mikeszekely

Studio Series 86 was a mostly great figure with a few obvious flaws. DNA Designs is a company that makes upgrade kits for a lot of popular HasTak figures. It was inevitable, then that DNA would do a kit for SS86 Grimlock. But, with a number of 3D printed kits plus a kit from Nonnef having been available for awhile now, is DNA too late to the party? DNA's kit contains some fillers for the soles of his feet, mouth fillers with front teeth, a new translucent yellow neck piece, a sword, some forearm fillers, new forearms for the dino mode, a Wheelie figure with two extra heads (the faces are a slight smile, a big open-mouthed smile, and a pursed lips kissy face). There's also a little baggie with some screws and gray screw hole covers. I already had a set of 3D-printed feet fillers, so I didn't necessarily need the DNA ones. But the DNA ones are thicker and the fit is snugger, so I'll be using the DNA ones. The forearm fillers work like the ones in Nonnef's kit. The idea is that you remove the screw from the forearm near the rear dino toe, then you use one of the new screws to attach the forearm cover at that same screw hole. A hinge allows the cover to open and close, and there's a tab that holds it closed by plugging into a small gap in Grimlock's wrist. In some respects it works better than Nonnef's, which swiveled around the screw (and in the process loosened the screw). But the DNA piece is very thick. You kind of have to decide which is more of an eyesore to you, a chunky panel that clearly doesn't belong or an empty gap. Me, I'm going to go for the empty gap, which is less visible from a lot of angles than DNA's forearm cover. I can't help but feel disappointed, too, by the DNA sword. I like the sculpt and size better than Nonnef's, but what was DNA thinking with these colors? They clearly molded the sword in the same gray plastic as the fillers parts- I guess they couldn't be bothered to use a black or red plastic just for the sword? They did paint the blade, but they painted it silver. Just... why, DNA? I might try to paint it myself, but otherwise I'm keeping the Nonnef sword. Switching to the dino mode, well... I'm sure the teeth fillers work fine, but I'd already got 3D printed ones, one of which (I think the lower jaw?) I glued in place, then covered with screw hole covers. So yeah, I'm not pulling that apart. Then there's the neck. If you REALLY want a toy-style translucent neck, I guess this will do and, to my knowledge, is the only kit that has a molded plastic neck part instead of 3D printed. But honestly, I think the solid gold neck looks better. The translucent neck is way too bright a shade of yellow. Rather than install this part on a toon-centric Grimlock, I'm just going to hold out hope that Hasbro may release a toy-colored Generations Selects version down the road. The replacement dino forearms have claws that aren't quite as simple as the cartoony originals, but they have one major advantage; articulation. The DNA arms have wrist swivels, plus each of the three fingers is individually-hinged at the base. Installation is pretty simple; bend the original arm down at the elbow until it pops off, then jam the DNA arm in. I'm guessing a lot of the budget for this kit went to making this Wheelie figure. It's more toon accurate than the Titans Return figure... ...and it's got a lot more articulation than the slug that came with Grimlock. This Wheelie's head is on a ball joint so it can look up slightly, down quite a bit, and swivel (but no real sideways tilt). His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally about 90 degrees. His elbows are also ball joints that bend 90 degrees and double as bicep swivels. His waist is actually a ball joint so it swivels, his back can bend backward, he's got a slight teapot lean, and if you undo his torso a bit of ab crunch. HIs hips are ball joints that can go forward/backward/laterally 90 degrees. His's got a mushroom thigh swivel, just above his knee, which bends 90 degrees. His feet are also on a ball joint, but a shallow one at a weird angle. His feet can tilt up slightly, down 90 degrees, but he's got very little in the way of ankle pivots. DNA didn't include any weapons for him, and the holes in his fists are smaller than 5mm, so you can't just give him any other weapon. Wheelie can sit on Grimlock, and the insides of his lower legs have hollow gaps that kind of hook onto the pegs Grimlock has for the slug Wheelie. He doesn't really lock in place, though, but he balances well enough that I don't think it's really a problem. I do like that Wheelie has small pegs on this thighs. These pegs plug into the small holes on top of Grimlock's shoulders, and it's a very secure fit. DNA's little Wheelie figure transforms, which I suppose is another advantage over the slug figure. The transformation is pretty simple, but some of the connections are kind of loose. The thing is, while Titans Returns Wheelie isn't exactly cartoon-accurate, it does look like a smooth, purposeful vehicle. DNA's has the general shape, but it's kind of a gappy mess. But we have to consider what DNA's purpose is here. As a third-party figure this isn't great, but is this a figure or an accessory? Because the fact that it has any sort of alt mode and adequate articulation makes it a massive improvement over the slug Grimlock came with. I'm not really sure I can recommend this kit, though. It's kind of an expensive kit, and I have to assume that lot of that expense is Wheelie. And while Wheelie is a big improvement over Grimlock's slug and a decent enough robot, it's not that great of a figure overall. Plus we've already heard rumors that Wheelie might get his own official Studio Series release now that the line is expanding into the Core Class. The fillers are all decent enough, but you can buy Nonnef's kit with a sword and teeth AND JRC Design's feet fillers for half the cost of this kit. And looking at that way forces me to consider other things that DNA's kit is lacking that you will get with Nonnef's kit- translucent chest options that aren't as opaque as the original, and a crown. Plus, Nonnef's sword has better color options, and while DNA did include fillers for the screw holes on the sides of Grimlock's head Nonnef's has one for the neck, too. All DNA's offering here that you can't get from Nonnef + JRC is the neck part, which I'm not a fan of, and Wheelie, which I've already explained is kind of a mixed bag. That just leaves the articulated dino claws. They're definitely the highlight of this kit, but I can't say that they're worth the price of this kit unless you really like this Wheelie, you didn't already buy cheaper fillers, and you don't really care about having a better translucent chest.

Sandstorm, Night Prowler, and Buzzsaw are available to preorder at Pulse. I dunno, I'll buy every color of all the G1 cast, but I'm not feeling these Beast Wars repaints.

I think the jet nose sticks out a little too far on the tank, and the tank kibble is a bit too much under the jet wings... but that's kind of part of his design. I know, I'm weird about wanting some alt modes to be realistic, but others to have the foibles of the original toys/Sunbow model, but Blitzwing was never really a realistic MiG-25, he was always some kind of funky jet biplane to me. I know it's possible to do a better one- Mech Fans Toys/Mechanic Studio already did. But at the WfC-scale, this is a darn sight better than the Titans Return version. I'm kind of depressed, though, that Siege Astrotrain and Titans Return Octone is still the best Astrotrain and Octane we have at that scale, now. Someone really needs to make WfC-sized KOs of the MFT Legends... FT delayed it to redesign it, and they possibly delayed it to redesign it some more, but there's some rumblings that it might actually happen this year. Last I saw of the tank it was in sort of a middle ground between a realistic Type-74 tank and the Sunbow model. I mean, the front of the tank didn't just end abruptly with some of the jet nose sticking out. It had the sloped front you'd see on the real thing, with a bulge where the driver's viewport would be, but the details were all muted. There wasn't any windows on the viewport, no lights, etc. I'd originally heard that the jet mode would be able to do both a realistic MiG-25 and the animation model, but I'm not sure if they scrapped those plans or not. The last I saw was, again, kind of a weird hybrid. It had the stubby cockpit and sloped intakes and short fuselage/wings that nearly reach the tail, but there was less kibble under the wings, the vertical stabs were slightly aft of the wings, and it actually had horizontal stabs.

Legacy Blitzwing...

I'm a Geewunner. It's what I grew up with. I grew out of toys before Beast Wars, and it was the mix of Dreamwave's G1 revival and the 2006 Classics line that brought me back into the franchise. During that time, I was dimly aware of Robots in Disguise and the Unicron Trilogy, but they were never really my cup of tea. On the other hand, despite QC issues with Naval Commander (Armada Optimus), I am a fan of Fans Hobby for their chunky robots, uncomplicated transformations, playability, and relative affordability. So with that in mind, despite the fact that I'm trying to limit my collection to G1 plus any Optimus, I decided to grab Fans Hobby's Meg Tyranno, their MP-ish take on the Armada version of Megatron. It's pretty well-established at this point that Fans Hobby bucks the current trend of super cartoon accuracy in favor of putting their own spin on characters, and Meg Tyranno definitely continues that trend. That said, compared to a lot of their stuff where it was immediately apparent to me, I actually had to Google some images of both the cartoon and the original Armada toy to really start seeing the differences. There's more silver accents on his pelvis, more of that dark gray plastic on his forearms, torso, and feet, and some additional orange details on his knees, crotch, and torso. His torso has more of an hourglass figure, too, with smaller silver pecs, abs that don't go all the way to his waist, and it's missing the circular bits on his lats. There's some tweaks to his head as well, especially his ears/horns. While Fans Hobby does a pretty good job of keeping Meg Tyranno mostly kibble-free, you can't escape the fact that he's got an entire tank turret on his back. That in and of itself isn't the worst thing in the world; I think that Brawl pulls it off just fine, for instance. Meg Tyranno's problem is the long cannon that points awkwardly out to the side. To be totally fair to Fans Hobby, though, I don't think the problem is really on Meg Tyranno so much as it is on Armada Megatron's design. You can mitigate (but not eliminate) the issue by removing part of the cannon's barrel. In fact, it's actually not installed when you take him out of the box. And if you remove the circular screw hole cover and undo the screw inside, you can open the barrel up and insert a pair of LR44 batteries for a light-up gimmick we'll talk about later. The only real downside to taking the barrel off for robot mode is that there's nowhere to else to store it. Aside from half his cannon barrel, Meg Tyranno comes with a few accessories. You get his Minicon buddy, an alternate set of horns, a replacement face, replacement eyes, and four little missiles. Meg Tyranno's Minicon buddy is an improvement over the one that came with Armada Commander, but that's really not saying much and I'm still not loving this guy. The colors are off; whether you're talking about the cartoon or the toy the original was a lighter gray (or while) with a brighter blue, plus he's missing the ribbed sculpt on his arms. His head is on a ball joint so he can look up and down a decent amount, tilt his head sideways, and swivel. His shoulders are also ball joints, but it's mostly just for swiveling as his lateral range is, if I'm being generous, maybe 20 degrees. All that wheel kibble is attached to his shoulders, so you can't move his arms without bringing all that kibble along for the ride instead of leaving a pair of wheels on his hips. He has no bicep or wrist articulation, just elbows that bend about 90 degrees. No waist swivel, but he does have an ab crunch. His hips are ball joints that'll get him 90 degrees forward or backward, but lateral motion is limited like his shoulders. His knees bend less than 90 degrees with the barrels properly folded into his calves, but you can fold them out like heel spurs for added stability and greater knee bends. No foot articulation. The Minicon turns into some kind of military vehicle with a pair of cannons. Again, not super accurate- the cab looks more like an Earth truck than the tall, narrow cab on the original toy, plus the windows are blue instead of yellow and the cannon barrels are blue instead of orange. And like the original toy it's actually a triple changer with a pistol mode, but it's upside down compared to the original. As for his other accessories, my copy came with an open-mouthed screaming/laughing face. While I do love that Fans Hobby painted the inside of the mouth gray when I know a lot of companies, even Fans Toys, likely would have just painted the whole thing purple and called it a day, I do prefer the more neutral face. The face is easy to pop off and pop on. His horns are also easy to pop off and on. The second par is more rounded and arguably more cartoon-accurate, but I don't like the larger silver portion against the side of his head. I'll probably keep the default ones. The difference between the eyes is that the default ones are painted a metallic red, but the other set is translucent. This is because Meg Tyranno's eyes have a light up gimmick. Remove two screws from the back of his head and remove the battery compartment to swap out the eyes. While you're there, the battery compartment will hold two AG0 batteries. Pro tip- don't lose the little button, which will will probably fall out when you open the head up. Meg Tyranno's own head is on a ball joint with some up/down/sideways tilt in addition to swiveling. The treads over his shoulders do a good job staying out of the way, allowing his shoulders to rotate on ratchets (just not 360 degrees) and move laterally just over 90 degrees, also on a ratchet. His biceps swivel. His elbows are double-jointed, both rachets, and curl almost 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumbs are on ball joints for swiveling and a little wiggle, but they're not cut to allow him to splay his thumb, it's always folded over the palm. His fingers are all individually articulated with pin hinges as the base and the middle knuckles. His waist swivels, plus he's got a slight sideways bend and a small ab crunch. His hips are ratcheted and can go 90 degrees forward, a bit less than that backward due to the turret being in the way, and over 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel. His ratcheted knees bend 90 degrees on a single hinge, revealing sculpted gray inner knee parts. His feet can swivel and tilt upward, and his toes can tilt downward. His ankles can pivot around 45 degrees or so. Meg Tyranno has the notched palms common to Fans Hobby's Master Builder line, and the peg on the Minicon's handle has the corresponding ridges. Plus he's got knoves that fold out of either forearm. Because it's a thing from the original toy and cartoon, the turret can swivel a little and the cannon can fold under his arm. A handle can fold out from the barrel, allowing him to hold on to it. The instructions indicate that when the cannon is posed like this that the light should come on, but it doesn't on my copy. No big deal. Because it's a thing that the original toy did (and maybe it was in the cartoon?) the entire turret can be brought to his front side by turning him at the waist 90 degrees, lifting his chest, then rotating his chest and upper body 90 degrees. There are fold-out pegs on the shoulder treads and the outsides of his legs that the Minicon can plug in to. If you have some original Armada Minicons, they too can plug into those pegs. Meanwhile, just next to them are peg holes. These peg holes work with the fold-out pegs on War for Cybertron Micromasters. Unlike the original toy, though, there are no pegs/ports on his forearms. Transforming Meg Tyranno is pretty simple; his waist rotates 180 degrees, his arms swing forward so they're in front of his torso/under the tank, he spreads his legs as wide as he can, then a transformation joint bends his lower legs back down while his feet fold up. The rest of it is just sorting panels that fold out from his legs and the treads that sit over his shoulders to help solidify everything into a cohesive tank shape. As with the robot, it's not exactly cartoon/original toy accurate. But, more than minor tweaks in color or certain details, the most obvious difference is that it loses or diminishes some of the original's sci-fi h-tank design. Panels from the treads cover his head and give him an actual front, albeit one with his pincer horns still sticking out. More panels fold out from his shoulder treads and his legs to fill in the space between. Still more panels fold out from the legs to fill in the space between his legs, giving the rear of the tank a more purposeful shape than just his crotch. Despite the changes in the design, Meg Tyranno's still got gimmicks galore. The whole thing has working rubber treads. The turret can rotate, and the cannon barrel can aim up and down. As long as the barrel is straight, there's a crank on the back of the turret that will make the barrel slide in and out. The sliding will depress the switch, causing the end of the barrel to light up. And you still have access to the same Minicon/Micromaster pegs/ports. A panel on what is his right leg opens and unfolds into a little platform with a box. You can put a Minicon/Micromaster on the platform, and pushing a button on the box will cause a spring-loaded panel to pop out and push the Minicon/Micromaster forward. The other leg also opens to a platform, but this one has a purple claw-like apparatus (that I believe the original toy had, albeit the claw closed down over a Minicon instead of grabbing it from underneath). Opening a compartment on his right front will reveal a storage space occupied by a folded-up claw arm. You can unfold it and plug it into the Micromaster port. A ramp can be unfolded from the top. It, unfortunately, cannot bend all the way to the ground, just straight out from the tank. To be fair, I think the original toy had a ramp here, and it didn't fold out all the way either. On the other side we have another little cubby, this time occupied by a double-barreled cannon. While the original toy had doors that opened to reveal... I dunno, some molded orange details? Meg Tyranno has a panel that lifts up. A translucent red screen and a pair of extra blast panels unfold from behind it, and the cannon plugs into the front of it to create a Minicon/Micromaster gun emplacement. Like the original toy, part of the top of the turret flips over to reveal a missile launcher, and yes, there's a button on it that will shoot the little gray missiles he came with. Unlike the original toy, it's not activated by slapping a Minicon on the other side of the turret. Instead, the other side opens up, revealing more non-firing molded/painted missiles and a seat for the Minicon. Opening up this seat is what causes the other side to flip around. But wait, we're still not done! The panels that unfolded from his legs to make a more proper rear for the tank can open up to reveal yet another storage area for Minicons/Micromasters. What's more, if you look inside you'll find some really awesome tampoed details in there. I have to give Fans Hobby a ton of props for that; panels cover those spots in bot mode and even in tank mode those details are on the inside, where you won't see them much. Fans Hobby could have left it blank or maybe just added a few greebles and I don't think anyone would have complained, but they went the extra mile to give that interior space some purposeful, colorful, visually interesting details. In some ways, Meg Tyranno reminds me of Fans Hobby's Overlord. Although Overlord is a G1 character, he's a character that didn't appear in any fiction outside Japan prior to his appearance in the IDW comics, and his toy was never released in the States, so like Armada Megatron I had no real attachment to the character, but I bought Fans Hobby's figure anyway and I loved it for its shelf presence, its chunky, playable build, and its relatively easy transformation. Meg Tyranno doesn't have quite the same level of shelf presence, but he too is fun to transform and has lots of playable gimmicks that almost make me like his tank mode better than his robot mode. Honestly, my only real complaints are that I wish they'd put a little more effort into making the Minicons not suck and I wish they used the harder plastic they used to use on stuff like their Scourge and Laser Optimus instead of the mushier plastic they've been using. I'd say if you're an Armada fan this figure is a must buy, but I'd even recommend checking him out if you just like chunky robot toys that are fun to play with and don't even care about Armada.

XTB's a little spotty with QC, still... I thought their Stunticons were pretty good, but I have major paint issues with Dead End and a lot of people had issues with the shoulders cracking on Dragstrip, plus the trailer just seems like a mess. Kup was a POS, but I really liked their Perceptor. So I dunno... while I would like a better crack at an MP Devastator than ToyWorld's, I'm not sure I want it to be from XTB. I've heard from people with MMC that they do have a combiner planned after Defensor, and that it'd be a Decepticon. I wish I knew for sure it was Devastator, and that XTB's announcement hasn't scared them off of it, because if I knew on was coming from MMC I wouldn't look twice at XTB's. That said... as a one off, I'd definitely be into checking out that Scoop retool.

Bulkhead, too, by some reports (figures, the one I want most is Laser Prime and that's the one that hasn't been sighted anywhere yet), and there's been at least one American sighting of Buzzworthy Silverstreak, too. Well, I was just at my local Target yesterday. Even though I highly doubt they'll have anything I might head over to the other one that's semi-nearby.

Hmm... this Walmart Velocitron thing is getting interesting. EAN numbers leaked today for a couple of Deluxes, including Velocitron Deluxe Assorted, Road Rocket (the pack-in with Action Master Powerflash? I could maybe see you getting one out of Fasttrack), Burnout (I'd guess a black Diaclone repaint of Skids), Clampdown (police repaint of Sideswipe, hopefully the Earth-mode version), Cosmos (I can't think of a recent release that could be retooled into G1 Cosmos, but I don't think there was another major Cosmos in Transfomers, so...?), and Blurr (the obvious answer is some kind of repaint of Studio Series Blurr, but who knows for sure).

Big Firebird, while apparently having worked on some other things, first came to my attention when they released Nicee, a very stylized Arcee, minus the original head that actually looked like Arcee. It just wasn't for me... it was close enough to Arcee for my brain to be unable to see Nicee as anything but Arcee, but far enough from any version of Arcee in Transformers fiction that I just couldn't see her on my shelves. Nicee got a lot of positive coverage, though, so when Big Firebird announced a more original retool I figured I'd give that one a try... so here's Big Firebird's Mooka (or Mocha- I think it was announced as Mocha, but the box says Mooka). Big Firebird seems to be going for a specific target audience. While their usual logo seems to be the words "Big Firebird" written to look like a flaming bird, on Mooka's box it's a pair of round wings with a pointed head and tail that looks very much like boobs and cleavage. And the product shot of Mooka on the front is limited to her chest. So it should come as no surprise that Mooka is a robot lady with some... exaggerated features. That said, even with the large, humanoid breasts and meticulously sculpted butt crack, Mooka comes off as less sexualized than Nicee, at least to me. Where's Nicee's mostly-white body with limited use of pink made her look like she was wearing a bikini, Mooka's colors, combined with a few tampos and the sculpt of her shoulders, knees, and forearms, come across more like the kind of bodysuit you might see in professional racing, especially motorcycle racing. I wish BFB would have stuck with that motif for her head, though. The "haircut", with the little hat and pink decorations plus the collar and bowtie look more maid cafe than racing queen (not that there's anything wrong with maids, I just wish they'd picked one or the other instead of mixing them). Mooka's a fairly clean robot, with just a backpack and some wheels in her thighs to give away the fact that she transforms, and even then, the backpack's hinges are like c-clips, and you could in theory remove it entirely. There's a reason she's so clean, though. Size-wise, here she is with MMC's Arcee; a little taller, but at least some of that is due to those heels. Mooka comes with a ton of accessories. These bits, that form the front of the car and the rear fenders, are actually attached to her when you take her out of the packaging and, if I'm being totally fair to her, you don't actually have to remove ever if you don't want to. The front of the car has a hole on a hinge that plugs into a peg behind her neck, while the fenders use ball joints to plug into the sides of the bottom of her backpack. Technically, the sides of the front are also on ball joints, and you can pop them off the hood section. You'll notice that there are a pair of ball sockets on her backpack, facing forward just over her hips. Theoretically you can put the front sides of the car there, like hip skirts, but there's not a ton of room to work with there. In addition to the car parts that are attached-but-removable, you get two trays of accessories. You get a clip and two longer red pieces. You have a spoiler for her alt mode. You have a small peg with a clip. You have a number of extra hands- two closed fists, two holding hands with trigger fingers (a leftover from Nicee, I assume, since on thing Mooka doesn't have is a gun), one holding hand with the thumb pointed up, and one relaxed open hand (in addition to the two more exaggerated open hands pre-installed on the figure). You have a silver part with a black handle, and a silver curved part. You get a shield and a pair of swords. You get a lance that really looks like a closed golf umbrella to me. You get a black part that forms part of the rear of the car, and another large part that forms most of the top of the car. You get an alternate head with blinding bangs, alternate cleavage, a translucent visor, and bunny ears. But wait, there's more! Unlike the stuff in the trays, these bits come in multi-compartment plastic bag (like the kind that divides up the hardware by step in flatpack furniture), and its not mentioned at all in the instructions. Basically, it's a handle, with two connector bits and two decorative ends, and I'd guess they fit together like the above image. I find it curious that one side is closed, but the other side has a pair of pegs and open channels between the prongs, but again, I don't know why since they don't even exist as far as the instructions go. Lastly, you get a sheet of optional waterslide decals. Waterslides are fine, I think. In fact, I wish the tampos would have just been waterslides, then Mooka's right thigh wouldn't be forever exclaiming, "Nicee!!" Anyways... Mooka's head is on a double ball joint, so she can look up a little, down a decent amount, and tilt her head coyly in addition to swiveling. Her shoulders are a ball joints on the end of a double hinge (mostly for transformation). She's got the usual rotation, only about 60 degrees of lateral movement due to her shoulder pads, but also the ability to shrug, which is nice. Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. Her wrists are ball joints, so they can swivel but also bend a little. There's a ball joint under her chest that acts as her waist swivel, an ab crunch, and even a teapot bend. Her hips can go just about 90 degrees forward and backward or laterally. Her thighs swivel around her hips. Her knees are double-jointed and bend around 130-140 degrees, which some metal piston sliding in out as the joints bend. Her feet can tilt up and down plus swivel. Her ankles pivot about 45 degrees. Plus her heels have their own hinge, which helps when trying to keep her feet flat. Despite the weight of her backpack and the small amount of contact surface on her feet I've found that she will stand fine, as long as your patient adjusting her feet until you find the balance point. Swapping hands is as easy as pulling them out of the ball sockets in her wrists and popping different ones in. Either the trigger finger or the upraised thumb will hold the swords, with the upraised thumb kind of pointing the sword forward. The silver piece with the handle plugs into the back of the shield. There's spaces between it and the shield itself that allow you to slide the swords in for storage. Then you can use the peg on it to plug into a hole on either elbow, with the trigger finger hand grasping the handle. The curved silver bit can then plug on, wrapping around her arm and helping to secure the shield a bit better. Without the curved part, you can also plug the shield into holes just under her knees. The lance can be held with the upraised thumb hand. The clip with a peg fits under her hood. You can then feed Mooka's arm under the hinged bar with the peg hole that attaches it to her back so that the trigger finger hand can grab onto the peg you just clipped in. The idea is that it's supposed to make a hood out of the front of the car, I guess. However, this seems more like a holdover from Nicee than something intended for Mooka. The shape of the car is a little different, so it doesn't open very wide, and Mooka doesn't come with arrow that Nicee did. Meanwhile, once you attach the spoiler to the rear of the car, you can take the rear fenders off of her backpack if you haven't already then tab them into this chunk of the car. There's a ball peg on it. If you remove one of Mooka's hands, you can plug this contraption into her wrist socket and I guess it's supposed to be like a Mega Buster-style arm cannon. The visor just clips around her face over her eyes. It seems like it only fits the default head. I'll note that the forehead and the sides of the "hair" can be pulled off either head, allowing you to remove the faces. However, the faces do not seem to be interchangeable, and there are no other alternate faces, so there doesn't seem to be a point. If you want to swap looks, you'll have to swap the whole head by yanking the ball joint out of her chest. Both heads have little slots behind their hat/headphones. You can use these slots to install the bunny ears, if that's something you're into. Speaking of chests, swapping Mooka's is easier than swapping her head. You'll want to lift her head and arms like you're staring to transform her, then you grab her collar and pull up. Then just slide the alternate one into place. On a purely aesthetic note, the silver collar and white cleavage doesn't seem to match the rest of the figure as well as the black collar and silver cleavage. But the real difference isn't color, it's material. The default silver cleavage is plastic, but the white cleavage is a pliant silicone material, in case you want your sexy robots to have squishy boobs. Lastly, the two long red bits plug into the large black clip. The clip grabs onto the armor around her hips, because if there's one thing a maid in a racing suit needs it's an obi bow. Finally, we can get to alt mode. Transforming Mooka isn't difficult, because around 70% of the car is added by partsforming. To be fair, that's a little less partsforming than Earthrise Arcee, but Mooka costs 5-6 times what ER Arcee did. MMC's Arcee cost around the same as Mooka, and there's no partsforming there. Mooka's less work to transform than MMC's Arcee; her shoulders stretch above her chest, her arms and shoulders tuck into the gap, then her legs flip around. The rest is unfolding her backpack and then plugging the rest of the parts on. OK... it's a lot of partsforming, but that's one good looking car. While Nicee was mostly a stylized version of the usual Arcee car, Mooka's altered lines make for a much more cohesive, slightly futuristic race car with a new grill and bumper, a closed cockpit that flows into a smoother rear with a spoiler and all new taillights and exhausts. The only robot bits here, though, are her thighs, knees, and a bit of her heels. Of note, the panels on the sides of the spoiler are made from her bunny ears. As they came out of the box they're not quite right, with the outer detail and inward curve turned around. I was able to pop them off the hinges and swap them around. Mooka rolls with rubber tires. And, in a nice touch, her canopy can open, revealing a pair of seats, steering wheel, and dashboard. Practically speaking, the seats/wheel/dash were part of Nicee's open cabin, and Mooka's probably just re-using the parts as part of her backpack. But I feel like a lesser company would have made the roof/canopy part, covered the cabin, and called it a day. BFB made sure to put the canopy on a hinged ball joint, though, so it can open and you can still enjoy the interior. There doesn't seem to be much you can do with her accessories in car mode. The peg holes just below her knees are visible on the sides of the car, but the shield is the only thing that really fits there, but the shield is so big that the car wouldn't be able to sit on four wheels. I guess you could plug in that weird double-ended tuning fork thing? I think it's safe to say that I have mixed feelings about Mooka. She's a well-built, nicely painted figure. She's got good articulation and a great car mode. She comes with a ton of accessories. However, BFB's priority seems to have been making a sexy robot anime girl first and a transformer second. Most of her robot mode has the exaggerated femininity and and articulation of a Figma anime girl, and too much of her "transformation" is attaching her car parts to her while she does yoga. And, while I do like Mooka's design a bit more than Nicee's, I don't think sexy robot women is really my thing (no judgement if it's yours, though). So, I guess you have to ask yourself if you think you might be BFB's target audience. Do you like sexy robot women? Is poseability, accessories, and humanoid curves more important than having a car mode that's mostly made from the actual robot? If you answered yes, then I'd recommend checking out Mooka, as the overall build and paint on Mooka is top notch. However, if you're looking for a more "traditional" Transformers experience with interesting engineering and minimal partsforming you may find Mooka a bit lacking.

Yeah, plus from my house there's three Targets that are closer to me than either of the "local" TRUs. They were mostly a place you'd go if you wanted to pay more. Like I said, though, I'm going to keep checking my local Target, but I'm keeping an eye on Pulse, too. Pulse usually keeps a couple store exclusives to sell direct- if they didn't I'd have never gotten ER Red Alert, because none of the Walgreens around here got any.

Reeves and Pattinson did say The Batman is supposed to be the first of a trilogy...

Yes, and I also found it a bit disappointing. But this is still supposed to be Batman early in his career, I suppose it could be a detail they add in a sequel.

Silverstreak, aka the blue and silver Diaclone repaint of Earthrise Bluestreak, will be part of the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line. While I'm hoping to see him at local stores, if/when a link goes up on Hasbro Pulse I'll post it here. Meanwhile, Walmart's going to have a "Collector-Con 2022" even March 24th and 25th. I'm expecting that they're going to announce an exclusive Transformers Velocitron subline. The previously revealed Deluxes Sandstorm (brown Beast Wars Scorponok), Buzzsaw (yellow Waspinator), and Nightprowler (gray Cheetor) will be part of the line, but now I'm hearing that we're also going to see Voyager Road Hauler (Grapple in Constructicon Green) and Override will also be part of the line. I could give or take the Beasts, but I'm definitely down for Road Hauler. I'm really curious about Override, though. One assumes, especially with the Velocitron name, that they're talking about Cybertron Override/Galaxy Force Nitron Convoy. Could it be a new mold? I can't really think of a recent Voyager, or even a Deluxe with a bunch of packed-in accessories, that would readily pass for Override.

So he's a little behind, but today we finally have Studio Series Deluxe-class Brawn to look at. Love it or hate it (I like that it's recognizably Brawn, but I'm not a fan of the "hoodie" and I think the helmet's a bit too stylized), Brawn's pretty close to the CGI. His colors are, for the most part, in the right place, with some nice paint on the inside of his thighs, middle of his shoulders, middle of his chest, and bottom of his boots to maintain the movie's color separation. I might complain and say that his hand should be the same color as his face based on ILM's models, but it's hard to see that in the film so I can give it a pass. I'll also note the wheels on his hips, which aren't on the CGI model, but hey, unlike the CGI model this guy has to transform. Size-wise, he's about where you'd expect him; short than Wheeljack, who himself is a bit shorter than Ratchet. Spinning him around, Brawn retains a clean silhouette. A minor complaint is the gaps on the backs of his thighs and heels, but again, this guy has to actually transform. Unlike his wave mates, Brawn comes with two accessories. You get another rifle that technically has a unique sculpt but you'd swear you'd seen it before and wouldn't be able to pick it out of a lineup with Ratchet's and Wheeljack's, which is still fine. You also get a sort of drill thing. I can't be certain of what type of joint Hasbro used for Brawn's neck, but between the shape of his helmet and his hoodie he's got no tilt and can only turn his head maybe 45 degrees to either side. His shoulders are ball joints, and they can rotate and extend a little under 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, but it's the green armor moving around the gunmetal inner shoulder, so it's a bit limited. His elbows are double jointed and bend a little under 180 degrees. His wrists and waist have swivels. His hips can bend 90 degrees forward, but only about 45 degrees backward (which, I think, is enough for a stocky fellow like Brawn). His tires limit him to 45 degrees laterally, too, but you can kind of fake it by rotating the hip forward, then 90 degrees laterally, and then utilizing the thigh swivel to turn the foot forward again (so, yeah, he's got thigh swivels just above his knees). His knees bend a little over 90 degrees. The yellow part of his feet can tilt down and very slightly up, and he's got about 30 degrees of ankle pivot. His gun can be held in either hand. His drill, too, but the peg is on the back so its like some kind of dagger, which I'm not loving. I kind of wish Brawn had at least one fist like Combiner Wars Rook or Kingdom Slammer, so he could have a Devastator-style drill fist. As with his wave mates, you can store his weapons on his back. There's a little nub, like a Titan Master or Siege blast effect nub, on the back of his hoodie. It can plug into a small hole on the side of his rifle. The rifle itself has a similar nub on the top, and the drill has its own small hole, allowing it to be plugged into the top of his rifle (or alone on his back when he's holding his rifle). If you don't want the drill in his hand or on his back when he's carrying his rifle, you can leave the drill on top. Or, you can plug the 5mm port on the back directly into the barrel of the rifle, turning it into a larger drill weapon. I kind of wish they'd put a little hole under the barrel, though, so the drill could have been mounted lay a bayonet. Brawn's transformation is somewhere in the middle. It's a little more obvious and not as interesting as Ratchet, but still a bit more clever than Wheeljack. I mean, his chest is the rear of the vehicle, and the wheels on his hips are the rear wheels... but that's his knees tabbed into the front wheels. Brawn's alt mode is OK, but compared to Ratchet and Wheeljack it definitely suffers from the prioritization of the robot mode. It's really not as sleek. Instead of smooth fenders it's obvious robot leg, with a big foot in the middle and totally exposed rear wheels (with green rims instead of yellow). The main body of the vehicle is two distinct sections, instead of a continuous dome. The front's not too bad, but the rear is broken by arm kibble, lacks any sort of slope at the rear, and there's a big hole in the roof that's definitely not present in the concept art. I don't hate it, though. The hole in the back and the separate segments make him look sort of like a pickup truck, where the CGI is something more like a car. That said, if they'd put the panel with his head on a swivel so the whole thing flipped 180 degrees it could have provided some sort of roof/bed instead of just a hole with his head visible inside. He rolls fine, and his weapons can be stored in alt mode. For the rifle, there's a second hole under the barrel that fits onto the same small peg you used to stow it in bot mode. And while the drill can certainly stay on the gun, his front grill actually folds up to reveal a 5mm peg you can plug it into, turning him into some kind of drilling vehicle. And hey, if you don't mind that it's held more by friction than tabs, you've even got a totally unofficial toilet mode! Brawn might not have the coolest car mode, but I guarantee he'll be everyone's best friend after the Autobots hit the Iacon Chipotle. So yeah, bathroom humor aside, Brawn's not too bad. If you're into the Bumblebee designs, I'd put him at a little worse than Ratchet, but better than Soundwave or Wheeljack. That's enough to get a recommend from me.

Yup (and I still can't believe it's Colin Farrell under all that). Too bad, I heard the Gotham P.D. spinoff they were working on got canned. Maybe superficially similar in theme to the Fox Gotham, but instead of being set early in Gordon's career and right after the Waynes got killed, it was going to be set about a year before The Batman and would have been more like a Year One kind of thing. Apparently a show about Arkham Asylum may be in the works. And, while it's still just a discussion, there's apparently some interest in a show based on Zoe Kravitz' Catwoman.

Saves me from buying the Arcade 1up cabinet, finding a place to keep it, and explaining it all to my wife.😁

I guess this was announced at some PlayStation event for PS5/4, but it's confirmed for Switch, Xbox One/Series X/Series S, and PC (Steam, I think). It's the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection, developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Konami. The collection contains Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time (Arcade) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters (NES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters (SNES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (Genesis) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighter (Genesis) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From the Sewers (Game Boy) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (Game Boy) The collection will include "extras and quality of life improvements." I'm not sure what all that includes, but they do mention things like save states and rewind, plus new Boss Rush and Challenge modes. Local Multiplayer will be supported across all the titles that originally had it, while the two arcade games at the least will support online co-op (up to four players). No release date has been given aside from a very vague "2022," but I'm hearing that the price will be a very reasonable $39.99 (at least in the US). I'm pumped enough to buy it at least twice... I buy stuff like this on Steam for posterity, since PC tends to be the safe bet if you want to play something ten years later, but I'll probably grab it for at least one console to play with my daughter.

Man, I was having a good time with this... watched the first three Gundam movies, the 0083 movie, and the first two Zeta movies. Then I got busy, didn't watch anything for a few days, and apparently came back the day after they took Zeta III back off.😒 Kind of killed my enthusiasm to watch the rest. I didn't bother with SEED, SEED Destiny, or 00; frankly, I wasn't a huge fan of SEED/Destiny in the first place and I wasn't keen on watching the condensed versions, and while I liked 00 just fine the movie was much less good. I might watch the G-Reco movies. Been a long time since I watched the TV series, but I remember liking it for awhile until it stopped making sense. Given the story behind that specific Zaku I'm fine with the state of disrepair. I'm not loving how long/thin it looks, though. Zakus should be chunkier, especially in the legs.

Brawn's held up for whatever reason, but today we can do Studio Series Deluxe-class Ratchet. See, this time I was smart and I shot him with both another Bumblebee Deluxe and his Siege counterpart. And as we can see, while Ratchet's a good bit taller than Wheeljack (and that much taller than B-127 and Cliffjumper), he's still shorter than Siege Ratchet. So I guess the internal sense of scale is maintained, and I get that these are movie characters and not G1, but it's a bit weird to me that Prime is the same exact size while Bee, Cliffjumper, and Soundwave are bigger and Ratchet and Wheeljack are smaller than their WfC versions. I digress. As is becoming the norm with these BB guys, Ratchet's sculpt is spot on to the film. That said, he could have done with a touch more paint; he's missing some red around his knees, and while Hasbro did use some black/gunmetal paint/parts around his waist and biceps, he could have done with some around his knees and collar as well. The biggest thing, though, is his hands, which were clearly read in the movie, but gray here. Like Wheeljack, Ratchet's very clean from pretty much any angle, but his calves are extremely hollow due to his transformation. Speaking of hollow, there are some hollow "waffles" on the insides of his thighs. You'd be forgiven for looking at Ratchet's rifle and wondering if it's the same thing as Wheeljack's, as they're similar sizes, shapes, and the same unpainted gray plastic. A close inspection will show them to have different sculpts, they're just very much sharing a design language. Which is fine; you'd think armies would have standard issue stuff anyway. Ratchet's head is on a ball joint with the ball in his collar, not his head. He can tilt his head sideways and look down a good bit, but up is a tad restricted. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his single-jointed elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, although they do bend inward due to transformation. His waist swivels. His thighs can move forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees, and while they thankfully aren't ball joints they are at tad on the loose side. His thighs swivel. His knees bend 90 degrees. His feet can't tilt up, but they can tilt down due to transformation. He does have an ankle pivot, but it's very slight. Ratchet can hold his gun in either hand. A tab on one side allows him to store it on his back via a slot on one corner. Like Wheeljack, Ratchet scrunches up pretty small in his alt mode, going from a little shorter than Siege Ratchet in bot mode to a vehicle maybe 60% the size. Unlike Wheeljack, though, Ratchet's transformation is one of the more interesting ones I've seen in an official figure for awhile. His head and part of his torso are at the back of the car, his back is the panels on the sides, his legs make up most of the front of the vehicle, but his chest forms the windshield and his collar the roof. For his arms and legs that's the usual sort of folding and tucking, but his torso nearly turns inside out and twists around to spread out over the whole length of the car. The car is a neat little thing, with little obvious robot kibble anywhere. Plus, unlike Wheeljack, there's no gaping, unfinished rear. As near as I can tell, the sculpt is again faithful to the concept art, but lacking in paint. Most of the gray on the roof should be red or white, and some of the sculpted detail like the arrow on the side and the arcs on the hubcaps should be red. Presumably, the lights on the rear could use some paint, too. Ratchet rolls just fine, and a peg hole on his roof allows you to mount his rifle. I gotta say, I rather like this figure. Where Soundwave and Wheeljack were sort of just ok figures that looked enough like their on-screen versions to collect if you're into the designs but otherwise unremarkable, Ratchet's a more fun figure with an interesting transformation. While I do still wish more of the "standard" articulation from the WfC/SS86 stuff would make it to the regular Studio Series line, I'd give Ratchet a recommend as he's easily the best of the current wave of BB figures (so far) and probably my favorite BB release in the entire Studio Series line after Prime.

I might have misread/misunderstood the question. I was thinking the other way around, like a lot of times these days if you see the trailers you pretty much know how the whole movie is going to go, which is not the case for The Batman. But yeah, everything in the trailer is in the movie, but aside from the car chase it's just out-of-context snippets.

Sorry, no fancy introductions, but the new BB movie Studio Series figures are coming in. First up, we have Deluxe-class Wheeljack. While I've complained since the Studio Series line's inception that there's a tendency to skimp on things like paint, it's definitely been the case that more recent figures, especially the 86 figures, to be bot-accurate above all else. For this recent round of characters from Bumblebee, it seems like this task is a bit extra easy, since the alt modes weren't even in the movie. Needless to say, Wheeljack is very faithful to the concept art from the film. Most I can really say is that the white kibble on his arms isn't on the concept art, and there's a bit of red on the green on his shins. Maybe his wings should be white, too, but I'm not sure that film presented it that way for the brief moment he's on screen. When I first saw the reveal for Wheeljack I thought he looked like he might be a retool of B-127. In hand, though, you can see that they're fairly different figures. The biggest difference might be on the back, though. I mean, sure, they've both got the nose of their alt modes for heels, wheels tucked into their calves, and a chunk of the side panel on the outside of their legs, but Wheeljack's back is fairly clean. B-127 (and Cliffjumper, BTW) has that huge honking backpack. Wheeljack's sole accessory is his rifle. It's got a decent enough sculpt, but there's no paint or anything. Wheeljack's head is on a ball joint, which gives him some slight down/sideways tilt, good upward tilt, and a swivel. His shoulders are also ball joints for rotation and about 90 degrees of lateral movement. Note that his wings are not on his back, but on the backs of his shoulders, so they move with his arms. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend 180 degrees. No wrist articulation. His waist swivels, but the cockpit on his tummy will get caught on his hips. Hips that are, BTW, ball joints, which on my copy are disappointingly loose. They can go 90 degrees forward and backward, but only about 45 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel around his hips, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have some slight up/down tilt due to his transformation, but he doesn't have ankle pivots. Wheeljack's gun fits into either fist via the 5mm handle. A second 5mm peg is on the side of the gun, and this is meant to go into a peg hole on his back for storage. Wheeljack's transformation is fairly simple, which much of the roof being formed from his chest and belly. The size and overall aesthetic is definitely similar to B-127. Of course, with both figures in hand the differences are more apparent, with differences in the nose, cockpit, and spoilers. B-127 has that panel that makes the rear of the vehicle, while Wheeljack's rear end is left open and unfinished. The car is pretty close to the concept art, again. The only thing I'd really complain about (aside from the unfinished rear) is that the red on the top is broken up in four different spots by unpainted gray hinges. On the side of Wheeljack's gun opposite the peg for back storage is a tab. This tab fits into one of the slots between his spoiler fins for alt mode storage. And then, just because I originally took pictures with Earthrise Wheeljack before deciding B-127 was a better comparison, here's those as a bonus. Surprisingly, BB Wheeljack is shorter than the ER figure. The difference in size carries over to alt mode. Wheeljack is, much like Soundwave, an OK figure. He's pretty accurate to the concept art in both modes, which I think is what most people want. I'm just finding myself a bit disappointed by the fact that the War for Cybertron line kind of made improvements like better joint tolerances, better joint hardware, and ankle pivots standard, and while the 86 figures have maintained that those improvements haven't carried over to the rest of the Studio Series. We've got ball joints for shoulders and hips here. The ball joints in the hips are Prime Wars loose. He doesn't have ankle pivots. And I haven't even mentioned an issue (that is apparently widespread) where something is just a bit off and at least one side of his body won't stay tabbed in place in bot mode. And, as far as Cybertronian cars from Bumblebee go, with a much cleaner robot mode I would say he's improved from B-127 and Cliffjumper, just not as much as I'd hoped. I guess, if you're a fan of Bumblebee and want to collect the cast from the Cybertronian battle then Wheeljack is fine, but at the same time if you don't really care if you have every character to show up in the film, however briefly, then you're not really missing anything if you skip Wheeljack.

Considering the movie is almost 3 hours, not a lot. Most of the car chase, otherwise just snippets. In fact, there's a scene where it seems like the movie is wrapping things up to end, and my buddy had just gone back from the bathroom. He figured he'd just stand by the exit for another five minutes, but it turned out to actually be the setup for one final act and he was standing there like a goon for a half hour.

It's kind of funny, not long ago I was reviewing XTB's Perceptor, then last week I was in the other thread talking about the new Studio Series Perceptor. A few days ago I was over there talking about the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy repaint of Studio Series Kup, and now, even though I technically bought him months ago, I just shipped and am now finally talking about XTB's Locke, their MP-style Kup. First impressions are a big deal, and I have to say that when I took this guy out of the box I thought he had some nice heft, but something just felt... I dunno, off. Now, this should be the V2 version of Locke- apparently, the initial release was so plagued by poor QC that XTB stopped shipping it, tweaked the design a bit, then sent everyone who did buy the original a new, revised copy. In any case, I think the sculpt is pretty good. My only real complaint here is that his chest looks a little short and his abs a little long compared to the animation mode, and there's some extra paint on his feet that kind of just makes them look messy. The animation model's feet are the same color as the rest of his shin. A bit closer inspection will reveal that the color on his thighs doesn't totally match the hips, but it's one of those things that if I didn't mention it you might not even notice. (Side note... dear Primus, MP-28 has not held up well, has he? I wonder when Takara will get around to MP Hot Rod 3.0?) He does have a bit of a backpack, but it's smaller and neater than the one Fans Toys' is carrying around. What's interesting is XTB went out of their way to make the backpack and butt flaps accurate to the animation model- that wider-at-the-bottom shape with the raised circle on the backpack, and the straight across butt flap with the vertical lines at the bottom, that's on the Sunbow sheet. A part of me wants to appreciate that attention to detail. Another part of me questions if it was actually worth it. Locke come with a few accessories. There's a pair of Targetmasters, presumably one for Locke himself and another for MP-28 Hot Rod. You get Kup's rifle, with a metallic gray coat of paint, and a Sharkticon tail. You get three alternate faces to replace the default stoic expression, one happy, one yelling, and one smoking a cy-gar. You get an alternate top for his head (the default one is dome-shaped, the alternate is flat. And you get an alternate pair of hands, which I'm not entirely sure about. They have the same articulation as the default hands (more on that in a bit), same color, etc. The only difference that I can tell is that the fingers are slightly thicker. Ok, we've cover the Targetmasters real quick. To be frank, they're terrible. The one on the left should be Recoil, Kup's buddy, and the one on the right should be Firebolt, Hot Rod's partner. They're a weird mash of toy and cartoon details; Recoil's gray face is a toy thing (black in the cartoon), Firebolt's gray face is a cartoon thing (red on the toy), but his arms should also be gray then... whatever. Recoil's head can swivel, but Firebolt's is on a ball joint with some additional up/down/sideways tilt. Both of them have ball joints for shoulders (swivel and 90 degrees lateral), ball joints for elbows (90 degrees of bend, acts as bicep swivels), ball joints for hips (90 degrees forward/backward/laterally), too-tight hinged knees (90 degrees), and ball jointed ankles (swivels, some up/down tilt, but not much pivot). No wrist or waist swivels, but due to transformation they can ab crunch. Transformation on these guys is simple, yet somehow still a failure. Their arms are supposed to tab into their hips, but they don't stay very well. The legs don't tab into anything, not even each other, so the transformation is really more like bending over and hoping friction keeps everything in place. What's more, Firebolt is kind of upside down compared to his character model. This is correct, according to his instructions, but you'll note that the halves of his handle are hinged and look like they should swing around so he could be held right side up. However, the halves of the handle won't tab together that way, nor can they fully extend due to tabs that overhang and block them. Tabs that don't actually plug into anything, mind you. As far as being held as weapons, Locke can hold either of them, although more from the tension in his fingers than from the slots on the handles plugging into his palms. I couldn't fit Firebolt into Hot Rod's hands, though. Mediocre sculpts, mediocre articulation, and half-arsed transformations that can barely pass as weapons are all bad enough, but I can't stress how cheap they feel. Their actual pelvis is basically a dumbbell with the ball as the hip joint. In the middle of the dumbbell is an upside-down U, and a screw runs through it into their crotches. The U has already broken on Firebolt. Locke himself has a head on a hinged swivel, so he can look up but not so much down and no sideways tilt. Shoulders swivel and move laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-hinged and collectively bend nearly 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His hands are a bit different. His thumb is fixed. His hand has a hinge at the base of the palm, so he can open his hand like he's doing a "stop" gesture, then there's an additional hinge at the base of the fingers, which are molded into a curl. The index finger is it's own thing, but the other three are a solid piece. Moving along, his waist can swivel, and he's got 90 degrees of ab crunch. The flaps on his hips, butt, and pelvis hinge out of the way so his hips can move just under 90 degrees forward and backward on a very soft ratchet, and just under 90 degrees laterally on a friction joint. His thighs swivel, and his knees are single hinges that bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down, and the front of his foot can tilt up (the hinge is a little loose on my copy), and his ankles can pivot. Technically, up to 180 degrees, but the shape of his leg around the hinge is going to practically limit you to 45 degrees, maybe a little less. As noted when discussing the Targetmasters, his hands (both sets) have slots in the palm, and there are tabs on the handles of his rifle and the Sharkticon tail. The tail seems pretty snug, but the rifle is pretty loose and held mostly by the tension in his fingers. This was true for both sets of hands, which are just pegged into his wrists, BTW. Just yank 'em out and plug in the others if you prefer. The faces are held in place around his forehead crest, and the top of his head is tabbed in around it. They just pop off if you want to swap 'em; I like the round head, not sure which face to use. They all look like accurate Kup faces to me. Even though it's a comics thing, not a cartoon thing, I kind of like the one with the cy-gar. Here's were things start to get dicey for me... transforming Locke is a huge pain in the rear. His legs aren't too bad, but turning his chest and backpack into the front of the car while tucking in his arms and head is torture. Nothing movies smoothly, and its the sort of thing were you move stuff just to get it out of the way, except it's never really out of the way. The joints that move his hips out are thin and, while I can't say I've had any issues so far, feel like they could be a potential break point. Even after you manage to finagle things mostly in place there's stuff that just doesn't seem to line up quite right, and gaps where things are supposed to lock in. Some tabs require to you bend the plastic to get them lined up just right, with the worst offender being the bed of the truck, which is on an armature that needs to be forced under his butt flaps despite there being no gap to go through. Still, the real kicker is that parts were coming off on my copy during transformation. Going into truck mode, the lighter-colored panel on the inside of his one ankle came off. I glued it back in place. Going back to bot, the same piece came off the opposite side, plus the panel at the top of his backpack that his head flap tabs into fell off. These are all things that are/should be glued at the factory, and I just glued them back on. They haven't come off since, but I also haven't tried transforming him again (and probably never will). But the result is... honestly, pretty good. I mean, if you look at him from dead on at the front you can see the head flap and some parts of his collar kind of dangling there, and there's some of the aforementioned gaps that happen to run through the front windshield and the dark spots on the sides, sure. There's molded lines for taillights, but they're not painted. He's got a cartoon-accurate bumper running around the back, which is a nice touch. The rounded bits on the outside aren't actually on the animation model, but they're a necessity for robot-mode, so I'll let it slide. If you look closely you'll note that the blue-grays used for the windshield don't match above and below the seam, which can make the windshield seem smaller as the top comes across as part of the roof instead. Curiously, I'll note that the cab is one color (minus the fenders and the cartoon-accurate dark side windows). This was something I just criticized the repainted Studio Series figure for doing, as I said that it doesn't match the animation model. What's more, I noticed that Fans Toys also used one color for the cab. Well, here's the thing about that. If you're looking at some pictures, including stills from after he transforms at the end of the movie when they're leaving Unicron, the back of the cab does match his fenders, like the first version of the SS toy. That makes it lighter than the front of the cab, like the G1 toy. However, Kup is depicted inconsistently in the movie. Right after he transforms when they're fighting the Sharkticons the back of the cab is lighter, but for the rest of that scene the whole cab is the same color. And other Sunbow sheets show the cab as one color. So, I guess this actually is accurate, and now I'm thinking it's a another point in favor of the Buzzworthy re-release of SS Kup. Kup rolls fine, on rubber tires. The Targetmasters plug into their respective partner vehicles. For Firebolt, as long as you keep his handle together (easier said than done) you can filp open his engine and plug the handle into the square-shaped hole. For Recoil, there are tabs on his shoulders that grab into slots on the backs of Locke's legs. There doesn't seem to be any intended place to store his rifle, though, which is too bad because that's the actual weapon I'd want to use with him, not those very crappy Targetmasters. However, I was kind of able to tuck it between the backpack remnants between his back wheels and under his front hip skirt. It doesn't lock in place and will rattle around, but it seems to be secure enough that it won't fall out. I don't have a lot of positives to say about Locke. I mean, I guess he looks nice on a shelf, and he fills a hole in my MP collection. Considering I got him for around $100 on a Black Friday sale, that'll do, I guess. Especially when the only competition is Fans Toys' wildly overpriced and just as PITA to transform version. So what am I supposed to say here? No, I don't really recommend Locke, but if I wouldn't recommend FT's either and those are your only choices then you have to decide which of the two is the lesser of evils. For me, that's Locke, but he's definitely just a placeholder. If someone else takes a stab at him (especially MMC/Ocular Max) then Locke's coming off the shelf (and possibly into the trash).

At $1500 I'm out on that one, but I'll probably grab at least a 1:32 or 1:24 Jada Batmobile.

I knew he wasn't a Bug, but I thought he was supposed to be some Japan-only kei car well into adulthood.