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OK, one last upgrade kit (for now). We did the baddies, how about an upgrade kit for the good guys? This kit is DNA's DK-52 kit for the Studio Series Rise of the Beasts Maximals. In this kit, you'll find a hammer, two hologram balls, a head, two hands, and two sets of toes. There's also Return of Chunk. The head is for Optimus Primal. A complaint I had with the figure was that he had a cartoon-style opening in his mask with a mouth, but the final CGI model had just a mask. (You may even recall when I reviewed Apelinq, who had the full mask, that I wondered if switching their heads was a good idea, since Apelinq's robot face wasn't in the movie, but Yolopark revealed that Apelinq wasn't supposed to have a mouth, either.) The DNA head is basically identical to the stock head except it doesn't have a mouth. Swapping the head is as simple as yanking the stock head off the ball joint and pushing the DNA head onto it. As a simple head swap, it doesn't affect his transformation at all and does nothing for his alt mode, so we'll skip right onto the next one... ...which is a hammer for Rhinox. Who already came with a hammer. Arguably, the new hammer has a somewhat better sculpt and paint than the stock one, but they're about the same size. It's a tad snug, too. If the hammer stopped at being slightly prettier this would be a hard sell, but where the hammer really shines is alt mode. We have a little prep to do first, though. Once you have Rhinox in alt mode, open up his back and yank his head off at the indicated hinge. That'll give you a little more room to work. OK, in the back of the rhino head you'll find a hollow void. Grab Return of Chunk, and wedge it into the void so the u-shaped cutout is at the bottom. Once it's in there good, you can reattach the head. Now, take the hammer and fold the handle back like you would with the stock hammer. Then, take the top of the hammer and rock it backward on a double hinge, and flip out the two little winglets on the sides of the hammer. Turn Rhinox upside down and pull out his neck a bit so you can see Return of Chunk inside. The handle of the hammer goes into that cutout, with the hammer oriented so the top is facing the ground when Rhinox is standing up. The spikes on the face of the hammer get tucked into the top of his robot chest, and the top of the hammer lines up with the bottom of the rhino neck. This allows the hammer to fill in the void in the rhino chest between his neck and the robot chest (which became his rhino tummy). And I think it works pretty well! The mechanical detail sort of works with with the gappy machinery with lots of moving parts look the film gave the Maximals. And you know I love this sort of integrated weapons storage over the stock "just stick it on his back" look. Speaking of his back, this is a good time to talk about the hologram globes. The tops are different on each globe, but they can be removed and swapped between them. Which you might want to do, because one of the bases has a 5mm peg, which allows it to plug into Rhinox's back (since we don't have to stow a hammer there anymore). According to the instructions, the other has a 4mm peg. The instructions suggest using the globes with Airazor or Optimus Prime. I'm struggling to recall if they ever used a hologram in Rise of the Beasts, or if DNA just included them because a certain 3P included them with their versions of Optimus Prime... but that particular version of Prime was a modified KO of Lemontree's Bumblebee Optimus Prime, and that Prime did use a hologram globe... eh, not important, I guess. We're wrapping up this set with some parts for Cheetor. You're going to need to loosen the screws on the backs of his forearms. You won't actually remove them or take his forearms apart, just loosen them enough that you can pull the ball-jointed fists out and fit the replacement fists in. The DNA fists have the bulk of the alt mode paws on the backs of his hands, with just two claws sticking out. Near as I can tell, the CGI in the film doesn't have any paw, but it does have the two claws, so I consider this a moderate upgrade in accuracy. As for the toes, you need to yank the stock front half of Cheetor's feet off of the gray hinge, then snap the replacement parts on in their place. the replacement feet are a little taller, so you'll need to flip a heel out to lie against the cat paws on the back half of the foot. The new feet aren't as flat and short, with some silver paint for the toe spikes. And, yeah, the shape and the silver make the foot a bit more accurate, but I feel like you could have gotten most of the same benefit by getting a silver oil-based Sharpie paint marker and painting the toe spikes on the stock feet yourself. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that, even with the flip-out heels, he seems a little less stable on his new feet. Transforming Cheetor with the DNA kit is mostly the same. You have to fold the heel back into the front of the foot, but the foot still folds up against the back of the cat leg. The hands do a bit better. The paws on the backs of the hand double-hinge out over the claws, so that the claws become fingernails for the cat. Since both the claws and paws on hinged on the new hands, they function as well the stock paws in cat mode. Maybe better, since it looks like they can sit a little flatter, and the nails are all painted silver. As for the feet, you get the sense that maybe there was a reason the stock feet were so small in the first place. Perhaps I will just paint the stock feet and put them back on. That said, the globes and the feet are the only things I'm a bit iffy on. The new head for Primal is more accurate, and the I really like the new hands for Cheetor, though those things alone probably wouldn't sell me on a whole kit. Rhinox's hammer, though, is a different story. I love it. I love that it integrates into his body instead of sitting on his back in rhino mode. I love that it fills in a major gap in the alt mode. It's exactly what Rhinox needed, so much so that I'd recommend the kit just for that reason. If you have Studio Series Rhinox, this kit is a definite recommend. The fact that you can also upgrade Cheetor and Primal is just icing on the cake.

Yeah, a big chunk of my last shipment was DNA upgrade kits (although less than I expected, as there's at least two more kits that have been out in China but are still showing as not arriving until September here). So we'll keep rolling with DNA DK-49, an upgrade kit for the Studio Series Rise of the Beasts Terrorcons. This kit has parts for three figures- Battletrap, Nightbird, and Scourge. In the package you'll find a chain, a pair of blasters, two swords, two little wings, a forearm and hand, two shoulders, and two truck mode parts. We'll start with the easy stuff. The chain is for Battletrap's mace, and you attach it by sliding the big tab into the notches on the mace. From there, it's as simple as plugging the other end into one of his fists. The chain has a number of joints that could be used for cool poses, except that Battletrap's shoulders don't appear to have held up well despite being in storage in a box in alt mode. He can't support the weight of the mace/chain combo. The blasters, likewise, have pegs at the end that fit into his fists. For alt mode, you can store the chain by leaving it plugged into a fist, then you use the joints in the links to route the chain under the tow hook. The mace/wrecking ball winds up in basically the same spot. The blasters, meanwhile, can be stored by plugging the square holes onto the posts on the sides of the truck, where his arms peg into his torso in bot mode. All told, the blasters and chain are nice-to-haves, nothing I'd say majorly improves the figure but also nothing that requires any major alterations. Nightbird's similarly simple. Grab her tiny little wings and just yank them off their pegs. Then just pop the replacement ones on. The new swords are slightly larger but almost identical in sculpt. They're painted with yellow instead of black, which I believe is a better match for the film. The almost-identical sculpt means that they can still tab onto her hip armor. Really, the biggest improvement with the swords is that there's two here instead of just the one the toy came with. The biggest improvement is definitely the new wings, though. They're still a tad smaller than what she had in the film, but they look purposeful instead of the vestigial nubs she came with. Plus, they have hinges, so they're articulated in a way the originals weren't. Now, you might figure that the reason Nightbird came with such puny wings is because there's a lack of space to stow them when she transforms. But, DNA clearly figured it out. Swivel them and use the hinges to angle them just right, and they should curl under her cabin, right along her spine, just like this. If you got them situated right, the car should button up about as well as it ever did. As for the swords, again, the nearly identical sculpt means that you can tab them in exactly the same as the original. I think I even called out the fact that she had spots for two swords when I reviewed her and questioned why she only came with one. With the easy ones out of the way, we're left to upgrade Scourge, who you may recall already had one upgrade kit with a new right arm that sported articulated figures, a new weapon that wasn't permanently attached to his arm, a new head that's kind of ugly but has a much more solid neck and removable mask, a new claw arm with articulated fingers, some rib filler, and new armor parts for his thighs, butt, and shins. And that was all well and good, but in a lot of scenes he had neither an arm cannon or a claw, he had a normal left hand. What if you want that look? Well, DNA got you covered with an arm that's basically a mirror of the previous one, but with the peg hole for the peg stump that the claw and blaster use. I've seen concept art of Scourge with shoulder pads like the toy has, but the toy clearly wasn't working from the final design because that's not how his shoulders looked in the film. So DNA decided to replace them with more accurate ones, and we're going to have to do a bit of toy surgery to swap them. Begin by removing these two screws. Be careful, as caps will come off with the screws. Hang onto them, you'll need them later. With the arm off, you can slide the DNA shoulder onto the joint and replace the caps and screws. Pull the arms off the old shoulders at the mushroom peg and slide them into the new shoulders. Here you can see the new shoulder vs the old shoulder, with a screen grab of Scourge in the film. The new shoulder armor is much closer to the film... but you might be thinking at this point, "hey, weren't those old shoulder pads a major part of the truck's nose?" They were indeed! Which brings use to our final parts, pieces that replace the shoulders so we're not missing big chunks of the truck's nose. To attach them, you need to find these tabs on his back, and plug the parts into them. This is actually where his original shoulders would tab into the wheels. The fit, as was the case with the thigh, shin, and butt armor from the previous kit, isn't the tightest and DNA advises that you can use glue, but doing so will make it difficult or impossible to revert him to stock. There's a swivel in each of the DNA pieces, so once they're tabbed in you can kind of tuck them in a bit after you plug in his backpack. However, you shouldn't fold in the panels with the smokestacks first anymore. The spot where they're designed to sit is now occupied by the DNA parts. Once the backpack is in place, you can fold them in, but they're now forced to angle backward slightly and not really lock in anymore. That said, It doesn't look drastically different from how it originally went, and the friction in the hinges seems to be adequate to keep everything in place. More robot accuracy is good, but only if it still transforms. And he does, but with a little more finagling to get his arms past the wheels which now have chunks of the nose attached. You also have to take more care to line up the shoulder joints/air cleaner, since lining up the shoulder pads with the nose of the truck won't do it for you anymore. To make sure that the new shoulders sit under the hood you need to take the extra steps of sliding the ring-shaped joint coming out of the shoulder forward toward the nose of the truck while also sliding the new shoulder armor down toward the back of the truck. Once everything's settled the new nose parts should fit over the shoulders and mate with the strip of the hood coming from his backpack and the grill. Despite using new nose parts attached to his backpack that fit over his shoulders instead of making the nose parts out of his shoulders, the truck mode is basically the same as it ever was. His hands, whether you're using the clawed hand or the normal one of the left, still poke out of the back of the cab. If you're using the DNA kit, the blade still folds and clips onto the thumb, and you still kind of just wedge the blaster between his legs. Recommending this kit is a tough call... I think Nightbird is the most obviously improved by it, but is she improved enough? Blasters and a chain for Battletrap aren't pushing it over the finish line. I think it ultimately comes down to Scourge. Did you get the previous kit for him? That kit did quite a bit to improve his screen accuracy, but the shins and especially the thighs would come off if you looked at him funny, practically demanding that you glue those parts on. I think, if you got that kit, you might as well go all the way and give him the option of a normal hand and more accurate shoulders, and you might as well glue the new truck nose parts on, too. If you didn't get the previous kit, which goes a lot further in improving him than this one does, then there's really no point to getting this kit for him. And if you're not getting this kit for Scourge, then you can probably save some money and pass on this kit, too.

Man, I had to dig a bit to find this topic. Is it just me, or has 3rd party stuff been waning a bit in popularity since Hasbro's stuff has (mostly) improved? Or is it just that everyone's migrating to Legends, but no one talks about it? And now, when I am gonna talk about 3P stuff, it's 3P stuff to upgrade Hasbro's stuff. Because, yeah, I finally shipped my stash from The Chosen Prime, and it's mostly upgrade kits... starting with DNA's DK-51 kit for Legacy Nova Prime. Let's start with this image... this is Nova Prime as Don Figeuroa designed him for early IDW. For some reason, a lot of fans saw Siege Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime and thought, "hey, that'd made a good retool as Nova Prime!" (Perhaps due to a digibash of the original Cybertron Optimus making the rounds). I'm not sure I agree... Galaxy Upgrade Optimus isn't a particularly good Cybertron Optimus, let alone Nova Prime. The colors, plus the new head and chest, do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the new wings are too small, he's still got Optimus' ladder guns, and he's just entirely wrong from the waist down. So what's DNA giving us, and can it get us closer to the comics? The most obvious thing are new wings, but we've also got a sword, a pair of rifles, some filler panels, new fists, a new crotch, new shoes, and some parts I'll call Big Chunk and Little Chunk. The new fists are the only parts that actually replace anything, and the only parts that require a screwdriver. Remove these two screws on the inside of the forearm, and the inside of the forearm will come off. Swapping the fists is as easy as sliding the old ones out of the mushroom peg socket and sliding the new ones in, then putting the forearm back together. The new fists are slightly larger, which does make them a little more proportional with the armored mode. But the real improvement is that each finger is a separate part now, molded into a curve and pegged at the base. Because they're permanently attached, they're the only parts in the kit that go with the base robot, so if you haven't yet go ahead and armor him up. Now for the crotch. There's a pair of tabs on the back of the piece, they go into these slots on the original crotch. Grab Big Chunk, and split it in half. There's a tab that fits into the small gap between the core robot's leg and the armor booties. Just wedge that tab in there as snug as you can. Grab the shoes. While it looks like there's a clear top and bottom, we actually want to spin the toes so they're facing up, but the waffled part with the black peg on the long piece is also facing up. This peg plugs into the peg hole on the soles of Nova's booties. As near as I can tell, it doesn't matter which shoe goes on which foot. These filler parts are familiar to anyone who bought DNA's upgrade kit for GU Optimus. The ends fold down and they slide into the hollow side of the ladders/guns. If you're looking at the backside of Nova you'll notice a peg hole on the back of his wings. There's a corresponding peg on the DNA wings, as well as some tabs that wedge into the waffles. Finally, Little Chunk gets wedged into Nova's backpack. It doesn't really matter which side. Little Chunk plays a more important role later. For now, though, you'll notice the square-shaped indent on Little Chunk... you want that facing outward. The DNA sword has a pair of clips that plug into that square, allowing you to store the sword on his back. And here's our completed Nova Prime. The new crotch is much better, and the shoes give him more comic-accurate toes and arguably improve his proportions. The new hands aren't as necessary, but added articulation is appreciated. I do like that the fillers help hide the hollow sides of the ladders, but I'd just as soon do away with them entirely, since they're not accurate to the comics in the first place. Big Chunk gives him knee pads that are a bit more comic accurate, but they aren't as secure as the rest of the kit, and they don't really make up for the fact that the rest of his legs are very clearly still not a truck cab. I could take or leave the sword; he didn't have one in the comics, but extra weapons are still cool. Nova didn't really use any weapons in the comics, that I recall, but I do rather like the new guns. The star, though, is definitely the wings. They don't just make his wings bigger and more comic accurate; each of the four segments has a swivel and a double hinge, giving you a lot more freedom in posing them. I supposed, technically, you could still keep the holdover leg guns from GU Optimus (which themselves were a holdover from Siege Magnus, where they were meant to mimic the blue hinges on the sides of RID Magnus' cab)... maybe have the sword stowed on his back, the old guns on his legs, and the new rifles in his fists. But the new rifles are really meant to replace the old guns; they have pegs on the "magazine" that allow you to plug them into his legs. And, as we'll see in a minute, there won't be room for both the new guns and the old in alt mode. And to get to alt mode, you can leave the new fists and wings attached, but everything else gets pulled back off. So transform the core robot into his cab mode, but leave off the arm bits with the bumper and tires for a minute. Instead, get Big Chunk, put the halves back together, and attach it to Little Chunk like so. Us the peg on Little Chunk to plug the combined Chunks into the peg hole on the front of the cab. Now, take the arm parts that turn into the bumper and front wheels and attach them into the sides of Little Chunk. Get the shoes and turn the toes so that the waffles and black pegs are on the same side. Fold in the peg that goes into his soles, and fold out the peg in the toes. Use those pegs to plug the shoes into the peg holes just above the front wheels. This will help fill in the gaps that Hasbro created but moving the wheel parts forward made worse. And yes, the shoes are a little unsecured. We'll get to that. Put the trailer pieces together basically the way you normally do, and begin to attach it to the cab. Before we fold in and attach the wings, take all the segments and swivel them 180 degrees. Take the the bottom one (formerly the top) and fold in back in on itself. Now you can fold the wings in and attach them to the hooks on Nova's legs as you normally would. With the wings in place, you can now take the second-from-the-bottom wing segment and push it down over the shoe part. You might have noticed the little tabs on the sides of the shoes; they go into the bottom of the wing segment, which helps secure the whole thing in place. As for the remaining segments, the second-from-top tabs onto the segment we tabbed onto the shoes, and the top one tabs onto the second-from-the-top one. Now a few finishing touches. The new rifles plug onto the peg holes on the leg armor. You may have also noticed tabs on the hip skirts of the crotch piece. Use them to sandwich the crotch above the shoulder parts at the top of the booties. There's a peg hole at the bottom of the crotch, and you want to make sure it's pointing toward the front of the truck. We can plug the handle of the sword into the hole, and the sword will sit nicely between the ladders on top of the truck. Nova Prime's alt mode never properly appeared in the comics, but we have Don's concept art for it. Legacy Nova Prime was never really in the ballpark. The DNA kit does at least give him a long nose cab, and it helps cover the gaps in the original toy. It'd be a stretch to call it accurate, though. And I guess that's the dilemma... Legacy Nova Prime was a mediocre retool of a mediocre retool. While DNA's upgrade kit helps, it's kinda like putting lipstick on a pig. With Age of the Primes Hasbro's giving us toys of the original 13 Primes (aka the first 13 Transformers created by Primus, but I kind of hope they don't start there. I'd love for them to do the entire Lineage of Primes (aka the line of every Transformers to carry the Matrix from Prima to Optimus/Rodimus, which varies by continuity but I'd accept as Prima, Nova Prime, Nominus Prime, Zeta Prime, Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime). I still hope for a brand new, comic-accurate mold for Nova. I've seen no sign that we're actually getting that wish, though. For now, Legacy Nova Prime is all we've got. Even with the DNA kit Legacy Nova Prime is still farther from the mark I'd like, the knee pads aren't super secure in bot mode, and the wings and shoes feel a little rickety in truck mode. That makes it a little hard to recommend the kit. However, I think the upgraded wings are what ultimately make me say yes, I do recommend this kit. They're bigger, they're much more accurate, and more dynamic. Just don't expect any miracles.

Sorry. It covers all the US toy releases through Action Masters, then has a big section covering JG1 from Headmasters through Battlestars, before going into G2. It finishes with an "oddities" section that includes a lot of various back-of-package, early concept art, Microchange and Diaclone art, unused G2 art (like Nacho Cheese Jazz, Watermelon Mirage, and Tiger Stripes Grimlock), etc. They mention the UK in the oddities section, but only to show off UK artwork for Grimlock, Slag, Snarl, Blaze, Piranha, Blitz, and Sizzle, plus art of Galvatron that was used for a jigsaw puzzle. That's it. It's like Euro G1 (and Machine Wars) didn't happen). Regarding Superion, well... I'll save it for when I do my final review. I will say, though, that it does make me wonder what they're going to do with Bruticus, though. I mean, I know they're doing the frames and the splitting alt modes for the arms (which I'd give a pass too, except it looks like Vortex will be upside down)*. They could maybe get away with plugging Swindle into the back of a frame, too, given how the Sunbow leg is basically a yellow lump with a purple stripe and not very Jeep or Swindle-y. But Brawl's turret is very obviously the shin, so... do they not do a frame? Do they remove Brawl's turret and plug it on the front side of the frame? Pass it through? I guess time will tell. *Nevermind. While this image from Vortex's instructions leaked: Mark put a photoshoot on Instagram with Vortex rightside-up on Superion's arm. EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, I think they'll do the frame for the legs but backward, so that Swindle and Brawl plug into the front.

If you look at the Japanese prices he's closer to $120-130 in his home country (which was on the high end of doable for me). Prices in the States tended to be a little more; those importers have to pay for shipping from Japan before they ship it to us, after all, but this seems like a pretty hefty markup. I'm REALLY not trying to be political, but that's tariffs.

I'm not going out of my way to buy from a Japanese site, but if it turns up on Pulse for $120 or less I'll bite.

For me it's going to come down to price, where Synergenex has been all over the place. Like, I was in for the Godzilla Megatron and the Monster Hunter Optimus, but the Zoids Optimus was announced with a $300 price tag.

Ok see now I'm back in on this...

Optimus and the VF-19 clearly don't mix. It's a shame, though, because the Fighter mode doesn't look too bad. They WAY overthunk this one. This. I mean, I could make a distinction between this Synergenex stuff and Hasbro's "proper" Transformers Collaborative, but lately Hasbro's done Naruto, Sonic, and football helmets.

You know what's better than a two-pack of Studio Series torso-forming Commanders? How about finally getting the MIA Age of the Primes torso-forming Commander the same weekend? That being Commander-class Silverbolt. Among the Combiner Wars torsos I always thought that Silverbolt was probably the best, but side-by-side with the new one really hammers home how off it was. The torso and forearms straight up have better proportions. The deco is also much more cartoon-accurate; the CW toy might have been copying the G1 toy with the red chest going straight across and the all-black shoulders, but AotP Silverbolt's white shoulder wings and red vest with white in the middle is more accurate to the cartoon. I'm a bit disappointed, though, that with all the budget a Commander-class affords it's still not totally accurate. The Autobot badge on his right collar is something you'd expect on the G1 toy, but the cartoon has nothing on the red and a big ol' badge right in the middle of all that white. Less obvious infractions include missing gold on his lats and knees, and missing red on his hips. Like the limbs, Silverbolt is less a robot that turns into a plane and more a robot with a plane on his back. I know it's going to be cause for some complaints, but for better or worse, it's cartoon accurate. You can fold the wings back, like the G1 toy (and how a lot of 3P versions of the character are depicted), but per the Sunbow art they're not actually supposed to be. As a Commander who's slightly smaller than an earlier Voyager release, much of Silverbolt's budget went toward accessories. He's got a gun, a larger cannon, plus large chunks of arms, legs, and torsos for his combined mode. And, just like Menasor's bits turned into Motormaster's trailer and Devastator's bits turned into Long Haul's trailer, Superion's bits do stuff too. Whatever you're doing with them, though, you're going to start by folding in the knees and toes on the legs and sticking them together, then accordioning the arms up (very much like Menasor's) and sticking them on the sides of the legs. This forms what I call "the brick" (though at this point I'm tempted to call it the port-a-potty). Silverbolt's articulation is not too shabby. His ball-jointed head can look up and tilt sideways a fair bit, though downward is pretty limited. His shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. No wrist swivels. His waist does actually swivel, but he's limited to a little under 45 degrees in either direction due to his backpack. His hip skirts can hinge up, allowing his hips to move 90 degrees forward on a ratchet, about 45 degrees backward due to his backpack, and slightly over 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees seem to bend 90 degrees, though using a tranfsormation joint will effectively make his knees double-jointed and able to bend 180 degrees. His feet can't tilt downward, but due to his transformation they can tilt 90 degrees up and pivot 90 degrees. Silverbolt is meant to hold the small gun in either hand. When he's not wielding it, a tab under the barrel can plug into a slot on either side of the fuselage on his back. Side note, I wish the little wings on the gun were bigger. For use with Silverbolt's bot mode, take the brick and stand it up (so that the Superion fists are at the top). Take the torso piece, fold the chest down, make him do a split, and turn the legs so the openings for the combiner ports are facing the same direction as his crotch. Tabs on the brick will plug into Superion's thighs. Then, take the cannon and use a pair of tabs to clip around the cannon, mounting it to the top of the brick. Now you've got a kind of fortified gun emplacement. I guess. It might sound weird, but AotP Silverbolt's transformation is less like the G1 toy or Combiner Wars toys, and a bit more like Kingdom/Legacy Blaster's. You open up Silverbolt's chest and fold his head into it (while folding out Superion's), but you also fold his arms into his torso as well (once you've folded in his fists and bent his elbows backward). This will leave little bits of his forearms sticking out of his sides. Fold his feet up, turn his thighs inward 90 degrees, then use his hips and upper knee (transformation) joint to bend his legs around to his torso. Those bits of forearm sticking out of his sides will slide into a gap in his calves. Once the robot parts are effectively a rectangle, you can lock the wings into tabs on his legs, double-hinge the forward chunk of the fuselage over Superion's face, and rock the tail back into place. Finish it off by opening the cockpit section and folding out the nose. As with the robot mode, Silverbolt's jet mode is both an improvement over the Combiner Wars version but not quite there. Like, it's a lot closer to a Concord than whatever the CW toy was, but the proportions, nose, and wings are altered just enough to be legally distinct. A robot with a jet on his back still winds up being a jet with a robot underneath; in that regard, the rectangle that Silverbolt squeezes himself into is actually a more compact than the CW toy, plus Superion's antenna kind of give me VF-1J vibes. However, his feet are an eyesore. I think it might have been better if they swiveled and sat on top of his shoulders instead of on the sides (though they way they work winds up integral for combined mode). Or, if you look at the Sunbow art, there's black and red nacelles sticking out from under and past the front of his wings (likely a misinterpretation of the G1 toy's chest and shoulders). If the feet could have turned 90 degrees somehow they might have passed as those nacelles. You might have noticed that Silverbolt's hip skirts have molded wheels on on them. The front landing gear unfolds from the back of Superion's head, and his pistol plugs into a port under the nose. Pull the torso of the gun emplacement, and lay the brick part flat. You can leave the torso in a split, but turn the thighs back around so the front is at the front. Plug Superion's but into a the clips you used to hold the cannon on, while tabs on his thighs plug into slots on the fists. Fold the back clip down and plug it into a pair of square notches on the brick, then fold the chest backward over it and tab it into the brick as well. fold the barrel under the cannon, turn it over, and bend the rear slightly so that a peg hole lines up with a peg on the brick (actually Superion's back clip). Lastly, fold out the little wings on the sides. You've now got something that at first kind of reminded me of a fancy airport terminal, which would have worked well with the Aerialbots. Heck, a ramp or something might have emulated the G1 toy's base mode. But, no, Hasbro apparently decreed that combiner kibble must be a trailer, even for planes... So we fold out a pair of red clips. Lift Silverbolt's wings, and the red clips grab onto his thighs while a pair of tabs plug into his butt. Fold the wings back down and they tab into the edges of the brick. For this mode, you're technically supposed to split and fold down Silverbolt's tail (a feature that was designed just for this mode, since it doesn't need to do so for robot or combined mode). I guess the cannon is the tail now? Let's be clear, the idea of a Concord or really any jet hauling around a big brick of kibble, even a big brick with wings, is a bit absurd, and I prefer my airport terminal idea. That said, I don't hate this as much as I thought. There's more wing, the Concord neck sticking off the front, and some Superion chest kibble on the back, but if you ignore that and squint this "super mode" gives me Ark vibes. Maybe this is Silverbolt's Cybertronian mode, then? Regardless, there's no law that says you have to connect the kibble to Silverbolt, and if nothing else it's a convenient way to keep all his kibble in once place. I'll do a review of the combined Superion mode when the other two Aerialbots are released. For now, I actually really like this Silverbolt. On his own merits, yes, he's still a brick of a robot under a plane that turns into a robot with a plane on his back, but that's inherently going to be a thing when you're working from the blocky G1 toys and Floro Dery's Sunbow designs (and before anyone brings up Maverick, just no- he's still a plane with a ton of robot kibble underneath, but one where they ridiculously over-engineered the transformation to try to spread the robot out flatter for minimal gain at the cost of humps on the dorsal fuselage and limited robot articulation, which I don't think is actually an improvement on any level). But he's still a good robot with a plane on his back, and an improved jet with a robot underneath. The combiner kibble doesn't really do anything for me in either robot or jet modes, but it's at least consolidated and read when we do combine him. He gets a recommend from me.

Who is, of course, Commander-class Long Haul. Where the the first three Constructicons were slightly improved but pretty similar to their Combiner Wars cousins, thankfully, that's not at all the case for Long Haul. I don't think that saying Long Haul was the worse of the Combiner Wars Constructicons is a particularly controversial statement. He had a huge upper body with dinky little arms and thick-but-stumpy legs, and a weird transformation that made his shins part of his bed but had him wearing the majority of it like a cape. Studio Series Long Haul is still a thicker boy than the skinny cartoon model, but with proportions that are more swole than "giant baby." With black arms and no silver anywhere but his face his colors are more cartoon accurate, too. There are some flaps on his back, but nothing like the Combiner wars version. If we're being technical the animation model doesn't have the wheels on his legs; I do wish they had hinges to fold against his calves, but it's far from the worst thing ever. It kind of feels like nitpicking to even bring it up, but then again I could just be cutting him slack because he's such an improvement over the CW version. I mean, look at this! Opening his front is a necessary step in transforming him, but the designers went the extra mile and included some molded engine details that they even painted silver. Long Haul comes with a pistol that's, oddly, in two parts, a green handle/receiver and a black barrel. I've also decided that the rest of the accessories in the box are also Long Haul's; you've got Devastator's hips and thighs, the center portion of his chest shield and the two wings (which do, by the way, have tabs that fit into slots on Scrapper so you can have the flying loader mode), and Devastator's forearms/hands. The Devastator parts all fit together in a non-Devastator fashion. Lift the hip skirts and move the thighs into a sitting position, where you can then tab the skirts into the thighs. The kibble on his butt will wrap around under the thighs and between the knees. Then the center of the chest shield uses a pair of tabs to plug into the hip skirts, while the wings fit onto tabs on the sides of the thighs. The fists fold into the forearms, then pegs that fold out the backs of the hands plug into peg holes on the top of the kibble wrap. It's like a little trailer. I wouldn't say I needed his combiner parts to be a trailer, but it's a handy way to keep them all together at least. In fact, I think my only complaint is that there's nowhere to store the Devastator gun parts that came with Scrapper on the trailer. Getting back to Long Haul himself, it's not just his looks that have improved. His articulation is much better as well. His head is hinged, so he can't really look up or tilt his head sideways, and he can only look a little. His head does swivel, though. His shoulders rotate and move slightly over 90 degrees laterally. His elbows are ball joints, so he can actually bend his elbows forward 90 degrees and not just waggle them sideways, plus the ball joint doubles as a bicep swivel. No waist swivel or wrist swivels, though. His hips can go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, and his thighs swivel. His knees are interesting. There's a joint behind the red panels that you can use as a knee that bends over 90 degrees, with a skinny "thigh" behind the truck bed. However, Hasbro seems to have intended that as a transformation joint, and gave him another, separate hinge below the red panel. That one, due to the tires on the backs of his leg, gets less than 90 degrees, though. So why not use both, and get nearly 180 degrees of bend? Lastly there's his feet, which don't tilt up or down but do have 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Long Haul holds his gun without issue in either hand. He lacks any other storage for it in robot mode. SS86 Long Haul's transformation is a bit closer to the G1 toy than the Combiner Wars toy. His head tucks into his chest, but you have to open it to make room, and his chest folds up. His legs fold around to become the truck bed. And his arms tuck underneath, but they fold up in an unusual way with the fists pointing backward instead of toward the front. Long Haul's alt mode is pretty good. There's a bit of a gap between his feet and backpack that don't quite sell the idea that the "hood" over the cab is actually part of the bed, and there are gaps along the sides where his shoulder joints have to fit through. Speaking of the bed, it doesn't look like he'll be hauling all that much since they're full of robot leg. But his arms are tucked away nicely, and the cab, grill, lights, and smokestack details are all cartoon accurate. There's a little space between Long Haul's legs, and you can capture a purple hook on the trailer in that space so Long Haul can pull the trailer. Again, not something I necessarily needed, but it's at least some attempt to integrate Devastator's parts. As for his own gun, you simply plug the handle into a 5mm port on either side of his bed. I'll cut right to the chase... yes, I recommend SS86 Long Haul. He's such an improvement over the Combiner Wars version that he justifies the entire Commander set, and then with Long Haul and Hook at this scale you might as well buy the other four- two of whom aren't out and I haven't even reviewed yet. Yeah, Long Haul is good enough to make you replace all your Constructicons. But should you actually replace Devastator? Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait for Mixmaster and Scavenger before I can answer that.

While waiting for Amazon and Pulse to get off their butts and fulfil my command for preorders, turns out the Big Bad Slow Toy Store of all people got some stock. So I commanded them to to send me my third two-pack this month (also gave them money). Now, can I command your attention for a bit? I have a review for Commander-class Hook. I was looking at the animation model for Hook, and I don't envy anyone trying to make a toy of him. Combiner Wars Hook figured sticking the wheels on his forearms was enough and didn't copy the weird triangle elbows of the animation model. Nor did it copy Hook's weird cartoon hips. The real tricky part, though, is that the animation model completely abandons the truck parts on the fronts of the G1 toy's legs, except for a lump on his left foot with a wheel and a window. Despite the lump obviously being the cab, aside from the purple window his legs are silver from his hips down. Combiner Wars Hook was like, "nah," and reversed his lower legs, so the cab is on the back of his leg instead, and made his legs green from the knees down. Studio Series Hook looks to "correct" some of Combiner Wars Hook's details by making them more cartoon-accurate. Hence, his torso becomes devoid of color that isn't purple, aside from the cartoon-accurate green on the collar... although, as near as I can tell, his chest actually should have kept some of the black. And silvery plastic was used for Hook's shins and feet to better color match the silver of the cartoon. But, perhaps because the same Takara designers that worked on Combiner Wars Devastator are the same guys doing the Studio Series ones, some mistakes are carried over. The cab's still on the back of his leg instead of the front. He still doesn't have the weird hips. He does have an accessory... forgive me if we're not justifying the Commander-class price point yet, but I promise the other guy has a ton more. For Hook, though, it's just this one gun. Hook's articulation isn't the best, but it actually is an improvement over the Combiner Wars toy. His head swivels and can tilt down some, and up/sideways very slightly. His shoulders swivel and can move laterally 90 degrees; the "shelves" above his shoulders are hinged now and can move up to give you more clearance. He has bicep swivels now, and double-jointed elbows that get around 130 degrees of bend. No wrist or waist swivels, though. His hips go about 90 degrees backward, and a little over that forward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little under 90 degrees. His feet have some upward tilt due to how he transforms, and 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Hook holds his gun just fine. And in a move I kind of like, his boom is only attached via a 5mm peg. This means you can remove it and plug it into the port on either forearm if you want to use it like a weapon. Of course, it naturally goes on his back, and with it there you'll find a 3mm peg that you can use to store his gun on the boom on his back. It a move that's probably not all that surprising to anyone who's already mess with Studio Series Scrapper, Hook's transformation is basically the same as the Combiner Wars version. You still shift his backpack up and tuck his arms into his sides. You still rock his calves up over his thighs, fold his shins up under him, and tuck his feet flat. You don't even fold in his hands now (for this mode), and you might notice that the SS toy carries over the the CW toy's practice of shifting the control cabin for the crane over, so it's not straight behind the driver's cabin. Another thing I'm disappointed to see, given that the big change from Combiner Wars (other than scale) is that Hasbro is embracing partsforming, is that there's still a massive, inaccurate lump in the middle of the truck where Devastator's head is attached. Why didn't they just partsform it, too? While I feel my complaints are pretty valid, as they're largely things that are NOT cartoon-accurate, I have to at least admit that it's at least better. He's now got nicely-painted silver rims, and no random black bits in either cab. The truck's surface is textured like it's got skid plating, and the purple stripe and purple end of the boom are cartoon-accurate (though the hook itself should be purple). Although Hook's crane deck doesn't swivel, since it's just pegged in the crane itself can swivel. And, although that's about the extend of it, the boom can also extend. In both of those ways SS86 Hook is, again, an improvement over the Combiner Wars toy. As for weapon storage, the gun can again simply be pegged onto the boom. As I alluded to, Hook is a lot like Scrapper. Both are, in a number of small ways, improved from their decade-old Combiner Wars versions, but both ultimately use nearly identical engineering and thus carry over a number of flaws from those older toys, and do so at a smaller size. So it's like, yeah, Hook is better... but is he better enough to warrant an upgrade if you already have the Combiner Wars toys? Naturally, some of that is going to come down to the combined mode, and we've got to wait until the fall to answer that question. But, perhaps some of that will also come down to the fact that Hook is packed with another Constructicon...

I just don't know how, on a Hasbro budget, you do that without making his arms more turret-shaped or his pistol barrel more tank gun-shaped. Like, yeah, it'd make for a way better tank mode, and would probably look great on an updated pseudo-G1 Megatron from IDW or something, but it'd make those elements less cartoon-accurate in bot mode. For me, who thinks Megatron's real alt mode is the pistol accessory, that's not a compromise I'm comfortable with.

Yeah, the slim's what I got. Not the original white one (my launch day one RROD'd, but actually lasted until it was out of warranty and the S was out). Not the E that looked sort of like a mini Xbox One. I should have a Kinect for it, too. I don't need $100 for it, it's just been sitting in my closet. Hit me up when things are going better for you.