mikeszekely

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.

If the budget for the mace went elsewhere, I'm ok with it. I never use Optimus's axe anyway.

It helps. But I think '80s kids seem to have the right mix of nostalgia and disposable income; time and time again G1 sells more than Beast Wars more than Unicron Trilogy more than Bayverse.

I have one, the 2nd version. Last I checked it worked fine, but the hard drive died. I put in an off-the-shelf drive and got it working, but for some reason it only saw like 8GB of the drive, so it might need replaced with an actual 360-formatted one. Shoot me a PM if you're still looking.

Broadly speaking, cards with three fans tend to have bigger heatsinks and are theoretically better at dissipating heat, and therefore could run quieter. In practice, though, it's going to vary by manufacturer, and your case's airflow is going to be a more significant contributor. Unless you're running a big, hot card that requires beefier cooling I'd bet that you could test a two-fan and a three-fan with the same GPU in the same box and the difference would be similar to doing two passes with the same card. FWIW, I ran a two-fan Zotac 4070 and it was fine. I really only replaced it because my CPU was becoming a bottleneck and with the way the market's been lately it was easier to get a pre-built than to buy parts and build one myself. But I guess I should also say, knock on wood, that I'm currently running an Asus card, I ran an Asus card prior to the Zotac, my last gaming laptop was an Asus, and I currently use an ROG Ally X when I'm on the go, and I've had little to no issues with any of that.

Full disclosure, I grew up on G1, and I want whatever is going to give me the best versions of the G1 cast, right up to and including do-overs for the figures that fell a bit short even in more recent lines like Siege/Earthrise/Kingdom/Legacy/AotP, and if stuffing Mirage in Studio Series is the best way to get one that isn't a clumsy retool of a wonky-in-the-first-place Siege toy then 100% do it. That said, there's going to be pushback. It's tough for us old coots to remember sometimes, but Transformers 07 is just two short years away from turning twenty, which means kids who were introduced to the brand from that movie are now in their mid-to-late 20s... the same age I was when Classics came out and I started collecting. While some of those fans have grown to appreciate G1, there are a lot of them who simply aren't interested in that part of the franchise. For three years, Studio Series only featured toys from the live-action movies, and for three years Bayverse fans lived with the notion that Generations/Siege/Earthrise was for G1ers, and Studio Series was their thing, and then suddenly not only are the Bayformer designs sharing space with semi-reboot G1-esque Cybertronian designs from Bumblebee but now they're giving up slots to actual G1. Then came the addition of Gamer Edition, and in 2023 and 2024 there were zero figures released from the first five films (to be fair, that has a lot more to do with Rise of the Beasts than 86). There's been a lot of grumbling in some corners about how characters like Arcee and Ironhide got Studio Series do-overs for then-relatively recent Earthrise figures but they're still waiting for Skids and Mudflap, or how when the Commander-class came to Studio Series it was three years of '86 when they'd really like more (and bigger) AoE Dinobots. I don't envy the team at Hasbro and the tightrope they're walking; G1 consistently sells, and you want to go where the money is, but you don't want to alienate the movie fans.

Yeah, preorders should be 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT. I'm in for everyone but Grimlock, and that only because I already have him. EDIT: And hey, my Pulse Premium which I haven't bothered to renew yet doesn't run out until Monday.

The list tracks pretty well with what I've heard. Powerglide's a bit of a surprise, but not unwelcome; I think it's their intention to replace all minibots with Deluxes, and with Seaspray and Windcharger supposedly I the way it doesn't leave too many left to do. Swerve is also one I wasn't aware of, but that's another easy Gears repaint. His cartoon presence was minimal, but he was popular in IDW. I expect we'll see Tailgate, too, at some point after Windcharger. AFAIK it's Prime Smokescreen. I don't know how far along in development it got, but he was planned and I think even appeared in some Kingdom artwork. He was shelved indefinitely, though. Big if true. I've always found the G1 toys fascinating; so far from the animation, then learned later it's because they were original cool mech suits.

The official date hasn't been set, but it's traditionally September. Whatever day it is, you just have to order from Habro Pulse (the EU version does ship to Germany). I just don't remember if you have to be a Pulse Premium member or not.

Hey @Scyla I wanted to give you a heads up. This year's Pulsecon exclusive is Commander-class Armada Nemesis Prime.

Su-27 (technically J-16, if we're being pedantic). MiG-27 is a totally different (and far uglier, IMHO) beast.

You didn't do anything wrong, amigo. I'm just tying together the official fan stream announcement with my earlier unconfirmed date for preorders. Because yes, they're gonna talk Studio Series, and yes, you're gonna be able to preorder Megatron on Tuesday.😁

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