backpack on Earthrise Megatron. The gun barrel doesn't look particularly integrated, either, but at least it's G1-accurate. McTron's solid red plastic means that the light piping on the original Hegemon isn't present, but the entire back of his head is still red. Fortunately it should be a trivial matter to remove his head and repaint the back of it myself. If it really bothers you the gun barrel and trigger can be removed, as they just fit on to 5mm pegs on his back. I guess, if you're going to get into partsforming on this guy, you can technically pop his butt flaps off, too, as they're just on ball joints. Speaking of removing stuff, although is fusion cannon is designed to stay on throughout his transformation it is, in fact, removable. The rest of his accessories are consistent with the original release of Hegemon*- a sword, a mace, a stock, and a silencer. *ToyWorld actually reissued Hegemon themselves in 2014, and that's the version I'd bought the first time. It still came with the mace, but it lost the sword, stock, and silencer and replaced it with an alternate black helmet, yellow-eyed head based on the old Marvel comics. McTron doesn't have the alternate head. The sword is actually made from four separate pieces: a translucent purple blade and Kylo Ren-style crossguard pieces meant to look like they're made of energon, and a solid black hilt. As for the mace, there's a chain connecting the ball to the rest of it, but if you line it up right you can slip the chain down into the ball and then plug the ball onto the tip. One other "accessory" I guess I have to mention is the orange safety plug. I remember it came pre-installed in Hegemon's barrel when I bought it. Curiously, it seems Zeta included it because it came with Hegemon, but it wasn't actually installed on McTron out of the box. Instead, it was stuff in it's own little slot in the foam insert. As with some of his kibble, McTron's articulation shows his true age. His head can swivel, and he can look up a bit on his transformation hinge but not so much down. His shoulders rotate on ratchets. Rather than moving his entire shoulder, flaps on the side move out of the way so a joint inside can move his arms a bit under 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel. His elbows again fall a bit short of 90 degrees, and they're ratcheted. All of that arm articulation can be a bit hindered on his right arm due to his fusion cannon and large shoulder getting caught up on each other. His waist doesn't swivel at his actual waist, that is, not where the silver meets the black. Due to his transformation, though, he has a limited swivel under his chest, and another (ratcheted?) swivel between his waist and crotch. His hips can move forward and backward 90 degrees on ratchets. They move laterally 90 degrees, too, but here's the weird thing. His right leg his ratcheted, but his left is friction on my copy. I don't know if that's just a quirk of the design, or if maybe some underpaid factory worker forgot to put in a spring or something at the factory. His thigh swivel just below the mid thigh, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. His ankles are hinged ball joints, with gives them a slight upward tilt, plenty of downward tilt, and limited swivel. They also give him an ankle pivot, but due to the cutout of the ball socket it's pretty limited. You can keep his feet flat in a slight A-stance, but not so much in more dynamic, wider poses. The ball joints are themselves fine, but the transformation hinges at the base a little loose on my copy, so he has a tendency to want to lean. His fusion cannon is attached to his arm first by a 5mm peg that plugs into a hole on the back of his arm, then with a pair of slots that grab onto two tabs on the outside of his forearm. Alternatively, he can wield his sword by sliding the handle into his 5mm port hand. The mace works pretty much the same way, with a 5mm peg that slides into his hand. The difference is that the peg is recessed inside a box that wraps around his hand. Not much else you can do with the mace, but you'll note that there are 5mm pegs on the sword's hilt. There's a peg hole on the trigger that's on his back, and you can use it to store the sword there. It sits a bit lower than you'd expect a sword to be worn on a back, but it works. A better place to stow it might be on the stock, though. Much like the G1 toy, you can combine the stock, silencer, and scope/fusion cannon to form a larger gun emplacement for McTron. Thing is, there's a ton of peg holes on the stock, so you can take the sword apart and store it here; I have the blade and crossguard parts plugged in facing forward, and although you can't really see it the hilt is on the back side. When almost every version of Megatron for the last 38 years has been a tank/space jet/space car/helicopter/T-Rex/dragon I have to give the old Classics Megatron major kudos for having a gun mode. The reality , though, is that to avoid running afoul of regulation in the US (and probably other countries) the purple, white, and orange gun with tranlucent green accents resembled a Nerf gun more than the G1 Walther pistol. Subsequent CHUG Megatrons went back to tanks, like Earthrise Megatron here, the overly-large Combiner Wars Leader-class, and one of the Titans Return Blitzwing premold's. Hegemon was an attempt at a more G1-accurate gun mode, and to date it and McTron are still the most G1 Walther-esque option for a Megatron at this scale. The transformation is mostly obvious and designed so that the fusion cannon/scope, barrel, and trigger do not need to be removed or partsformed. However, there are some clearance issues when it comes to moving his right arm on a swing bar under his chest but around his abdomen, including the hinges for the kibble, that can be a bit frustrating. I usually wind up pulling the trigger off just to get it out of the way. That isn't to say that Hegemon/McTron is totally accurate, mind you. The robot-mode proportions have the slide a bit short, and there's no P38 mark (although he does have the molded vents and a moving safety. Under the slide is McTron's very visible abdomen, and a trigger you can click with the guard marred on one side by a hinge and by being unnecessarily hollow on the other. But mostly, the worst bit is the grip, which is abandoned the shape and texture of the original for something chonkier so that the robot would have better proportions. The grip is further blemished by a gray hinge made of unpaintable plastic and red spots left from the red plastic in the backs of his legs. Perhaps I'll remove them and paint them black. The chunky proportions of the grip are much less noticeable when you install the stock and silencer accessories. Once again, the stock is a bit weird. I don't know why ToyWorld/Zeta didn't try to make it work more like the original G1 toy What you have here plugs into the bottom of the grip instead of clipping on the back. That's ultimately fine, as it still protrudes out from the back. Instead of being of the back being vertically oriented, though, the instructions indicate it should be flattened horizontally, as shown. There are hinges that you can use to move to try to get another look; I've seen some people rotate it and curl it around their forearm, or fold them backward at an angle. The only way to arrange them vertically, though, will leave each side offset from the other. Even with the issues with the stock, just having it and the silencer makes McTron feel more cartoon-accurate than than even some MP attempts like MP-05, DX9's Mightron, and Maketoys' Despotron, which didn't have them. Or, for that matter, my old Hegemon. And, yeah, it kind of makes a difference. Without those bits the gun mode feels kind of dinky, to the point that the Classics Nerf gun mode feels cooler to hold. With the silencer and stock, though, I had a much stronger desire to point McTron at objects around the room and go "pew pew!' at them. What's more, I don't know if it's Zeta using better manufacturing than ToyWorld originally did or the extra layer of paint, but the gun mode feels more solid all around. The panels that make the upper part of the grip especially seem to fit more snuggly and, with one small exception on the back of the grip, don't flop open on me. To be clear, when I first wrote about Hegemon nearly eight years ago I was even then a bit cool on the figure. I'd gotten him in the same shipment as Unique Toys' Mania King, which was a much more impressive figure to me. In 2022 McTron is really showing his age with limited articulation and some awkward kibble. Siege or Earthrise Megatron are probably a bit easier to transform and pose. But, I think the sculpt and proportions on McTron are still pretty good, and McTron retails for around half the price Hegemon originally did, which is an even better deal when you also factor in a decade of inflation. Flaws on a Hegemon that cost $80 more than Classics Megatron are a lot more easily forgiven on a McTron that costs a mere $20 more than Kingdom Megatron. With all that in mind, if you're into the Megatron-is-a-tank retcon then Siege or Kingdom Megatron are arguably better toys that fit better with your War for Cybertron/Legacy figures. However, if you want a Megatron for that collection that turns into gun because that's how it was in the cartoon, then McTron is still worth picking up today. Considering the paint and accessories and a price around $50 I really feel like you'll get your money's worth.

That would have made such a better movie!

So... I have a pretty high tolerance for bad movies. I mean, I was entertained by stuff like Dragon Ball. So, when I heard that Morbius was bad I thought, "It's ok, it's a movie about a relatively obscure comic book character. Not a ton of people are going to like it, but I'll probably still dig it." Nope. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's kind of poorly explained. Like, if Morbius and Milo have a blood disease caused by a missing gene, and Morbius has the technology to splice vampire bat DNA into human cells... wouldn't it make a lot more sense to use the same technology to splice the missing human gene into their DNA? And, OK, so Morbius added some bat DNA to his genome. So he gets bat powers, sure. Echolocation, fangs, claws, sure, heck, I'll even allow super strength. But I didn't realize bats are flying around with smoke trailing behind them all the time, or that their pupils turn into Spirographs whenever they use their echolocation. But hey, like I said, I knew this movie was bad, and I've got a high tolerance for bad. I'll allow all of it "so the movie can happen," as Ryan George's writer might say. No, the real problem isn't a questionable power set and dubious origin story. The real problem is that, for a movie about a vampire anti-hero, it's so boring! There's a ton of setup before Morbius gets his powers, a few scenes of Morbius exploring his powers, tons of exposition and character dialog after, a few quick scenes with the villain killing someone, but only maybe two action scenes in the entire movie. And, ok, not every movie, or even every comic book movie, needs to be action. Sure. If the story did something clever, explored some philosophical idea, or brought something novel to the table then there'd be at least some redeeming feature to mention, but no. This has got to be one of the most-predictable films I've seen in years. Like, I'm not even super worried about typing any spoilers here because you'll know who the villain is, how the villain gets his powers, and what Morbius will have to do to win maybe ten minutes into the movie. Don't waste your time.

Costume looks pretty good.

Like, I know it's going to be bad. But I kind of want to watch it too see how bad.

So, you guys know that Winnie the Pooh entered public domain this year, yeah? That means that, while you can't make content based on Disney's red-shirted version, pretty much anything else even loosely based on A.A. Milne's original characters is fair game. And somewhere, someone sat down and said, "now that Pooh is public domain the time is ripe to do a horror version." And so Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey will apparently be out sometime this year. 😕

Studio Series Galvatron, Sideways, DotM Bumblebee, Thundercracker, and SS86 Arcee are available to preorder on Pulse.

I know Iron Factory does more stylized designs, and I'm not necessarily against that... but I just can't get over that alt mode.

They addressed it in like the first 10 minutes. The high pitched voices we're all more familiar with were their stage voices, and Mulaney and Samberg are their "real" voices. I honestly thought that part was hilarious. Then again, I'm a fan of Samberg and Schaffer's brand of humor going back to the early Lonely Island & SNL days.

I watched this tonight with my daughter, and we both loved it. Her, because it was a cute cartoon movie. Me, because I grew up on the Disney Afternoon and between the callbacks and cameos it there was a second layer to it for people like me. Probably because the movie was made by people like me in the first place. This wasn't yet another beloved childhood IP rebooted, this was more like a love letter to the original.

Hope so. The Walmart beasts were.

Accidentally posted this in the wrong TF thread, so I'll post again here. Good news! The Scourge we all knew was coming from Laser Optimus is real! Bad news. He's part of that Walmart-exclusive Velocitron collection that's giving us Override. Worse news. They kind of F-ed up his colors, with a lot of unnecessary translucent pink parts. Almost all the black on his torso- around his windows, his lats, half his shoulders, and his crotch- should be gray. The grill, which they painted silver here, is what should actually be black. The teal "=" on his knees doesn't quite match the pattern his knees are supposed to have, and there's no teal on his pelvis where it should be. There's gray panels in his forearms where he didn't need them, and there should be no red/pink showing in bot mode except his eyes. It's wrong on his chest windows, but really ugly on his shoulder pylons. Truck mode is a bit better. Looks like used a nice silver metallic paint on the trailer, bumper, and grill, and the translucent pink for the truck windows and lights is actually correct here. My one complaint would be that the teal patterns on the cab aren't correct. Oh, and for a clear picture of why this is wrong and what would look correct, here's a mockup I found on the TFW2005 boards. Gimme the one on the left, and I'll happily fork over the cash. I'm thinking I'll probably skip the one on the right, though. I mean, it's not Scourge, it's Laser Op in standard Nemesis Prime colors (yes, I know in Japan Scourge and every subsequent release of a Nemesis Prime is called Black Convoy, but still).

Good news! The Scourge we all knew was coming from Laser Optimus is real! Bad news. He's part of that Walmart-exclusive Velocitron collection that's giving us Override. Worse news. They kind of F-ed up his colors, with a lot of unnecessary translucent pink parts. Almost all the black on his torso- around his windows, his lats, half his shoulders, and his crotch- should be gray. The grill, which they painted silver here, is what should actually be black. The teal "=" on his knees doesn't quite match the pattern his knees are supposed to have, and there's no teal on his pelvis where it should be. There's gray panels in his forearms where he didn't need them, and there should be no red/pink showing in bot mode except his eyes. It's wrong on his chest windows, but really ugly on his shoulder pylons. Truck mode is a bit better. Looks like used a nice silver metallic paint on the trailer, bumper, and grill, and the translucent pink for the truck windows and lights is actually correct here. My one complaint would be that the teal patterns on the cab aren't correct. EDIT: Oops, wrong TF thread.

Yeah, I don't know about Ymir. The way Grimlock's forearm expands into the dino leg is pretty neat, and with the push toward more cartoon emphasis I can even make peace with the yellow and grays instead of gold and silver (chromed or metallic). But the sculpt itself just looks odd to me... too smooth, too rounded, and too thin. Even his gun is weirdly bulbous and smooth, and I'm definitely not liking how his sword is just a hilt with a flame effect, no blade. As with @M'Kyuun I'll wait and see what Magic Square has to offer. Or stick with the MFT OSKO of DX9's.

Still not officially announced, and still supposedly going to be a Walmart-exclusive, but we have a leaked look at Legacy Override. And, surprise, it's a brand-new mold.

Oh, ok. A storm knocked out my internet for most of the day and my spotty cell reception wasn't giving met the bandwidth to watch the trailer. Well, yet another Predator movie (and one where it looks like the the writers tried to up the stakes for the human protagonists by reducing their level of technology but really just makes me wonder where the sport is in using invisibility cloaks and lasers to hunt some people that only have a bow and arrows to fight back with) doesn't strike me as super interesting. But I have Hulu (and will continue to have Hulu as long as it remains my source for Archer and Letterkenny), so I might as well give it a shot if I'm bored. And I guess I can install the Prey reboot and play that in the meantime.

When it comes to ordering figures online I'm *slightly* more selective. I can look at a figure and say, no, I don't really need/want that one. But when I walk into a store and see a Transformer I don't have my brain wants that hit of dopamine, and that's how I walked out of my local Walmart with the three Walmart-exclusive Beast Wars repaints. First up, we have Buzzsaw. He's Waspinator from the neck down, just with his colors reshuffled so there's more yellow, less green, and the blacks and purples are shuffled around. He does have a new head, though, based on the unmasked, non-mutant head from the original Beast Wars Waspinator/Buzz Saw toy. None of the issues with Waspinator's mold have been fixed. There's still nothing keeping the beast head on his chest open, and the connection between his upper body and his pelvis is still too loose. In beast mode the only thing separating Buzzsaw and Waspinator is color. I think Buzzsaw is colored more like a typical yellow jacket, and probably looks more "realistic" to many of us (despite the green cuckoo wasp being a real thing). Honestly, I think that the biggest draw for me is that we never got a Siege G1-style Buzzsaw. Especially with Ravage already making a Beast Wars appearance, my head canon tells me that this Buzzsaw is the same one that hung out with Soundwave during G1. Sandstorm is a repaint of Scorponok. Like his wave mate Buzzsaw, he's sporting a new head, but this time it was Scorpnok who had the normal head and Sandstorm who got the head based on the mutant mask. And, just like Scorponok doesn't really resemble his original toy's colors, Sandstorm's are a bit off, too. Most of his body is a sandy tan color, where the original toy was more gray. His shoulders, claws, and lower legs are a bright orange instead of the original's golden brown, and the beast legs curled on his back are a bright purple instead of the much darker purple of the original. But, y'know, it's fine, I guess. I mean, purple legs and orange claws aside, a sandy brown color does sort of seem like the kind of color you'd find on a real scorpion. But yeah, it's mostly the same toy, so it's really up to you if you think you needed another of the mold (or potentially a third, since Scorponok himself will be getting a toy-colored repaint, just like Terrorsaur). Oh, and I do think it's a bit nuts that we've gotten two Sandstorm figures in the last two years, but not the G1 triplechanger. At the rate we're going Hasbro will give us a new Bruticus ala their new Menasor and we'll get a repainted Brawl as the Battle Gaia version of Sandstorm. Finally, we have Nightprowler. I'll be honest, I very nearly left this one on the shelf, as there are a number of reasons why Nightprowler is the least-interesting of the three. For one, unlike his wave mates, Nightprowler is strictly a repaint of Cheetor, as the retooled mutant head was already used for Shadow Panther. And, while Buzzsaw and Sandstorm are retools of Kingdom Scorponok and Waspinator, the idea to repaint those two came in the '90s and the newer figures are actually based on older figures that really existed. Nightprowler, on the other hand, is based on a Walmart-exclusive Universe early aughts repaint that never released. Oh, and Buzzsaw and Sandstorm are, so far, only the second use of those molds, but there are A LOT of cats already. Add in Netflix Cheetor and this is the fourth release of this mold. Count Ravage, Tigatron, and Golden Disk Tigatron who are closer to being new figures but still use a lot of the same engineering and I'm a bit catted out. It's not to say that there's nothing interesting about Nightprowler, though. I mean, Buzzsaw and Sandstorm are both Predacons, but Nightprowler is neither a Predacon nor a Maximal. Look at the symbol on his forehead, and you'll see he's actually an Autobot. And to be totally fair, I kind of dig the snow leopard colors on his beast mode. It gives him a touch of individuality. Really, of all the cats I think I'd suggest getting him over Shadow Panther, who's panther alt mode is already covered by the much more interesting Ravage (I also don't recommend getting two Cheetors, and I can safely say that I'd have never picked up the regular Kingdom version if I knew that the Netflix one was going to have the better blues). At the end of the day, none of these figures are really necessary, and as a geewunner I'm not in the best position to say how nostalgic a given repaint of Beast Wars characters are or aren't. To me, the most interesting thing about them is that there's nothing to indicate that they're Walmart-exclusives. They come in standard Legacy packaging... well, that's not quite true. Unlike the regular wave 1 Legacy figures, the packaging for these guys has one major change that I hope carries over to all future Legacy figures- the boxes are no longer open with the figures exposed. There's a plastic window on them. I'm all for Hasbro making their packages more environmentally-friendly, minimizing plastic in favor of cardboard and what not. But as long as the window is made from a recyclable plastic I'll happily tear it from the cardboard before tossing the whole mess into my recycle bin if it means my new toys won't be exposed to scratches, damage, or strangers poking them before I get them home.

Based on the games, I assume? I played but never finished the original one, and never bothered with the reboot. I've been interested in checking it out, though, since I found out it's from the same studio that made the Dishonored games.

The last Wrecker reveal is up, and it's the Diaclone Twin Twist that leaked earlier. Funnily enough, I was just messing some of my Titans Return figures, including the Jumpstarters. And, while I think it's not the worst of the reveals, I'm going to pass. The only figures that really interested me in the line were the toy-colored Springer and Leadfoot, but since I don't want any more Fossilizers I guess I'm just getting Springer. EDIT: And if you missed it, Maverick is getting a reissue. Preorders are going to be available at Walmart in late July.