mikeszekely

That'd be it. Oh, it's been a little while since I read them, but voice actor Joe Zieja (who played Bumblebee on Netflix's Transformers: War for Cybertron trilogy) wrote a few sci fi books that are more Spaceballs than Star Wars. I'd highly recommend them. They are, in order, Mechanical Failure, Communication Failure, and System Failure.

That's what I'm reading, too! Actually, re-reading, sorta. I'd stopped reading after the Neverwinter books, but it's more because I got busy with stuff like grad school and having a kid. I'm kind of aware of some of the stuff that happened after, but with the new trilogy coming out and more free time on my hands I decided to read/re-read the whole bunch (and it's actually 37, now, assuming you're not counting the Cleric Quintet). I'm on The Last Threshold right now, then I'll be getting into stuff I haven't really read yet. After I get through Drizzt, I kind of want to re-read Margret Weiss & Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance novels, as I heard they settled with Wizards and are going to be releasing a new trilogy. I've got Andy Weir's new(ish) book queued up, too.

I've run into that before. Basically it means you authorized the payment, but PayPal hasn't actually given the money to Show.Z yet. It can take up to a week.

You're not alone. I just came back from finally seeing this. Going into this I saw people saying on Twitter that they want another AG Spider-Man, and I was thinking that's dumb, we've moved on from that. But after watching NWH I'm totally on board with it, Garfield stole the scenes he was in.

The thing with X-Transbots is that occasionally they put out something really good, but they're just as likely to put out something that's got all sorts of issues. Take their Stunticons, for instance. Breakdown was great, Wildrider had ground clearance issues but was otherwise pretty good. Dragstrip, though, had issues with the clearance you needed to move his wheels between modes, and a lot of people wound up with broken shoulders. I don't know how widespread it was, but my Dead End has bad paint chipping on his thighs. And as far as I know, every copy of Motormaster that went out had a bad stress mark on his waist joint. However, I don't know of many actual breakages. I don't think XTB's Ultra Magnus is actually out yet; it does look good, but we'll have to wait and see (personally I'm sticking with a modified KO of MP-22 until someone makes an MP Magnus with a white Optimus inside). As for Kup, the first release was actually a total crap show. I mean, the QC was so bad XTB promised free replacements. From what I've heard the replacements were better, but maybe still less-than-good. I'll let you know for sure later; I actually bought a copy for cheap during a Black Friday sale, but I'm waiting for something else to come in to get the free shipping. I have a DNA kit on preorder that's out in China, so hopefully not too much longer.

Huge bummer. While I didn't love the Animated aesthetic (I actually think it's fine, but I never felt the exaggerated style translated into three-dimensional toys) the story was excellent, and really a breath of fresh air after the very aimed-at-japanese-grade-schoolers writing of RiD and the Unicron Trilogy.

Well, I've got HBO Max, so I figured I might as well watch it. And... I liked it (although my wife got bored and left halfway through). A couple of things... you might want to re-watch the original trilogy, because Resurrections is banking hard on the idea that you've got a solid working memory of the plot of those films. I kind of don't... I remember the first one really well, I got bits and pieces of the second one, and I can only recall the broadest strokes of the third. So I might take some time during Christmas break and watch all four over again. The other thing is that if you're expecting the same sort of impact that the original film had, you're probably going to be disappointed. This is not the deepest, most thought-provoking film. However, it's a very self-aware film, with a very meta setup that makes the film both a sequel/soft reboot but also a commentary on sequels and reboots. At the end of the day, though, it is what it is... a reasonably entertaining action film with strong performances by several cast members. It's not breaking any ground or re-defining a genre. It's not going to make you think. You're not going to be talking about it for years to come. But if you can accept that, what you get is an enjoyable two hours and change with the potential for more sequels down the line.

I thought I was done doing reviews until after the holidays, but this guy managed to sneak in while I was taking pictures for my look at the 1986 movie toys so I got him photographed before taking down my review space (as it's in my guest room, and I'm having my parents over for Christmas). It's Planet X's Cacus, their take on an MP-style IDW Grimlock. Cacus seems to be most-heavily influenced by Nick Roche's art in IDW's Maximum Dinobots. The biggest deviation from Roche's art is that he's got gunmetal-colored hands intead of red. While he would later get dark-colored hands when Alex Milne and Jack Lawrence drew him in More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light, respectively, they made his entire upper torso gold, gave him red thighs, and did away with the black on the bottoms of his feet. Roche's artwork also has the tail on the outside of his legs, like the G1 toy. It's not how he comes, as there's storage inside his legs for his tail, but leaving the tail outside is an option. Almost everything on him is painted, save for his hands and some of the red plastic parts. It's a premium look that helps sell you on the premium price (this guy retails for around $200). Unfortunately, the QC doesn't quite match. My copy has issues with some parts falling off, namely some screw hole covers near his wrists, the flaps on his butt, and a panel on top of his dino head, plus I've got a few paint blemishes on his pad and the back of his thigh. Others have reported missing pieces, usually parts of the dino mode throat or those bits of armor on the outsides of his thighs, and more than a few have had theirs arrive with a busted shoulder- almost always his right. Size-wise, he's just a little shorter than Gigapower's Grimlock, which is my preferred height for an MP Grimlock. Although I don't have him, I do expect that'd make him roughly around the same height as Fans Toys'. Cacus comes with a sword that similar to, but not quite accurate to the one he used in the comics. Note the silver circle on the pommel; that's a magnet, and we'll talk about that later. I'm not entirely sure if he used his gun in the comics, but PX did include a rather G1-ish gun. Oh, and my complaint about his hands not being the right color? You get a second pair of red hands, so complaint rescinded. Swapping the hands is fairly easy. They're actually just connected via a c-clip, so you just have to pop one set of and push the other into place. I know, despite it being less accurate, that several people have stated a preference for the default hands. I'm personally going to be using the red ones, but the unpainted red plastic does look kind of cheap. Cacus' head is on a ball joint. He can only look down a little bit, but he's got plenty of upward and sideways tilt, plus his ears can swivel if you need them to. His shoulders rotate on some very stiff ratchets- so stiff I expect that's part of what's causing the breakages. Annoyingly, there's another ratcheted joint that's used for transformation, and as it's not as tight it's difficult to pose the shoulder without the transformation joint moving. Sometimes it's almost easier to spin his shoulder around almost 360 degrees the other so you're working against the transformation joint. Another ratchet allows him to move his shoulders laterally 90 degrees. He's got bicep swivels, but they're hindered by the armor on his shoulders. Double-jointed ratcheted elbows allow for over 90 degrees of bend. His wrists can swivel, but they can also bend palm inward due to the c-clip. His thumbs are on ball joints at the base, so they can swivel or fold over the palm as required. His fingers are individually articulated, pinned at the base and one additional knuckle. There's a hinge between the gray upper torso and the red lower torso that lets him lean to the sides, a super tight waist swivel, and a weirdly loose ab crunch. Once you've moved his hip skirts out of the way, his hips can go forward and laterally 90 degrees, and backward almost 90 degrees, all on ratchets. His thighs swivel. His ratcheted knees bend about 75 degrees, but if you unlock them as you would for transformation you can cheat it into a double bend and get a little over 90 degrees. His feet aren't ideal. The black and gold toes can tilt up and down, as well as pivot over 90 degrees. And, to help keep him stable, there are bits on his heels that can slide out. However, most of that big base that he stands on doesn't move. Cacus has a ridge down the middle of each palm. His sword and gun both have grooves cut into the handles, and he holds his weapons by pressing the grooves over the ridges on his palms. Unfortunately, and maybe it's a your-mileage-may-vary sort of thing, his grip on his accessories seems rather tenuous. When I got him into a pose they'd stay, but posing him was kind of a pain because a little shake would be enough to knock them loose. It seems like the dark hands are a little tighter than the red, but they're ultimately still very loose so my complaint stands for both sets of hands. A big part of the draw for IDW's Grimlock is that he's mostly a G1 Grimlock, even moreso than the Fall of Cybertron design that Planet X used the last time they made a Grimlock, but he turns into a more scientifically-accurate T-Rex (again, moreso than Fall of Cybertron Grimlock). His body is parallel to the ground with his tail off the ground, his tiny forelimbs have just the two claws, and his legs are properly digitigrade with three toes on the front of the foot and one dewclaw. Transformation is kind of what you'd expect, too. His robot chest becomes the dino pelvis, with his arms becoming the legs. His backpack shifts up, with the wings closing over his robot head to make the dinosaur chest and the dinosaur head flipping up and locking between those wings. His robot legs turn around and the rest of the tail extends from inside. It's probably a good thing you'll mostly know what you're doing, because the instructions are a horrible series of postage stamp-sized pictures printed on just one side of single A4-sized sheet of poster paper. What's more, instead of doing the sensible thing like MP-08 or Gigapower's Grimlock where the thighs rotate and the legs fold up and over the thighs from the side, Cacus' legs have to bend at the knee joints over the thighs with a few panels and minimal clearance, making it something of a pain. If everything doesn't line up right, you'll know it, forcing you to kind of massage everything until everything lines up and tabs in. Note- remember to rotate his cheeks dino cheeks. It's a step almost everyone seems to miss. Maybe because there's not really much reason for them to rotate out of that position for robot mode, but I digress. And I do mean pain! At one point I saw a red spot on his back and I thought it was a paint blemish. Nope. Turns out I'd actually sliced my thumb open on one of the sharper ridges on Cacus' body. So yeah, be careful if you handle this guy. Once you have him in dino mode, though, the blood (literally), sweat, and tears almost seem worth it. There's more silver paint and less red plastic showing in this mode, and if everything is lined up and tabbed in properly his dino body has an almost seemless, natural curve that belies his transformation. This being Planet X, who demonstrated how to do dino articulation right the last time they made a Grimlock, this time his articulation is pretty good, too. His dino head can tilt quizzically to the sides, plus it can look up, down, or sideways a bit where the base of the head meets the neck. He gets some additional movement up/down/sideways where the neck meets the torso, too. His jaws can open, and he's even got a hinged tongue inside. His shoulders are on ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. His elbows range from nearly straight to a little over 90 degrees of bend. No wrist swivel, but each claw is individually articulated with two hinges. His legs swivel at the hips, but lateral motion is unfortunately limited due to clearances to just two or so clicks. His thighs can swivel, and his knee can bend a little over 90 degrees. His ankle bends (where the red screw covers are), plus each toe is individually articulated with a pair of hinges. Even his dewclaws have a pair of hinges. Each of the silver sections of his tail have hinges that allow for some up, down, or sideways bend. Really, the only thing holding you back from some awesome T-Rex poses is the fact that he's kind of back heavy and it can be tricky to get him balanced properly. One other minor complaint I have about his dinosaur mode is that I wish the translucent red eyes were painted. It doesn't look like it's easy to take his head apart to paint them, either. Mind you, the reason they're translucent is because you can open the top of his head to find a small circuit board. You'll need a CR927 battery, which somehow I don't have despite having bought a ridiculous number of batteries for 3P toys over the years. The neat thing is that there's no physical switch on Cacus' body. Instead, you wave the magnet in the pommel of his sword over his head to activate the switch, which is probably pretty neat if I had a batter and could test it. I have mixed feelings about Cacus. For one, MP-scaled IDW figures seem few and far between. So far, there's just Cacus, GT's Prime and Megatron, and GCreation's Prime and Prowl (their Smokescreen repaint of Prowl wasn't technically a form he actually had in the comics). Something that scaled with MMC's Reformatted line, like the Grimlock they shelved to avoid competing with Cacus, probably would have been better. The transformation on Cacus was poorly thought out and fiddly enough that you're not going to want to do it often, and minor QC issues detract from the notion of premium that Planet X is trying to sell you on with the paint. Still, if you can get around his issues he makes for a pretty impressive display piece in either mode, and I appreciate the T-Rex mode that doesn't look like it was based on the 1925 version of The Lost World. Ultimately, I think I'm pretty happy with my purchase, so I'd say I'd recommend him if you're looking for a display piece with lots of presence, but pass if you're looking for a bot you can fiddle with at your desk.

Say what you will about the particular episode they chose to make a movie of, the RX-78 looks great. I'd love to see more of Amuro's adventures re-animated.

I'd hoped to have this done earlier, but despite being in the mid-40s, sunny, and calm the power went out around 9:30 this morning and didn't come back until 3:30. Fortunately you don't need electricity to wrap your kid's Christmas presents, so I made the most of the time. But now that the power's back, let's finish our trip back to 1986 with the the bigger "leaders." We'll start with Ultra Magnus. Unlike most of the movie toys, who were created new from Floro Dery's designs, Magnus was one of the last Transformers that was a recolored Diaclone toy. Now, I remember as a kid being a little dissatisfied with the amount of partsforming and the fact that his torso is basically one solid slab, but as an adult taking another look at these toys I'm kind of realizing that a lot of G1 toys didn't have much more than limited arm articulation, and on that front Magnus is probably ahead of the curve with shoulder rotation and elbow bends plus bicep and wrist swivels. The new Kingdom figure is a bit more cartoon accurate, with the aviator eyes, inverted belt, white thighs, and altered chest. He sports better articulation, too. But his proportions are a tad off, some of which I might attribute to the fact that he's a slight retool of the earlier Siege toy, which was mean to be Magnus with a Cybertronian alt mode. You didn't see it in the movie or the subsequent third season of The Transformers, but the toy Magnus was derived from was meant to be an upgraded form of the toy Optimus Prime was derived from. As such, the cab wasn't simply the same kind of truck as Prime, it's the same toy. Magnus' cab turns into G1 Optimus Prime, just done in white, and that white Optimus combined with the trailer to make the Ultra Magnus we saw on the TV. As a kid (especially one who never had a G1 Optimus) this blew my mind, and I probably spent more time pretending that this white Optimus was the ghost of Optimus Prime come back to help the Autobots who couldn't get on without him. In the decades since Ultra Magnus came out new Ultra Magnus toys went one of two ways. In the first camp we had the "of course Magnus was always a white repaint of Prime" club, with members including MP-02, Classics Ultra Magnus, Titanium Series War Within Ultra Magnus, Alternity Magnus, an Ultra Magnus Pen, some Kreo toys, and a Legion-class toy. The other side, which included Titanium Ultra Magnus, MP-22, and the not-that-old Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus endeavored for something more like the cartoon, where the entire cab and trailer transformed directly into Ultra Magnus, no white Optimus involved. For me personally, that's what made the Siege toy so exciting; finally, Hasbro was bringing back the cab that turned into a white Optimus that used his trailer to armor up into Ultra Magnus! The Kingdom version is simply retooled from the Siege version, replacing some of the parts on his torso that made for a "Cybertronian" truck (itself actually an homage to 2001's Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus) with parts that looked more like the original toy's cab. So the cab on the original toy transforms just like G1 Optimus; I don't think there's a spot under the trailer to store his fists, like G1 Prime, but I always just opened up the chest and tossed them in the seat meant for the original Diaclone pilot. There's still a bit of partsforming, though. The missile launchers have to move from the sides of his shoulders to the tops, and his belt goes under the trailer and actually becomes the connection point between the cab and trailer. Even as a kid who didn't know about Diaclone or that some of these toys were meant to have pilots, I could tell that Ultra Magnus' chest part was meant to be some kind of vehicle on its own, what with the super obvious seat. I assumed it to be some sort of jet, but I guess the original Diaclone mold had wheels? I supposed that the chest piece could stay in place, like Magnus is towing a little jet, but there's still no place to put his head, fists, or gun that I'm aware of. Kingdom Magnus' robot modes are passable, but his vehicle mode really suffers from being a retool. The cab's got tiny gaps in the doors, protruding lumps from his arm hinges, smokestacks poking up from inside the cab instead of the sides, arms that jut out from the back of the cab, and super visible robot hands. The trailer itself is much smaller than the G1 toy, despite the cab being slightly bigger, and it's not at all cartoon accurate. The way it connects to the cab prevents the cab from turning, and the shin flaps can't open into a ramp, something the G1 toy managed. Hasbro's designs have suggested that they wanted to do better but weren't given the budget for more than a retool, and that's a real missed opportunity. I'd have loved if they could have built something around a white repaint of Earthrise Optimus Prime. Maybe Hasbro will revisit the idea if Studio Series 86 continues to do well. Bouncing over to the Decpticons we have Galvatron. Galvatron has a lot of articulation for the time, with rotating shoulders, lateral shoulder movement, elbow bends, a waist swivel, and at least some hip and knee bends. One of the things that I find curious about him is that, compared to some of the other 86 movie toys, Galvatron's shape isn't all that far off from what we saw on screen. Instead, the main difference is one of color, where the animation was mostly purple with gray accents while the toy is mostly gray with purple accents. I wonder why they changed it; the gray color seemed to better connect Galvatron with Megatron. 2021's retail release of Kingdom Galvatron opts for movie accuracy, giving him the more purple color scheme. Which, you know, is fine, minus the smudges on his shins and lighter purple blotches on his arms and torso; I guess Hasbro had to do something to hit that Leader budget. A bit later Hasbro released a repaint of Galvatron under their Generations Selects label that's more of a G1 toy homage. Mind you, I had to use a mix of the stickers he came with, aftermarket Reprolabels, and a little paint to get him a bit closer than he comes out of the box. Although it was never used on screen, nor in the comics (from what I can recall), the G1 Galvatron toy came with a rifle. The newer toys do as well, but rather than copy the G1 toy they came with a pair of rifles that are oddly designed to look like his ship from the movie, The Revenge. To complete the toy look on Generations Selects Galvatron I equipped him with an aftermarket rifle from Nonnef Productions. The G1 Galvatron toy, like Megatron before him, does have a space gun mode. However, the designers could probably see the writing on the wall for toy robots that turned into toy guns, and chose to give him an artillery mode first and foremost. It's not the most impressive piece of kit. It did leave the designers of the Kingdom toy with some challenges, though. For the G1 toy, his barrel-shaped torso is the main section of the cannon, and it slides up over his head, leaving just enough crown showing for the barrel of his arm cannon to plug into. What's more, despite swapping the gray for purple in bot mode in the movie, the cannon mode was still mostly gray. The Kingdom toy is far from perfect, but credit where it's due they managed to conceal a gray barrel-shaped cannon inside a purple cartoon-style torso. The Generations Selects version goes a bit further toward copying the original toy, right down to the rub sign on the purple band separating the torso part of the cannon from the legs. In the film, when Hot Rod takes the Matrix back from Galvatron he becomes Rodimus Prime. Rodimus is drawn to be larger than Hot Rod, with a more "mature," lined face. Rodimus hasn't exactly gotten the most respect in toy form. Even the 1986 toy is a bit of a let down. Sure, at a glance it's definitely similar to Hot Rod; it's likely working from the same older design, with with a similar stickered pattern on his pelvis, similar reddish shins, and orange hands. He is bigger than Hot Rod's toy, with taller wings. That face is kind of a mess, though, looking sort of melty like Kup with tiny, squinting eyes. He also doesn't have much in the way of articulation, being limited to just shoulder swivels. My dislike of the G1 toy probably wasn't helped by the fact that I didn't like Rodimus as a kid. For one, how dare he try to replace Optimus, and for two, he no longer had the youthful cool he did as Hot Rod. Kingdom Rodimus Prime follows in the footsteps of the '86 toy by borrowing design elements from that year's Hot Rod figure, but cranking it up. He's taller, with bigger pipes on his arms and a face made to look older with some deep lines and hard angles. They don't just make him look older, though, the way the lines on the animation model did. They give him a face that's seen some stuff, that's had Hot Rod's youthful innocence replaced with the battle-hardened expression of a guy ready to mess up some Decepticons because he's just tired of their crap. So, the one time Rodimus transforms in the movie his trailer seems to unfold from his back. For the toy, though, it was an entirely separate piece leaving the actual robot to barely transform at all (and even then it involves some partsforming, as his wings are removed and pegged into a different spot. In the 35 years since the G1 toy, we've had one Rodimus Prime (Titanium) that atttempted this "perfect" transformation without the need for a separate trailer, and two toys that were supposed to be Hot Rod that use his car as the cab for Rodimus' trailer. Kingdom Rodimus does have a separate trailer, but he's neither a cab with legs nor Hot Rod. Instead, he seems to homage a very specific episode where Rodimus actually detaches from his trailer. While the vehicle does have many Hot Rod-esque elements it's not as sleek, sitting higher on its wheels and with a raised rear section. It's not exactly a futuristic truck cab, but it does seem more rugged and less sporty than Hot Rod. The downside to this approach, though, is that it's messed with the proportions when combined with the trailer. The cab is now far too long, and the wings (which no longer sit on the roof) are lost in the bulk of the trailer. It's really too bad Hasbro couldn't have put the wing on a double hinge or something to move it over the roof and/or allow the car to slide in a bit further under the trailer. The trailer of the G1 toy opens up to form a little battle platform, although it technically required more partsforming (I sadly do not have the blast shields that fit onto the sides of the gray part). Kingdom Rodimus' trailer emulates this, but it goes a lot further to add more playability by making the gun removable, and by adding numerous ramps and storage compartments. Kingdom Rodimus isn't perfect, but there's so much going on that homages the original toy while improving on it in every way makes it one of my favorites in 2021. This is probably further aided by my newfound respect for Rodimus Prime, who lost the immaturity of Hot Rod that got Optimus killed and who himself found the task of filling Optimus' shoes something he struggled with. Plus, Space Winnebago! I could stop there, since that's really it for the new '86 movie cast, but the modern toys haven't just been about selling us new and improved versions of the toys we played with 35 years ago. So I'd like to wrap this up by acknowledging that Hasbro has finally given us toys for important movie characters that they never bothered with in 1986. For the Quintessons and the Alicons (and the Bailiff, who wasn't in the movie but would appear in the third season of the show) it's their first time. They complement Gnaw and help flesh out the idea that they are not Decepticons but a unique faction antagonistic to Autobots and Decepticons alike. Meanwhile, despite being an important character in the movie, the third season, the Western fourth season, and the Japanese Headmasters, Earthrise Arcee is just the third toy she'd gotten (although a Masterpiece toy would follow). While I think the Quintesson Judge is fine and the Alicons adequate, the Prosecutor is little more than a semi-articulate stand-in until the day we get something a better (if ever). Meanwhile, Arcee tends to be a bit divisive. She's not Blurr with a new head (which beats the Titans Return version), and she's got better proportions and articulation than the Thrilling 30 toy. However, she's got less of a transformation, as she wears her entire alt mode on her back and simply unfolds it then contorts her body underneath it. Like Ultra Magnus, I find myself hoping for something a bit better to crop up in Studio Series '86. On the whole, I feel like Hasbro's had more hits than misses lately, and there's a part of me that really wants to see them redo the rest of the G1 cast to match the aesthetics and articulation of the War For Cybertron Trilogy. As we head into 2022, though, we've seen Hasbro become more willing to tap into the wider reaches of the Transformers mythos. I gotta say, while guys like Gears and Sandstorm still need to get made I'm finding myself just as excited to see stuff like Laser Optimus get made. We might not have hoverboards and exo-suits like Daniel, but the future is still looking pretty bright for Transformers fans.

I'm in the camp that prefers Magic Square's, but I own both and can definitely recommend TE-01 as a very worthy alternative.

Blame Sunbow. It's cartoon accurate. I don't feel like messing with mine, because Mixmaster's the one figure in this set I'd describe as frustrating, but I think it's possible to leave the toe flipped in. Domestic shipping is bad enough this time of year, so I'm waiting for The Chosen Prime to get the third set it. When they do, though, I'll be picking them up for sure.

These threads used to be called the official and Third Party Transformers threads, but most of the 3P stuff was unofficial and it got confusing. Eventually we decided to change it so that all official stuff, including licensed third party stuff (which is what Yolopark is) would go here, and the other thread became for just the unlicensed stuff.

Yeah, this thread is for anything from Hasbro, Takara, or anything with an official license, which I believe the Yolopark Prime does. The other thread is for toys from companies that are original designs from small companies produced without their actual names and branding because they don't have a license. Anyway, I'm going to pick up where I left off yesterday with some Decepticons (and some guys who are technically neither). Up first, we have Cyclonus. My initial reaction was to kind of hate him. The big head, think legs, long arms, and slumpy torso are pretty close to Floro Dery's original design, but a far cry from the more heroic proportions he had in the movie. And that's kind of the thing, he was easily my favorite new Decepticon in the movie, and the '86 toy didn't really do him justice. I mean, look at those hands! They're practically drawn on! And he's got like the entire nose of his alt mode just dangling from the back of his immobile head! Plus, like Springer, he was depicted as one of the taller characters in the animation, but his toy is actually on the short side (taller than the Autobots we looked at yesterday, but his eye level is below Scourge and up to around Galvatron's belt). In hindsight, though, Cyclonus is actually one of the best of the '86 toys. He's actually got a fair amount of articulation, able to swivel at the shoulders, bend at the elbows, bend at the hips, and bend at the knees. 2021's Kingdom Cyclonus has something in common with his '86 ancestor- they're both representative of the best of their line. Indeed, I don't just think Cyclonus was the best Kingdom figure this year, or the best official Transformer this year, but quite possibly my favorite toy of 2021 period. His colors are good (he just needs some of that darker purple on his forearms), the sculpt is great (although his face is a little long), his articulation is good, and he cleans up so well with the nose of his alt mode cleverly collapsed into his torso. G1 Cyclonus has a cool jet mode, for sure... but one that wasn't really screen accurate. One thing that I find kind of interesting is that you can remove his wings (which means his entire arms). There's no real point it doing so, and it's not necessary for transformation. It just seems like a callback to the old Seeker mold (because Cyclonus was Skywarp, don't listen to anyone who tells you he was Bombshell!). SS86 Cyclonus is more screen accurate, and with a pretty clever transformation to boot. My only complaints are that he looses some of his sleekness viewed from the underside, and I wish something could have folded out of his shoulders to cover his biceps. Like Cyclonus, the original 1986 Scourge is a pretty good toy! Also like Cyclonus, though, he's based on Dery's original design rather than the finalized one that appeared in the movie, leaving him with a big head, thin limbs, a dad bod torso, and smaller wings that wrap around his body more. But he's got some knee articulation, swivels in the shoulders, and elbow bends. The engine on his head is also removable, but it's not clear why. I mean, it uses a 5mm peg to attach to his head. When the Targetmaster version was released the following year his his hand holes were made larger, as the Targetmaster partners used 5mm pegs and that version could use the engine on his forehead as a gun, but the '86 version used smaller holes and a smaller peg for the rifle. Scourge was released early in 2021 as part of the Studio Series '86 line (right). His wings have a bit of kibble on them, but generally speaking he's much more screen accurate with a darker beard, better proportions, bigger collar, and even the pink fingernails. The same toy was released near the end of the year in a less purple shade of blue as Sweep, one of the generic Scourge clones seen in the movie (left). I know some people hate it, but I've always kind of loved Scourge's alt mode. It's long and sleek, and there's something that seemed vaguely futuristic about a the lack of wings. The '86 toy has a bit more white than the animation model, and his head with the third engine is almost the whole way back. The Studio Series toy tweaks the colors and moves the head forward a bit, consistent with the animation. The transformation is a bit on the simple side, as his wings fold around a mostly unchanged robot. While I believe Wreck-Gar was marketed as an Autobot in 1986, and the Junkions did ally with the Autobots by the end of the movie, technically they're a separate faction. I think the 1986 toy tried to copy Dery's design. It's what leads to the chrome engine dominating his torso, the round arms with small shoulders and shock absorber coils running up his forearms, the exhaust on his right leg, and the seat hanging down past his butt. But the proportions kind of wound up weird, with his small face tucked into a huge head. One wheel is permanently attached to his left knee, but the other is removable. Dery's art seems to suggest that it was meant to be a shield, and indeed he can hold the tire in one of his hands. However, he also came with a gun (that he didn't actually use in the movie), and if your arm him with his axe in one hand and his gun in the other he can't really hold the other wheel. I just stuck it in one of the screw holes on the back of his leg. As goofy looking as Wreck-Gar is (and I wasn't totally a fan when I was a kid), he has a lot of arm articulation with elbow bends and ball joints at the shoulders. Studio Series Wreck Gar fixes pretty much all the issues you'd have with the original toy. Better colors, better proportions, better articulation, better screen accuracy. His wheels can be mounted on either knee or forearm (left side for both is screen accurate). He only comes with his axe, though. To get him a gun like the G1 toy I had to get a 3D-printed one. The original toy is close to Derry's art, down to the visible hands holding the front tire. The Studio Series toy tries to clean it up for greater screen accuracy, but what's really impressive is that they managed to borrow ideas from Dery's original design but only very implied by the finalized art, like his head becoming the front of the bike, but pulling the front of the bike out of his torso but stuffing his head into it, so the bike's gauges are still on the back of his head. Much like the Sweep, it's expected that Wreck-Gar will get at least one Junkion retool in the Studio Series line next year, with Junkyard being named (but I'd be down for Scrapheap, too). We'll wrap up the day with a character marketed as a Decepticon (and still has a very prominent Decepticon badge on his tummy) but isn't actually a Decepticon, and that's Gnaw. Gnaw was named on his original toy's packaging, but he's one of many identical unnamed Sharkticons. You could say that, like many of the other 1986 toys, he's based more on Dery's art than the finalized animation model, but aside from the goofy face and a bit more dangly back kibble what Dery drew and what we got wasn't that different. That said, the Studio Series Gnaw does try to be a bit closer to the what we saw on screen... except the SS86 toy doesn't have the little wings. Disappointing, I know. Gnaw didn't have a ton of articulation back in the day. The new Studio Series toy does. And unlike Wreck-Gar, Gnaw comes with the gun the G1 toy did even though it wasn't in the movie. Actually, despite Gnaw himself being smaller than the G1 toy, his rifle is bigger. The original Gnaw toy didn't have to do a lot to transform, what with his very round body. The Studio Series toy has to do a bit more work. It winds up more screen accurate, although neither have the spikey antennae seen in the movie. I think the arm placement is a little weird on the Studio Series toy. And you know what would have fixed it? If it were a little lower and slightly farther back... which could have totally be accomplished if they were on a hinged panel connected to his back instead of the sides of the "shark" face. Y'know, the way the G1 toy did it. Which would have given him his missing wings. At this point in time, I don't know of any repaints for Gnaw. For the sake of troop building, I do kind of hope for a generic Sharkticon repaint in slightly altered colors. And that's it for today. We'll wrap up tomorrow with a look at the bigger "leader" figures.

Well, I'm temporarily taking down my review space, since it's in the guest room and my parents are coming to stay with us for Christmas. Ah, Christmas... it's got me thinking how a lot of the official stuff we got this year were basically new toys of stuff I got for Christmas 35 years ago. How does the modern stuff fare with the toys that so captivated my imagination in 1986? Let's take a three-part walk down memory lane together, starting with some Autobots. (Note- this series is going to focus only on new characters from the 1986 classic Transformers: The Movie. By design, I'm excluding toys of characters who appeared in the movie but were already introduced in Seasons 1 and 2, Season 3 and beyond characters that didn't appear in the movie, and Blaster's tapes. I mean, yeah, I think their brief scene in the movie was their first time on screen, but it was short, I don't have the G1 tapes, and I don't have new toys for them.) Hot Rod was the first new character to appear on screen, fishing with Daniel, so I think he's a good place to start. As a kid I loved Hot Rod, he just seemed so cool. Needless to say, Hot Rod was one of my favorite toys at the time. I think, minus the stickers on the shoulders, pelvis, and shins, and the fact that the shins are red and his hands orange, as toys went Hot Rod was closer to his on-screen appearance than a lot of Transformers were at the time. The biggest drawback was his poor articulation. His shoulders could move a bit on the transformation hinge, his biceps swiveled (another necessity for transformation), and he had elbow hinges. That's about it. The modern take, this year's Studio Series 86 figure, does a much better job capturing not just the colors but the overall proportions of the animation model, features much better articulation, and even includes gimmicks the original toy didn't like the glasses he used to zoom in on the landing shuttle and the sawblade he used to free Kup from the robo-squid. Y'know, I've always loved Hot Rod's car mode... in 1986, it seemed so sleek and sporty. The original toy was still a car that'd look awesome on the streets, but wasn't quite so sleek. The SS86 toy comes across as a bit sleeker and more screen-accurate, but it's not without it's flaws, either. There's the visible gray elbow hinge, the yellow hinge on the roof, and the orange wrist bumps, plus the back of the car is kind of unfinished. Kup appeared on screen shortly after Hot Rod. I wasn't a huge fan of Kup at the time, but I think time's been a little kinder to him. Sure, he's got a chunky torso, big backpack, and no leg articulation, but he's got a ton of arm articulation for the day. His shoulders can rotate and move laterally, plus he's got wrist swivels and elbow hinges. Unfortunately, with no bicep swivel his elbows only bend in an out. I think there's no question that the SS86 toy is more screen accurate and has better articulation, but the blue chest doesn't really match the pale color we saw on screen. He's got his own backpack, and way too many hollowed-out spaces on the backs of his arms and pelvis. His head's also pretty bad. They tried to mold the lines Kup had to make him look old, but the angles make his face look like it's melting. The fact that it's a bit too long compared to the animation model doesn't help. Making Kup's truck mode was easy enough when you can wear that much as a backpack and you don't care about the robot mode proportions. It's more of a feat when you're trying to start with a screen-accurate robot mode get the right shapes, proportions, and colors as the movie in truck mode, too. I think Hasbro did a pretty good job. I'm not sure Blurr's 86 toy has held up as well as Kup's. He's got short arms that can swivel at the shoulders, but that's about it. Due to his transformation his hips can move backward and his knees have a bit of bend, but you can't balance him too well unless he's standing up straight. He's got a head like a face on an old CRT TV. And worst of all, he's a partsformer, with the whole front of the car just hanging out. You can have him hold it like a shield, but that's about it. And older design for his animation model actually has the nose of the vehicle on his back, the way SS86 Blurr wound up doing it. SS86 Blurr also has better proportions and articulation, plus more accurate colors. His arm kibble is a bit bigger, though. The original toy folds into a pretty screen-accurate vehicle, but there's a gap between his backpack and his chest where his head is kind of visible. Based on the animation and line art, this gap is meant to be the actual seat, and Blurr's an got an open top. The Studio Series toy does a better job conveying that. I find it amusing that Springer was animated as one of the taller characters, but his original toy was actually shorter than Hot Rod's, Kup's, or Blurr's. It's colors were working off an earlier design than what was actually used in the movie. Like most of the Transformers of this era he doesn't have a lot of articulation, although his arms aren't too bad. Siege Springer is one of the only figures we'll be talking about that didn't release this year, but rather in 2019. In many ways it's a big improvement in proportions, articulation, and screen accuracy, yet it's significantly farther off than Hot Rod, Kup, and Blurr. His shoulder pads go over the top of his shoulders instead of the sides, and most of his green is just the one vibrant shade, lacking the darker green on most of his forearms and the hands that should really match his face and thighs. As this is one of the only molds that didn't see any kind of repaint from the War For Cybertron trilogy I'm kind of hoping one might turn up yet under the Studio Series banner with at least better colors. For a Triple Changer, the original toy didn't do much changing between helicopter and car. You kind of folded the legs up and slid the engine back, then tucked in the arms and removed the rotors. The animation, though, had the nose sticking out farther than the shoulder pads only in helicopter mode. The Siege toy got that right and looks better for the most part, but again there's little details that it still misses. There's no horizontal stabilizers on the tail, and the points on the sides (were they supposed to be landing skids?) should be yellow to match the cartoon. Wheelie's G1 toy had the misfortune of being a mini bot. His robot mode is terrible, with an orange face buried int he middle of his chest, a flip-up door just hanging out where his head should be, long, skinny arms with hands drawn inside, and short, skinny legs. At least the legs can move! Needless to say, it wasn't a toy that was very close to what you saw on screen, and I found him to be pretty disappointing even as a kid. While there are rumors that we may get a new Studio Series 86 version of Wheelie next year, 35 years later and the best we've got is 2016's Titans Return Wheelie. That figure has better articulation, although it's mostly ball joints, better proportions, and a more accurate head. However, unless you got the Japanese Legends release TR Wheelie's colors are still way off. Bring on the SS86 Wheelie! As bad as the robot mode was, G1 Wheelie's car mode was actually pretty cool. The bubble-ish design was sort of prescient; in 1986 it predicted we'd be driving rounder cars in 2005, and sure enough in the early '00s round really was the design trend. The TR Wheelie is kind of a bust, really. With black wheels and sides that flare out with vents and big taillights it's actually much less accurate. Worse, perhaps due to having to accommodate a gimmick where all the new figures in Wheelie's size class had to make room for a Titan Master rider, it winds up being a bunch of parts that loosely tab together on their edges around a hollow space, so it holds together very poorly. Again, bring on an SS86 Wheelie, I say!

Yeah, there's some kind of convention or trade show going on. I'm a little dispatched disappointed that everything shown seems to be Legends stuff, though. Despite my recent forays into both NA and MS Devastators Legends aren't really my primary focus.

Funny you should mention them... And in case it wasn't clear, this would be Excavator Master (left) and Bulldozer Master (right), Magic Square's Legends-scale Scavenger and Bonecrusher. I'm finding the direct comparison with Newage's to be quite fascinating (although at this point it's kind of amazing we ever thought poor DX9's were acceptable). Both Magic Square and Newage are very cartoon-accurate and therefore very similar- purple pants with blocky feet, a chest that cuts in toward his waist, bump outs near the shoulders, the ironing board over the torso with the rectangles near the waist, and the bar over it that cuts into the pelvis with a narrow tip that angles into a circle on the chest. Both have the red visor, the blocky mouth plate, and flat head with little square on the forehead. Yet, for all the similarities there are subtle differences, and these subtle differences are likely what will form your opinions. Excavator Master's visor is thinner, giving him an angrier appearance. He's got a bit more bulk, which I feel gives him a bit more of a physical presence. He's got the nylon plastic with it's paler green and pinker purples, and the lack of extra linework like the horizontal lines on NA's chest. While I like the colors and maybe the head better on NA, on the whole Excavator Master just looks more "right" to me. They clean up similarly from the back (although NA's doesn't have the forearm covers for where his hands fold in), and both offer the option of tucking the shovel against their backs or leaving them hanging down like tails, as the cartoon did. Excavator Master has a touch more mechanical detail molded into his legs, though. While the small differences in Scavengers are interesting, I think it's the comparative lack of such differences that are interesting when comparing Bonecrushers. I mean, obviously Bulldozer Master is a bit bigger, and the different materials do leave him a bit paler, and he's got the slightly open hands to NA's slightly articulated ones. But at just a cursory glance you could be forgiven for thinking that one was a size-adjusted KO of the other. Both have the shovel chest, with extremely similar (and cartoon-accurate) red and purple markings. Both have the arms of the shovel tucking into his torso, with the molded vent abs. Both have pointier feet, a bit of separation between the forearm and bicep, and bicep armor that rises up slightly above the shoulder on the outside edge. Both have flat heads and visored eyes on gray faces. Even their backs are quite similar, with the roof of their alt mode folded into thin backpack. Magic Square seems more keen on getting Bonecrusher's cartoon colors down than Devastator's, though, so there's no purple on the outside of his legs (plus the extra molded detail). Between that, and the extra black on the sides of his head, I'd probably give a very slight edge to Bulldozer Master. If you were thinking that these Legends figures are getting kind of expensive, well, you're probably not wrong. But, at least in Magic Square's case, some of the cost seems to be the cost of the combiner parts spread out across the three sets, as unlike NA there isn't going to be a fourth set. So with this set you'll get pistols for each of them (Excavator Master gets the one with the Gundam-esque second grip or magazine, Bulldozer Master gets the one with the rounder butt), but you'll also get Devastator's forearms. The arms have a door that opens so the fist can tuck inside, leaving a peg on the wrist. The peg allows you to attach one of the included drills. The articulation on these guys is quite good. Excavator Master's head is on a ball joint, and he can look up a lot and tilt his head sideways a taste, but he can't really look down. His a shoulders ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. He's got bicep swivels, and double-jointed elbows that get 180 degrees of bend. His wrists can swivel, as can his waist, plus his top is attached to his bottom on a double hinge so he has both a forward ab crunch and a backward back bend. His hips are a double ball joint. While his hip skirts can't quite get out of the way and seem to limit his forward/backward range, you can use the second ball joint to shift the entire hip up and outward (a necessary step for transformation) to clear his hip skirts and effectively giving him over 90 degrees of range forward and backward plus 90 degree laterally. The lower ball joint also acts as his thigh swivel. His knees are double-jointed, like his elbows, and bend 180 degrees. His toes have a slight upward bend and plenty of downward, and his ankles are ball joints so he can rotate them and pivot 90 degrees. Bulldozer Master's got a ball joint at the head but greater range than his partner. He can tilt sideways a bit more, actually look down a little, and he can look straight up. His shoulders are ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps swivel, but he's only got a single elbow hinge that still gets you over 90 degrees. His wrists and waist have swivels, and he's also got he double hinge in the waist for all the ab crunch and back bend you could want. He's got the same hinderances with his hip skirts, but the engineering in his legs is identical to his partner's. So he's got the same double ball-joint shifting hips, double-jointed knees, hinged toes, and ball jointed ankles with the same range. Both figures hold their weapons without issue. As with the robot modes, the Magic Square and Newage Constructicons are fairly similar and cartoon-accurate, but there are a few telling differences. For Excavator Master, the upper deck is a bit more cohesive, forming a block with 90 degree corners compared to the more rounded NA, plus I like how his robot feet actually come together so there's no gap at the front, making him the winner in my eyes. Once again it's a bit closer when comparing Bulldozer Master and NA's Bonecrusher. NA's got the seat for the driver under his canopy, his shovel isn't broken up as much by hinges. On the other hand, Bulldozer Master doesn't have the exposed arm hinge on the side, no purple on the treads, and he's got an actual purple grill on the front instead of the suggestion of one that's actually visible robot hands. Slight edge to Magic Square, then. What's really interesting, and something you can't really convey in pictures, is just how different their engineering is, as both of Magic Square's Constructicons use their double waist hinges to unfurl and spin around, giving them much more involved transformations even though they ultimately end up with the same parts in more or less the same places. Yet, for all this complexity, you actually have to do some partsforming when transforming Excavator Master. The shovel is attached via a T-shaped peg, and you need to pull it off, turn it around, then plug it back in. I'll note that, while much more complex than their Newage counterparts, I found them to be less complicated than their Set 1 buddies, and I actually prefer the way their legs transform to the way that Newage's Bonecrusher's does. Neither of MS's Constructicons have wheels or working treads, but I don't really expect or need them at this scale. Bulldozer Master has a little bit of shovel articulation, and that's about it. You can store his gun by using a round hole on the side and fitting it over a small peg next to his lump of a smokestack. Excavator Master's upper deck can rotate, and the boom has a hinge at the base, in the middle, and at the bucket. There's no swivel at the base of the boom; it's true that a real excavator doesn't, either, but it's baffling to me why MS thought it was a better idea to make the shovel a partsforming element rather than use a mushroom peg instead of the T-peg. In any case, there's a hole next to the shovel on the opposite side of the cabin, and you can plug his gun in there. Unlike the first set, this set doesn't come with combined mode instructions. One assumes that's because their combined modes are largely their alt modes. That said, you'll notice that they both have a slit on their butt. The arms that they come with have corresponding T-pegs that slide into those slots. For Bulldozer Master that's enough; as you tab his upper body back in that'll help secure it. For Excavator Master you have to spin the upper deck 180 degrees and a second notch just in front of the shovel will grab over the rest of the T-tab. From there it's up to you if want to leave the shovel in on in excavator mode (toy/OX style), take it off and put it on in robot mode so it can curl over the top of Devastator's shoulder for a still-attached-but-compacted look, or remove it entirely (which seems to be the most cartoon-accurate option). On the underside of both vehicles you'll find a hinge on a swivel with a T-tab, and that's going to be the connections to Hook. Comparing Magic Square to Newage is turning out to be a very interesting experience. Magic Square definitely has the more complex, interesting engineering and a slight aesthetic edge in my book, but Newage has better materials and tolerances. And I think that brings to me a thought I had earlier, one I'll reiterate now- Magic Square probably has the better Constructicons overall, but Newage's probably work better as Legends. Newage's are small and easy to fiddle with, where the more advanced engineering paired with the sometimes wonky tolerances of the nylon plastic they use makes me think they'd be a lot more fun at a Voyager or even Masterpiece (with some modifications) size, and that only further highlights to me how much better they both are than the so-called MP offerings like Constructor. Regardless, I'll wait for the third set and combined mode before giving an ultimate recommendation. For now, though, it's really looking like you can't go wrong with either offering.

Just a shade over two years ago I got my hands on Siege Rung, and my takeaway was that he was little, lacking paint and articulation, but I was mostly excited to even have a toy of a major IDW-only character. But what if we could have a bigger Run, with better paint and articulation? Enter MMC's Mentis, their Reformatted take on Rung. I think, due to minor stylistic differences in colors over the course of More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light that it's next to impossible to be 100% accurate to any give depiction of Rung as he appeared int he comics. In broad strokes, he's extremely accurate with thin limbs, the molded lines on his forearms, hips, shins, thighs, and shoulders, and a very Milne-esque head sculpt. His primary colors, orange and white with a blue circle in his chest, that checks out. Discrepancies come up in the minor details. The stripes on his chest are yellow here, but often depicted as either white or glowing red. There's some extra gold on his shoulders and shins, and some extra red on his head and shoulders that I won't say he never had in the comics but that he didn't seem to often have. Likewise, the top of his head is sort of a grayish color, which I've seen in some of Milne's art, but more often matched the white color of his limbs, abdomen, and feet. Still, he's looking a lot better than the Siege toy... I'm guessing that most of the people who pick up Mentis are heavily invested in the Reformatted line. Unfortunately, I sold off most of my Reformatted stuff when I quit CHUG (prior to getting heavily back into CHUG with Siege *shrug*), but here's how Mentis looks with MMC's MTMTE Megatron. Me, I actually bought him because I want a Rung to go with my mainline stuff, so you can see here how he stacks up with SS86 Hot Rod and Kingdom Rodimus Prime. Basically, he's a tall Deluxe/short Voyager. He comes with a number of accessories. You get his scooter (as his alt mode wasn't revealed until very late in Lost Light's run). You get a tablet, and a mount for the tablet. You get his glasses (which are really tiny, don't lose them!). You get one of his model starships. And you get eleven alternate hands. You also get seven alternate heads. Including the installed head, it works out to four expressions- stoic, whistling, worried, and angry/yelling, in both the with glasses and without varieties. Somewhat disappointingly, the glasses accessory does not attach to any of the faces without glasses, nor are the glasses removable from the faces that have them. I'll also point out here that you can see the antenna on most of the heads is pretty bent. It was bent on the default head, too, but I was able to straighten it by pointing a hair dryer at it for a few minutes. Being a major character whose alt mode wasn't even revealed until very late in IDW version 1, it makes sense that MMC didn't just focus on his appearance but also his articulation. His head is on a hinged ball joint so he can look up quite a bit, down until his chin gets into his chest, plus he's get the usual swivel and some sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees, plus he's got some forward and plenty of backward butterfly motion. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbow bends just shy of 180 degrees (it's really only his hands bumping into his bulbous shoulders that stops him from getting the full 180). His wrists are ball joints, which provide not just a swivel but a little in/out/up/down wiggle. His waist swivels, plus there's what seems to be a pair of hinges mid-torso. One allows him a bit of ab crunch, the other some sideways teapot lean. His hips can move forward 90 degrees, backward 90 degrees, and laterally just over 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and he's got double-jointed knees that bend a little short of 180 degrees, basically until is calves meet the back of his thighs. The white part of his foot his on a hinged ball joint, so you can get some upward tilt and plenty of downward tilt, plus the whole foot has a hinge for over 90 degrees of ankle pivot. That said, one problem I run into posing him is that both his backpack and the orange sides of his chest like to come untabbed when you're manipulating him. It's not the end of the world, but it's an annoyance that's worth pointing out. Now, as far as accessories go, Mentis can ride his scooter... Or you can transform it and store it on his back. I don't think it's ideal, though. For one, transforming the scooter requires partsforming, as the upright section is pulled off, folded up, and then tabbed onto the base. For two, Mentis doesn't have much in the way of heels, and the scooter a bit of weight to his back, forcing you to pose him leaning forward to keep him from tipping backward. Rung's hands can be swapped simply by popping the ball joints out of his wrist socket and popping a different one in. Some hands are expressive, others are meant to hold things, including his model starship and even his glasses. However, he doesn't hold them securely, and you're very likely to drop and lose the glasses. One set of hands seems to be primarily for holding the handlebars of his scooter. They're not exactly 5mm grips, but if you want to try giving him some kind of weapon (like, for instance, the Siege version in alt mode) those would be the ones to try. Swapping heads isn't as easy as the hands; you need to undo a screw on the back of his head. Finally, the tablet (which is more like a medical chart; Rung is a psychiatrist, for those unfamiliar with him) plugs into the mount, which has two swivels and a ball joint, and plugs into a port on his side. All-in-all, I feel like MMC wanted you to be able to recreate almost any scene that featured Rung in the comics, but truthfully most of his accessories are just going to wind up in storage, and I'd have been happy enough with MP carbot-style minimally articulated hands than having to keep a supply of hands "handy" for every time I want to change his pose. While playing a lot like an action figure in hand, MMC did give Mentis an alt mode. Again, can't really get into it without major spoilers- Mentis' instructions simply refer to it as "artifact mode"- but between the two modes this is definitely where the sacrifices were made. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot closer than the Siege toy, and MMC even included the handles that appeared on Lost Light #22 but nowhere else. But his toes aren't really hiding, the stripes from his chest should be closer to his pelvis, there's a gap between his legs, and his arms are literally just folded behind him. But I suppose it's hard to match the comics exactly, especially when Rung's alt mode appeared in maybe three or four total panels plus one cover, and was drawn inconsistently between them. I guess my point is, for something whose purpose is deliberately unclear, Mentis is close enough. Mentis can't really do much with his accessories in alt mode, which is again why most of them are just going to end up in storage. I'll note, though, that it doesn't matter much which hands are installed, as they don't fold or tuck in any way. The hands that came installed do lay sort of flatter against his butt, but this isn't necessarily an object hat should be lying flat anyway. Mentis is sort of a tough call. On the one hand, if you're a fan of MTMTE/Lost Light (as the folks at MMC seem to be) then this is a very accurate robot with great articulation and plenty of accessories that pays homage to a very important character. On the other hand, if you're not so into the comics, this is a pretty light figure in a gray area between a WfC Deluxe and Voyager with a simple transformation and questionable alt mode that runs around $130, making him one of the smallest MMC figures I have (I think only their Cliffjumper and the Remix tapes are smaller in my collection, with the Insecticons being similar in size) but one of the more expensive MMC figures I own (I paid more for Onslaught and Springer, and I think Star Convoy was close). That makes him kind of a hard sell. I think, ultimately, if you're a fan of the comics you're going to want him. But if you haven't read the comics the value just isn't there, and you should probably pass. Just hope that if you do ever read the comics that Mentis will still be available.

Those preorders are what's holding me back! As I've said, I've got the three Maketoys Seekers, and while I do think DS's looks better (at least in bot mode) I can't bring myself to commit to replacing all three. If you'd really like me to take a look at it, my ZIP is 15642 if you want to check the shipping. I would gladly cover the return shipping.

I was into the Vampire Chronicles in high school (I took a French class where the teacher made us all pick French names and I even picked Lestat), but I kind of just stopped. I think the last one I read was Memnoch the Devil, but I don't really remember much of the last two. I remember really loving The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned, though.

I'll keep it in mind.

I definitely understand, and I'm sure I'd feel the same way were I in your shoes. Not gonna lie, though, as someone who went with Gigapower I'd still love to have a good look at the FT Dibots, to the point where I'd considered picking up the reissues. But that was before I found out that the reissues were something like $300 a pop and they didn't seem to be including either Scoria or Cesium. Oh well. Perhaps someday I'll take a vacation in Spokane...

Before my daughter was born I was pretty heavy into Gunpla, but I got out of it because I didn't really have the time to work on a model while taking care of a baby. And after I moved I used the Detolfs I'd had my models in to display Transformers instead. My models are still in boxes, and I'm not even sure some of the more delicate RGs even survived the move. Well, after watching Gundam Build Real on the Gundam.info YouTube channel I kind of got an itch to build a Gunpla kit, and I happened to recall that Target has them with their collectibles. I didn't really want to do another RG, as they're a bit time consuming and a tad more delicate. I briefly considered building the HG RX-78 and/or the HG Char's Zaku, but I'd built both of the RGs and I think I might have actually already done that RX-78. Then I noticed that they have a new line, Entry Grade, for beginners. While I'm not really a novice to Gunpla, I saw this one specific one, RX-78-2[US] Gundam American Type. Pros- It's a quick build. Only took about an hour or so. Good for easing back into the hobby. -1/144 scale means it's fine keeping with HG or RG kits. -Even without paint, the kit does a good job getting parts in the right colors. No stickers needed for the eyes, the forehead sensor, the chin, the V on his pelvis, etc. -'Murica! -Not as simplified from an HG as I feared. Cons- No sticker for the scope of the rifle. -Beam sabers for the backpack, but no blade effect parts. -No polycaps. The joint system here isn't as effective, and I've had trouble getting the range I'd like on some of the ball joints without them popping off. Mixed- -Only one set of hands. They hold the shield and rifle well, and even the beam sabers, and look ok empty. I think it's fine. But if you're used to more expressive hands, or hands purpose-made for weapons, your outta luck. Overall, I think if you're used to building more advanced kits like MG or RGs then the Entry Grade is probably going to be a bit "baby's first Gunpla". But it's not a huge step backward from HGs, it's a mere $10, and I'm always down for seeing the classic RX-78 with new color schemes.

Yeah, that's basically where I'm at. One of my buddies is passingly interested, one of them enjoys the handful of G1 toys I have (which is interesting, because he was little during the UT), and that's about it. Stuff goes fast at stores, though, but based on my experiences working retail I'd imagine that a lot of it is going to scalpers. Europe to the US is probably not the most economical route for sharing toys, but I appreciate the thought.😉

The only thing I prefer on the ER version is the translucent windows. I'm not a fan of the solid light blue paint. And I really wish they could have engineered some way to get the chest spoiler on him. Either version.