mikeszekely

Today's been a pretty good day for me. I got a pristine G1 Menasor- no missing pieces, everything's in great shape, just missing the stickers for the cars. Then I went to Target to buy a birthday present for my friend's daughter and I finally, finally was able to find the last first-wave Legacy figure, Deluxe-class Kickback. *Sorry I cut off the top of his wings, but they're nearly as long as he is tall and I wanted you to see the figure itself a bit more clearly. Anyway... Kickback's a good mix of G1 cartoon and toy details. His red visor, nose and pouting mouth are cartoon details. He's actually got hands, and that's a cartoon thing. The Decepticon badge on the black part of his chest that wedges into the gold instead of on his right breast, that's a cartoon thing. But the silver forehead is G1 toy. The painted bit on his left breast, the yellow on his knees, and the red on his shins are all details borrowed from the G1 toy's stickers. I'd also argue that his proportions, especially his very broad shoulders, are more toy than cartoon. But you know what? I think that's fine. The translucent gold plastic with the silver details underneath look great. From this angle, I think it's pretty much what you'd want Kickback to look like. I do have some notes, though, as we spin him around. I do like that he's pretty clean when you look at his back; there have been how many 3P Kickbacks that seemed to struggle with what to do with his bug legs, but Hasbro seemed pretty content to stick with G1. That does leave him with some bug legs on the back so his arms, but nothing egregious. That said, I wish they'd painted his bicep black. I get why they didn't, and it's not pinned so I might pull it off, mask the insect leg part, and paint the rest. Because it'd be more accurate if they had. There's molded detail on the outside of his legs that copies the shapes from the G1 stickers, but they're left a cartoon black. I gotta say, though, I'm not a fan of the wings. I mean, the general shape is great but they replaced the more mechanical lines of the G1 toy with something more organic-looking. Then, instead of chrome, it's translucent. Kickback comes with three accessories. The one is a gun, cast in black plastic but painted silver with some purple accents. Purple accents aside, the sculpt is pretty similar to the G1 toy's. The other two accessories are a pair of purple-tinged clear plastic sword-ish weapons. Kickback's head is on a ball joint, with the ball inside the torso instead of his head. He can swivel and he's got some limited up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend far beyond 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, though. His waist swivels. His hips can go forward and backward 90 degrees and just slightly over that laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have a slight tilt down, plenty of tilt up (due to transformation), and 90 degrees of ankle pivot. His gun and his swords can plug into either fist. Additionally, he's got 5mm ports on his shoulders, the outside of his forearms, the outside of his lower legs, under his toes, and one on his back. The one on his back makes for some decent storage for his gun. The swords have 5mm pegs on the back sides, and the instructions suggest storing them on his shoulders. However, I think you could use the ports on his forearms to use them like arm blades, too. Like his robot mode, Kickback's alt mode is G1, almost to a fault. I mean, even the transformation is more or less the G1 toy's- the head turns 180 degrees, move the ears a little, bring the wings around, split the arms in half, fold in the feet, and pull out the rear legs. The only new elements are that there's a panel that folds up from his back to help hide his robot face, there's an extra ball joint on his rear bug ankles, and his robot fists fold in to bring out the insect foot. There's no attempt to give him a more insect-like abdomen, as was the case with the older Titans Return Legends-class. I've heard it suggested that it might have been nice of the robot legs collapsed over the thighs, and while I sympathize with the sentiment- his robot legs do seem pretty long- doing so would be neither cartoon nor toy-accurate. So, yeah, I think it works pretty well overall. I kind of wish they'd left his forehead black, as I think it'd look a little more cartoony that way, but I do appreciate that they hid the robot face. And, again, I wish they'd painted his the back half of his bicep black. The middle bug legs are a bit chonky due to being his whole robot forearm, but I think that's a small sacrifice. As far as accessories go, the 5mm ports on his shoulders and the outsides of his legs are still available, and the ones that were on his toes are now facing up. The one on his forearms are also available, but low to the ground in a way that might not be accommodating to larger accessories. The instructions suggest using the one on his back, now his bug belly, for his gun, and that does work pretty good. For the swords, though, there are actually tabs on them that fit into slots near the edges of his wings. And... well, it kind of looks stupid. The translucent weapons look kind of stupid, period. But he's got his G1 gun, which is all he really needed, so it's easy enough to toss the translucent bits into a drawer and forget about them. What ultimately bugs me the most (pun intended) are just a few minor changes they could have made that would have improved the overall experience, changes they might have had more budget for if they didn't include the translucent weapons. Mostly, it's in his arms. For one, I wish there was an additional hinge in his front bug leg. There's just the one under his shoulder, but he really should have had one at the elbow, too. For two, the halves of his biceps do not lock together in robot mode. Some kind of tab/slot to hold his arm together really would have been preferred. For that matter, while his fist/middle bug foot have points where they can't rotate any further to serve as stopping points for transformation, there's no "thoop", so to speak, that keeps them there. But the single most egregious thing? His chest DOES NOT OPEN. 0/10, childhood ruined. Seriously, think of all the plastic Hasbro could have saved making his chest hollow! And, ironically enough, the translucent piece does seem to be separate from the black part around it, and it's pinned at the bottom like it could have opened. But you can see where tabs from it fit into the left and right halves of his torso, sealing it forever in place. Gripes about his chest not opening aside, Kickback is a figure that succeeds at looking like G1 Kickback by more or less being G1 Kickback with better articulation and a bit more cartoon details. And, you know, that actually works extremely well, but the overall simplicity lacks any sort of "wow!" factor. It's delivering what you want with zero frills. So, yeah, I'd definitely recommend him, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Hasbro will do with Bombshell and Shrapnel, but I'm not exactly enthused over Kickback, either.

I'm not going to go out of my way to get him, but if he gets sold at Target like the last three I might pick him up. EDIT: And apparently the CAD files were leaked and Black Mamba is already working on a modified KO...

It's been so long since the first season that I think I need to re-watch it before watching the second season.

Sorry, I know we brought it up here a couple of times. The response to the crowdfund seemed to be a bit tepid, at least here at MW. I backed it, but I'm not sure how many others did. There were rumors that there was going to be a new G1 Titan Metroplex, but I'm thinking that someone found out that Hasbro was doing another Titan Metroplex and just assumed it was G1. Ironically, if they'd done a more G1-accurate Titan Metroplex with proper foot articulation, even if it was a bit shorter (say, around the same size as Omega Supreme or the Ark), and it came with a better Deluxe-sized Scamper, I probably would have forked over $200 for that. I'd like a do-over on Fortress Maximus, too, with a more-accurate G1 city mode. Speaking of city bots... I got some more repaints for you guys. First up, I'm late to the party on this one, but I grabbed Generations Selects Black Roritchi. Black Roritchi is a very slight remold of Earthrise Fasttrack. The gray on Fasttrack's body was swapped for gold, and the orange wheels and guns were swapped for purple. The black thighs, black paint apss on the arms, toes, and abdomen, and the blue chest windows are all carried over. While the gray on Fasttrack's body became gold on Black Roritchi, the gray dagger is black down, for some reason. Fun fact, the original G1 Fasttrack was basically entirely gray, save for the orange wheels and guns. Likewise, the G1 Black Roritchi wasn't black at all. He was made entirely of gold plastic with purple wheels and guns tacked on. The extra colors on these two is based on an episode of the Japanese Super God Masterforce anime, where an unnamed gold guy was leading a small army of gray ones referred to as Guardminders. The slight retooling I mentioned has to do with his head, More specifically, the back of it. The front's the same, but the back was entirely different molded detail that omits Fasttrack's little antenna. The antenna, uncolored on the G1 toys, were present on both the original Fasttrack and Black Roritchi, but again when you refer to Masterforce the gray Guardminders have antenna, but their gold leader doesn't. Transformation is identical, and once again you can plug the dagger into the back of his head to make a little seat for a Titan Master. And, once again, you can transform him into a spear for a Titan. Just a very crappy one. By now I'm sure you guys know I love these old minor G1 citybot pack-ins getting new life as Weaponizers in the WfC line. I'm sure I probably recommended Fasttrack, and I'll stand by that. And yet, despite the Powerdashers giving me a second version of Sixgun and Cog, and a third version of Brunt since I also have the Centurion drone, I didn't feel particularly compelled to pick up Black Roritchi. He didn't really seem essential. That is, not until I picked up... ...Black Zarak. Look, when we're talking about $20, $30, even $50 I don't really hesitate to pick up repaints for a lot of modern Transformers. Silverstreak was my 5th version of the Earthrise Datsun mold, and I didn't even think twice. A $180 repaint, though, is a tougher pill to swallow. Especially when I don't have a ton of room to keep adding more Titans! But here's the thing... Scorponok was a pretty good figure. And Black Zarak's colors are pretty swish. And, while the original was Japanese-exclusive and had no role in any American Transformers media that I'm aware, he was a major villain in Masterforce and Zone. So while I couldn't bring myself to shell out $180, I could bring myself to grab one when Dorkside Toys ran a sale on Transformers. And, yeah, from the neck down, it's Scorponok in different colors. He's got a very new head, though... which was pretty much how the G1 toy went. I'll note that Scorponok had kind of weird proportions (although not as weird as the G1 toy), but for some reason the wonky proportions seem much more noticeable with the new head. Black Zarak has more or less the same accessories as Scorponok. You get a Titan Master, the thin, too-tiny shield, two double-barreled shoulder cannons (where the G1 toy had four), and the similarly-thin panels for the outsides of his legs. Once again, you don't get his rifle, either. But you do get a six new pieces that combine to form Black Zarak's signature spear. That's something new, eh? Likely to save money, one side of the spear is a bit hollowed out, but it kind of works in Black Zarak's favor. See, while there are some pegs on the shaft, there's no ports to plug it into in Black Zarak's hands. His hands do have ridges, though, and they kind of fit into the hollows enough that the tension of his fingers generally lets him hold the spear without too much trouble. I will say that they missed a big opportunity, though. See, one of my complaints about this mold going back to Scorponok is that there isn't a weapon for his Deluxe-sized head robot to wield. You'll notice that the shaft parts of the spear have pegs, and the pointy bits just have peg holes. If that arrangement had been reversed, so the pointy bits had pegs that plugged into holes on the shaft, you could have used some of those pointy bits to make a sword for a Deluxe-sized figure, similar to the way that the tip of the Master Sword included with the Japanese release of Fortress Maximus became a smaller sword for Fortress/Cerebros. The fully-built spear is much larger and more cartoon-accurate than making one out of Fasttrack or Black Roritchi. While I'm comparing, I'll also note that the brown mustard-colored gold use on Black Zarak is not a match for the gold plastic used on Black Roritchi. Oh well. The Titan Master is very nearly the same as the one that comes with Scorponok, just in different colors. However, the face was remolded slightly to include an eyepatch in head mode. Aside from giving him a bit of a more distinct appearance, this is a reference to Black Zarak's appearance in Zone, where the Demon General sports an eyepatch. Most of the head robot is, again, repainted from Scorponok's. The differences are mostly on the panels on the outside of his arms, legs, and back that make up the larger form's head, although Black Zarak does have some new battle damage on his chest. It looks pretty cool, with some red-painted mechanical details inside the X-shaped scar. This time, I'm not sure what the reference is, though. I don't feel like watching Masterforce or tracking down a copy of Zone, but I did leaf through the manga, and I didn't notice anything that this might be referring to. The remolded panels are more noticeable from the sides and back. I like that Black Zarak doesn't have Scorponok's butt flap, but that's a trade off in head mode. Another major difference comes down to the "ears". Black Zarak's are removeable, like Scorponok's. However, they don't have the little tabs, and his backpack doesn't have any little slots, so you can't partsform them onto his back like you can with Scorponok's. You're kind of stuck leaving them on his arms. Transformation is largely the same. I mentioned that Black Zarak doesn't have Scorponok's butt flap, so the top of Black Zarak's head has a visible crotch and thigh gap that Scorponok doesn't. Transformation is slightly more of a pain on Black Zarak, though, for two reasons. One, there's a small gold flap between his brow and the bottom of the red "helmet." It needs to fold down and out for transformation; you can see it on his back between his shoulders in the robot-mode picture. There is almost no way to get that flap out without some kind of tool like a spudger. Second, like Scorponok there are little panels that rotate 90 degrees on the arms. On Black Zarak they like to pop off. This is because they're the same parts as on Scorponok, but installed on the opposite arms, so instead of moving naturally into place turning them too straight causes molded details to push off against the outer panel. My first thought, given their reversal, was that it was an assembly error. However, the new outer panels that make up the new outside of Black Zarak's head don't actually allow them to be installed on the other arms. City mode. Nothing really unusual going on, it's pretty G1 accurate minus the towers made up from the gun they didn't give him, and the fact that the flaps on the ground in front of his legs should be gold. Well, and the oft-omitted stuff like little claws and antennas. You can store the new spear by splitting it in half, then swapping the top and bottom to the opposite halves. Then pegs on the sides plug into his claws. Scorpion mode, too, is as good as it ever was. I'll note that, just as Scorponok was missing some orange on top of his back due to how the legs transform on this mold vs the G1 mold, Black Zarak is missing red in the same spot. He's also missing some gold and silver on his tail. While I don't think that gold paint will match the plastic it's relatively easy to pull the last two sections of the tail off if you want to paint them yourself (I plan on painting at least the silver tip). Another thing worth noting is that, unlike Scorponok, you don't turn the head around for this mode. This time the scorpion's "eyes" are on Black Zarak's forehead. What you want to do instead is to get that little flap I was talking about and fold it out to cover over most of his face. Now, you know that purple collar piece on Scorponok? Black Zarak has one, too, in black. However, because his head doesn't need to turn the instructions tell you that you don't actually need it and can remove it. Indeed, I've heard that leaving it on can lead to scratches on the red paint on the back of his head, although I haven't noticed that on my copy yet. Once again, storage for the spear was considered. As with the city mode you'll need to split the spear in half. This time, the bottom point stays on the bottom half, but the top of the spear will be removed entirely. The halves of the shaft use pegs to fit into screw holes, more or less, on Black Zarak's robo-thighs. The top of the spear plugs into a 5mm port on the tip of his tail, which looks cool enough. However, the friction in the tail joint isn't really adequate and the weight of the spear causes it to droop. Like Black Roritchi, Black Zarak is hardly necessary and the price tag will likely put many collectors off of the Japanese-exclusive repaint character. As I noted, though, Earthrise Scorponok was a pretty good toy, and if you think you'd like a repaint with cooler colors and a better head then you'll probably enjoy Black Zarak. My only real regret is that I know I'm going to wind up buying a DNA upgrade kit for him that'll cost me as much as the figure itself.

It's a new figure. The big thing, pun intended, is that this new version is a Titan-class, and much larger than the original. I think the original was around 13" tall, and the press release for the new version says 22". Here's some side-by-sides I made with the images released today and the ones of the original on TFU.info. Tall robot mode Short robot mode Vehicle mode I'm not sure what kind of articulation the original had, but you can see that the new version looks to have lateral shoulder movement, lateral hip movement, ankle pivots, ankle swivels, wrist swivels, a waist swivel, and maybe an ab crunch. Knowing how picky Geewunners like me can be about colors and stuff, I can see that the new version is very much not the original but bigger and with better articulation. Some stuff that was white or black on the original is blue now, the proportions in the bigger robot mode are better and less lanky, and the transformation to the shorter robot mode looks different. For that matter, the transformation to alt mode looks different, too, with the forearms turned in against the legs instead of turned back (although, I imagine you could just turn the biceps 180 degrees). Now, I didn't watch Cybertron/Galaxy Force, and I wasn't really collecting the toys at the time, so my opinion doesn't count for much... but I think the new version looks better all around. But, as @M'Kyuun and @JB0 have suggested, they weren't exactly working from the best base. It might just be me, but I think the fandom would have been more on board with a non-G1 Titan if they'd gone with someone like Tidal Wave. I mean, I didn't care for Armada (I did, at least, watch it) but I loved the PS2 game and the boss fight with Tidal Wave was one of the best parts. As it stands, I know that Titans have traditionally been low-volume, high-cost, low-margin figures for Hasbro. I get why they've had to increase prices, what with everything going up since the pandemic, but increasing the price then releasing what seems to be the least-appealing Titan release so far seems like a questionable move. Anyway, I stand by what I said earlier. I am absolutely not spending $200 on this guy. If I can find him later at a discount, at least 40-50% off, I might check him out just because I'm curious. Maybe it'll inspire me to finally check out Cybertron.

If Galaxy Force/Cybertron was your jam and you're excited for this I'm happy for you. It'd be selfish of me to only expect G1 Titans. But no way I'm spending $200 on it. Maybe if it winds up on closeout at Ross/Burlington/TJ Maxx/Marshalls...

No, it's entirely my bad. It's what I get for reading the boards at 2:00 in the morning.

For some reason when I saw this thread I thought it was about a new season of the anime. When I realized it's not I was disappointed. Then I realized the new season is already out. Then I felt better After that I realized that this is possibly set in the same universe as Shin Godzilla. Now I'm back to disappointed that I have to wait another month for Shin Ultraman. What a rollercoaster five minutes...

Are you sure you're not remembering Spider-Man 2 as better than it really was? In anticipation of this one I re-watched all the previous Spidey films on Blu-ray. I gotta say, I loved Spider-Man 2 when I saw it in the theater but I thought it was terrible on a re-watch. Like, worse than Spider-Man 3.

I read everything you wrote, if it helps. And I agree with 99% of it. I just don't care about the Robosen stuff enough to have a strong opinion there. And I'm in for SG Magnus, but I'll be putting the Delta head on him and he's going to be my Diaclone Delta Magnus. It's worth it for me for the smaller cab robot alone; I know it's kind of crappy, but it's not often we get the blue Optimus. I'm kind of hoping they do a Shining Magnus, too, just so I can get the yellow one. BTW, regarding the shin highlights... yeah, the MP Delta Magnus gave him yellow. However, it was red on the original Diaclone toy, and most 3P versions went with red. It's actually SG Magnus that's right and the MP that's wrong. Anyway, quick addendum to my Laser Prime review. Doesn't really affect my ultimate opinion (it's one of my favorite Legacy figs so far, but it definitely has some flaws that allowed Dragstrip to overtake him), but I thought I'd point them out anyway. One thing that initially bugged me was that the trailer didn't have the feet that the Earthrise box trailer does. I even grabbed my non-modified Nemesis Prime trailer to make sure the feet weren't something I added on myself, and no, they're there. Turns out that Laser Prime's trailer isn't doomed to tip over, though. There's a cutout on the bottom of the trailer that allows the claw arm to fold out without opening the trailer up. It's not real-world truck-accurate, but it'll do in a pinch. Second, you know how Prime's trailer seemed a little bland, lacking a lot of the weapons and gimmicks of the original G2 trailer? There are plenty of 5mm ports inside, though, and if you've collected some Weaponizers you can have plenty of fun with them. I used the three Gen Selects Powerdashers to get the trailer armed up this much, with just a little car and drill tank left over. (If you didn't get the Powerdashers, you can try this with Sixgun, Cog, and Guardian Drone/Brunt, or you can try making your own configuration.)

I'm honestly not sure what they are and aren't allowed to do there, given that a. Hasbro designed and made the toy, b. based on their IP, and c. due to issues with distribution around store-exclusives Hasbro has started holding 20% of the stock on them to sell through Pulse. It might have been the case that Hasbro couldn't sell the exact same toy, but maybe they could have re-cast the gray parts in white for the Sunbow crowd and reasonably passed it off as a new deco. It's not like there was a licensing issue, like with Volkswagen and Netflix Bumblebee. At the very least, nothing was stopping them from designing a new one that isn't a Siege retool, even if that new one was a Blaster retool. As long as it turned into a tape deck. Any way you slice it I really think re-releasing the Siege toy had to be the worst possible option.

Awhile back right before Blaster hit some Hasbro guys were saying that they were hearing from the fandom that they wanted a Soundwave to go with him. And now they give us another copy of the Siege toy... that's some real monkey's paw BS.

Blaster came out in his regular colors in Kingdom and the first wave of Legacy. Twincast is rumored to be in the fourth wave. SG Blaster will be part of Hasbro's Pulse-exclusive SG line, same as Magnus.

I preordered everything but Soundwave at Pulse- the dirt-covered Siege version was already superseded by the Netflix one that actually turns into a tape deck. I preordered everything but Blitzwing* at Amazon, too... I used to just preorder with Amazon, but the last time I did that Pulse got everything first plus they canceled one of my preorders. I figure I'll just cancel whichever comes last... or both, if they start showing up at Targets before either start shipping again. *I have no idea why I can't find a listing for Blitzwing on Amazon. Dorkside Toys is having a sale on in-stock Transformers. Titans are too expensive to buy the Gen Selects repaints, but I wound up getting Black Zarak for $136.

The Fan First thing is up. I sat through a reveal of a trailer for Robosen Prime, news about the Forged to Fight game, and news about the comics. Finally we're getting to the toy reveals! Wave 2 of Legacy. Preorders go up at 1:00. Deluxes Wildrider. I'm hoping that just because they tried to make it look like his backpacked transformed that you don't actually have to transform it. Pictures are posted here. Prime Knockout. Partial retool of Studio Series Jazz. Alt mode is evocative of the Prime cartoon, bot mode is a little chunky. Comes with a spear, like he did in Prime, but it splits into a rifle and dagger. Tarantulas. No comments from me, I need more time to digest this one as I'm not totally up on Beast Wars. Elita-1. I mean, I was good with the Arcee retool, but now she's got her own body and and he own alt mode. Voyager Jhiaxus. Unlike previous toys, where he was a retool of some existing figure, this one looks designed first to look like the Marvel G2 comics, what with the the yellow and white body and the bat wings on his legs. Might not be for everyone, but it makes me want better toys for other prominent comic-only characters like Straxus and Emirate Xaaron. Soundwave. It's the stupid Siege toy, not even the Netflix one. There's no weathering this time. They're going on about how clean he is, and how "this is the one you want to display with Blaster." No, no it's not. Leader Blitzwing. Nothing really to say that I haven't already, bot and tank looks good, jet less good, I just needed a sword and rifle but he's got the sword, two rifles, and those stupid Hulk hands. Pictures already in this post. Commander Yep, Motormaster, who leaked just before the show. Robot height is the same as Earthrise Optimus. They do show off the Menasor mode, and I dig that the arm part of the trailer actually has a tab mechanism that splits the car as part of the transformation. They didn't show a size comparison for Menasor, but it doesn't look particularly huge, similar to Combiner Wars or Jetfire maybe. You can look at the post right before this one for robot, truck, and base. But I thought I'd add these to show how the legs and arms connect. Pulse-exclusive Shattered Glass is continuing. First up will be Ultra Magnus, based on the Earthrise mode. The interesting thing here is that Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus is basically Delta Magnus with an evil head, so Hasbro is including both heads. He comes with the same rifle, but "new" Energon weapons (basically Laser Prime's weapons and Matrix, but in red). Pics coming later.

Motormaster. Not too bad. Considering what it turns into, the trailer seems smallish. He has a base mode. Hard to see from the packaging, but yes, Motormaster himself is the cab. The trailer turns into a base, and, as expected, Most of Menasor's body. What's interesting is that it looks like the lower legs detach. Maybe the arms do, too.

Got a quick Repaint Roundup to finish off the first wave of Legacy (at least until I find Kickback), before the Fan First stuff starts tomorrow. First up we have Buzzworthy Silverstreak (who, despite the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee packaging, does have Legacy logos), which I've put on your right for some reason. He's got the Prowl/Bluestreak head, but he's actually sporting the Barricade/Smokescreen body. Same accessories as both. Not the end of the world, but I'd have preferred he better matched Bluestreak. Speaking of, I never had Bluestreak as a kid, and while he was in the cartoon sporting his Earthrise colors, he wasn't as featured as Prowl. Meanwhile, the catalogs that came with the toys that I did have as a kid had the blue Diaclone version. Plus, despite the actual Bluestreak toy being almost entirely silver with some red and black robot bits, the blue version was used on the box art. And the character's name was BLUEStreak! So for years my memory of the character was actually of the blue toy that was never actually sold as Bluestreak. This memory was so strong that I nearly grabbed the MP version, but $80 is a bit harder to swallow for a Diaclone repaint than $20. Anyway, Silverstreak mostly does it for me. I wish the blue was a little lighter, and that he maybe had some of the green and red sticker details (Toyhax?). His hands should be blue, too. But my biggest complaint is that his legs, abdomen, and biceps are white. Silverstreak wasn't a cartoon character where, like Prime or Soundwave, you could color him white because "it's cartoon accurate" even when you know that white is supposed to be silver. This is a Diaclone toy-only deco, and those parts should definitely be silver. Alt mode, nothing really to report. The rims could have used some paint, and again I wish the nose of the car used the Prowl/Bluestreak mold, but it is what it is. I'm going to go ahead and recommend Silverstreak, just because blue Bluestreak is such a part of the Transformers zeitgeist and this is a relatively inexpensive way to have him in your collection. From Pulse we have Gen Selects Legacy DK-2 Guard. The DK-2 is a reference to "Diakron DK-2", the Diaclone toy that would be later recolored in red to become the Ironhide we know and love. It's Earthrise Ironhide, with no mold changes. I find it amusing that the this is the fourth time the Earth-mode van has been released, and not a single time at regular retail. Anyway, given how different the Diaclone/G1 toys were from Ironhide's animation model it might not be totally fair to be be picky about the colors, but I'm going to anyway. His hands and biceps should totally have been red, and I'd have liked to see some of the toy's sticker details on his thighs. It's also dumb that Ironhide had a gray hinge on his chest for the window, and now Guard has a red one. Why couldn't the red have been on Ironhide? Then I wouldn't have to paint it. And I'm guessing I'll wind up painting Guard, too. Guard comes with the same accessories as Ironhide, just with a black roof instead of red and some extra silver paint on the gun. The Siege feet are the worst thing about this mold, but the Nonnef feet I used on Ironide, Ratchet, and SG Ratchet were already available in black (I guess in case you wanted them for the Deseeus drone). I ordered up a set as soon as I had my preorder for Guard in. So when you see the alt mode here, I've already got the Nonnef feet installed. That addresses one huge complaint about the alt mode. I dig the silver bumper and I wish that Ironhide and Ratchet had silver, too. While I'm admiring the silver, I'd also say that I wish they'd painted the rims. I'm not surprised they didn't; the silver on my Ironhide was painted myself, and I'll do so again with Guard. Or maybe I'll do red... Guard's not a Vandura, the stripe's different, and there's no gray, but the striped black van is giving me A-Team vibes. His black shoulders blend on the sides better than Ironhide's. The stripes along the side are a little short, but otherwise Diaclone-accurate. Gotta do something about that Rudolf-red panel on the nose, though. All-in-all, I think Guard's less interesting than Silverstreak, but I'm down for all these Diaclone repaints. Finally, we have Legacy Core-class Skywarp. Skywarp is a repaint of Kingdom Core-class Starscream, just in Skywarp colors. He winds up with the same color issues that Starscream has; no colored details on the shins, and his pelvis is the same colors as his legs. At least the silver on his chest doesn't go all the way to his pelvis; I didn't bother trying to fix Starscream because I'm not confident I could find an off-white paint that matches, but with the black gap already there it'll be a simple matter to paint Skywarp's pelvis. Color aside, the big difference between Starscream and Skywarp is that Skywarp is missing his null rays. Instead, Hasbro saw fit to give him... a slingshot? There's a small peg on the the side, too, if you'd rather he held it like some kind of a gun-claw. Chinese groups have already started releasing 3D-printed null rays for him, but with a lot of the cost being built-in shipping fees I'm not going to bother, as they're likely to cost more than the actual figure. Maybe Nonnef or JRC Designs will do some. Alt mode's pretty much what you'd expect- Starscream in black and purple. His slingshot/claw can be mounted on the underside of his nose. Believe it or not, there's a reason for Skywarp (and Iguanus') goofy accessories. And it actually goes back to Kingdom Core-class Hot Rod (which probably should have been in Legacy... Hot Rod is released concurrently with these guys, has a shared gimmick with these guys, and features heavily on Legacy artwork, but he comes in Kingdom packaging). Basically, you plug Hot Rod's sword into one end of Iguanus' weapon, then plug the handle of Skywarp's slingshot into the other. The artwork makes it look like the the tines on the slingshot should sit 90 degrees off from the red bits on Iguanus' weapon, but the peg on Skywarp's slingshot is actually a bit too long, forcing the slingshot to be off-centered. Skywarp's slingshot has a small peg on a 5mm peg between the tines. The small handle makes the combined sword usable by the Core-class figures, while the larger peg allows it to be wielded by larger figures, like Deluxe Arcee here. And... it's a stupid gimmick. I mean, really stupid. If they wanted to give Hot Rod a sword, like the Sword of Primus that was in ReGeneration One and they gave to the Commander-class Rodimus Prime, ok. Sure. But I'd have rather they gave Iguanus a G1-style gun and Skywarp his null rays than these goofy weapons that look ridiculous on their own and somehow worse combined. As for Skywarp himself, Starscream was one of the better Core-class figures, so if you liked him you'll like Skywarp (and I wouldn't mind if they did Thundercracker, too). But, remember that Hasbro's reasoning for releasing Voyager-class characters like Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Starscream, and Hot Rod in the Core-class in the first place is to have smaller representations of those characters to pose with your Titans and make them look bigger. But here's the thing, we have Dr Wu doing unlicensed Micromaster-sized Transformers for the same reason. They're smaller (Dr Wu's Prime is around half the height of the Core-class toy), and therefore make the Titans seem even bigger still. Plus, while I don't have any Dr. Wu Seekers yet, I'd argue that Dr Wu's Prime was actually better than the Core-class toy. The paint on Dr Wu's Seekers looks more accurate, plus Dr. Wu is definitely doing all three while you have to wait and see if Hasbro ever does a Core-class Thundercracker, and all of Dr. Wu's have null rays. So honestly, I couldn't really recommend Core-class Skywarp. I think if you want a Skywarp in this scale because you have a Legends collection you'll be happier with something like NewAge's, and if you want a small Skywarp as a Titan accessory you're better off with Dr. Wu.

Hey, remember I said there's a Fan First event tomorrow at 11:00 ET? And, remember I said we'd probably see Wave 2 of Legacy? I got some of the marketing images that usually start going up after the event. First up, we have Blitzwing, which isn't really a surprise at all as images have been leaking for awhile. Nothing really we haven't seen already. The bot looks good, I think the tank looks good (I know people are complaining about the cockpit sticking out, but that's cartoon accurate), and the jet... well, it's looking a bit rough. I mean, it looks like a cartoon-accurate jet perched on a bunch of extra tank kibble, like they couldn't figure out what to do with the treads. These pictures don't show his sword, but expect that he will have it, in addition to two rifles (when one would be enough) and some Hulk Hands (that nobody asked for, but hey, they gotta hit that Leader budget somehow). More interesting for most of you will be Wildrider. Wildrider's bot mode is a lot like Blitzwing's jet mode... 80% of what you see is cartoon-accurate, but there's a lot more kibble than I expected. That backpack is messy, and frankly it's kind of embarrassing to see when they've had three 3P MP versions and one Legends version to copy off of, and none of them had backpacks like that. The car, though, is looking about as much like a Ferrari as you're going to get without giving Ferrari money, and looks very good to my eye. And since the car is basically the combined mode, and the combined mode is the mode a lot of people are going to care the most about, so I guess I'll hold off criticizing the backpack too much for now (but I really hope they do better by Breakdown, since he's my favorite Stunticon). I'm taking note of where the peg holes visible on his robot mode are, and where they'll likely end up in alt mode. Doesn't look like they'll line up with Dragstrip's, so scrambling the limbs is looking doubtful- looks like Dragstrip is destined to be an arm, and Wildrider is destined to be a leg (I'm ok with that). The holes on his abdomen suggest that, like DX9 or XTB, the legs will plug onto Menasor's calf. It's cartoon accurate, I suppose, but a system like Fans Toys showed for their OX configuration where they attach to the front of the legs, roof in, with clips that wrap around the rear and nose of the car would have been cool. I wonder if they might try a thing like Magic Square did, where the lower legs can rotate so the cars on the shins, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Did you miss out on Golden Disc Terrorsaur? You might not be totally out of luck. Care of Youtuber Chefatron, we have what appears to be a Gen Selects Terrorsaur in his original toy colors. Maybe not ideal for people who want cartoon accuracy, but it's better than nothing, right? And I know I buy up all the toy-style and Diaclone redecos of G1 stuff, I have to assume that there are a generation of fans a little younger than me who might be into toy-colored Beast Wars figures...

Legacy aren't just Deluxe, Voyager, and Leader classes. While there's no Commander or Titan-class figures yet, we have gotten some Core-class figures, starting with this guy: Iguanus. It's always interesting when Hasbro decides to do a new version of a Pretender. I mean, while the idea that a Transformer would, in keeping with the whole "robots in disguise" thing, take one a human form could make for some interesting fiction the execution back in 1988 left much to be desired. For one, the outer shells were chunky affairs with poor articulation- something we'd maybe accepted in a toy robot that had to turn into a car, but G.I. Joes were humans and they had articulation, so not a ton of appeal here. For two, only the Autobots (and, for some reason, Stranglehold) were human. How is a purple lizard man a disguise? But the thing is, for the Decepticons at least the monstrous Pretender shells were far more visually interesting than the simple, generic robots inside. If I say "Bludgeon" you might recall that he turned into a tank, but you're thinking of the skull-faced samurai in orange armor, not the brown and green dude inside. So when Hasbro did Thunderwing for Generations in 2010 and Bludgeon in 2009 for (of all things) Revenge of the Fallen, they kind of ditched the robot in a disguise gimmick. Bludgeon was a tank that turned into a skull-faced samurai. Thunderwing was designed to look like his Pretender shell and to turn into jet that looked like the shell's alt mode, with a non-transformable drone that looked like the inner robot's alt mode. When next we saw some Pretenders, they turned up in Power of the Primes as "decoys" for Prime Masters. These were probably worse in execution than the original Pretenders, as you had what were basically Titan Masters from the previous line, except instead of turning into interchangeable heads they turned into blocks with designs, stuffed into tiny shells that looked like G1 Pretender shells and had about the same amount of articulation. Iguanus is a return to the Bludgeon/Thunderwing model, albeit on a smaller scale. This lizard man is his robot mode; there's no inner robot. And I dig it! The look of him is very close to his G1 Pretender shell, but with more dynamic proportions and slightly less organic shapes. The only thing I'd really criticize is that they painted his forearms black but not his shoulders, otherwise his colors are spot on. OK, also his tail is purple instead of off-white. But really, the main difference, visually, is that Legacy Iguanus has larger backpack instead of the fins the original toy had. Which, I think, is fine. I don't need him to look exactly like a shell designed to hold the real toy. Iguanus comes with this lone accessory. It's... I guess some kind of weird gun. I don't hate it, but I'd have preferred something close to his G1 gun. Legacy Iguanus has far more articulation than his G1 counterpart. I think his head is on a ball joint; it swivels, and it has the slightest bit of up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and give him about 90 degrees of lateral movement. His elbows are ball joints, bending 90 degrees and doubling as his bicep swivels. No wrist articulation. He does have a waist swivel, though. His hips are ball joints. Due to the shape of his hip armor they can go forward about 90 degrees, backward 45 degrees, and about 75 degrees laterally, but that lateral range is only if his hips aren't moved forward/backward. Moving the hips forward or backward will cause his hips to collide with his waist, limiting him to more like 30 degrees of lateral movement. HIs knees are ball joints, good for a little over 90 degrees of bend and doubling as thigh swivels. And his ankles are also ball joints, which allows them to tilt up slightly, down a good bit, pivot nearly 90 degrees, and even swivel. Iguanus can hold his hand using the smaller peg in either fist. The 5mm peg on the other side can be used to store the weapon on his back. Iguanus' more boring inner robot turned into a futuristic motorcycle. Legacy skips the inner robot and goes straight from lizard man into a motorcycle. The engineering isn't too complex, and you can see how he scales with another Core-class vehicle as well as the only other motorcycle in the Legacy line (so far). So, it's not the best-looking bike in the world. He's got visible hands and feet, and there's weird gaps visible between his legs and tail and the armature with the rear wheel. Honestly, though, a mostly-purple bike with reddish-pink wheels and a white windshield is closer to the G1 toy than you'd think. And, in some ways, the narrower profile of Legacy Iguanus' bike mode is actually an improvement. The G1 toy had his arms sticking off the back, his face visible under the seat, and his legs running along the sides and dragging behind the bike. It wouldn't look like a motorcycle at all if it weren't for a partsforming chunk that had both the wheels on it. Iguanus doesn't have a kick stand, but his wheels are thick enough that if you're careful you can balance him so he's standing. The wheels do roll. His weapon can mount over the windshield via the 5mm port. I have some mixed feelings about this guy. On the one hand, I think a Deluxe of this guy would have been better than reconciling the notion that Iguanus (and maybe other Pretenders) are much smaller than most other Transformers. On the other hand, when guys like Gears, Windcharger, Brawn, Cosmos, Seaspray, and Powerglide could use the same Deluxe treatment that Bumblebee and Huffer got I do see where the Core class is a better solution for riskier, G1-but-not-cartoon characters, and I'm kind of glad to have him at all. But still, why Iguanus? Iguanus was never released in Japan, so why not start with Bomb-Burst, Skullgrin, or Submarauder, who were released as Blood, Dauros, and Gilmer in Japan and featured heavily in early episodes of the Masterforce anime? Whatever their reasoning, I really do enjoy this figure. I like the approach of skipping the inner robot, and I'd love to see Hasbro do more Pretenders like this... at least for Decepticons. For the human Autobot Pretenders maybe it's better if they did just update the inner robots. Oh, and while I'll accept Core-class for most of the Pretenders I think I would prefer more popular guys like Bludgeon and Thunderwing to be Voyager or larger, but I digress. The point is Iguanus is a pretty cool update on a character from one of the worst of the G1 Transformer lines (only Action Masters and Micromasters are worse, IMHO). If you're only into the characters from the cartoon you're not missing anything by skipping him, but for what he is I'd recommend him.

Yes... and no. Like I said in my Dragstrip review, I don't think partsforming is an absolute necessity- MMC's Bruticus was fantastic, and their Defensor looks just as good or better. But I also know Hasbro's working with a lot tighter restraints that are going to affect the level of engineering they can stuff into a Commander-class toy. So, yes, like you I'd rather the limbs of future combiners be formed from the individual robots instead of having them be stick-on bits to a nearly-complete robot, especially when other combiner teams don't have a neat little trailer to transform into their gestalt frame. But, it doesn't really bother me if they use partsforming for the hands, feet, head, chest shield, or even "pants" like ToyWorld's Constructor, and I don't mind if those parts are packaged with a Voyager-sized figure and sold as a Commander. At this point, I just really want good-looking robots with good-looking alt modes that turn into a gestalt that doesn't have the goofy proportions and difficulty supporting it's own weight that this thing does-

G1 Motormaster, be it toy or cartoon, didn't actually have smokestacks. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather he did, but their absence is accurate. It's hard to tell from just box art and one photo of the truck at a weird angle, but that's a heck of a lot closer than Combiner Wars. I'm pretty excited! Looking at the art a little more carefully, and knowing that Hasbro is going to make the cars "legally distinct" enough to not pay anyone for licensing, I think it's probably Wildrider with Dragstrip on the bottom left, and Breakdown on the road above Motormaster.

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It's doubly frustrating because, unlike a lot of previous Target exclusives, they don't seem to be selling Cliffjumper online. But you can pop your ZIP code into Brickseek and see if another store in your area might have one.

Well, I went back to my local Target today to buy Easter candy that I forgot to get. I saw a Silverstreak on the shelf... figures, after Pulse finally shipped one. One Blaster in Legacy packaging, and a TON of Bulkheads... but not a single Deluxe to be found. This was the case last time I was there; either they sold out incredibly fast (they had to have moved the remaining Kingdom stuff and put out the Legacy stuff between Wednesday afternoon when I was there and Saturday afternoon when I stopped again to pick up a prescription), or there's a case of Deluxes in a stock room they haven't put out yet. Either way, no Kickback for me. Even as I scour my local stores for Legacy figures, though, I have to point out that Kingdom is technically still wrapping up. I haven't seen him in stores, but Amazon just sent me Kingdom Core-class Hot Rod. Since it's introduction, Hasbro's been impressing me with the Core-class. Sure, they're not on par with similarly-sized figures from Magic Square or NewAge, but given the realities of Hasbro's price-point-focused, mass produced, US child safety regulated business Rattrap and Vertebreak were solid enough, it was interesting to see how much of the Earthrise aesthetic went into Core Optimus, and Megatron and Starscream were surprisingly intricate for the their small size. Hot Rod, though, is a giant step backward. His small, rounded thighs and flat, tapered chest remind me more of Titans Return Hot Rod than the Studio Series toy. And he's missing a ton of color. This stems from the fact that, aside from the black wheels, he's entirely molded in reddish plastic, so all that you see that isn't red is paint. And they didn't even do a good job! They knew Hot Rod's thighs should be orange, so they painted the molded panel on the front and left the bulk of his thigh red. Hot Rod has an orange chest? They painted the whole chest orange, when they probably should have left the outer edge with his headlights red. Is Hot Rod supposed to be toy or toon here? The red shins with the molded chevrons suggests toy, but they didn't paint the inner part of the shins or the chevrons on them. His feet are red, too, when they really should be black. His hands are missing the orange, and his shoulders don't have any molded chevrons, just the indentations. Which are left unpainted. If it's cartoon Hot Rod, then orange near his wrists, gray on his shoulders and hands, and his shins could be black along with his feet. It wouldn't affect his alt mode. A quick peak at his sides and back. Aside from molding a general Hot Rod-ish shape to his shins they really didnt' do anything to get his legs looking very Hot Rod-esque... which I kind of don't mind. The pipes and wheels on the side just remind me of the G1 toy. His back's kind of devoid of detail, especially because his wings are actually sandwiched between him and his back instead of on his back. There is the 5mm port there, so you can pull his wings off and plug them into his back, but the thing is there's a small peg on the front of the wings and a small hole in his torso, so leaving the spoiler sandwiched inside him kind of holds his back together. Although Hasbro has stated that the intention of releasing larger characters like Optimus and Megatron in the Core-class is so that you can pose them with Titans and make the Titans seem bigger, I could suggest another use for Core-class Hot Rod. You see, the original G1 Star Convoy came with a Micromaster Hot Rod as an accessory. This is something that neither the Gen Selects Star Convoy or MMC's unofficial Star Convoy came with. While I'm sure better 3P Hot Rods exist (and I may even pick up a potential Magic Square or NewAge one in the future), for $10 I see Core-class Hot Rod as less a decent Transformer on his own and more like an accessory pack for Star Convoy. Unless you count the fact that his spoiler comes off, Hot Rod's sole accessory is a sword. Kind of like Rodimus' sword, but not colored the same. Funny, Rodimus gets a sword for like two issues in an obscure IDW continuation of the old Marvel G1 comics and now swords are Hot Rod/Rodimus' thing, I guess. Like Hot Rod himself, the sword is made from red plastic with blue paint on the blade. I think Hot Rod's head is on a swivel; if it's a ball joint, it's cut in such a way as to allow for not even the slightest tilt. His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and, if his arm is raised 90 degrees, has a pretty good butterfly joint, but his lateral range is borderline nonexistent. His elbows are ball joints, giving him 90 degrees of bend and doubling as a bicep swivel. His hips are ball joints that'll get you 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His knees are ball joints, acting as his thigh swivels and bending just under 90 degrees. He's got no wrist, waist, foot, or ankle articulation. Although Hot Rod's sword has a 5mm peg for a handle, the pommel is a smaller peg. This is good, because Hot Rod himself doesn't have 5mm pegs for hands, so he holds his sword by plugging just the pommel into his hand. The same small peg exists on his wings, as I mentioned earlier. You can have him hold his wings like a crossbow, then, and his sword can actually plug into the 5mm port on the bottom of his wings. Hot Rod's transformation is, at least, different. It starts off kind of normal; his arms tuck into his sides, and his back folds down with the spoiler instead of spinning 180 degrees like the G1 toy. But instead of his legs collapsing they bend out and back at the knees. His calves unfurl and tab together to form the roof and the hood. Aside from the lump in the middle of his spoiler, the fact that the pipes on the sides don't pass the rear tires and go all the way to the back of the car, and is generally lacking in details, Core-class Hot Rod's alt mode does a pretty good job replicating the G1 toy. It's narrower than the Studio Series toy, taller in the back and tapering toward the nose like the G1 toy, with the the rear widening a bit and the pipes bending out to follow. Again, though, it's really the missing details that spoil it. The headlights are molded on, but they're not painted orange. And although they took the time to paint the hood orange and to add the yellow flames, they didn't put an Autobot insignia on it. I mean, even the Micromaster that came with Star Convoy has the Autobot insignia! Then again, the Micromaster doesn't have any silver on the engine or pipes, so... While sticking the handle of the sword into the 5mm port on the front of Hot Rod's spoiler is still an option in alt mode, there's another alternative. The small peg that allows Hot Rod to hold his wing as a weapon, or helps hold his backpack together, fits into a corresponding hole on the sword. This allows you to stack the sword on top of the spoiler instead of sticking it into the front. I should also point out that if you move the spoiler from it's usual spot to the peg hole on his back in robot mode that you can plug the sword in like this while he's in robot mode, allowing him to carry it on his back. Y'know, it's kind of a shame... Legacy comes in firing on all cylinders (I mean, while I think Arcee is the worst of the line so far, my complaints are mostly related to how generic they made her and I think the mold itself will be better appreciated when they do the repaint). And at the same time, Kingdom is going out on an absolute dud. Due to the way most of them have been scaled-down larger bots just for displaying with Titans they're already kind of a hard sell. The thing that's kept me buying them anyway is that they've been pretty solid on their own merits, and that's not really the case here. Hot Rod has the weakest sculpt, minimal details, floppy ball joints, and poor articulation. He just feels cheap. Cheap can be an asset if, like me, you're just looking for an accessory for a Star Convoy, but for everyone else should pass on this one.