mikeszekely

Where you able to get an Amazon one? I really didn't want to miss Terrorsaur so I actually got preorders at both. I figured I'd cancel whichever ships later, but if someone needs it I could keep it and sell the extra at cost.

Correct. I can't disagree with any of that (although not all their ideas were bad- I very much prefer the Headmasters idea of the small head robots being the actual Cybertronian and the larger bodies being lifeless without them to the very weird idea that Cybertronians allowed their heads to be used as power suits for squishy organic aliens). Thing is, while later American shows (especially Animated and Prime) were far superior from a story POV, the exaggerated animation of Animated and Prime and the heavy Bayformers influence of Prime are less appealing to me from a transforming robot toy POV. The Japanese shows were kind of the opposite. The stories sucked, but I love a lot of love for some of the designs, especially RID 2000 Prime, RiD 2000 Ruination, RiD 2000 Scourge, Armada Prime, Armada Megatron, Armada Tidal Wave, Armada Starscream, Energon Megatron, Victory Star Saber, Victory Sky Garry, and Zone Dai Atlas. I hope you forgive me. 😏 Oh, BTW everyone, while the first three Golden Disk packs were kind of mediocre, the last one is Terrorsaur. Sold out already on Pulse, here's the Amazon link.

To me that's like two different things, like passing on Earthrise Optimus because you had MP-10/44/TE-01/MS-01. For me personally, I've been enjoying the WfC and SS86 stuff a lot more than the MP stuff lately. Not sure about the price comparison, either, since the Haslab has Victory Leo... what's the cost of MP-24 plus that KFC Victory Leo? Then again, I did notice the TT Mall price is around $60 more than Pulse's. Well, it is what it is. Not really trying to talk you into it- you do what's right for your collection- just thinking out loud.

You mean like MMC's Bruticus? I'll admit that the all-in-one thing meant a few sacrifices had to be made, mostly to Onslaught, but the result is nothing short of gorgeous. I don't mind a little strategically-placed diecast, but Fans Toys tends to overdo it. Pretty sure one of FT's Insecticons weighs more than say, MPM Optimus. And I think jamming as much as they did into combiner parts is just asking for trouble.

It probably got a boost because the Takara Tomy Mall started taking Japanese orders ( @tekering are you going to back it?). I'm not feeling too confident about it making all the stretch goals, but I think the goals unlock in the order I want them. Victory Leo/Saber isn't complete without the V-lock cannon, the stand will be useful for displaying them in alt mode, and I don't remember them ever having a shield. 🤷‍♂️ The third Golden Disk pack is up now at Amazon. It's Mutant Tigatron, which looks like regular Tigatron with Shadow Panther's head and as a orange tiger instead of a white one. Starting to get bummed; pretty much every idea I had (Earth-mode Tigertrack and Deep Cover? Glyph and Tapout? Blue Bluestreak and yellow Diaclone Trailbreaker) is better than Jackpot and Mutant Tigatron. Oh well, I mean we've seen a blue Bluestreak, so I guess there's still hope for Gens Selects or something. Yeah, but that was a '99. For a Transformer to be my car it'd need to be the current gen. And what could be cooler than having a Transformer of your own car? If it were up to me new cars would automatically come with a Transformer version. An Evo would be cool; I'd kind of hoped to see one in the Alternators or Alternity lines. My old car was an Evo X, but I sold it after my daughter was born. It was fun, but not as practical as the Maxima (which is still a surprisingly good drive). When she's old enough that I don't have to worry about stuffing her in the back seat I'll either trade the Maxima in for something sportier, or decide that I like the comfort enough to get another luxury/sport sedan.

Good point, especially the way FT likes to overdo it on diecast. There's already speculation that a lot of the holdup on the last Stunticon is because it's supposed to come with all the combiner parts, but they're having trouble getting the combiner parts to work because their Stunticons are so heavy.

I like how he turns into a Chevy Volt. I mean, it's definitely not a cool car, but one of my close friends drives one. Now if I could just get a Transformer with a Nissan Maxima for an alt...

Well, my kid decided the other day that playing outside while wearing a dress was a good idea, so today I ran to Target to get her new tights without holes in the knees. I naturally went looking at Transformers, still hoping to find a Wreck-Gar (especially since Pulse has been sold out). No such luck, but they did seem to have stocked a different Studio Series figure.... #75, Deluxe-class Jolt. I'd heard a number of people remark that Jolt's never really had a screen accurate toy before, but this one's the one. A huge part of me wants to ask, "how can you even tell?!" Despite the writers assuring Bay that Jolt would be an important member of the Autobots he was only in the movie briefly and had no dialogue. All I could make out from the signature "what the heck is even going on" Bayformers action scenes is that Jolt is mostly blue and seems to have some jagged edges. Looking at artwork for him, though, and comparing it with this and past toys, I think it's fair to say that SS Jolt is more accurate. He's got the digitigrade legs with the wheel wells on his ankles. There's molded details in his knees that look like the tires on the CGI model, and he's got translucent bits over his thighs where the GGI model also had translucent parts. His chest is full of little round bits, he's got blue panels on his chest with thin indents where the CGI model's fog lights seem to be, and the bulk of the front end sticks off his back like wings. That said, I'm not sure I'd actually call this figure screen accurate. The translucent parts on the CGI model's abdomen are just a flat gray piece of plastic here. There's no blue on the insides of his thighs or on his pelvis. Chunks of the car's rear dangle off his forearms where armguards with translucent parts should be. But most egregious of all are the huge chunks of kibble hanging on his hips. They're not on the CGI model, and they're never not in the way. Here he is with his wave mate, RotF Bumblebee, and that looks fine for scale. Jolt doesn't get any guns or anything. But he does have his signature whip thingies. Although the plastic is more pliable than most TF accessories, they're really more like spears than whips. Jolt's head is on a ball joint. He can look up a good deal, but not so much down, not much in the way of sideways tilt, and even turning his head is rather limited. His ball-jointed shoulders rotate, as long as your mindful of all the kibble, and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 120 degrees or so. No wrist swivel, but his hands do bend inward for transformation. His claws aren't articulated. His waist swivels, again being mindful of all the kibble, and due to his transformation he kind of has an ab crunch. His hips are on ball joints, and they can go a little under 90 degrees forward, about 90 degrees backward, but only 45 degrees laterally (and I'm probably being generous on that one). His knees bend about 90 degrees. There's no thigh swivel, but there is a rather useless swivel below his knees. His feet can tilt up maybe 60 degrees and down about 90 degrees, but he lacks an ankle pivot. To use his whips, first you have to yank his thumbs off. A 5mm port on the back end of the whip plugs into the hole his thumb just vacated. Worried about losing a thumb? You'll notice the peg on it has a sort of tab. That tab can fit into a slot on his hip kibble. Likewise, if you want to store a whip it has a tab in the middle of it's length that also fits into the slot on his hip kibble. And, since his whip connects to his hand via a 5mm peg, technically you can allow other characters with 5mm ports for hands to hold the whips. Alternatively, you can yank off one of Jolt's thumbs than jam a weapon with a 5mm peg for a handle into the hole. Jolt's transformation isn't too terribly difficult, but it's not exactly fun, either. Like a lot of "screen accurate" Bayformers he winds up being a shellformer, stuffing a scrunched up mess of a robot into an alt mode he wears on his back. Specifically in this case, most of the top and front of the car is made from his backpack and wings, and most of the sides including the rear tires are his obnoxious hip kibble. That just leaves the rear, which is made from some shoulder kibble and the kibble on his forearms. Vehicle mode isn't as in-scale as the robot mode; I have a friend with a Volt, and it should definitely be smaller next to a Camaro. Size aside, though, Hasbro's taking advantage of the fact that very little robot makes up any of the alt mode and the Chevy license to make a pretty good looking little Chevy Volt. The grill, rims, molded bumpers, and the shape of the lights are are spot on, and as out of place as it looks the side mirrors really were silver against all the blue. He's missing some marking lights on the back, and the headlights and fog lights are just painted silver so they're missing the orange turn signals on the headlights and the blue lenses in the fog lights. That said, these are largely just observations; for a $20 Deluxe I think the details are pretty good. You're probably going to want to leave the thumbs on the hands for car mode, but you can tab the whips to the bottom of the doors the same way you attached them when those doors were hip kibble. Going from car to robot the first thing you do, pretty much, is lift the entire front and top of the car. I don't know why, but I find this look very amusing, what with his little head peaking out. Y'know, there's a subset of the fandom that believes that G1 gets too much attention and actively champions the Bayverse designs. They were making a lot of noise when Studio Series 86 debuted, as they were concerned that G1 was going to take over "their" line. But it's guys like Jolt that make me think that Studio Series is scraping the bottom of the barrel, as you can watch literally every scene Jolt was in in under a minute. Seriously, a few more Bumblebees and the racist twins and they've pretty much covered the first three films (OK, Sideways and the convertible version of Sideswipe, both of whom I think were leaked to be coming, and maybe were missing some Dreads). After that they're going to have to start pulling characters from AoE and TLK, which I've heard Hasbro is reluctant to do, or they go hard on Bumblebee (which leaks indicate is the plan). So where exactly does that leave us with this figure? Jolt is a mediocre figure of a mediocre character. I think you can probably do without him, but if you've invested in the Wreckers or Dino then you've already bought worse figures.

It's real. Not confirmed, but people supposedly close to FT have said to expect a price 4-5x Cerebros' for the body. That would make it around $1000. And while a part of me thinks that is cool someone is attempting MP citybots, a more grounded part of me can't justify that kind of money for a Transformer bigger than my kid.

The second Golden Disk Collection went up on Amazon already. It's Jackpot and Sights, which is a weird one. See, it's a repaint of SS86 Jazz, and you'd think the more obvious repaint would be Ricochet/Stepper, and that's one repaint that hasn't been announced or leaked yet that I'm aware of. Jackpot, for those unfamiliar, was an Action Master. He never appeared in any G1 fiction I'm aware of from back in the day, although he did turn up in the v1 IDW universe.

I'm avoiding watching any trailers or reading any details about the film- I want to go in totally fresh. I really like Tom Hardy as an actor, and I loved the first Venom (warts and all), though, so I've got high hopes. Plus they reopened the one theater near me with $5 tickets, so I'm going to try to see it this weekend.

Why stop there? Transformerland had Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, and Wheelie. Combined with the Springer and Magnus I ordered previously and the Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, and Rodiumus Prime I already own that'll complete my collection of G1 Transformers that meet the following very specific criteria: 1. Were in the '86 movie 2. Were not previously in Seasons 1 or 2 (or Blaster's tapes, which I think debuted in the movie but I'm not counting because Blaster himself was a Season 2 character) 3. Were Autobots or Decepticons. That excludes Gnaw and Wreck-Gar, despite Gnaw's toy at least having a faction symbol. And I'm excluding them because those two are kind of expensive for complete figures. 4. Actually had a G1 toy. Sorry, Arcee and Unicron.

Puffer and Road Ranger are being sold as a Golden Disk Collection 2-pack. It's technically an Amazon-exclusive with a limited quantity on Pulse, but Pulse is already sold out. Still available on Amazon. Apparently it's the first of four Amazon-exclusive Golden disk collections, so I'm curious to see what the other three might be. Earth-mode Tigertrack and Deep Cover? Glyph and Tapout? Blue Bluestreak and yellow Diaclone Trailbreaker? Dang, I'm just spitballing but now I kind of want all of those... Nice. I backed it right away, I'm really looking forward to it. I've said this about the RiD and the Unicron Trilogy, but I think it applies to the Japan-only G1 stuff in Victory and Battlestars, too- don't care much for the fiction, but I love the designs. Star Saber is like the love child of Optimus Prime and Zeta Gundam, what's not to like? While I, too, wouldn't mind seeing improved versions of Overlord and God Ginrai, there's tons of Japanese characters I'd love to have. I read that Takara Tomy Mall will be selling Victory Saber in Japan. Although there was like 1500 backers to go when I last looked that's before the retailers like BBTS and TFSource put theirs in, so there's no way this doesn't get funded. The real question is whether or not they have enough to make the stretch goals.

Got a few unofficial upgrade kits for the official stuff last week. After the success he had making spoilers for the Siege Sideswipe mold a solution for the Earthrise version was practically inevitable. There's two big problems right off the bat, though. One, these are technically adapters for the spoilers he already released. Maybe not a big deal if you bought spoilers to make the Siege molds look more Earthy, but now that you have Earth modes you're thinking the Cybertronian modes don't actually need spoilers. But if you want to keep the spoilers on the Siege versions (maybe so they match all the ones that didn't get Earth modes yet) then you're stuck buying adapters and the entire Siege kit. Two, they only come in black. Color-matching has never been Nonnef's strong suit, and apparently he's been having more trouble than usual, so I guess he just gave up. Some people like the black, but it's just an inaccuracy to me. Fortunately, we can fix it... There we go. Nothing a little Krylon Fusion can't handle. OK, so these install by plugging the adapters into the triangular cutouts on the back of the car. The fit feels a bit more snug than the Siege version, but the connection point is smaller. So they feel less likely to pop straight out, but more likely to twist out when you're manipulating the spoiler. The spoilers just plug into the hole. Once again they rotate out the way of the knees for transformation, and there is a raised bit on the adapters to provide the spoilers with definite stopping points for both robot and car mode. If you're comfortable painting your stuff then I'll recommend these. Even if you wind up buying more Siege spoilers to plug into the adapters it's still probably cheaper (in the US) than importing a Chinese one, and Nonnef's stuff isn't 3D-printed. Next up we have a couple of things from JRC Designs. This one is a kit to add 5mm ports to Earth-mode Mirage's shoulders. You'll see, on the underside, there's a flat edge near the hole and a small tab on the other end. The tab fits into the gap in the swivel on top of his transformation joint, with the flat edge to kind of brace it in place. And, yeah, it pretty much does the basic job it set out to do, putting 5mm ports on his shoulders that you can plug his shoulder cannon into. What I really like about this kit, though, is that it's not partsforming. It can stay in place, rotating with the back of the joint to make some details for the back of the car. JRC's stuff is a bit grainier than a lot of the better Chinese outfits, and it's pretty easy to pop these off accidentally. But they're cheap, they stay on in vehicle mode, and fix one of the most glaring issues I had with this figure. That's enough to get a recommend from me. Also from JRC we have some foot fillers for Studio Series 86 Slag (I get that he has some other kits for Slag, but I really liked Nonnef's swords for Grimlock and I hear Nonnef is working on Slag kit next, so...). Again, a little grainy, but they're just to make the bottom of his feet less hollow. In that, they fit well and get the job done. And again, they're pretty cheap. So nothing that's going to change your world or anything, but probably worth a look. One last JRC kit, and it's these hubcaps for Studio Series 86 Kup. The backs of the hubcaps have tabs on them, and those tabs wedge into the gap on the wheel's axle clips. Like Slag's feet, this isn't going to change your world or anything. But I think the wheels do look a bit nicer, and this one's so cheap the shipping will cost more than the hubcaps. I wouldn't suggest starting an order just for the hubcaps, but if you're already doing an order consider tossing a set of these in. The last kit I got was from an Ebay seller, and I don't know who makes it. It's a replacement sword for Siege Springer. The kit comes like this, with the 3D-printed sword assembled with three chunks of 5mm plastic tubing. There are four ports on the black middle part of the sword, so I guess we'll stick one in to make the handle. The sword's a tad big, but Springer holds it no problem. Well, maybe one problem. His grip on the tube we're using as the handle is tight. Like, two of the tubes wouldn't even go into his hand, and the third is tight enough that you're going to pull the sword off if it rather than remove the sword and peg from his hand. Maybe that's for the best, though? Maybe some partsforming was intended. See, if you open the sword to make rotor blades (which look pretty cool, if you ask me) the tube-handle sticks out farther than the gap in the blade. And there's no pegs, just holes, in the middle of the black part. But if we relocate the handle to the middle, we can plug the rotor into the helicopter. Again, tight fit, so it's not going to spin freely. And it sticks up a bit far for my taste. So maybe the best solution is to trim the tubes? I don't know. I do know that a thing you can do is plug the new sword rotor into the old one to give Springer a helicopter mode with four rotor blades. But I don't know why you'd actually want to. I don't know about this one. The quality is iffy, the tubes instead of actual pegs is weird, the fit of everything just seems off. A better rotor solution than the tri-part mess he came with is high on my list of wants, but I don't think this is the solution I'm looking for. Give this one a pass.

Yes! The one with Scourge and the Sweeps was my favorite, although I liked that they actually got Stan Bush in the Jazz one.

No arguments here. And it might be a lack of sleep diminishing my impulse control... but I just bought a Springer on Ebay. ...and then an Ultra Magnus from Transformerland.

Only 20? Man, I thought I lived in kind of a small area, but our theater was packed! And yeah, we only had the stereo mix, too. Probably not something we can blame on the guys running the movie at the theaters, but the way the film was distributed to theaters. It was still cool just to see it again in the theater, though. I mean, I've seen the film so many times, having owned the VHS as a kid, the Kid Rhino DVD, the Sony BMB 20th anniversary DVD, the 30th anniversary Blu-ray steelbook, and now the 4k steelbook, but something about seeing the "The Transformers: The Movie" logo blasting onto the screen while Lion's version of the theme stars playing on the big screen took me right back to my childhood. I couldn't stop thinking about playing with the movie toys I got in Christmas '86... while I'm loving Kingdom/SS86, I gotta get me a G1 Springer, Ultra Magnus, and Wheelie at least to go with my G1 Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, and Rodimus Prime. I went with two of my buddies from my gaming group. One had seen it before, but was pretty impressed with how well it's held up and how fast-paced it was. I definitely agree; I'm not going to say it was a masterpiece of cinema or anything, but the story was definitely a step up from the "what hairbrained scheme is Megatron coming up with to steal Earth's energy this week?" of the show at the time. The other had never seen it before, wasn't even into Transformers, and I think he was kind of shocked at the level of plot and the number of character deaths in a movie he knew I'd seen when I was six. He really enjoyed it, though, which is kind of impressive because he has a tendency to pick apart movies we watch (like we had a half hour discussion followed by several late night texts after we saw Free Guy).

To be clear, that's the price at the big US retailers. I'm guessing Chinese stores will have it for $180-190.

$230 for a Transforming head seems steep, even if Fans Toys wants it to be the new normal. I don't even want to imagine how much they think they're going to charge for the rest of him. Between Fans Toys being unable (or unwilling) to meet demand and their new "if scalpers can get this much for our stuff why don't we cut out the middle man and start gouging out of the gate" business model I'm just want to get the last Stunticon and be done with Fans Toys. At this point I don't even think I'll bother to finish the Aerialbots.

Anyone else go?

So, about those two Age of Extinction Bumblebees... I was at Target today looking for Wreck-Gar and/or Gnaw. No dice, but I saw under the Buzzworthy line that there's a couple of Studio Series two packs. One is 27 and 28, the dingy repaint of the '76 Camaro Bee with Barricade. One is 18 and 46, the VW Bee from Bumblebee and the car-mode Dropkick. Easy passes, since I'd bought Barricade, VW Bee, and Dropkick all on their own, and 27 is just a dirtier repaint of 01. But the third pack contained something different, something I didn't have... it's SS02, Stinger, totally unaltered from the original release, but he's packed with 79. And 79, it turns out, is the '67 Camaro from AoE. My enthusiasm for SS79 is quite a bit diminished as I tell you that it is NOT a new mold, or even a remold of one of the other eight SS Bumblebees I own. Instead, it's more or less a reissue of High Octane Bumblebee, a toy that's older than my kid. Frankly, it shows. For one, he's out of scale with the others, standing taller than even TLK Bee (who himself was a reissue of the TLK Premiere figure and taller than the rest). His proportions are kind of weird, with arms that are about the same size as the smaller '76 Camaro Bee's, smaller hands, and longer legs. Actually, from the hip to the bottom of the yellow on his shin his legs are pretty similar. Where he really goes wrong is the thin black armature that connects his foot to his leg. If it'd been hinged to bend backward more at the base of the shin then forward again at the foot the armature would collapse, his foot wouldn't be so detached from the rest of his leg, and his height would be more in keeping with the others. It might have also helped fill in his gappy shin. His right arm has a permanently-attached black chunk on it. And there's next to no paint, and the base plastic colors are way off. Most of the yellow on his feet, thighs, waist, and pelvis should be black (or gunmetal, if you really want to be accurate, but then so should parts of his forearms, biceps, and shoulders). Even the stuff that has some yellow, like his shoulder armor, forearm armor, and shins are really more like yellow borders on black parts. Speaking of yellow, that's one of the differences with this SS release vs the 2014 release- this one uses a yellow color very similar to most of the other Bumblebees, where the original had a more orange-ish color, like RotF Bee (far left). You can't quite tell from this picture, but the eyes are different, too. The original had light blue over clear light piping, this release uses a much darker plastic for the translucent part of his head and a metallic blue for his eyes. As far as I can tell, these deco changes are not new, though. In 2017 an "Evolutions 3-pack" was released with this figure in this deco, the original '07 toy of the '76 Camaro Bee, and the Premier Edition TLK Bee, but as that was still a year before the Studio Series line debuted, hence the high 79 number compared to the 25 TLK Bee got when it was stuffed into a pack with with a rusty repaint of 18. Another difference would be his sole accessory, that being this missile. The original had the same missile, but it was a black or gunmetal color on that version. This time it's yellow. Bee's head is on a ball joint, with a little bit of up/down tilt and nothing really sideways. His shoulders rotate, and can extend laterally on a detented joint about 90 degrees (a little more if you use the transformation joint inside is chest). His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a 120-ish degrees on another detented joint; this one takes a bit of force to move. No wrist, hand, or waist articulation. His hips can move over 90 degrees forward, less than 90 degrees backward, and slightly over 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel. His knees, which are oddly high up on his legs (just the yellow part of his shins are twice as long as his thighs), bend a bit under 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down, but not up (although you can maybe fake it by bending him at the transformation joint, but I just think it looks weird). Like many toys of that era he also lacks an ankle pivot. All-in-all, I'm kind of used to getting Studio Series figures with less articulation than SS86 and WfC, but this guy's articulation is pretty poor even by those lowered standards. The missile loads into that chunk on his arm by sliding the back through until the ball settles into the gap. I was impressed to discover that, despite lacking any kind of spring-loaded gimmick, the missile does still fire. What you do is brace a finger on the tab at the top, then push the back of the missile with your thumb. Because you have to push hard enough to overcome the tension of the ball wedged into the gap it'll pop out like it was launched. At least transforming '67 Camaro Bee is pretty painless, as the older figure lacks some of the more advanced engineering you'd find these days. I noticed while transforming all these Bumblebees that even the easier ones, like WWII Bumblebee, often had clearance issues where it's easy enough to figure out what you're supposed to do but wheels or wings would get caught on backpacks or the like. '67 Camaro Bee didn't have that; just unfurl the backpack, lift the chest over the head, stuff the arms under, fold up the feet while simultaneously folding down the rear of the car, line it all up, then shut the door wings. This, right here, is why I've been wanting a good SS version of this Bumblebee. It's interesting to me how Bee's first Camaro mode was selected specifically for being kind of crappy, then in AoE he gets to be a Camaro that's almost a decade older and it's quite possibly the coolest alt mode he's had in the live action films. I mean, this was the original, Chevy's answer to Ford's Mustang and the beginning of a rivalry that continues to this day. This mold did a pretty good job capturing the custom widebody seen in the film, too, with most of the right I only have a few notes. I wish the hinges in the hood would have been painted or molded in black, as they unfortunately stand out a bit. The big yellow Autobot insignia on the sides wasn't used in the film. The yellow stripe wrapped around the nose should go under the bumper, too. The SS badge on the rear actually should be an Autobot badge, and I'd have liked painted taillights. Finally, and this might just be me, but what's with the vaguely exhaust-looking bits just in front of the rear wheels? I'm not going to say that there aren't custom widebody '67 Camaros with something like that, but I've looked at as many pictures of the car used in the movie as I could dig up and none of them had that. The missile can be stored under the car by plugging it into the launcher. Indeed, you can leave it installed throughout the transformation. So here's where I'm at... this toy was probably pretty decent in 2014, but it's not great compared to modern Transformers, even if we limit the comparison to Bayformers in the Studio Series. Reissuing an old toy doesn't do the design justice, and I still hope that HasTak revisits it at some point (along with TLK Bee). However, this is my favorite Bumblebee design from the Bayverse films, and the fact that they assigned it a number makes me think that even if HasTak comes back to this design with a new toy it won't be soon. So, because of FOMO I spent $40 on a seven year old Bumblebee and a Stinger I already have, but I don't recommend anyone else doing that. Now I just need the 2010 Camaro from Dark of the Moon, which was mentioned in the leak, and then the 2014 concept version used in AoE and the Council of Bumblebees will be done...

It's in the previous Anniversary Collection. That crab... Ecclesia is great, but I actually have a soft spot for Portrait of Ruin.

Well, we didn't have to wait long, eh?

Adding the stuff I mentioned yesterday, retail exclusives are going to be a thing in 2022 again. Pulse is going to do more Shattered Glass- Wheeljack, Blaster, Soundwave, and Ultra Magnus. They're sure to be repaints of the WfC stuff, nothing to get too excited over. You're either in or not. They're also going to have multipacks under a "Shine" label (unless that's a placeholder name, or someone typing on their phone got autocorrected from something like Prime). Soundwave vs Optimus and Bumblebee vs Starscream. Target's stuff is just listed as "Red Card," as in "Red Card-exclusive". I don't know what exactly they're going to be, just that there's going to be two of them. Plus, Target will be carrying the next MPM, and it's Blackout. Walgreen's (I really hate them having exclusives 😒) will have a Deluxe-class Minverva. This one's interesting me; as far back as Brainstorm all of Walgreen's stuff has been remolds, but I have no idea what figure they'd remold to get Minerva. Perhaps Nightbeat is in the missing fourth wave of Legacy? Finally, Walmart (whom I also hate for exclusives) will have a whole line called "Velocitron." Despite the name, I'm not sure that it actually relates to Transformers Cybertron, as some of the listings look like more Diaclone repaints. Then again, others don't make much sense as repaints, unless they're borrowing very unrelated names for other Diaclone repaints. In any case, the listings are for Deluxes Burnout (black Diaclone skids), Road Rocket (a G2 motorcycle, no idea what it'll turn out to be), Blurr (maybe SS Blurr in Armada colors?), Clampdown (blue Sideswipe Earth mode? I dunno), and Cosmos (absolutely no clue), and then Voyagers Override (presumably the Cybertron character, but what mold?), Road Hauler (aka Grapple in Constructicon green), and Black Convoy (I'm guessing Laser Optimus has a trailer to hit the Leader price, and Black Convoy is Scourge without the trailer, but we'll see).

I dunno, I've always thought of G2 as a continuation of G1, so I've always thought of Laser Optimus as an upgraded G1 Optimus. It makes even more sense to me if I overlook Powermaster Optimus (the comic book notion of fleshy aliens bonding with Transformers just so they don't get sick from their space fuel never jived with me, PMOP didn't appear in the Sunbow cartoon, and Japanese G1 actually has him as a separate character). But I might have a soft spot for Laser Optimus... Needless to say, the idea of having a good, modern, in-scale take thrills me, and he'll be one of my most-anticipated 2022 figures. If I wasn't totally clear when I posted, here's how I'm feeling- Core- I think the whole point was to have tiny versions of the bigger guys to scale with Titans. I've picked up a few (Prime, Starscream, Megatron) and they're decent for what they are. If I'm bored and I see them I grab some, but they're not necessary. Well, with the exception of the smaller 86 characters (Spike, Wheelie, and Rumble). Deluxe-Commander - if it's G1 I'm almost definitely in. Skids, Blaster, Blitzwing, Kickback, Perceptor, Sludge, and the Stunticons are must-haves, and Crankcase puts us one away from having a complete set of Scavengers. I'm curious to see how new Arcee might be, and curious to see what the Hot Rod variant even is. I'm less excited about the Beast Wars stuff, but Tarantulas and Inferno do help round out the cast and Dragon Megatron could be cool (assuming it's definitely Transmetal 2 Megatron and not RiD 2001 Megatron... although actually I'd be cool with that, too). Really need a Terrorsaur, though. As for the non-G1 stuff, I don't know. I mean, I'm obviously in for Laser Prime, and like @Mechapilot77 I'm not a fan of the Unicron Trilogy as a cartoon, but I liked some of the character designs and I'm probably in for Starscream. I guess the real question is the Prime figures. Bulkhead is probably better than RiD Bulkhead, but FE Bulkhead was cool. Knockout could definitely use a better figure, but Arcee and Soundwave were fine (although I guess Soundwave could stand to be a bit bigger). Before they worry too much about upgrading old figures, I'd kind of prefer they properly finished the line with a Voyager-class Hardshell. But I don't know, I liked the Prime show, I liked the Prime toys, but I guess I feel like I've closed the book on that chapter of Transformers and don't feel a strong need to revisit it. That just leaves the movie stuff. Against my better judgement I've bought into most of the line, and I'm sure I'll be grabbing at least Sideways, TF3 Bumblebee, Crosshairs, and Galvatron. I'm not sold on the idea of buying a bunch of pseudo-G1 Cybertronian TF6 figures, though. Maybe I'll change my mind when I see them on the shelves.