mikeszekely

I got an email today from Hasbro Pulse. I was thinking that maybe they were going to announce that you could order Ginrai through them, just like I preordered Lunar Lander Prime and Missing Link Convoy through Pulse. Sure enough, they are advertising that they're selling an Optimus toy! ...Earthrise Leader-class Optimus Prime.😒 And it somehow sold out? If the rumors are to be believed, and my source has an excellent track record, we're getting SS86 Commander-class Optimus this year. I mean, Pulse is saying ER Prime will ship around September 1st, and I reviewed Magnus in mid-October last year. Seems like ER Prime will be shipping just before people start getting the Commander, and the Commander would be announced with plenty of time for the people who did preorder ER Prime to cancel.

Busy day ahead of me, so I'm going to get this out of the way early. We're already done with the Deluxes, and we're moving into the Voyagers with Legacy United Silverbolt. I'm pretty impressed with how Silverbolt came out. He's very cartoon accurate, down to having fake hinges in front of his shoulders where the CGI copied the hinges on the original toy. The colors are pretty close to the original toy, but I'm not sure that's doing him any favors as he's kind of monotone. I'm not 100% sure, but I kind of suspect he was made entirely from a single color of plastic,, so the black on his face, the yellow eyes, the silver muzzle, the wing details, and all the gold trim is paint (the only bit I'm not sure about is the red in his belly). More silver paint might have helped him pop; the cartoon had his robot bits like his hands, forearms, and parts of his chest as a more metallic color than the gray beast-mode bits. Some people were suggesting that Silverbolt is somehow a retool of Tigerhawk. I can sort of see where they came to that conclusion; both stand on legs that become their alt mode's front legs, both have the loincloth thing going on, both have prominent wings... but no. Tigerhawk is a lot bigger and more complex, especially in the torso transformation. One of the more interesting changes from the original toy is the back. In the cartoon, Silverbolt's wings appeared to be on his back, but the original toy they remained parallel to the ground, with his beast back sticking off his own back like a hump. For this version, the alt-mode tail winds up sitting a bit lower, but his back is cleaner and flatter on the whole. Silverbolt comes with the same accessories as the original toy, his signature... clubs? Axes? I mean, they were really missiles that some designer at Kenner realized could be held in his hands, and that's what got animated. They're neither the all-gray of the orignal toy, nor the mostly-gold with silver edges of the original cartoon. Rather, they're gray with gold and black paint in just the right places to blend in with the paint on his wings. So yeah, Silverbolt's head is on a ball joint, but tilt in any direction is pretty limited. His shoulders rotate and move laterally slightly more than 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and bend 180 degrees- the beast legs sticking off his elbows are cartoon accurate, so don't mind them. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. His hips have some crazy articulation; his forward/backward movement is a swivel that could go a full 360 degrees if his arms weren't in the way, so his forward/backward range is basically until his is legs start bumping into his shoulders. Lateral movement is a disc hinge that again is impeded only by his arms, spreading his legs far beyond 90 degrees until his legs touch his shoulders. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet don't tilt up, but they do tilt down and he's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. If I have one complaint about his robot articulation, it's simply that his mouth doesn't open. I know that's not really a thing for bot modes, but it seems like it should be here. For whatever reason, Beast Wars characters don't get the plethora of 5mm ports that other figures do. There's some in his heels, if you want to use effects parts there, and his hands are 5mm, which lets him hold his clubs. That's it, though, so no Armorizers for him. That's not to say that he lacks weapons storage, though. There are tabs on the edges of his wings and slots int he handles of the clubs that allow you to blend them right into his wings. Weirdly, the clubs and wings have different molds. His right wing has one long tab that fits into one long slot on one of the clubs, and the other wing has two small tabs that fit into two small slots on the other other club. No mixing and matching here, or guessing which side is meant to be the front and which side is the back. There's only one way they'll fit. Transforming Silverbolt isn't terribly complicated, but it's surprisingly different from the original. On the original, everything stayed sort of level. His arms double-hinged backward to become the beast mode legs, his robot legs shifted up into their place, which freed his tummy to flip up and become the beast head with the loincloth becoming the neck. His wings and beast back never really moved. With the United version, his back opens up, allowing you to tuck in the robot head, and his tail lifts as well. His arms double hinge, but upward this time, covering over his robot head, and the loincloth folds up onto his belly. His entire back swivels 180 degrees, so his beast head is now near his butt. The beast tail goes back down, tabbing into robot shoulders. His thighs spin 180 degrees, then little holes on them fit into little pegs on his loincloth. You finish him off by closing his back and locking his beast head in using two small tabs that fit into two notches on his robot grundle. e And, for the most part, it totally works. Colors are a bit closer to the original toy than the cartoon, which is a good thing, I think. I thought that Silverbolt's head looked a bit like a rat in the cartoon. I might have liked some paint on the rear claws, but it's far from a dealbreaker. There are two things worth noting, though. First is that his robot arms are on the backs of his beast thighs instead of the front. I can't decide if that's better or worse. In theory, they're less visible from more forward angles, which is good, but from the back or sides they can't rely on hiding under his wings or being obscured by his front legs. It's exacerbated by the second thing, that he's a bit longer than the original. I don't actually mind that his body is longer, but his back isn't longer to match it, so his tail feathers don't reach all the way to his rear and also can't help cover his robot hands. Properly transformed, his beast articulation is actually quite limited. His wings have two flapping hinges, and one joint for tucking the wings in. His front elbows can bend forward and backward, and he's got some feet/ankle tilt on the front paws. His rear knees bend forward (which is the wrong way). He can open his jaws... and that's it. HIs head is locked in place. His front thighs are actually pegged into his chest, locking them and his shoulders in place. His rear thighs are similarly tabbed in place, locking them and his hips into place. And really, since he can't move his shoulders/biceps/hips/thighs, there's really only going to be one way to position his elbows/knees/front paws and having him standing on all fours. I've told you this before, I've watched Beast Wars as an adult and thought it was pretty good, but I was definitely in the "truck not monkey" camp in the '90s, I prefer Transformers that turn into vehicles (or at least more mechanical beasts), and I don't have a strong attachment to the Beast Wars characters and lore. Which leaves Silverbolt in kind of an awkward place for me. If you asked me who the main Maximal characters were I'd say Primal, Rhinox, Rattrap, Cheetor, and Dinobot, with Tigatron and Airazor being the runners up. The Transmetals and Fuzors from the second season just didn't have the same impact. But Silverbolt did have a pretty major arc, being a staple in that season and in Beast Machines and being the main impetus for Blackarachnia to switch sides. So maybe I've got all the Beast Wars I wanted in WFC/Legacy already. If you feel the same way, maybe Silverbolt's not really a necessity. But maybe you're a Beast Wars fan. Maybe you're hoping for Quickstrike, Depth Charge, and Rampage yet. Maybe you're hoping for Transmetal versions of the "main" cast. In that case, Silverbolt's a very good upgrade to the original and definitely worth a look.

I think they mostly copied the anime, which mostly copied the G1 toy, especially in truck mode. Stuff like the "window" stickers on the super mode chest were missing in the anime, so they're molded but missing here. Maybe it'll come with stickers? The kibble behind is head is a bit egregious. I mean, it's there on the G1 toy and the anime, and I think MPG-09's is more accurate than Power Baser, but I think there's some stuff going on with the trailer hitch to keep the super head permanently attached. Plus the anime has the advantage of minimizing that sort of thing. My Japanese is pretty rusty, but if I'm not mistaken the text on the pictures I posted in the previous post says something about them actually being CGI renders and the final colors and shapes might be different. So there's also that. EDIT: I was looking at the blue Ginrai "thighs" peaking out of Super Ginrai's belly, and... well, Ginrai's thighs are clearly silver. If Ginrai transforms the same as the G1 toy there shouldn't be any blue there at all. I wonder if the hitch kibble on the trailer is so egregious that there's no room for Ginrai's feet behind Super Ginrai's head. Maybe his knees bend 180 degrees and fold under the cab, and that's his feet? Hard to tell for sure from the images released so far, but if that's the case, would it have killed them to put a flap on Super Ginrai that covered the feet? I don't know. Still, I think I like MPG-09 better than KFC's Raijin or Fans Hobby's Power Baser. I do agree that Maketoys probably had the best Super Ginrai bot mode, but it was pretty stylized and had it's own issues like a proportionally tiny Ginrai.

These pictures are a bit more clear, and look a bit better to me. I think if you're just in for MP-60 you're in for a pretty good time. The arms sticking way up on the MPG-09 trailer still look kind of crappy, but at least I can see that there are peg holes on his arms and I'd imagine you could probably turn the forearms 90 degrees to mount his shoulder guns like the G1 toy. Speaking of shoulders, Super Ginrai looks like he might have Hot Rod shoulders and a limited waist swivel, but on the whole he looks like he's striking a nice balance between the G1 toy and the Masterforce anime. I want to see a better look at the accessories and confirm the overall scale, but I'm tentatively interested now.

Assuming you consider, as I do, Siege to be a "reboot" and you're only counting figures from Siege or newer, then we also need Windcharger. For the Decepticons we need the Constructicons, and I'd argue for Buzzsaw. I mean, yeah, he technically didn't appear in the cartoon until the second season, but he was in the Marvel comics from the beginning and came packed-in with the original Soundwave toy.

Well, it certainly matches the aesthetic of the first three. Which, frankly, weren't that great, and I already sold off.

OK, enough of the videogame and Bumblebee toys. Enough with the made-up characters (even if they're really good). I know us Macrossworlders skew hard into G1, and for me personally at least the first wave of Legacy United was probably the worst wave of mainline Transformers toys since before Siege. Which is why, for myself and likely most of you, one of the most anticipated figures in this wave is the update on a 1984 stalwart and regular in the cartoon, Deluxe-class Gears. Considering that the above image is the only three (transforming) Gears toys that Hasbro's ever released, the new Deluxe is off to a great start. His head is very Sunbow accurate, with an appropriately Gears-esque grumpy face. His chest, like the Sunbow cartoon, as the stripe running down it that copies the G1 toy's sticker, but also the trapezoids under and around it. A little of the silver waist is showing, but it's broken by a red hinge. His thighs have a band around them that's not present in the cartoon, but seems to be taken from the G1 toy, and although there's more molded greebles and mechanical detail the geometry of his shins and feet match the cartoon. His shoulders are a bit more blocky than the animation model's, but they do have the faux tires molded into the tops like the cartoon, now with additional molded tread. The only details I wish could have been "fixed" would be to replace the silver-gray elbow hinges with blue ones, and to replace the silver-gray hands with gunmetal gray ones. Gears has a lot of blue on the sides and backs of his legs. This is technically not cartoon-accurate, but it's toy-accurate, and I think the only way to have all-red legs would be to take the truck details and have them on some kind of flap that wound up somewhere else in bot mode, and that sort of engineering may not have been possible on a Deluxe-class budget. I'll note that his legs don't have wheels on them, which does copy the cartoon, and it probably would have been a lot easier for the designers to have simply left them on his legs and passed it off as toy-accurate. Gears does suffer from a rather chunky backpack. This is largely due to the fact that a good chunk of his alt mode's front end is his head on the G1 toy (and you'll notice the upisde-down Mysterians M on the back of his head, a nice nod the the M on the G1 toy's hood). That front end has to go somewhere, and while I might have preferred some engineering that folded in inside his torso, that'd likely have necessitated that Gears kept his wheels on his shoulders and legs like the G1 toy, as if you look at the side view near his shoulders that his torso is actually stuffed with all four wheels. Gears' sole accessory is this gun. Of course, the G1 toy never came with a gun. Gears did use a gun a couple of times in the cartoon... I think it was more tube-shaped and blue. That said, I think this one is ultimately fine for Gears. It has elements of that generic G1 gun you saw pretty often in the cartoon. Gears has about all the articulation you could want from a little Deluxe. His head is on a ball joint. It can only swivel about 45 degrees in either direction before it bangs into his backpack. Despite the width and shape of his noggin, he actually does have a little up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees, plus due to his transformation he's got butterfly hinges. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend a fully 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. His hips can go 90 degrees laterally, and slightly more than that forward or backward. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend about 160 degrees. No up/down tilt on his feet, but his ankles pivot almost 90 degrees. Gears can, of course, hold his gun in either of his hands. In addition to his hands, Gears has 5mm ports under his feet, on the sides of his legs just above his ankles, and on either side of his backpack. The ones on his backpack work pretty well as bot-mode weapon storage, as his gun has an additional 5mm peg on one side. One other gimmick Gears has is that his chest can flip up to reveal some molded mechanical details underneath. It would have been nice if it had been painted silver, but the molded details are clearly copied from the episode "Changing Gears," where Megatron removed a circuit board from Gears to use in his Solar Needle, and without that circuit Gears' personality changed to happy and helpful. Gears' transformation is pretty simple, albeit not as simple as the G1 toy. The backpack flips open and the wheels fold out, then it folds back on another hinge to go over Gears' head. His chest opens, both where it does for the gimmick and the mechanical detail behind it. This will leave a void where Gears' arms can curl up into. Gears' heels fold down to make part of the roof, but then his legs fold over just like the G1 toy. His chest winds up against his thighs, with the wheels behind it folding out to become his rear wheels. The front part of his chest wraps around his knees and winds up on the back of the truck. Gears' truck mode is ok, but definitely not on the level of his bot mode. The blue color and red bumper, and the robot shins and feet in the bed of the truck, that all checks out. The silver grill and the silver spot on his hood are accurate. The headlights are a bit more stylized, but I'll let that slide considering the cartoon was just blue squares and the toy had the molded suggestion of headlights and nothing else. The sides of the truck aren't very cohesive, though, with the hinges and arms bulging out, and something's off with his suspension. The tires sit far below the fenders. I'm also not a fan of Gears' windows. Both the cartoon and the G1 toy had as single window that wrapped around from the front to the sides, but for whatever reason the designers thought it necessary to square things off and add the A and B pillars. While they were adding windows to the sides, they were subtracting them from the roof. Here we've just got a solid blue roof where both the G1 toy (under the rubsign) and cartoon had sunroofs. The worst part, though, is the rear. I mean, I suppose that exposed knee joints don't particularly look like a truck's tailgate, but that unfinished look is somewhat common and not necessarily out of place on a transforming toy. What is out of place, though, is an entire definitely-not-truck-parts robot chest. In truck mode, Gears has 5mm ports on the front fenders, on the sides just above the rear fenders, and a pair on the roof. Any of those are adequate places to store his gun. If you prefer something a bit less obvious, his weird suspension does give him a lot of ground clearance. There's no ports underneath, but if you turn his fists he can barely hold the peg on the side of the gun with his left hand, with the barrel pointing toward the front. For some time, Gears has been my poster boy for a neglected G1 character in dire need of an update every time Hasbro would waste a Deluxe-class slot on a newly-created gimmick character like Magneous or some obscure character like Devcon that nobody asked for. So it feels kind of weird to say that the newly-created gimmick character in this wave surpasses Gears as my favorite Legacy United Deluxe. The backpack in bot mode and the gave-up-halfway truck mode just bring him down a bit, whereas the worst thing I can say about Shard is that she's way cooler than someone with no fiction has a right to be. That said, if I compare Gears to other Deluxe minibots like Cliffjumper, Brawn, and Huffer we'll recall that they've got similar compromises, and aesthetically Gears fits right in. So Gears gets a solid recommend from me, as he'll look perfect with your other G1 Earthrise/Kingdom/Legacy/SS86 figures. Here's hoping they do Windcharger (and Buzzsaw, and maybe a better Mirage) soon so we can put a pin in the Season 1 G1 cast.

Not writing another review tonight- I know you guys really read stuff here to kill time at work during the week. But I do have an addendum to yesterday's review of Legacy United Shard. Yeah... I cut those tabs off the blades. The immediate upside is that she can now hold the blades properly like swords. Indeed, with the cannons on her arms and the panels in her shins you're still free to put one sword in each and and one extra on each thigh. This has turned her from mildly interesting rock lady with goofy accessories to a badass crystal helicopter swordswoman. So are there any downsides? Well, it doesn't affect the peg on the side of the "hilt." She can still, as you saw, plug them into her thighs, as well as her forearms, or hold them like guns the way she does out of the box. What's more, the "handles" with the tabs cut off still fit into the cannon barrels, which was the only reason I could think of for having the tabs in the first place. So no, bot mode and Armorizer gimmicks are not compromised by cutting those tabs off. And since the un-tabbed pegs on the sides of the blades were how you attached them for helicopter mode, her alt mode is in no way affected by removing those tabs. There is literally no downside to just cutting them off. I can't fathom why they were there in the first place... it's too bad the design team is on Instagram but not something I actually use, because I really want to ask if the tabs were intentional or some mistake in the molding process. Because, let me tell you, the ability to actually use her blades as swords has elevated her from, "mildly interesting but not necessary if you're G1 cartoon only" to "holy crap, you guys, I think this might be the best figure in Legacy United so far!" Oh yeah, one more thing. I didn't realize this until I started putting her in more cool sword poses, but you can unpeg her pelvis from her torso, and then one of the hinges used in her transformation can be used as an ab crunch. Definite recommend from me, just be sure to get some nippers and a hobby knife when you pick her up.

Wait, who wants to watch a Tron movie that's not set in The Grid? The Grid is what makes Tron interesting. 🤮

Well, enough about Studio Series, at least until Shockwave and Swoop ship. It's time to get back to the mainline, with wave 2 of Legacy United. From smallest to largest, this actually won't take as long as you might think. First up would be the Core-classes... and considering how mediocre the first wave was, I'm kind of done with Core-class, unless it's a character that's supposed to be smaller or a G1 character I want with my Titans. And in wave 2 we got Beast Machines Cheetor, which is neither of those things, so pass. I can't recall if that's the only Core slot or if there's a package refresh in the wave, but either way that's it for new molds. Onto Deluxe. Sureshot's been moved to fill out a fifth wave. And aside from a nice head sculpt I don't really care for Chromia... Siege has a better robot mode, Thrilling 30 has a better bike mode. Well look at that, all the Cores and half the Deluxes done already, and I didn't even have to buy a toy! Probably doesn't make for good reading or pictures, though, so we'll do one more today- Deluxe-class Shard. So Shard's another of those Infernac-Universe guys who is somehow both a Rock Lords and an Inhumanoids homage despite looking like neither, who is a robot made out of rocks but doesn't turn into a rock. This is where I'd usually go into my rant about how we don't need original characters with goofy gimmicks eating up slots that could be used for other characters, especially G1 characters like Sureshot who got bumped from the wave... but honestly, Shard's pretty cool! For one, she's green and gold crystal instead of boring gray rock like Magneous, with a cooler crystalline spikey texture. The green is broken up nicely with some gunmetal robot parts. Whereas Magneous was like some kind of prehistoric Transformer made out of stone instead of metal, Shard comes across more like a regular Transformer that happened to get infected by or covered with crystals. Her feet are a tad large, but it gives her a nice stable base to stand on, and helps her balance her large tail. I think another hinge in the tail so it could fold up against her backpack might have been nice. Shard's got a couple of accessories. We've got a pair of these cannons, two crystalline panels, and a quartet of blades. Notice, how the blades appear to have 5mm handles, but they have tabs on them? That's going to be an issue in a bit. Shard's head is on a mushroom swivel, so she lacks any neck tilt. Her shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees. Her biceps swivel, her elbows bend 90 degrees, and she's got wrist swivels. Her waist swivels. Her hips can go 90 degrees forward, a tad less than that laterally, and a tad more less backward. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend a hair over 90 degrees. Her feet can tilt up a fair bit, down plenty, and her ankles do pivot but they're a tad lacking. Interestingly, as an armorizer, you can pull her legs off at the knees and swap them, and because her ankles tilt farther the other way you'll increase her pivot (but you'll have to swap them back to transform her). Shard can hold the cannons, no problem, using 5mm pegs. She could techncially hold the 5mm peg on the back of the crystal panels, too. And she can hold the blades, but here's where things get a bit odd. There's a 5mm peg on one side so she can hold them like guns, with the blade pointing away from her like a barrel. They do have those other 5mm pegs I mentioned before, and you can use them to plug the blades into the cannons... but remember that tab I pointed out? It'll slot between the "teeth" on the cannon's opening, but it prevents her from holding the blades like swords. Which is kind of extremely dumb, if you ask me. I may cut them off on my copy; worst case it affects how you plug them into the cannons, which I'm not inclined to do anyway. They serve no purpose in alt mode. Aside from her fists, Shard has a 5mm port on either forearm, 5mm ports on the outsides of her thighs, a 5mm port on the front of each shin, a 5mm port under each foot, and a quartet of them on her backpack. The instructions tell you to plug the crystalline panels onto her shins, which is honestly where they work the best as they won't need to be removed during transformation, and if you plug the cannons onto her forearms they'll also be in their alt mode spot. Speaking of alt modes, Shard turns into a helicopter. Her arms and sides untab from her torso and fold back into her backpack; just twist her bicep so that the outside of her forearm is still pointed toward the outside, and if you have the cannons on her arms you'll need to unplug them, turn them 180 degrees, then plug them back in. With her sides out of the way, her chest his free to lift up over her head and form her cockpit. Her feet tilt down and her thighs swivel so that bottoms of her feet and calves can tab together, then her waist comes apart on double hinges, first swinging back against her arms then forward so her legs lay along the underside of her alt, with her feet connecting to her chest to form the nose. Finish it off by plugging her blades into the four ports on her backpack (using the same pegs she can hold, not the ones with the tabs) to form her rotors. Less gunmetal can be seen in this mode, but her rotors, tail, and sides are add another shade of green (looks more bluish in my photos than it does in hand). The aesthetic carries over; Magneous is some kind of prehistoric truck mode of stone, but Shard is a regular (and pretty cool) helicopter that somehow got covered in crystal. I don't hate it. You might have noticed the crystalline panels on the sides, and her cannons look like engine nacelles. If your curious, though, here's how she looks without them, and it's interesting that there's more standard, non-crystal "metallic" surfaces. It makes me wonder if Shard might get retooled into a more conventional helicopter. I'd think most of her parts would need to be remolded, but the basic engineering here is pretty sound. Shard is, of course, an Armorizer. That means she's got the gimmick of breaking apart into "accessories" you can use for other Transformers. However, like the Junkions in Legacy but unlike the Weaponizers in Siege, you're really just using her own accessories and limbs, leaving her torso just lying around. It's really here, in Armorizer mode, that the blades get pluggined into the barrels of the cannons. There's also a hollow gap on one side of the cannons with another 5mm port that you're intended to plug a blade into. And then you half-hold the bladed cannons in the top and bottom of a fist, and half hold the legs in the top and bottom of a fist, and plug her arms into the shoulders or backpack on another figure. Maybe find a place to put the panels, and... yeah. I dunno. Turning into accessories kind of worked for the Weaponizers, but it made them kind of crappy Transformers that you had to disassemble and reassemble into alt mode. I applaud the design team for making the Armorizers (and the Junkions before them) able to transform without having to be ripped apart first, but then they're not as good as accessories. What's the lesson here? I think it's that gimmicks are dumb and we should just stop doing this. Fortunately, Shard's utility as accessories doesn't affect my review. As a Transformer, even an original character that's made out of crystals, I think she's actually quite good. I dig the colors, I dig the transformation, I dig the alt mode. My only real complaint is the tabs on the blades that prevent them from being swords in bot mode, but I'm reasonably certain I can just cut them off. Unless you're dead set on Sunbow only, I think Shard's definitely worth picking up.

See, it's comments like this that tell me people are actually reading my rambling opinions on toys and not just humoring me by looking at pictures and maybe liking the post. Hey, if I'm not convincing you to buy toys then my reviews wouldn't be any good. ...unless I'm telling you not to buy a toy. If I tell you a toy is crappy and you buy it anyway maybe I screwed up in the other direction.🤔

We're doing another Studio Series Deluxe-class release, and it's funny that even though it's from Bumblebee instead of War for Cybertron, this wave is giving us a Sunstreaker to go with yesterday's Sideswipe. I mean, aside from the extra Bayverse-legacy greebles on Sunstreaker's face, is there anything aesthetically going on here that makes you think that these guys don't belong together? Experienced Bumblebee collectors might notice that Sunstreaker's feet have that same boot-with-treads thing that Bumblebee and Brawn had, but if I told you that Sunstreaker was a bonus character in the DS version of War for Cybertron (that you probably never played) you'd probably buy that. Sunny's got a few folded kibble panels on the sides of his arms and legs, plus some wheels jammed onto the backs of his biceps and unfortunately hollow forearms. But he's not walking around with a mahoosive backpack, so I'm inclined to say he's a bit cleaner than Sideswipe overall. Or really, any of the Gamer Edition Deluxes. Hmm, maybe they don't belong together after all? For whatever reason, Sunstreaker doesn't seem to be too popular with the fan community. One of the complaints is that he's too yellow, but... it's Sunstreaker. What color do you want him to be? The other I'm not totally clear on, it's either that the toy is a poor match for the concept art, or that the concept art didn't exist until the toy and that a Bumblebee Sunstreaker was invented whole cloth for a toy that doesn't deserve to exist because it's taking up a slot that could be used for a character that was actually in one of the five Bay films. To the first point, well, the toy could probably use a little more silver or gunmetal paint on some of the smaller mechanical details like his knees, but Sunstreaker looks like the only concept art I've seen. To the second, I dunno, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but the only concept art a five-minute Google search brought up is image from the Space Bridge at Wondercon (that is, the one used on the box). So maybe they're on to something, but c'mon, what Bayverse nonsense is even left to steal a slot from in the first place? The racist twins? (Don't answer that, the correct answer is and will always be Dispensor.) Well, Sunstreaker comes with this pair of double-barreled guns. Note the tabs on the one edge. They're be important later. Sunstreaker's head is on a ball joint. He can't look down, and he has only slight sideways tilt, but he can look up a bit, and you can fake even more upward tilt by moving the entire flap the ball joint is on. His shoulders rotate, no issues there, but he can only move them about 45 degrees laterally, and worse, the joint is on the inside of the swivel which gives him what are now being called "Hot Rod shoulders," after SS86 Hot Rod (despite the problem going back well before him). His biceps swivel, though it's limited by the kibble on the backs of his biceps. Elbows bend 90 degrees, and he has no wrist articulation at all. His waist swivels. His hips go 90 degrees forward and very almost 90 degrees backward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. Like Sideswipe, Sunstreaker's feet don't tilt down but they tilt all the way up due to his transformation. Unlike Sideswipe, Sunstreaker has about 60 degrees of ankle pivot... I guess that's another sign that he's not really a crappy Gamer Edition toy after all. Another sign that he's not Gamer Edition? Sunny's guns have 5mm pegs, and he holds his guns by simply sliding the pegs into his fists. No arm removal required. Alternatively, you can use the tabs I mentioned earlier to connect the guns together, then plug the entire thing onto his back in a way that very vaguely recalls the engine on G1 Sunstreaker's back. Transforming Sunstreaker is more straightforward than Sideswipe, but in a way that's also more satisfying. In G1 fashion his feet still make the nose of the alt mode, but they do so by bending his feet up and turning his legs so his heels meet, then turning the kibble on the sides of his legs to fill out the front. His chest is the roof and windows, but the part visible in bot mode is only the front. The rest of the roof and the sides unfold out of his chest, then his head tucks into the void you've created. His backpack flips around to cover it up and start to form the rear. His arms make up the rest of the rear, including the wheels, with the panels on his forearms covering over his hands and filling in gaps on the sides, then his shoulders shift into place to make his spoiler and rear bumper. The result is sporty and yellow, like you'd expect a Sunstreaker to be, with an overall aesthetic that I feel looks equally good with Gamer Edition Sideswipe or Bumblebee movie Autobots, especially Wheeljack. Again, accuracy? I have no idea. But I like it. As with his robot mode, you can combine his guns into one unit and use tabs that fit into slots on the gray bits in front of his spoiler to mount the thing in a way that sort of recalls G1 Sunstreaker, if you squint. If you prefer, though, you can leave the guns as separate units, and plug their 5mm handles into ports on the sides just above his rear wheels. Now, I joke about the Bayverse fans, who've been complaining that the Studio Series line began as a line about the Bayverse films but, as of late, has been dominated by Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts, Studio Series 86, and now Gamer Edition. As someone who's complained himself about made-up Junkions and what not taking up slots in the mainline while we still don't have a complete set of modern G1 minibots, I do think there's a certain validity to the idea that we don't really need figures based on obscure concept art that never appeared in any media when characters that have appeared on screen haven't had a Studio Series release. That said, I rather like Sunstreaker. Sure, his shoulder articulation could be a lot better, but he's colorful and he's fun to transform. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a must-have figure, but if you're putting together a scene of that awesome Cybertron battle from the beginning of Bumblebee then I say go ahead and get Sunstreaker. Who cares if he was actually in the film or not?

Today, Hasbro put up some preorders for the new wave of Studio Series toys. Except... that's not entirely accurate. Today they put up preorders for Shockwave and Swoop, but they put up preorders for the Deluxes yesterday. And one assumes they put preorders up a day earlier than they said they would because Amazon put them up for sale on Tuesday. And I do mean "for sale," as it wasn't a preorder. That means, with two-day Prime shipping, I've already got Gamer Edition Sideswipe here to look at. Sideswipe's another Gamer Edition figure that replaces an older Generations figure, but unlike Optimus, Starscream, Megatron, or Bumblebee, Sideswipe's previous toy was a retool of Jazz and not super accurate. So this is the first time Sideswipe's gotten a toy that's actually intended to be a game-accurate Sideswipe first and foremost. And, yeah, round chest with the big silver patch, no wheels in his shins or forearms, wheels dangling off his shoulders... I'd say he's definitely looking a big more like he does in the game. Well, from the front, anyway. From the back you've got a backpack made from his alt mode's entire front end, when it should just be tires and the spikey bit. Speaking of, the spikey bit isn't attached in the box. It has a hole on it, and it fits onto a hinged 5mm peg on Sideswipe's back. Unless you're counting that spikey bit, Sideswipe's sole accessory is this gun. The TF Wiki says it's supposed to the Photon Burst Rifle as seen in War for Cybertron. Sideswipe follows the Gamer Edition tradition of sub-par articulation. His head is on a ball joint that can swivel, has some downward and sideways tilt, but almost no upward tilt. His shoulders are also ball joints on weirdly-angled posts. They swivel, but he can't quite do 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. No wrist swivel. His waist swivels, but his backpack blocks most of it. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward, less than 45 degrees backward due to the backpack, and only about 75 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. Due to his transformation his feet tilt up as much as you could want, but not down. And he lacks any ankle pivot, and quite frankly I thought we were past the point of toys not having ankles until Gamer Edition came along and started acting like it was a Voyager-and-up feature. Sideswipe's right forearm comes off, leaving a 5mm stump. He can use his Photon Burst Rifle by plugging the stump into a corresponding port on on the back of the rifle. You can also store the rifle on his back by plugging a tab on it into a slot on Sideswipe's back. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to store the arm when it's not in use. It seems that the bulk of Sideswipe's budget went into the engineering for his transformation, engineering I might describe as "overly ambitious." His chest comes away from his body on a trio of hinges. His collar untabs from his neck and his arms pull away to give you enough room to flip his head around, before using the multiple hinges his shoulders are attached to to bring his arms together above his head. His legs fold over and use panels that spin on the inside to lock them together and the outside to fill in the sides of his alt mode, before the nose of the alt mode double-hinges off his back to cover them up. Wasn't there a simpler way to do it? I mean, maybe? Sideswipe does look pretty good, and pretty accurate, in alt mode. But, so was the older generations figure. Of course, as we stated, the Gamer Edition has the more accurate robot mode, so maybe it's just the price we have to pay to get both modes right. Still, looking at the alt mode, I can almost start to see how it'd work for Jazz, too. I mean, until I look at the robot mode and realize that it looks nothing like Sideswipe's. Sideswipe has a slot on his roof that you can use to mount his Photon Burst Rifle on. And... there's really not much else to say. I think the best argument for picking up Gamer Edition Sideswipe is that you've bought all the other Gamer Edition figures because you're working on a War for Cybertron shelf. But, I hope you've been paying attention to my other Gamer Edition reviews because, frankly, Sideswipe is another letdown. There's no reason in 2024 for a Deluxe-class toy to not have working ankles, and yet Sideswipe keeps the streak of Gamer Edition Deluxes not having ankles alive. Toss in awkward shoulders, the continued gimmick of having to remove an arm to use a weapon, and the inability to store that arm while using that weapon, and Sideswipe's a pretty mediocre figure at best. Which, IIRC, means that we're now seven releases into the Gamer Edition subline of Studio Series, and I've only recommended two (and Starscream somewhat grudgingly at that). I think that's a sample size that's big enough to say that you're better off ignoring the Gamer Edition entirely at this point.

Shockwave https://hasbropulse.com/collections/new/products/transformers-studio-series-voyager-transformers-bumblebee-110-shockwave Swoop https://hasbropulse.com/collections/new/products/transformers-studio-series-leader-the-transformers-the-movie-86-26-dinobot-swoop Go go go!

Let the floodgates open! Today we've got Voyager-class Origins Wheeljack! One of the quirks of the G1 cartoon is that the robot modes were presented as sort of the Transformers' natural appearances, like it's some kind of coincidence that Bumblebee's feet would look like the front end of a Volkswagen millions of years before humans invented automobiles, but the animators still figured that actually turning into a Beetle before coming to Earth was a bridge too far and so designed futuristic alt modes with no thought of how they'd actually go from one mode to the other. It's almost like they didn't anticipate that 40 years later fans of the cartoon would be working at Hasbro and want to make toys based on those one-off Cybertronian modes. And so here we have Wheeljack, and sure enough he looks quite a bit like Wheeljack. To be really cartoon-accurate he should really have a green stripe on each of his shins (and there's no reason he couldn't have, as his shins are inside the vehicle in alt mode), but on the other hand since his feet don't have to turn into the front end of a Lancia Stratos they're actually more cartoon-accurate than the Earthrise figure. I'll note that he swaps the off-white and black of the Earthrise toy for cartoonier pure white and gray, and the translucent plastic that makes his chest window is tinted blue instead of smoked. So how does one go from a cartoon-accurate robot that was based on a sleek sports rally car and turn it into the boxy Cybertronian alt mode seen in the pilot episode? If you're thinking "shellforming," good guess! Wheeljack's got a pretty substantial backpack, as well as a lot of folded panels on his calves and the sides of his legs. He looks like the Sunbow animation model carrying a bunch of extra gear on his legs and back because he more or less is the Sunbow animation model carrying an entire alt mode on his legs and back. Wheeljack doesn't get to be a Voyager entirely by being a Deluxe-sized figure with enough extra plastic hanging off him to make another Deluxe-sized figure. He's got a bit more in the accessory department than his Earthrise counterpart. There's two silver bits that remind me of Lego flowers. There's a gun you may have noticed as his cartoon-style shoulder cannon. And there's this big translucent blue hinged piece. Wheeljack's head is on a ball joint that has minimal up/down/sideways tilt but swivels just fine. His shoulders rotate and move 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel. His waist swivels. His hips can go a little over 90 degrees forward, but his backpack limits him to about 45 degrees backward. There's really no reason for it, but his hips also fall just short of 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet are on ball joints, so they swivel, tilt down slightly, tilt up about 45 degrees, and pivot. The pivot is a bit less than I'd like, though. You may have already seen than I plugged his shoulder cannon into a 5mm port for it next to his head. He can also hold it like a pistol, and the silver bits can plug into the end of it. Wheeljack also has 5mm ports on the outside of each forearm, on the outside of each leg, in the middle of his back, and under each of his heels. Storage for the silver bits is a bit more limited. There's a peg on the back of each forearm you can use. Otherwise, there's just a pair of pegs in his backpack. Speaking of his backpack, the translucent blue part can tab into it as well, giving him big blue wings. Y'know, like that one time... ok, I don't think he ever had wings in the cartoon. It's more about finding a place somewhere on his bot mode for an accessory that's really for alt mode. The nice thing is that the silver bits still fit on his back under the translucent piece. You'll lose access to the 5mm port on his back, though. Transformation isn't really complicated. You need to shift his head and chest down, spin his waist, and unlock some special hinges in his knees. His arms tuck up over his head to form the front bumper. From there, it's really a matter of unfolding all the panels on his legs, lining them up right, and then unfolding his backpack to close it all up. Credit where credit is due, it's easier to buy Wheeljack as a Voyager in alt mode when you see how much larger he is than Jazz and Bumblebee. While, sure, it's largely shellforming, the end result is still happily cartoon-accurate. I mean, you've got the boxy shape with the sloped front end, the large gray bumper on the front that wraps around the trim, the sort of cassette-ish mechanical detail under the front windshield, the green stripe around the middle with the lighter green/blue suggestion of side windows, and the spoiler around the rear. If I'm nitpicking I might point out that the if the white shoulders peaking out were gray they'd blend into the bumper better, that the the sides should taper toward the roof a bit more, or that the spoiler should be smooth on the outer edge and stick out from the sides a bit more. He could also use a big Autobot insignia on the roof. But minor imperfections don't detract from the fact that it's definitely the alt mode you see in the cartoon. Besides, there's a reason for those bits on Wheejack's spoiler. If you have the fuel rods from Origins Bumblebee (which I do, but currently can't find), they'll clip into the spoiler. As for Wheeljack's own accessories, you can actually store his silver bits and gun inside the vehicle, on his backpack, if you just want them tucked away. Alternatively, there's a 5mm port on his roof you can plug the gun in. The silver bits fit into small pegs on his bumper, because, ah, they're "that thing from that episode". Specifically, they're the cutting blades that Wheeljack deploys when the Seekers had them surrounded by fire.... that he used to cut through the fire? I guess? I mean, after charging through the flames he rams into the Seekers, but the blades weren't deployed then, so... anyway, the translucent blue part plugs into one side, wraps over the front, then plugs into the other side. It's supposed to be the blast shield that Wheeljack raised when they first saw the Seekers ahead. At least Wheeljack kept that up for the rest of the scene. The translucent part has another use, too. You have to pull the hinges apart, then swap rotate the ends and swap them. The "V" shape will become a straighter shape, and you can set Wheeljack on top of it. It's supposed to be the road... I guess? Honestly, the translucent blue part is likely to get misplaced in a drawer with the fuel rods, as I don't really think I'll be using it all that much. But given how uncomfortable it feels to pull the hinges in it apart I'd recommend skipping the road configuration and leaving it as a blast shield/robot wings. Wheeljack doesn't just interact with Bumblebee's fuel rods. He can interact with Bumblebee himself! You can open the roof and fold down the tailgate on Wheeljack, and you'll notice that he's mostly hollow inside. If you take Bumblebee and fold his wings up, you should have just enough space to jam him into the back of Wheeljack while still being able to close him up again with Bee inside. And for those of you who maybe passed on Bumblebee because you thought it was a one-off thing, but now you're interesting in Wheeljack and kind of wish you'd bought Bumblebee to go with him, good news! I have it on authority that Origins Bumblebee will be getting a reissue. Origins Wheeljack is an interesting figure. On the one hand, due to his shellformery transformation that leaves most of his largely-empty alt mode folded up onto his back and legs, Wheeljack feels a bit more poorly-executed than Jazz or Bumblebee. On the other hand, he starts the same size as Earthrise Wheeljack and expands in alt mode specifically so that Origins Bumblebee can ride in the back like he did in the cartoon, and is therefore feels more ambitious than Jazz or Bumblebee. And ultimately, I think a lot of his value comes down to whether or not you own (or will own) Origins Bumblebee. If you do, Origins Wheeljack is a fantastic companion piece that I'd definitely recommend. On his own, though, he's just sort of ok, and not really a substitute for the Earthrise figure.

I mean, the design isn't just consistent with the Cybertronian MTMTE IDW version that MMC was using as a base, or the Flame Toys one. It's also consistent with Chris Ryall's original design that in turn informed the design of the Generations toy from whence dear Peg got his nickname. In other words, it's just what Drift looks like. I'm not sure what exactly you wanted for him to look more G1 in bot mode. He's simply Drift, with the generic late '90s/early aughts tuner swapped out for a car that might have been available to the Japanese street racing scene in 1984.

I'm not surprised. I've never seen a Sprinter Trueno in real life, but my friend had the generation of Corolla it was based on. It's by no means a big car. But I have seen a Countach's a couple of times, and they're smaller than you might think.

If it makes you feel better, I ordered ML Convoy from Hasbro, and they haven't shipped it yet either. Best guess is that Hasbro (and likely BBTS) are getting large enough quantities in that they'll get it by sea freight instead of air. If that's the case, the late Feb/early March release in Japan will be more like May here.

MMC is making an MP-style "G1" drift in their Infinity Finity line. And his alt mode is the Toyota Sprinter from Initial D.

Ordered. And Amazon estimates they'll arrive the same day UPS says Origin Wheeljack is coming. Now if Hasbro could just get off their lazy butts and actually ship the United Wave 2 stuff they charged me for I'll be good. Golden, even, if I can get my order for Swoop in on Thursday... gotta work it in around my kid getting a ton of dental work done that day. EDIT: Origins Wheeljack Wednesday or Thursday, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Shard, Gears, Starscream, and Silverbolt probably Thursday, and I've been charged for Sandstorm and the Autobot 5-pack so they should be shipped soon, too. While we haven't been able to order Shockwave or Swoop yet, I think they'll probably be in-hand before the end of the month, then it's just Tidal Wave, Magmatron, and the store-exclusives. That's probably why they Spacebridge mentioned the United Wave 3 stuff... I'm guessing there will be a fan stream later in April or early May with official reveals and preorders.

OK, no arguments, the main body of the figure definitely looks better on the Newage. But... I'm going to be that guy and say I think the wings on the Hasbro figure are fine. The wings on Newage's are kinda too big. For a real pterosaur? Maybe not. But the animation model didn't have huge wings. EDIT: I do think Swoop is the weakest of the five, though. And I'm kind of not surprised. They pulled this same crap with the Stunticons; first four were good, totally dropped the ball on Breakdown.

The arms compressing into the chest a bit might have been nice, but I think his biggest problem is that his legs are just too chunky. As for the wings, the physical toy at Wondercon was mistransformed. This is how it should look.

I mean, it's not Batman: TAS, but it's probably my second-favorite Batman cartoon.

I think we all are! The TFWiki says Grimlock came out in 2021, but I'd swear it's been longer than that. I mean, it says Slag also came out in 2021, and did they really come out in the same year? Regardless, Hasbro managed to release SIX Core-class Dinobots in less time than it's taken to complete the Leaders. Can't help but notice that Swoop comes with a sword for Grimlock as well as his own, and that both of those swords are red. So... Slag and Sludge don't get swords, unless you bought a 3P upgrade kit? I mean, I did, I bought DNA's upgrade kits for Slag and Sludge. And they come with red swords, too... so I guess Snarl's the weird one with a silver sword. I think Ginrai looks pretty good, if a bit simple. In a way, he reminds me of Missing Link Convoy... better articulation, but the transformation looks like it's basically the same as the G1 toy. I'm not loving the trailer/Super Ginrai as much, though. I know it's supposed to be more anime-esque, but something about Super Ginrai's proportions seem weird. Could just be a bad picture, but the inside of his thighs look hollow, or at the very least full of gray plastic. His arms are too long for the trailer mode (really, they couldn't engineer a way to collapse them on an MP release?), and seem to lack mounting points for the shoulder guns. Which, irritatingly, might be anime accurate.

It's funny, of all the stuff that Gossett was in the one role that I'll really remember him for was Lucius Fox in The Batman. (Not the recent movie, the animated series from the 2000s.)