The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[mikeszekely]

17 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Part of the problem is that Takara & Hasbro shrink the jets so that the robot modes will all be roughly compatible. However, most jets are much larger than cars.

I mean, we're talking about a franchise where a space shuttle orbiter becomes the arm of a robot that uses a Jeep Willys for a leg (in the cartoon, I am aware that the toy was actually based on larger the XR311).  Trying to reconcile alt mode scale in G1 is a pathway to madness.

But like I keep saying, the real problem is the relatively thinness.  A car just of room underneath and inside to stuff robot parts, or chunkier parts that are easier to translate directly as robot parts. As big as an F-15 is (and comparatively thick for a fighter), it's roughly 40% thinner than a Datsun 280ZX (which is pretty sleek, as cars go) when you compare their relative length or width to their height.

22 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Considering all of Kawamori's valk designs which approximate real world aircraft, and all of his variations in planform and transformation schemas, I think the problem lies with Takara's exceptionally narrow approach to designing transformable jets and less with their proportions.

A lot of Kawamori's designs end up with large intakes and engine nacelles that are a thicker than a lot of modern fighters, and Macross series since they started using more CGI have featured Valks that are a lot skinnier, especially in the arms.  And like I said, Kawamori has the luxury of working backward from Fighter, and from VF-1 to VF-11 to VF-19 to VF-25 to VF-31 a lot of the transformation elements are pretty similar, with the big evolution seeming to be how they scrunch up the cockpit and nose.  I'm not saying this as a critique of Kawamori's work, I'm saying that Takara was first constrained by using real-world aircraft then double-whammied by Sunbow replacing the Diaclone mecha designs with Floro Dery's character models, which (especially in the first season) often deviated wildly from the original designs.  When you start with a toy that had kind of weird proportions and arms that were half part of the fuselage and half add-on fists, turn it into a cartoon with more humanoid proportions and normal, blocky arms, then turn it back into a toy that has to be faithful to that cartoon, something's bound to give.  And, I mean, yeah, I think it's definitely possible, with enough parts and engineering, to have a totally accurate F-15 turn into a totally Sunbow robot.  I agree that designers could make better use of what the plane actually has and translating that into what the robot needs.  But at even a $50 Leader price?  On a toy that still has to meet US safety standards to be sold in Walmarts, and very likely doesn't have a license from Boeing even be all that accurate in the first place?  Last I checked even Newage charges more for a toy that's half the size.  And it gets even worse when they have to do it as a Deluxe that also has to be a part of a Combiner.

Like I ultimately said, Has/Tak's jet Transformers are far from perfect, and I do get how that can be frustrating for someone so into aircraft... but I gotta be realistic about what they can and can't do with a $20/$35/$50 trying to capture the nuances of an often poorly-animated 40-plus year-old cartoon.

...newer Transformers media, though, doesn't quite have the same excuse.  The guys who worked on the Bay films could have worked backward from an F-22 the way Touch Toys did with the J-35 and given us a cool Starscream, instead of the mess of scrap that we actually got.  But they didn't.  But even then, there's the matter of budgets... SS Starscream?  Best they could do on the budget at the time (was that release all the way back when Voyagers were $25?).  The MPM, though, that was proportionally thicker and far messier?  No excuse.

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

hate it when they put a foreshortened forward fuselage on their jetformers- it's analogous to making the entire cabin section of a car only half of its normal width. 

So... like Bumblebee and Cliffjumper? 😄

Shifting gears a bit, I know you're a big fan of the tapes in general and Dr. Wu's specifically.  Make sure you check out the 3P thread.😉

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I mean, we're talking about a franchise where a space shuttle orbiter becomes the arm of a robot that uses a Jeep Willys for a leg (in the cartoon, I am aware that the toy was actually based on larger the XR311).  Trying to reconcile alt mode scale in G1 is a pathway to madness.

 

[lechuck]

Has there ever been an interview with the original people behind the scarmble city Bruticus to ask why they chose his combiner layout like that? 

It surprises me that a Japanese toy company didn't ground themselves with a bit of sense for scale and realism, even in an outlandish setting like Transformers.

[pengbuzz]

5 hours ago, lechuck said:

Has there ever been an interview with the original people behind the scarmble city Bruticus to ask why they chose his combiner layout like that? 

It surprises me that a Japanese toy company didn't ground themselves with a bit of sense for scale and realism, even in an outlandish setting like Transformers.

Yeah; either some of the vehicles need to at least change position, or they need to choose vehicles that scale nearly the same. Example: either Blast-off should have been the body on Bruticus, or they should have more likely chosen an actual combat craft for his alt mode (not perfect, but more believable than a honkin' space shuttle!). Swindle should have been a Bradley fighting vehicle, which would have put him on a similar scale with Brawl.

Edited August 7 by pengbuzz

[M'Kyuun]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I mean, we're talking about a franchise where a space shuttle orbiter becomes the arm of a robot that uses a Jeep Willys for a leg (in the cartoon, I am aware that the toy was actually based on larger the XR311).  Trying to reconcile alt mode scale in G1 is a pathway to madness.

 

5 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 

Madness. 😄

4 hours ago, lechuck said:

Has there ever been an interview with the original people behind the scarmble city Bruticus to ask why they chose his combiner layout like that? 

It surprises me that a Japanese toy company didn't ground themselves with a bit of sense for scale and realism, even in an outlandish setting like Transformers.

Y'know, I've often wondered why they completely eschewed real world scale, but apparently the trend stared with the original Diaclone and only got progressively worse from there. Once we got to the combiner teams, all bets were off, Bruticus being a major example of just how wonky scale is in the Transformers Universe. However, scale discrepancies were only amplified by the Sunbow animation and '86 Movie. astrotrain is a glaring example, alongside Soundwave, his cassettes, Reflector, and good ole Megatron himself. I 've also often wondered how Transformers would have turned out had Budiansky changed up the roster and kept Soundwave, his minions, Megatron, and Reflector all at their real world, human hand-sized scale and perhaps made them all spies or something. It would have been a completely different show, but I think it'd make for a neat alternate universe story completely devoid of mass shifting. Of course, the toys wouldn't be able to do that so there'd be obvious concessions there. However, it would be neat to have at least one line where the toys were all in relatively r/w scale to each other. 

 

6 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; either some of the vehicles need to at least change position, or they need to choose vehicles that scale nearly the same. Example: either Blast-off should have been the body on Bruticus, or they should have more likely chosen an actual combat craft for his alt mode (not perfect, but more believable than a honkin' space shuttle!). Swindle should have been a Bradley fighting vehicle, which would have put him on a similar scale with Brawl.

See, that would have been logical. Too, I've always wondered why they chose a Concorde for Silverbolt's alt when the B-1B would have been far more apropos amongst a group of American fighters. Weird decisions.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

But like I keep saying, the real problem is the relatively thinness.  A car just of room underneath and inside to stuff robot parts, or chunkier parts that are easier to translate directly as robot parts. As big as an F-15 is (and comparatively thick for a fighter), it's roughly 40% thinner than a Datsun 280ZX (which is pretty sleek, as cars go) when you compare their relative length or width to their height.

Well, in a toyline where they can make cassettes, motorcycles, dune buggies, and other relatively thin alt modes transform with no bot kibble hanging out, a jet fighter seems, to me, to be a far less challenging prospect. Moreover, I design transforming mecha from LEGO, my own designs as well as Macross. I've been doing it decently well for over a decade and from experience, it's difficult to see how you can start with a robot and design it into a vehicle or object, as so much of the alt mode generally informs the robot mode. Honestly, there's a lot of back and forth, so I have some understanding of the challenges Takara faces when designing Transformers toys. Designing with LEGO poses its own unique challenges, as I'm constrained by the palette, the dimensions of LEGO parts, and my inability to craft a custom part where it would serve better than what exists or what I can cobble together. It definitely pushes my creativity and innovation to overcome challenges.

Anyway, 

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

A lot of Kawamori's designs end up with large intakes and engine nacelles that are a thicker than a lot of modern fighters, and Macross series since they started using more CGI have featured Valks that are a lot skinnier, especially in the arms.  

Due to his general habit of making the entire powerplant become the legs, I'll concede the point- especially on valks like the YF-19 or the VF-17. And yeah, his latest designs have become thinner and lankier. I don't mind.

Floro Dery's blocky designs in some ways improved the looks of the bots compared to their toys, but that blockiness seems to have had a reverse inspiration on the toys that would follow, unfortunately. Concerning the Diaclone JetRobo F-15 initially released in '83, it seems a step backwards in design philosophy since it likely succeeds Kawamori's far more elegant and realistic VF-1. The transformation involves partsforming the lower arms/hands which seems contrary to the majority of Kawamori's valks over the years, although, technically, the VF-1's, and VF-0's by extension, legs partsform from fighter to battroid. It has always seemed odd to me that they didn't just make the area for the arms a little wider and hinge the lower arms into that space to fill out the inner fuselage. I so wish they'd done that with the SS86 toy, but it looks like they followed the Classics/ Earthrise / MP solution of just recessing them into the sides of the plane. I'm not complaining; at least they integrate and aren't just hanging out there in the breeze like so many pf their other TF jetformers.

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I agree that designers could make better use of what the plane actually has and translating that into what the robot needs.  But at even a $50 Leader price?  On a toy that still has to meet US safety standards to be sold in Walmarts, and very likely doesn't have a license from Boeing even be all that accurate in the first place?  Last I checked even Newage charges more for a toy that's half the size.  And it gets even worse when they have to do it as a Deluxe that also has to be a part of a Combiner.

You know my answer b/c they do it routinely with any other alt mode except jets, and they even managed to do it with Maverick, Legacy Prime Dreadwing/Skyquake, and Needlenose, and with Generations Scourge (an innovative blended wing design likely inspired by NASA's Boeing X-48), IMHO one of the all-time best aviation alt modes both by subject and execution. Fantastic figure. I'll throw the Classics fig in there too, whose only real disappointments were the too-shallow forward fuselage and the giant hole between the intakes that should have been filled by forward fuselage. My point is, there are precedents for doing good to decent jetformers; the question is, why are they the exceptions and not the rule? I don't think it's always necessarily about budgets, retailers' needs, or toy safety laws but more of an internal trend of relying on an old tried-but-true simple approach that gets the job done minus nuance, innovation, or adherence to what real jets look like. insofar as combining, again, they can manage to make just about any other alt mode, even construction machinery, look credible, but jets? Same old story: blocks with nosecones, wings, and tails thrown on. Even the G1 toys succeeded with conveying what aircraft they were supposed to be with slightly more accuracy than the Legacy versions. Step backwards.

10 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Like I ultimately said, Has/Tak's jet Transformers are far from perfect, and I do get how that can be frustrating for someone so into aircraft... but I gotta be realistic about what they can and can't do with a $20/$35/$50 trying to capture the nuances of an often poorly-animated 40-plus year-old cartoon.

Frustrating both b/c they've proven they can do better, other companies have done it better, and b/c they seem locked into a formula that they seem to have no desire to amend or improve upon. After forty years, they should be able to take those blocky cartoon models and transform them into reasonably believable aircraft- it's kinda what they do, except when they don't.

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

...newer Transformers media, though, doesn't quite have the same excuse.  The guys who worked on the Bay films could have worked backward from an F-22 the way Touch Toys did with the J-35 and given us a cool Starscream, instead of the mess of scrap that we actually got.  But they didn't.  But even then, there's the matter of budgets... SS Starscream?  Best they could do on the budget at the time (was that release all the way back when Voyagers were $25?).  The MPM, though, that was proportionally thicker and far messier?  No excuse.

So... like Bumblebee and Cliffjumper? 😄

Shifting gears a bit, I know you're a big fan of the tapes in general and Dr. Wu's specifically.  Make sure you check out the 3P thread.😉

First point, yeah, no excuse for not taking a different approach. However, in Takara's defense, they didn't design the robot modes for Bayformers; a bunch of CG artists chopping up pics of vehicles and pasting those bent, twisted, and otherwise distorted shards of vehicles onto robot frames created the designs. Hence the reason they are impossible to develop as three dimensional toys without a buttload of cheating. I wish they'd let Takara develop the bot modes, although I have a feeling Starscream would've turned out little better b/c Takara's gonna Takara. I think all the ground vehicles would have had more logical bot modes based on actual transformation mechanics, and that would have informed the screen captures as well. Alas, we got Bay's shardbots and history is set.

Second point, no, more like a single seat wide cabin area that looks like the Countach's windshield and surrounding windows in the middle of an otherwise normally scaled Countach. That's how I visualize the truncated forward fuselages on jetformers as it would translate to Sideswipe, for example. Apply the same formula to the rest, except Mirage who's already just a single seater. Throw his arms on the outside of the doors and completely close up his aft wheel wells to represent the general omission of aft landing gear. Now take that approach to nearly every carbot and see how the fans react. Guessing it wouldn't go over well. 

Third point: I checked it out! Appreciate the review. I got them myself last week after waiting what seemed an eternity for them to finally release. Agree on all points. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, the cassette alt mode seems like more of a loose suggestion, if that, on these smaller scaled cassettebots. They should just call them wafers at this point. As someone who really digs the cassettebots, it's a bit disappointing, but I do like what Wu's doing with them for the most part. These two were really well done, IMHO, and I agree that it's likely b/c they didn't have to make compromises for a combination gimmick. I hope he'll eventually do all the major character cassettes, as they'll at least benefit, I hope, from better articulation.

If there's a Studio Series '86 Soundwave coming, hopefully at minimum, we'll get a better Ravage.

[davidwhangchoi]

13 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 

that's actually inaccurate,

Octane is bigger than a shuttle. They just made AstroTrain too large in the movie. 

[mikeszekely]

Well, well!  While I've accumulated a small pile of repaints over the last two weeks or so that I do eventually need to get photographed, seems Amazon has started sending out the final wave of 2025 Studio Series figures.  Which means that I now have, sitting on my desk, one of the most-anticipated figures of the year, Leader-class 86 Megatron.

For me, almost since I started collecting, a proper Classics/Universe/Generations/whatever Megatron has felt just out of reach.  Classics?  I was glad to have something to go with Classics Optimus, but the winged white-and-purple Nerf gun was a bit of a reimagining.  Combiner Wars had better colors, but poor articulation and a lot of compromises to make a better tank mode, not to mention he was closer to MP scale than Generations.  ToyWorld's Hegemon scaled well and had a proper G1 style, but was kind of fiddly and kibbly even for the time.  Siege's squat proportions and stylized fusion cannon were getting closer and still make a decent Cybertronian mode, but he did have a backpack and leg molding that was obvious tank parts.  The Earthrise remold gave him a more cartoon-accurate fusion cannon, head sculpt, and abdomen, but an even bigger backpack and partsforming chunks for his turret and barrel and the space between his legs on the back of the tank.  NewAge set themselves up for what looked like a home run- clean and very cartoon-accurate bot mode and the gun mode that Hasbro can't do, but they jumped the gun by scaling it with Earthrise Optimus right before the new taller 86 Optimus came out.

When 86 Megatron was first leaked, I had just two requests.  The first was for the figure to maintain the high level of cartoon-accuracy that 86 Optimus brought.  I know Hasbro can't do a gun Megatron, I don't care if Megatron has to be a tank, but I don't want to see any tank kibble on him.  This was more important to me than the ability to transform, so important that I'd actually modified an Earthrise Megatron, repainting some parts, removing the backpack entirely, and attaching one of the weird pistols that came with Siege Soundwave to give him the gun barrel on his back.  And for that wish, I think I have to give Hasbro an A here.  Megatron has pretty much all the cartoon details you could possibly ask for- he's got the hammers on his shoulders, the details on his abs (including the red on the sides that was missing from Earthrise), the black "diaper" pelvis, and the gun barrel on his back.  There's something a little off about his fusion cannon.  I feel like the barrel is ok, but the middle section should be slightly longer with a dial instead of that lip, and the rear section is a tad long and probably should collapse closer to the middle section.  But that's about it.

I mean, even his back and sides are remarkably clean and free of tank kibble, just as I asked.  You can sort of make out the treads inside his thighs, but the grooves aren't really that far off from the grooves of the gun grip.  There's also a chunk near the heel with obvious tank wheels, but even that sits where the attachment point for the shoulder stock.

Oh, and a note about the colors... yes, the gray on his legs is a little bluish.  I think, under brighter lights and as picked up by my camera (and the cameras of the leakers), they do look too blue.  However, sitting on my desk in more normal lighting conditions, the gray looks fine to my eyes.

The other wish I had was that he'd come with an accessory that represented his gun mode that other figures could hold.  As great as it would be to have a Megatron toy that could turn into his gun mode, the fact is in the cartoon he always shrank so a minion, usually Starscream, could wield him.  Megatron turning into a gun captures the spirit of the G1 toy, but a cartoon-accurate Megatron robot packaged with a gun-mode accessory captures the spirit of the cartoon.  Once again, wish granted, as he does indeed come with a pistol-mode accessory with a standard 5mm peg handle that anyone (including the future SS86 Starscream) can use.  Additionally, there is of course his aforementioned fusion cannon and back-mounted gun barrel.  While I largely consider them to be parts of his body, they count as accessories.  I mean, not only are they removable (and not installed in the box), they have to come off for him to transform.  Lastly, you get the beam saber he used in his fight with Prime in the movie.  I know a lot of people wish he'd also come with his energon mace, as they think of that as more his signature melee weapon, but I get it, the saber was in the '86 movie and the mace wasn't.  Honestly, since Prime's axe has been installed inside his trailer since I finished that review nearly a year ago, I don't think I'm too bent of out shape about the exclusion of a mace I'm also unlikely to use.

So, Megatron's head is your standard ball joint fare, very slight downward and sideways tilt, slightly more upward tilt, and swivel.  His shoulders swivel, move laterally 90 degrees, and due to how they're engineered have some forward butterfly action.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a bit over 90 degrees on a single hinge.  His wrists are ball joints for swiveling and a little wiggle.  His hands are identical to Prime's; fixed thumb, but articulated fingers with a hinge at the base and the middle knuckle, with the index finger separate from the other three.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go about 90 degrees backward, over 90 degrees forward, and just under 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  Using some transformation hinges, you can get some decent up/down tilt on his feet, plus his ankles can pivot 90 degrees.

Megatron has 5mm ports on the side of either forearm, as well as a pair on his back.  This is how you'd properly attach the gun barrel to his back and his fusion cannon to his arm... but I suppose nothing's really stopping you from sticking his fusion cannon on his back, and mounting the gun barrel to his forearm.

As for his other accessories, like I said before the gun has a 5mm peg for handle, so Megatron or anyone else can hold it.  The pommel of the saber is too big to slide into a 5mm port.  The top of the saber does come off, but there's a flare near the top so nor can you feed it up through the bottom of a fist.  You kind of have to open his hand and snap it between his thumb and the curved bit of his palm.  I don't really like the way it feels doing that.

You can use second 5mm port on his back to plug the saber into it.  Meanwhile, there's a tiny tab on the pistol's scope, and it plugs into a slot between the 5mm ports, allowing Megatron to carry all of his accessories.

After transforming the dirt-simple Combiner Wars Megatron and the Earthrise toy where a backpack and some add-on bits are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, 86 Megatron's transformation feels very clever.  His forearms don't just open to hide his fists, the opened forearm armor spins 180 degrees so it captures his elbows when it closes.  His chest does open to allow his head to fold it, but also continues to unfold to become most of the front of the tank.  His arms work their way out of the torso a bit, too, then his back also opens up and the swivel for the turret comes out.  The hollow space you created in his torso captures his pelvis.  His shins and feet lift away from the legs, tucking over his thighs with his feet wrapping behind and under to make the back of the tank.  The bulk of his lower legs unfold to form the sides and treads of the tank.  The gun barrel plugs into the fusion cannon's barrel, and the fusion cannon sandwiches between his arms (with a little hatch that opens so the rear of the cannon can hide the arm joints) to finish off the turret.

Now, ok... it's not the best tank mode we've seen.  Combiner Wars looks a lot better, but a lot of what makes his tank mode so good compromises the robot mode.  The front of Earthrise's turret is a bit better, but the front of Earthrise's turret is also a big partsforming bit.  Frankly, I'm impressed that the tank mode even came out as good as it did.  Yeah, the cartoon-accurate arms mashed onto a nearly cartoon-accurate fusion cannon with a cartoon-accurate gun barrel poking out of it don't make the most convincing turret (and that turret does sit a bit far forward), but his chest makes for pretty decent front of the tank, his legs make for great sides of a tank, and his feet and shins at least fill the gap between his legs better than a random hunk of black plastic, and with (abstract turret notwithstanding) basically no robot kibble.  Since the concept art Bumblebee Megatron came out I'd been saying that was the way to go- make an awesome robot, even if it meant phoning in the tank mode.  So, to my eyes, Megatron's tank mode is far from perfect but also more than adequate.

The tank does roll, by the way.  The turret swivels, though the swivel is at the very back of the turret instead of the middle, so maybe don't.  You can't elevate or lower the barrel, anyway.  What you can do, though, is use one of the two 5mm ports on top of the turret or the one along either side to store your pistol and saber accessories.

Studio Series 86 Megatron is not a perfect figure.  With a bit more budget maybe he could have had a better fusion cannon, some extra panels or transformation to make his turret look better, or more accessories like his mace, the pistol he murdered Prime with, etc.  And it's a safe bet that someone like DNA is working on an upgrade kit to do one or more of those things.  While not perfect, I do think that Megatron is still a very good, perhaps even excellent figure, because he delivered more or less exactly what I wanted; an excellent Sunbow-style robot with solid articulation that scales with 86 Optimus, an adequate tank mode, and a pistol accessory that represents his "real" alt mode.  If you picked up SS86 Optimus, you're definitely going to want this Megatron to go with him.

[M'Kyuun]

Great review, Mike. I can accept the tank mode compromise, as there's really no other good option for Hasbro unless they just release a non-transforming cartoon accurate Megatron figure, and I'm glad they chose compromise. My gripe is that it looks like two different teams worked on it, their A-team on the lower half and their C-team on the turret. Perhaps they should have just upgraded him to commander class and improved the engineering on the turret. However, whether he's a gun or a tank, my guess is that most fans, including me, will display Megatron in all his robot glory. That was obviously the primary focus of the design and in that they delivered. I'm with you on the mace- I understand the reference, but like Prime's axe, it's an accessory I'll never use, and as you pointed out, there's little doubt third party will provide options. My own hope is for fusion cannon options that have some transformation elements to make it look less like a gun scope sandwiched between arms and more like an actual tank turret.

I think including the Megs-as-a-figure-scaled-pistol was the better accessory, as far more scenes from the tv show and Movie can be played out where someone, usually Starscream, wielded him in gun mode.

I POed mine from Pulse, so as usual, I'll likely get my copy later than everyone else, b/c membership has its privileges. Snark aside, at least I'm guaranteed to get it eventually, as finding stuff in stores, while better now than say five years ago, is still not reliable, especially for a fig of this status. In the interim, I need to address my lack of display space so he'll have a home when he arrives. I'm due to get my Long Haul-Hook set today, and I'm not sure where to put them yet, so I need to find a solution. First world issues, I'll tell ya.

[Scyla]

What I find more confusing is that this Megatron doesn’t match with Studio Series 86 Optimus.

Optimus has a sleek G1 cartoon design while Megatron has a lot of greebling going on. Megatron almost looks like he is from a different line (like Power of the Primes). 

I wonder if the knock off of this Megatron will smooth out some of the surface detail in order to make it more aligned with the animation.

If only NewAge had waited a couple of weeks before they went into production with their Megatron…

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

What I find more confusing is that this Megatron doesn’t match with Studio Series 86 Optimus.

Optimus has a sleek G1 cartoon design while Megatron has a lot of greebling going on. Megatron almost looks like he is from a different line (like Power of the Primes). 

I wonder if the knock off of this Megatron will smooth out some of the surface detail in order to make it more aligned with the animation.

If only NewAge had waited a couple of weeks before they went into production with their Megatron…

I'm firmly not in the cartoon "accuracy" camp, so I'm all for mechanical details, but of course, mileage varies.

And SS86 Prime does have a fair bit of surface detail: rivets and panel lines all over his arms, panel details all over the insides and outsides of his legs, vent details on his midsection, windshield wipers, brace detail on his fuel tanks- lots of surface detail. a lot of it just kinda gets washed away from a distance in the seas of red and blue, but they're there upon close inspection, and that's well within what we've seen in both the main line and SS86 throughout. I'm a fan. If you really want plain figs, go with MP or legends, as both seem to hew closer to the plain low-detail toon aesthetic than either of Hasbro's lines.

On one hand, Romulus' scale is a shame, but on the other, he pairs nicely with Earthrise Prime, which, until SS86 came along, was undoubtedly the best official G1 Prime toy in the main line. I still hold it in high regard, as it's a fine figure, and there are some things I like better on it than the SS86, like the 3D molded shin vents. With both toys, we're doubly blessed with G1 OP goodness after decades of waiting. Honestly, I'm not sure why they felt they had to upscale SS86 Prime from his usual large voyager stature, as the ER was already taller than the rest of the Autobots, which scaled perfectly, IMHO.

[mikeszekely]

3 hours ago, Scyla said:

What I find more confusing is that this Megatron doesn’t match with Studio Series 86 Optimus.

Optimus has a sleek G1 cartoon design while Megatron has a lot of greebling going on.

Respecftully, I disagree.  I mean, yes, Megatron does have a lot more greebles than a modern Fans Toys version would, absolutely.  But Prime's far from Sunbow sleek, with thicker proportions and plenty of greebles of his own, especially on the sides of his arms, the backs of his shoulders, and the sides and backs of his legs. 

Personally, I think they look quite good together.😁

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

Honestly, I'm not sure why they felt they had to upscale SS86 Prime from his usual large voyager stature, as the ER was already taller than the rest of the Autobots, which scaled perfectly, IMHO.

To force you to start over with an ever-so-slightly larger scale, of course. 

In all seriousness, it was my understanding that they felt that ER Prime was a little too short compared to the rest of the Autobots, and that 86 was something of a course correction.  The problem is that Siege/ER Megatron actually did scale pretty well the with other Decepticons, though, so Soundwave, Shockwave, and the Seekers pretty much have to be redone to scale with 86 Megatron.

There have been hints of these adjustments for awhile.  Galvatron is basically the size they scaled Prime and Megatron up to, Blaster's a little taller than Soundwave, and even though they kinda hyped Motormaster being the same height as Prime, well, none of the Decepticons were as tall as Megatron so Motormaster was always properly shorter than Prime and Megs.

I do think, in a way, it's a shame that Romulus wound up not scaling with 86 Prime for those people who really do insist on Megatron having a gun mode, but I'm personally too bent out of shape about it because the Studio Series versions of Prime, Megatron, Ironhide/Ratchet, arguably Bumblebee, and apparently the new Seekers have been such improvements over the WfC versions that I would have double-dipped even if they didn't adjust the scale.

[Scyla]

45 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Respecftully, I disagree.  I mean, yes, Megatron does have a lot more greebles than a modern Fans Toys version would, absolutely.  But Prime's far from Sunbow sleek, with thicker proportions and plenty of greebles of his own, especially on the sides of his arms, the backs of his shoulders, and the sides and backs of his legs. 

Personally, I think they look quite good together.😁

To force you to start over with an ever-so-slightly larger scale, of course. 

In all seriousness, it was my understanding that they felt that ER Prime was a little too short compared to the rest of the Autobots, and that 86 was something of a course correction.  The problem is that Siege/ER Megatron actually did scale pretty well the with other Decepticons, though, so Soundwave, Shockwave, and the Seekers pretty much have to be redone to scale with 86 Megatron.

There have been hints of these adjustments for awhile.  Galvatron is basically the size they scaled Prime and Megatron up to, Blaster's a little taller than Soundwave, and even though they kinda hyped Motormaster being the same height as Prime, well, none of the Decepticons were as tall as Megatron so Motormaster was always properly shorter than Prime and Megs.

I do think, in a way, it's a shame that Romulus wound up not scaling with 86 Prime for those people who really do insist on Megatron having a gun mode, but I'm personally too bent out of shape about it because the Studio Series versions of Prime, Megatron, Ironhide/Ratchet, arguably Bumblebee, and apparently the new Seekers have been such improvements over the WfC versions that I would have double-dipped even if they didn't adjust the scale.

Maybe @M'Kyuun is right and it is the gray color that brings out the greeble much more, or it’s because my mind associates Studio Series 86 Prime with MP-44 (which is super smooth), but in my minds eye 86 Megatron is a greebly mess, whereas 86 Prime is G1 cartoon smoothness; odd.

Thank you for the comparison picture. 

[sh9000]

Excellent review @mikeszekely and agreed that they both look good together.  Can't wait to get mine.  I can see DNA for sure making a new fusion cannon and maybe doing something for the backs of Megatron's lower legs.

[pengbuzz]

20 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

that's actually inaccurate,

Octane is bigger than a shuttle. They just made AstroTrain too large in the movie. 

It's accurate for the vehicles: Octane may have a plane mode as a triple changer, but the truck mode is not going to be longer than a shuttle.

[sh9000]

Almost forgot.  Happy Anniversary Transformers The Movie.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Respecftully, I disagree.  I mean, yes, Megatron does have a lot more greebles than a modern Fans Toys version would, absolutely.  But Prime's far from Sunbow sleek, with thicker proportions and plenty of greebles of his own, especially on the sides of his arms, the backs of his shoulders, and the sides and backs of his legs. 

Personally, I think they look quite good together.😁

Agree. Has/Tak did good with these two.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

To force you to start over with an ever-so-slightly larger scale, of course. 

Ah, so. Ever new avenues to part us from our filthy lucre! Like a hungry fish, I keep biting.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

In all seriousness, it was my understanding that they felt that ER Prime was a little too short compared to the rest of the Autobots, and that 86 was something of a course correction.  The problem is that Siege/ER Megatron actually did scale pretty well the with other Decepticons, though, so Soundwave, Shockwave, and the Seekers pretty much have to be redone to scale with 86 Megatron.There have been hints of these adjustments for awhile.  Galvatron is basically the size they scaled Prime and Megatron up to, Blaster's a little taller than Soundwave, and even though they kinda hyped Motormaster being the same height as Prime, well, none of the Decepticons were as tall as Megatron so Motormaster was always properly shorter than Prime and Megs.I do think, in a way, it's a shame that Romulus wound up not scaling with 86 Prime for those people who really do insist on Megatron having a gun mode, but I'm personally too bent out of shape about it because the Studio Series versions of Prime, Megatron, Ironhide/Ratchet, arguably Bumblebee, and apparently the new Seekers have been such improvements over the WfC versions that I would have double-dipped even if they didn't adjust the scale.

 

As I mentioned previously, I think ER Prime scales nicely with the rest of the Autobots, at least with all the first season bots. His truck mode is relatively small, but in bot mode I think he scales well. I hadn't actually given much thought to the whole resizing aspect beyond SS86 Megatron to match Prime, but yeah, I suppose any number of them will have to be upscaled slightly to fit the new SS86 scale. To that end, I wonder how much larger the new Seeker will be?  I'm actually looking forward to it despite the fact that the nose section, as usual, is truncated vertically, it has no main landing gear at all, and the horizontal stabs need be parts-formed to the backs of the wings for cleaner legs instead of an engineering solution. They're touting it as a mini-masterpiece, but IMHO, it falls a bit short of th...wait, MP-52- nope, right on brand. As to varying size adjustments, I hadn't noticed them, but I trust your observations. The toys have been shrinking somewhat over the years, so maybe they're trying to reverse that trend.

I really insist on G1 Megatron's having a gun mode, but I know it's a situation beyond Hasbro's control and as compromises go, this one is acceptable.

It would have been cool if Romulus scaled to SS86 Prime, but just like the rest of us, they had no idea that Has/Tak were going to upscale him. I keep hoping that Magic Square will upscale their Doomsday, IMHO, the best G1 Megatron toy ever made. I think they'd make bank if they upscaled to both SS86 and MP scales with that figure. I'd be down for both.

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

It's accurate for the vehicles: Octane may have a plane mode as a triple changer, but the truck mode is not going to be longer than a shuttle.

According to the TF Wiki, Octane is supposedly inspired by the Boeing 767, but it could be a 737 variant as well. At any rate, it's not a 747, so notably smaller than the shuttle. One of the greatest detriments of triple changers is the oft extreme disparities in sizes of the two alt modes, with Broadside being the worst offender by far, followed by Astrotrain, Octane, Blitzwing, Sandstorm, and finally Springer, whose Cybertronian modes offer more leeway than the aforementioned T-changers with Earth alts. Anyway, Octane would be better served if they chose a small air refueling plane; unfortunately, the smallest US tanker is the C-130 which is much larger than a tanker truck. The P-3 Orion Firefighter is much closer to tanker truck dimensions, even if it traffics in fire suppressant instead of jet fuel, but I'd accept it as a comparably sized plane alt for Octane.

[mikeszekely]

Given the somewhat more limited improvements over their Combiner Wars selves compared to Megatron, I feel pretty comfortable suggesting that SS86 Megatron has overtaken Devastator as the hot item this year.  But Devastator's still on a lot of minds, and it just so happens that I also received Deluxe-class Studio Series Scavenger.

Unfortunately, like basically everyone but Long Haul so far, SS86 Scavenger seems to take more inspiration from the Combiner Wars toy than Sunbow's control art.  Same narrow hips, same lack of the angled collar, same "ironing board" midsection that's basically flat with some molded detail instead of the more three-dimensional cartoon look.  In some ways, I think SS86 Scavenger actually looks worse.  His proportions are squatter, with a longer crotch that looks like he's walking around with a fully-loaded diaper.

Officially, his shovel is meant to curl up onto his back, also like the Combiner Wars toy.  In the cartoon, though, Hook's shovel was more like a tail or a third leg, coming off his butt and reaching toward the ground.

Scavenger's sole accessory is this gun.  As near as I can tell, it's pretty cartoon-accurate, but I wonder at the little peg hole on it.  There are no corresponding pegs anywhere on his body.

Scavenger's head is NOT on a ball joint, just a simple swivel.  A transformation hinge gives him the slightest downward tilt, but he can't look up or tilt his head sideways.  His shoulders are ball joints, which allow his arms to move 90 degrees laterally and swivel.  His elbows are also ball joints, bending 90 degrees and pulling double duty as bicep swivels.  No wrist swivels, no waist articulation.  Hips are *sigh* ball joints, capable of moving a little over 90 degrees forward and backward, and 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  No upward tilt on his feet, but the front half can bend downward due to transformation, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees.

Scavenger can hold his gun without issue, but there's no place for robot-mode storage.  His shovel has three hinges and a swivel, so he can bring it over his head like a scorpion tail, or you can have it dangling from his back more like the cartoon.

The engineering in Scavenger isn't too far off the CW toy.  Once again you open his ironing board to fold in the head, the cab folds over, the sides of his chest fold back, and his arms use the hinged ball joints in his shoulders to slide down in line with his chest to form the upper half of the vehicle.  The legs, if anything, are slightly less complicated as you just fold in the toes and swing the legs up and around on their ball joints enough that you can tab them to his hips and sides.  For what it's worth, Scavenger feels a lot more solid in alt mode than the CW version does, and that third hinge on the shovel is one more than the CW toy had.

But still, Scavenger is still copying the CW toy more than the Sunbow art.  He doesn't have the section on front of the shovel where the animators drew the G1 toy's peg for attaching the arm.  The cylinders (I assume they're supposed to be air intakes and exhausts?) on the Sunbow at is also missing.  In place of them we have in indent where a purple ball joint is clearly visible.  Finally, the rear of the shouldn't line up with the treads, it's meant to overhang them.  I wonder how many of these wrong details got copied from CW because so much of the basic engineering was copied?  I mean, the CW and SS toys both have the feet at the front of the treads, the shoulders at the front of the deck, and the hands and waist at the back... exactly the opposite of the G1 toy.  I know CW did it because the middle of his torso folded out and Devastator's forearm attached to it, and guess what? 86's chest folds out, and Devastator's forearm attaches to it.

And that means that, just like CW Scavenger, 86's deck does NOT rotate.  He doesn't even have any wheels to roll on.  About the only thing you can do in alt mode is move the shovel using joints at the base, halfway between the swivel and the bucket, and right at the bucket.  Oh, and there's a 5mm port on top of the deck you can plug his gun into.

Scavenger joints fellow Deluxe and fellow arm Bonecrusher as the weakest of the SS86 Constructicons.  There are some improvements over the CW toy, if only in the stability and solidity, especially in the hips, but ultimately he follows the unfortunate trend of copying way too much of CW Devastator's homework when I really would rather they started from scratch and tried for more clever engineering and better cartoon accuracy.  I guess Habsro figures the individual modes don't matter all that much if he's going to be combined most of the time anyway... so hopefully Mixmaster will arrive soon and I can tell you if the whole shebang is worth it or not.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

.

The engineering in Scavenger isn't too far off the CW toy.  

And that means that, just like CW Scavenger, 86's deck does NOT rotate.  He doesn't even have any wheels to roll on.  About the only thing you can do in alt mode is move the shovel using joints at the base, halfway between the swivel and the bucket, and right at the bucket.  

Scavenger joints fellow Deluxe and fellow arm Bonecrusher as the weakest of the SS86 Constructicons. 

 

The similarities aren't surprising since Hasui designed both sets of Constructicons. Shame he wasn't a little more innovative or based this new design on the OG toy instead of his lackluster CW toy.

I had a bad feeling and you confirmed it. Man, I hate it when a utility vehicle gets short shrifted of its functionality. Even the G1 toy's deck could rotate. Little rollers on a treaded vehicle should be requisite, too, though the non-rotating deck is what irks me far more.

Unfortunately, both arm bots seem to have absorbed more than their fair share of design shortcuts. If Takara's philosophy regarding combiners is that they can take more shortcuts b/c no one will care since they'll be combined all the time, they're mistaken. 

Looking forward to your review of complete Devastator once you have Mixmaster in hand. I get the sense, thus far, that unlike Bonecrusher and Scavenger, Devy, who I'm sure was the real focus, will not disappoint.

[Hikuro]

That's indeed really disappointing and not surprising.

I just got my hands using what money I didn't spend at the con last weekend both Silverbolt and the Longhaul/Hook 2 pack at a local Target....honestly was very surprised they were present when I was on the website late last night so I took the chance early this morning. Sadly the 2 pack were already gone but they had 5 more silverbolts. Had to drive 40 miles to get the 2 pack at the next Target.

Man, getting Silverbolt out of the box and looking over the giant brick set he comes with, it's almost if not bigger than he is! This is truthfully the biggest bummer when it comes to these new designs but I guess that's just how things go with the price point and how they're designed.
Overall I do like how he looks in general, and I went ahead and put Slingshot and Airaid into their respected slots. Now I just gotta wait until Fireflight and Skydive....that sucks.

Longhaul and Hook was like a "Wait....I paid 90 for this?" Their transformations from vehicle to robot were just so simplistic that it was either genius or disappointing I can't figure out what. Their combiner transformation was a lot more intuitive in my opinion but my god that backside is just so god awful to look at that I'm glad I don't got to!
I also slapped bonecrusher and scrapper on and then I went, "Ah..........crap...." cause he's not gonna be able to stand.
This is what I kind of hate about how they release combiners, go feet/legs, torso, then arms, don't go arm here, leg there, maybe the torso, or just do the torso last like the Stunticons. 

 

Right now I'm kind of glad that the Combaticons are the last set for now....course it's gonna be a whole year before they're even finished. And I want my G2 Stunticons dammit! They've had all this time, 2 years now to finish these and t hey only got 2 more stinking figures to go. All they are, are just repaints, how freaking hard can it be? 

[mikeszekely]

Well... I still don't know when the Voyagers of this wave are coming, but Scavenger wasn't the only Deluxe.  So up next we'll do Age of Extinction Concept Art KSI Widow.

As the "concept art" bit suggests, "Widow" (aka Widowmaker) wasn't actually seen (at least not in robot form) in the film, but rather is based on concept art by Steve Jung.  There are some pretty major differences, though... she was more red than orange, and the car kibble is quite different, because she was originally going to be the Pagani Huayra that eventually became Stinger.  The head design, the fenders forming her shoulder pads, the spikes on her arms, the knee pads, though, all come from Jung's concept art.

She technically has high heels like the concept art, too, but it's kind of hard to tell with the mass of car kibble on her lower legs that was decidedly not part of the concept art.  That said, I'm not really mad about it.  The concept art has a very lithe, almost sexy design with almost no visible car parts that would have very much relied on CGI magic to transform.  What I feel we got from Evan and Kunihiro is a robot that still has noticeably feminine proportions in the arms, torso, and thighs that avoids the all-too-common "just fold everything into a backpack" engineering that's prevalent with Bayverse cars.

Despite allusions to some kind of chain accessory (seen in some of Jung's concept art), Widow just comes with these two blasters.

While I do admire Widow's aesthetics, her articulation leaves a bit to be desired.  Her head's on a ball joint that swivels, but has minimal tilt due to the molded "hair".  Her shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend a tad over 90 degrees.  No wrist articulation, though, and no waist articulation.  Her hips are more ball joints that move 90-ish degrees forward and backward, but only about 75 degrees laterally.  Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees IF you make sure the kibble on her thighs is out of the way first.  Her feet tilt up, due to how they transform, but not downward, and she doesn't have ankle pivots.

Her blasters clip over her forearms.  I don't think it's immediately obvious how they go on (pro tip: try to align the curve near the barrel with the back of her hand).  When not mounted to her forearms, tabs on the top rear can plug into slots under her door wings on her back.

Her transformation actually gives me flashbacks to the Transformers Prime Vehicon.  Her head and spine fold back from her torso, tabbing into her butt.  Her shoulders shift down and back slightly, so that her arms lay along side her head.  Her kneepads and toes fold flat. and the thigh kibble slides out, spins to align with the car kibble on her lower legs, then slides back into place.  Then (and this is really where the Vehicon thing comes in) her calves open up, and you fold out the insides on three hinges to form the top of the car, from the hood all the way to the rear.  Flip up her wings, fold her shoulder pads down to line up with her chest, then rock her chest up so the wings line up with the thigh kibble on the sides of the car.  Then all you have to do is close her thighs, lining up all the kibble you folded out along the way, and fold her heels in to finish off the rear.

I'm a car guy, and for all the faults both objective and subjective I might have with Bayverse robots both as both concept designs and physical toys, the one thing you're not going to here me complain about is the cars.  The people making the movies have an eye for cool cars, and for their part Hasbro's been doing for the Studio Series line what they often didn't do for the individual movie lines- licensing those cool cars.  So what we have here is a McLaren MP4-12C (or just 12C for short).  The 12C actually was in a highway scene with Galvatron, it just didn't transform.  I guess Hasbro retroactively decided that the 12C could be Widow, since the Huayra became Stinger.  Regardless, Hasbro did an excellent job here, as all the little details are accurate to the real car; I think the only thing I can find to nitpick is that the side mirrors stick out further on the real car, but that's about it.

Of course, you don't want to mar a gorgeous alt mode like this by plugging weapons on top of it, or even having the requisite tabs to attempt to plug the weapons on top.  Instead, mid-transformation, you'll find slots below her knees on the inside of her shins after you fold the car kibble out.  Plug the guns in there before you close her up and you're golden.

To recommend, or not recommend, is tricky.  On the on hand, I don't think most of you even bother with the Bayverse stuff.  And, for the few that do, maybe you're sticking to characters that actually get screen time.  It's definitely a bummer that her articulation is a little sub-par... ankle pivots have been part of the Generations lines since Siege; Bayverse characters deserve working ankles, too!  Despite her flaws, though, I do think that the team did a pretty good job taking Jung's concept art and translating it into a toy that still manages to be maintain a feminine figure on a Deluxe budget, and I'm tempted to say that her alt mode alone is worth the purchase price.  Truthfully, there have been worse-executed Bayverse characters, so I think I'd give her a tentative recommend if you collect Bayverse characters.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Well... I still don't know when the Voyagers of this wave are coming, but Scavenger wasn't the only Deluxe.  So up next we'll do Age of Extinction Concept Art KSI Widow.

As the "concept art" bit suggests, "Widow" (aka Widowmaker) wasn't actually seen (at least not in robot form) in the film, but rather is based on concept art by Steve Jung.  There are some pretty major differences, though... she was more red than orange, and the car kibble is quite different, because she was originally going to be the Pagani Huayra that eventually became Stinger.  The head design, the fenders forming her shoulder pads, the spikes on her arms, the knee pads, though, all come from Jung's concept art.

She technically has high heels like the concept art, too, but it's kind of hard to tell with the mass of car kibble on her lower legs that was decidedly not part of the concept art.  That said, I'm not really mad about it.  The concept art has a very lithe, almost sexy design with almost no visible car parts that would have very much relied on CGI magic to transform.  What I feel we got from Evan and Kunihiro is a robot that still has noticeably feminine proportions in the arms, torso, and thighs that avoids the all-too-common "just fold everything into a backpack" engineering that's prevalent with Bayverse cars.

Despite allusions to some kind of chain accessory (seen in some of Jung's concept art), Widow just comes with these two blasters.

While I do admire Widow's aesthetics, her articulation leaves a bit to be desired.  Her head's on a ball joint that swivels, but has minimal tilt due to the molded "hair".  Her shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend a tad over 90 degrees.  No wrist articulation, though, and no waist articulation.  Her hips are more ball joints that move 90-ish degrees forward and backward, but only about 75 degrees laterally.  Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees IF you make sure the kibble on her thighs is out of the way first.  Her feet tilt up, due to how they transform, but not downward, and she doesn't have ankle pivots.

Her blasters clip over her forearms.  I don't think it's immediately obvious how they go on (pro tip: try to align the curve near the barrel with the back of her hand).  When not mounted to her forearms, tabs on the top rear can plug into slots under her door wings on her back.

Her transformation actually gives me flashbacks to the Transformers Prime Vehicon.  Her head and spine fold back from her torso, tabbing into her butt.  Her shoulders shift down and back slightly, so that her arms lay along side her head.  Her kneepads and toes fold flat. and the thigh kibble slides out, spins to align with the car kibble on her lower legs, then slides back into place.  Then (and this is really where the Vehicon thing comes in) her calves open up, and you fold out the insides on three hinges to form the top of the car, from the hood all the way to the rear.  Flip up her wings, fold her shoulder pads down to line up with her chest, then rock her chest up so the wings line up with the thigh kibble on the sides of the car.  Then all you have to do is close her thighs, lining up all the kibble you folded out along the way, and fold her heels in to finish off the rear.

I'm a car guy, and for all the faults both objective and subjective I might have with Bayverse robots both as both concept designs and physical toys, the one thing you're not going to here me complain about is the cars.  The people making the movies have an eye for cool cars, and for their part Hasbro's been doing for the Studio Series line what they often didn't do for the individual movie lines- licensing those cool cars.  So what we have here is a McLaren MP4-12C (or just 12C for short).  The 12C actually was in a highway scene with Galvatron, it just didn't transform.  I guess Hasbro retroactively decided that the 12C could be Widow, since the Huayra became Stinger.  Regardless, Hasbro did an excellent job here, as all the little details are accurate to the real car; I think the only thing I can find to nitpick is that the side mirrors stick out further on the real car, but that's about it.

Of course, you don't want to mar a gorgeous alt mode like this by plugging weapons on top of it, or even having the requisite tabs to attempt to plug the weapons on top.  Instead, mid-transformation, you'll find slots below her knees on the inside of her shins after you fold the car kibble out.  Plug the guns in there before you close her up and you're golden.

To recommend, or not recommend, is tricky.  On the on hand, I don't think most of you even bother with the Bayverse stuff.  And, for the few that do, maybe you're sticking to characters that actually get screen time.  It's definitely a bummer that her articulation is a little sub-par... ankle pivots have been part of the Generations lines since Siege; Bayverse characters deserve working ankles, too!  Despite her flaws, though, I do think that the team did a pretty good job taking Jung's concept art and translating it into a toy that still manages to be maintain a feminine figure on a Deluxe budget, and I'm tempted to say that her alt mode alone is worth the purchase price.  Truthfully, there have been worse-executed Bayverse characters, so I think I'd give her a tentative recommend if you collect Bayverse characters.

I abhor the Bayverse films and I make no bones about it. However, I like a good Transformers toy, I like a cool alt mode, and sometimes a robot mode just looks cool to me. Check all three with this figure. While Takara can be hit or miss on some of these SS figs, in this case I think they did a pretty good job taking a bit of concept art, a beautiful car that apparently was in a single scene (haven't seen the film), and married the two into a figure that, IMHO, looks good and turned out at least standard relative to other figs in the line. I really like the reuse of the Vehicon's roof and windshield folding technique, one of Takara's best for compressing a lot of car into a compact kibble-less form.  I can't stress enough how much I love the integrated weapon storage, a feature that, at this point in the franchise's history, should be standard practice. I like how the front fenders form her shoulders, and finally, the 12C is indeed a lovely car, and despite my feelings about the live action films, Bay and Co have an excellent eye for beautiful or interesting vehicles to use as alt modes and Has/Tak do the line proud by securing the licenses in most cases. Fortunately, they do far more justice with the cars than with jets.

I've got a PO in for this fig. I don't buy many Bayverse figs anymore, but every now and again, one strikes my fancy for one reason or another. If nothing else, I can always leave them in car mode, but I seldom do. Appreciate the comprehensive look, Mike.

[mikeszekely]

6 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

f nothing else, I can always leave them in car mode, but I seldom do.

I think almost all of mine are in car mode right now, but again, car guy.  My (Chinese) wife jokes that when we watch Chinese dramas on Netflix together that she's always looking to see what the characters are eating, I'm always looking to see what they're driving.

[mikeszekely]

Mixmaster still hasn't shipped, no idea what's going on with Elita-1, so... I guess this is the last Studio Series review for now?  This being Deluxe-class Transformers One Starscream.

I compared Starscream with both screen captures and concept art, and overall Starscream's pretty accurate with the usual caveat that Deluxes often lack the budget for all the paint that they need.  So, there's a little gunmetal paint on the inside of his forearm, but not his fingers or the mechanical details on the outsides of his forearms.  Likewise, there's a little on the top of his foot, but not his toes.  His chest vents are painted, but there's none on his lats.  There's a hinge on his wing with molded gun-like details that's painted on one piece, but not the part that connects to it.  His biceps are missing red stripes.

Overall, though, the sculpt is very accurate, a blend of recognizable G1 features and the rounded shoulders, short torsos, and long skinny legs that was TFOne's schtick.  I just have two minor nitpicks, and one "this should have been addressed before it went into production" complaint.  The nitpicks relate to his backpack.  The intakes and the hood are accurate, but they sit back further from his head than they do on the character model.  Also, the intakes are just empty, hollow spaces where the CGI model had them filled with gunmetal mechanical details.  As for my "should have been addressed" complaint, it's the way the ends of his wings fold.  On the toy, they fold over toward the side facing forward.  How could this have been fixed?  By having them fold to the back of the wing instead, which would have been more movie-accurate.

Starscream comes with a few accessories.  The most obvious are his null rays.  There's also a weird-looking blue gun, and a white bit that doesn't look like a weapon at all.

Starscream's head is on a ball joint with a little upward tilt, but plenty of downward and sideways tilt.  Shoulders are also ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees.  No wrist or waist articulation.  Hips are ball joints.  Due to his backpack he can only move about 75 degrees backward, and the cut of the socket doesn't allow for a full 90 laterally either, but he makes up for it with a forward kick that goes about 120 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees as well.  His toes can tilt downward due to his transformation, but no upward tilt and in a first for Studio Series-level TFOne figures no ankle pivots.

The null rays properly plug into Starscream's shoulders, though I suppose he can hold them in his hands, too.  The blue gun and white bit can also be held as weapons, or combined into one larger weapon.  You can store the combined weapon in a port on his back; that's actually the proper place for the white bit in alt mode.  If you plug it in there you don't actually have to remove it or the null rays to transform him, but the blue gun does require partsforming.

Speaking of transformation, for the most part it's pretty straightforward.  His backpack opens a little to reveal a spot his head tucks into.  His chest swings up, and the nose of his alt mode unfolds from inside.  His legs tuck up to where his chest was, and his knees bend so his feet are at the back of the jet.  His arms basically just lay there alongside the fuselage under the wings, which rotate on ball joints to help cover over them.  Just two issues... first, lining everything up can be a bit of a bear.  His heels have to plug all the way into his backpack, or the flaps on his legs won't line up right.  If the flaps on his legs don't line up right the forearms won't sit over the hinges on those flaps properly.  If the arms don't sit right the wings won't tab in correctly.  Once you get it all sorted, though, you'll have to deal with the bane of my existence- the intakes.  In theory they untab from the backpack then swing backward on armatures to "thoop" into place over the wings.  See, they're held on by those mushroom pegs with the slits in the middle that are, in practice, supposed to squish in to fit through the hole then spread back out to hold the part in place.  In reality a simple 5mm peg would have held on tighter, and I've yet to transform Starscream without both intakes popping off.

The jet mode doesn't look bad, though.  It's the lovechild of the Siege Seeker mold and the Bumblebee Seekers.  While the arms are a bit obvious, they do seem to be in the right place.  The sculpt is largely accurate with guns in all the right places.  Discrepencies between the toy and the CGI largely come down to missing paint, just like bot mode; mostly he's missing a red stripe on the tail and more gunmetal on the cockpit.

The cockpit can open; I don't think there's a need for passenger spaces on Cybertronian alt modes, but you need to open the cockpit to transform him, so it's there.  As I mentioned earlier, the null rays stay on his shoulders to wind up in a screen-accurate place in alt mode, and the white bit forms the tip of his tail.  The blue gun is captured between his shoulder pads as you transform him, but the placement is again screen-accurate.

Starscream, much like Prime and Megatron, suffer a bit from being Deluxe-class figures.  Now, I get it, most of the bots in the film were pretty similar-sized, and by making them all Deluxes they can get them out faster due to there being more Deluxe slots in a given wave.  But if more of his joints were hinges and swivels instead of ball joints, maybe things would line up a bit easier.  Maybe he'd have the missing paint apps.  Maybe he could have had ankles, or even wrists.  Maybe his intakes could have been pinned so they don't keep coming off.  Still, Starscream's not bad, and I maintain that Transformers One was probably the best Transformers film since the '86 one, so I'm happy to add him to the collection.  Here's hoping Soundwave and Shockwave get toys before they move on from this film.

[Hikuro]

Starscream looks nice, I still rather like that he's his Trijet alt mode and we barely even saw it in the film. Actually I feel like the characters in this film really shine in the Studio Series line. I only ever got B127 and missed out on Prime and Megatron entirely, but that figure was pretty solid compared to his deluxe variant. 

[M'Kyuun]

On 8/11/2025 at 8:25 PM, mikeszekely said:

I think almost all of mine are in car mode right now, but again, car guy.  My (Chinese) wife jokes that when we watch Chinese dramas on Netflix together that she's always looking to see what the characters are eating, I'm always looking to see what they're driving.

Funny. I have Chinese neighbors, and in my attempt to learn a little Mandarin, I discovered that food is pretty central to Chinese culture- even their greetings have to do with eating.

I'm not a car guy, but I do like the way any number of them look, and I appreciate a good-looking car alt mode. I've also been collecting the LEGO Speed Champions sets since the line began, so I get cool cars from both of my hobbies.

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Mixmaster still hasn't shipped, no idea what's going on with Elita-1, so... I guess this is the last Studio Series review for now?  This being Deluxe-class Transformers One Starscream.

I compared Starscream with both screen captures and concept art, and overall Starscream's pretty accurate with the usual caveat that Deluxes often lack the budget for all the paint that they need.  So, there's a little gunmetal paint on the inside of his forearm, but not his fingers or the mechanical details on the outsides of his forearms.  Likewise, there's a little on the top of his foot, but not his toes.  His chest vents are painted, but there's none on his lats.  There's a hinge on his wing with molded gun-like details that's painted on one piece, but not the part that connects to it.  His biceps are missing red stripes.

Overall, though, the sculpt is very accurate, a blend of recognizable G1 features and the rounded shoulders, short torsos, and long skinny legs that was TFOne's schtick.  I just have two minor nitpicks, and one "this should have been addressed before it went into production" complaint.  The nitpicks relate to his backpack.  The intakes and the hood are accurate, but they sit back further from his head than they do on the character model.  Also, the intakes are just empty, hollow spaces where the CGI model had them filled with gunmetal mechanical details.  As for my "should have been addressed" complaint, it's the way the ends of his wings fold.  On the toy, they fold over toward the side facing forward.  How could this have been fixed?  By having them fold to the back of the wing instead, which would have been more movie-accurate.

Starscream comes with a few accessories.  The most obvious are his null rays.  There's also a weird-looking blue gun, and a white bit that doesn't look like a weapon at all.

Starscream's head is on a ball joint with a little upward tilt, but plenty of downward and sideways tilt.  Shoulders are also ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees.  No wrist or waist articulation.  Hips are ball joints.  Due to his backpack he can only move about 75 degrees backward, and the cut of the socket doesn't allow for a full 90 laterally either, but he makes up for it with a forward kick that goes about 120 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees as well.  His toes can tilt downward due to his transformation, but no upward tilt and in a first for Studio Series-level TFOne figures no ankle pivots.

The null rays properly plug into Starscream's shoulders, though I suppose he can hold them in his hands, too.  The blue gun and white bit can also be held as weapons, or combined into one larger weapon.  You can store the combined weapon in a port on his back; that's actually the proper place for the white bit in alt mode.  If you plug it in there you don't actually have to remove it or the null rays to transform him, but the blue gun does require partsforming.

Speaking of transformation, for the most part it's pretty straightforward.  His backpack opens a little to reveal a spot his head tucks into.  His chest swings up, and the nose of his alt mode unfolds from inside.  His legs tuck up to where his chest was, and his knees bend so his feet are at the back of the jet.  His arms basically just lay there alongside the fuselage under the wings, which rotate on ball joints to help cover over them.  Just two issues... first, lining everything up can be a bit of a bear.  His heels have to plug all the way into his backpack, or the flaps on his legs won't line up right.  If the flaps on his legs don't line up right the forearms won't sit over the hinges on those flaps properly.  If the arms don't sit right the wings won't tab in correctly.  Once you get it all sorted, though, you'll have to deal with the bane of my existence- the intakes.  In theory they untab from the backpack then swing backward on armatures to "thoop" into place over the wings.  See, they're held on by those mushroom pegs with the slits in the middle that are, in practice, supposed to squish in to fit through the hole then spread back out to hold the part in place.  In reality a simple 5mm peg would have held on tighter, and I've yet to transform Starscream without both intakes popping off.

The jet mode doesn't look bad, though.  It's the lovechild of the Siege Seeker mold and the Bumblebee Seekers.  While the arms are a bit obvious, they do seem to be in the right place.  The sculpt is largely accurate with guns in all the right places.  Discrepencies between the toy and the CGI largely come down to missing paint, just like bot mode; mostly he's missing a red stripe on the tail and more gunmetal on the cockpit.

The cockpit can open; I don't think there's a need for passenger spaces on Cybertronian alt modes, but you need to open the cockpit to transform him, so it's there.  As I mentioned earlier, the null rays stay on his shoulders to wind up in a screen-accurate place in alt mode, and the white bit forms the tip of his tail.  The blue gun is captured between his shoulder pads as you transform him, but the placement is again screen-accurate.

Starscream, much like Prime and Megatron, suffer a bit from being Deluxe-class figures.  Now, I get it, most of the bots in the film were pretty similar-sized, and by making them all Deluxes they can get them out faster due to there being more Deluxe slots in a given wave.  But if more of his joints were hinges and swivels instead of ball joints, maybe things would line up a bit easier.  Maybe he'd have the missing paint apps.  Maybe he could have had ankles, or even wrists.  Maybe his intakes could have been pinned so they don't keep coming off.  Still, Starscream's not bad, and I maintain that Transformers One was probably the best Transformers film since the '86 one, so I'm happy to add him to the collection.  Here's hoping Soundwave and Shockwave get toys before they move on from this film.

Enjoyed the review, Mike. I POed this guy as I really like the bot mode and the jet mode, although I wish they'd found a more elegant solution for the feet. Anyway, being a Cybertronian jet, I'm not going to judge it as harshly as I would a real world jet alt. I will point out the old Takara staple of arms just hanging out along the sides with no attempt to even hide the hands. So lazy and careless. On the whole, though, especially from the front or a forward three-quarter view, it's not a bad looking jet. It could've been better, but at the deluxe budget, I'm inclined to agree with you in that it looks pretty good in both modes, niggles aside. Thus far, Starscream and Arcee are the only two TFOne toys I'm getting (waiting on Pulse to release them); However, Airachnid has my interest piqued. I thought she was one of the most interesting characters from the film, I dig her flight mode, and I'm curious to see what the final toy looks like.

[tekering]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Transformers One was probably the best Transformers film since the '86 one

I am compelled to remind Mike of Travis Knight's Bumblebee.  Transformers One was a pleasant surprise (given its disastrous marketing campaign), but it has neither the heart nor the humour of Knight's film.

[mikeszekely]

24 minutes ago, tekering said:

I am compelled to remind Mike of Travis Knight's Bumblebee.  Transformers One was a pleasant surprise (given its disastrous marketing campaign), but it has neither the heart nor the humour of Knight's film.

Look, I love Bumblebee.  Charlie's hands-down the best human character in any Transformers movie.  But respectfully, I disagree.  I think Bumblebee was more flawed- Bee, who exhibits all the intelligence of a smart dog, winds up being a prop in what's ultimately Charlie's story.  Transformers One, on the other hand, was actually about Transformers.  Some elements of the story, like Pax becoming Prime, were a little rushed to fit the kids' movie runtime, but I felt like it made the deterioration in the relationship between D-16 and Pax believable.  So, yeah, while Bumblebee is my favorite live-action Transformers film by a very wide margin, I happen to like both theatrical animated films better.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Look, I love Bumblebee.  Charlie's hands-down the best human character in any Transformers movie.  But respectfully, I disagree.  I think Bumblebee was more flawed- Bee, who exhibits all the intelligence of a smart dog, winds up being a prop in what's ultimately Charlie's story.  Transformers One, on the other hand, was actually about Transformers.  Some elements of the story, like Pax becoming Prime, were a little rushed to fit the kids' movie runtime, but I felt like it made the deterioration in the relationship between D-16 and Pax believable.  So, yeah, while Bumblebee is my favorite live-action Transformers film by a very wide margin, I happen to like both theatrical animated films better.

Yeah; we get to see how that began to disintegrate:

Spoiler

(Spoilering this in case anyone hasn't seen the film yet; Transformers One only came out last year)

Starting with Alpha Trion's revelation to the group about Sentinel Prime's deal with the Quintessons and betrayal of the Primes, everything D-16 had believed disintegrated when he discovered it was all a lie. This took such prominence in D-16's mind that it became his sole focus, and the person Orion was friends with slowly died. IMO, by the time Sentinel carved the symbol into D-16's chest, we saw what little remained of D-16 pretty much vanish, with the confirmation of this occurring when he let Orion fall into Cybertron's depths. 

Pain, anger and betrayal can warp the kindest of people into monsters, if they aren't careful.

 

[tekering]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Transformers One, on the other hand, was actually about Transformers.

Ah, I see your point.  The animated films are better Transformers movies, 'cause they don't sideline the robots in favour of a human protagonist (as the live-action films consistently did).

Still, I found "smart dog" Bumblebee a lot less obnoxious than "Badassatron" B-127. 😒

[mikeszekely]

Well, I still don't have a date for Mixmaster.  But I haven't quite run out of new stuff, because everything is kind of coming all at once.  From Pulse's latest exclusive two-pack, here's Hearts of Steel Bumblebee.

This one's an interesting one for me, because while some of MMC's earliest projects did include Optimus and Starscream, I never owned them.  What I do own is Mech Planet Hot Soldiers Centurion, a figure I reviewed all the way back in 2018.  At the time, I said he lacked the polish that more expensive 3P figures usually have, and lo and behold when an official toy comes out from Hasbro it's already looking a bit more refined.  The gray plastic is a bit darker and, to my eye, a more accurate color, the head is more defined and less derpy, and he's sporting a lot more paint in ways that make him more accurate, like the blue marker lights on his tummy, the silver gears in the boxes on his shins, and the insides of the slats on his toes.

Ultimately, though, they're pretty similar.  Both end up with similar kibble in similar places.  Hasbro's figure is a little more hollow in the forearms and the backs of the thighs, and you can see a little more into the inner workings in his back, but on the other hand his shoulders aren't as droopy and he's got less kibble on his back.

Like Centurion, the official toy comes with a hammer.  It's colored a bit more accurately, and although it also has some plastic saving cutouts they're kind of under the hammer head, and less obvious.  The official toy gets a pistol that Centurion doesn't have.

Bee's head is on a ball joint that has some slight up/down/sideways tilt.  Shoulders are also ball joints, and they can swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  Biceps swivel, and elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels, but due to how they fold for transformation he can tilt them down for poses where you want him pointing the hammer or holding it in a more relaxes fashion.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees.  His feet can tilt up and down, and he's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot.  For those keeping score at home, that's mostly on par with Centurion, though the official figure ultimately wins due to pins and hinges for the hips instead of ball joints, a deeper knee bend, and the fact that his entire foot moves when his ankle pivots and not just his pilot toes.

Bee can hold either weapon in either hand, but he doesn't have any bot mode storage.

Bee's transformation is extremely similar to Centurion's... with obvious train parts in the feet, legs, chest, and shoulder pads I'd like to believe that's simply the most obvious, logical way to get from the robot to the train, and not a case of Hasbro's team copying someone else's homework.  The biggest differences are that Bee's shoulders shift deeper into his shoulder pads rather than fold under them, simply bending his elbows to get in place under the rear of the train, and the shoulder pads shift just a bit more cleanly without the need for gap-filling flaps.  I'd say the entire transformation is just a bit smoother, really.

Once again, the official toy comes off as just a bit more refined.  Obviously, the paint again, including the "BEE" written on the sides (that was part of Guido Guidi's concept art for Bee, though I don't recall seeing it in the actual pages of the comic), but also small details like the flap at the bottom rear, the lack of visible hands, and molded details on the back that better resemble the comic.  

Bee has storage for his accessories in alt mode.  There's a 5mm port between his forearms that you can plug the gun into.  There's also a hollow space under the pilot.  The head of the hammer fits into it, and the handle snaps into place between Bee's legs.  It's super secure, but it does fore his legs slightly apart and creates a gap in the pilot.

On the one hand, Bee's half a $60 set, and my initial reaction was that seems a bit much for a Deluxe-class figure.  But, as part of a Pulse-exclusive set, I don't know that it's actually fair to say that he is a Deluxe.  The size and engineering seem pretty Deluxe, but after our recent round of Studio Series Deluxes I'm inclined to think that Bee's sporting a bit more paint.  And compared to Centurion, a figure that I recall retailing for around $35 in 2018 (which is closer to $45 in 2025 dollars), Hasbro's offering is little smaller but overall more refined.  I don't know that I can fairly complain that Bee costs a little more than a normal retail Deluxe then turn around and tell you that he's better than a toy that's $15 more adjusted for inflation.  Because, yeah, between the two I do like the official figure better.  Ultimately, the decision to buy or not comes down to how much you like his pack-in pal, who we'll be looking at in the next episode.

[mikeszekely]

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but Bumblebee's pack-in pal is Megatron.

Megatron, like Optimus, doesn't actually appear in the Hearts of Steel comic book, just as concept art.  As with the other three figures, I think Hasbro did a pretty good job here on what's essentially a Deluxe-class figure.  He's got a bit less paint than Bee, but arguably because he needs less of it; everything's the color it's supposed to be, with silver paint on all those spikes and some cool molded gears in his hips.  He's just missing a touch of red on his elbows and gold spikes in the center of his shoulder wheels.

The molded gears are on the back sides of his hips, too.  There's plenty of other rivets and molded details.  All-in-all it's a pretty good design... I love a good black Megatron, and from interviews with Evan it sounds like we could be seeing more versions of these four characters in the future.  I, for one, would love for Hasbro to revisit the stealth bomber design from IDW, but I'd really prefer them to be Voyager or Leader class in the future.

But I digress.  Megatron's sole accessory is this cannon.

Megatron's head is on a ball joint with some upward tilt and above average sideways and downward tilt.  His shoulders rotate, and though the big wheels on his shoulders have hinges and do their best to get out of the way they do stop him from reaching a full 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend 180 degrees.  No wrist swivels, but his waist does swivel.  Hips can go about 90 degrees backward, and past 90 degrees forward or laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little short of 180 degrees.  No upward tilt on his feet, but they can tilt downward.  He does have ankle pivots, but they're limited to under 45 degrees.

Megatron's cannon plugs into the port on his right arm.  The port itself is on a flap, not his actual arm, and can fold outward a bit for some poses.

Of the four Hearts of Steel figures, Megatron has about the simplest transformation.  Open his back, tuck his head in, and close it up.  Bend his wrists outward, then open the gray bits on his arms and tuck his hands inside.  Fold out these pointy bits from inside his forearms, then spin them 180 degrees and bend his elbows so his forearms line up with the backs of his shoulders.  If it's lined up right, the gray bits from his forearms will tab into slots on the dark part of his back, and the flap with the cannon (which does not need to be removed for transformation) will tab into the middle of the gray part.  Then just spin his waist 180 degrees, fold down his feet, and bend his knees.  Tabs near his ankles will lock the legs into his butt, and you're done.

Simple, yes, but fairly accurate to Guido Guidi's sketches.  The little pointy bits you had to flip out of his forearms are an especially nice touch because they do represent details that were present in Guidi's artwork, but I'd bet that if Hasbro had simply omitted them that a lot of people wouldn't have even noticed.  My only real gripe, something that perhaps could have been addressed on a little larger, little more expensive figure are the very visible robot thighs on the back.  I can't say it's not accurate, since Guidi's sketches don't show that angle, but I get the impression that they should be covered somehow.

Not much else to say, really.  Like I said, the cannon doesn't have to come off for transformation.  Since it's a solid piece, the barrel doesn't telescope (despite Guidi's notes indicating that it should be longer in cannon mode than in robot mode), nor can it adjust its elevation.  The big shoulder wheels do roll, though, as do a pair of smaller wheels in his knees.

I like this Megatron.  I think he's a good fit with their Prime and Starscream, I like the darker colors on him, and the alt mode is both unique and fitting.  I think my only real complaint is that I wish he were bigger.  Bee and Megatron together are a set worth picking up, especially if you got the previous set.  That said, if they do two-packs in the future I'd prefer they put Optimus and Megatron together

[Scyla]

Since I don’t collect the regular characters of the Hearts of Steel robots but their repaints I really would like a Nemesis Prime/Skywarp and Cliffjumper/Galvatron repaints of these so I can compare them to my MMC/Mech Planet versions (sans Galvatron).

However, wasn’t it announced by Hasbro that these Timelines releases are meant for evergreen characters? I always took this as no repaints (but it could also mean repaints are a possibility but no molds for minor characters like the Insecticon train). 

[mikeszekely]

I don't know if they'll release more HoS figures or not (I think people will be upset if we don't at least get Shockwave), and knowing Hasbro I doubt repaints are off the table. But the impression I got from Evan is that this line is going to crank out versions of Optimus/Megatron/Bumblebee/Starscream until they stop making money.

[Scyla]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I don't know if they'll release more HoS figures or not (I think people will be upset if we don't at least get Shockwave), and knowing Hasbro I doubt repaints are off the table. But the impression I got from Evan is that this line is going to crank out versions of Optimus/Megatron/Bumblebee/Starscream until they stop making money.

I’ve been watching the "Activate your alt-mode" from afar (since I don’t have an Instagram account). Now that Shockwave has been determined as the character it would be funny if the further choices are water based alt mode and the mode is a steam powered, icon clad dreadnaught.

[M'Kyuun]

On 8/15/2025 at 6:01 AM, mikeszekely said:

I don't know if they'll release more HoS figures or not (I think people will be upset if we don't at least get Shockwave), and knowing Hasbro I doubt repaints are off the table. But the impression I got from Evan is that this line is going to crank out versions of Optimus/Megatron/Bumblebee/Starscream until they stop making money.

I'm not really into HoS, as most of the alts don't do much for me. However, I'd love to have Grimlock as a Mark V tank. If you're gonna give Grimlock a vehicle alt, that's about as good as any. Funny Guidi chose Grimlock and not the more fitting Warpath., but whatever. Too, odd that he chose to make Megatron a field cannon instead of a tank.

Edited August 17 by M'Kyuun