mikeszekely

The Hot Wheels guys are up for preorder on Pulse. $30 each, shipping in January.

If I'm not mistaken even though they showed it at SDCC it's going to be their Pulsecon exclusive. So while I don't know for certain, I'm guessing September. If I find out for sure I'll pass it along. I'd be down. I'm not a fan of the dark blue on this version- yeah, it's cartoon accurate, but the way a lot of black stuff was colored gray in the G1 cartoon.

The Bayformer crowd has been pretty vocal about wanting more accurately scaled Dinobots, and they've been SUPER vocal about every Studio Series Commander being 86. I didn't know for sure that it was Grimlock, but I did know that Studio Series was getting the Titan next year, and that it was going to be a Bayformer. The flip side is that Hasbro sees the Deluxe-Voyager-Leader thing as distinct waves between the lines, but two Commanders and one Titan is kind of set in stone for now. Traditionally that's been each line gets a Commander, and the Titan's been the Generations line. But the divide is actually two for Generations, one for Studio Series, regardless of size, and that means AotP will have two Commanders in 2026. So who's the other one? I'm tempted to predict that, with the Dinobots potentially eating more future Titan slots, that Hasbro could keep shoveling out Combiner torsos. I know I'm personally still down for Hot Spot, Razorclaw, Hun-Grr, and Scattershot as Commanders at minimum. That said... I haven't heard anything about any other combiners in 2026 (though I suspect Defensor, at least, in 2027). And I also can't help but notice that, at this point, we've seen every member of the Thirteen except Nexus Prime and Liege Maximo (assuming that Legacy Vector Prime is all the Vector Prime we're getting). I've been told that Nexus will be a Voyager and be based heavily on his Covenant design (which is disappointing a lot of people who thought he might use AotP Aerialbots and Combaticons like the old Timelines toy), but I haven't seen a listing for Liege Maximo. Supposedly they're leaning into his G2 design rather than the Loki-esque Covenant version, and in the G2 comics Liege Maximo was huge... I have a hunch that Liege Maximo might be a Commander.

I'm in for Armada Nemesis, just for the dang minicons. The Hot Wheels Collab actually looks really good. AOTP Sureshot was supposed to come out some time during Legacy. Glad to see that they found a slot for him. Yeah, Blastoff's a retool of Vortex, but he looks good. Minus the animation error visor. Maybe the Combiner Wars head will fit. Don't give a crap about Jalopy, and I'm really disappointed that Hasbro's cut down on the number of figures that they release in a year but they wasted a slot on another one of these crappy guys. Quickstrike is... fine, I guess? I'll pick him up, but I'm guessing that bigger Beast Wars fans are more excited than I am. Quintus reminds me of the mainline TFOne Quintesson toy. It'll do, I think. Brawl looks pretty sick. I could have got excited for Animated Wreck-Gar... if he wasn't also another retool. Legacy Evolution wasn't a great line. Amalgamous Prime looks pretty cool. For the guy who's artifact is the origin of Transformer T-cogs he's kind of not very out there. Doesn't look like the Covenant version, looks mostly like TFOne. Razorclaw's a pass. Give me G1 Razorclaw! Big Convoy! Need him for my Prime shelf! Interesting that they're not calling him "Big Prime" or something, they're keeping the Japanese name. Commander Onslaught looks cool... as a render. Hopefully he turns out good. Bruticus is my favorite combiner. STUDIO SERIES Airachnid... I guess that's about as good as we can expect from a Habsro Deluxe. TF5 Barricade's a big want for me. And they licensed the alt mode! '86 Windcharger isn't a surprise to me, but I'm very glad to see him. I do believe that he completes the Season 1 cast. TFOne Alpha Trion doesn't look too shabby. Thundercracker... surprised they're not starting with Starscream. Brand new mold! Bot mode looks great, need to see more angles of the jet. Confirmed that Skywarp and Starscream are coming, and each one will have a different face. Hopefully they'll scale with '86 Megatron better than the Earthrise ones. TF5 Nemesis Prime probably isn't different enough from Optimus for me, but I might check him out for the new accessories. Titan TF4 Grimlock. Should technically scale better. 15"... that's closer to Star Prime than the bigger Titans, so hopefully he'll be $150 and not $200. They made sure Prime can ride him. More TF4 Dinobots are coming. I'll check him out.

My number one rule for Transformers is "must transform." If they want to make a repaint of Tigatron that transforms from Battle Cat into He-Man I'll put money down on a preorder. But I'm not opening my wallet for a non-transforming Man-At-Arms in Bumblebee cosplay.

I won't say a word of complaint if they put out an Evil-Lyn wearing that Kotobukiya Bishoujo Starscream outfit...

Uh... 🤨

This is what I want them to do. Bandai already makes expensive stuff that's too delicate to play with. I'd love something I could leave on my desk and transform more than once in a blue moon.

And yet, I'm going to wind up buying it for the minicons, aren't I?

However you feel about who he became, as an '80s kid I'm gonna remember him as the babyface who helped turn the WWF from a local thing into a nationwide sensation. Rest in peace, Hulkster.

Looks like Pulse put up a few more, got an order in.

Crap. I messed up the conversion from Pacific to Eastern and Seaspray sold out at but Pulse and Walmart.

Well, if you liked Rogue City, you should like Unfinished Business. It's basically more of the same, but focused a bit tighter. So far (about an hour and a half in) there hasn't been any big open-world hub areas, it all seems to take place in one big building. There are still smaller areas with side quests, but overall it's a tad more linear. If you're planning on playing on PC, though... maybe hold off a bit. Before I'd even installed the game I saw the devs had a post up about known issues. There was a patch yesterday, and maybe it addressed some of the issues, but in my brief time with the game I've had three instances where the game would just crash to the desktop with naught but a small window declaring "Fatal Crash" as an explanation. But hey, Donkey Kong's also pretty dang good.

No, I know it's nothing personal. It's not just me, this thread is missing everything from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Like you said, probably some kind of system hiccup. It just sucks to see that work gone, because of course I don't have any of it backed up locally.

Looks like everything from sometime Saturday until yesterday. Including my last two reviews.😞

I'm like 75% with you. If we have a G1 version already, like Arcee, Prowl, Optimus, Bumblebee, etc, I really don't want a G1-ified version of a Prime or Animated character, and I don't think fans of Prime or Animated who have been waiting 15+ years for modern updates want that either. That said, there are cases where characters from other continuities don't really have G1 analogs, like Bulkhead or Knockout from Prime or Blackout and Barricade from the Bayverse, where I kind of wish that there was a G1 version and I don't mind the G1-ification. Honestly, I agree, and it's possible that 2026 Ratchet will be an entirely new mold. I'm just spitballing. I think the alt mode makes for a good Bulkhead, but the bot mode less so (to be fair, though, that's arguably a step up from Legacy Bulkhead). I do wonder, though, if the leak for an Animated Ratchet is actually supposed to be a Prime Ratchet. Swap the Lenses with knives, put on a new head and chest, maybe new shoulders, and you're definitely in the ballpark.

Closing out this wave of Age of the Primes with one of the titular Primes- Deluxe-class Alchemist Prime. Alchemist has a bit of history that dates all the way back to Simon Furman's run on the original UK run of Marvel's Transformers, where we're introduced to Maccadam's Old Oil House and its mustachioed bartender. Later, when Furman wrote DK's Transformers - The Ultimate Guide, he slipped in the additional lore that Maccadam was one of the original 13 Transformers, alongside artwork of the bartender (who was never explicitly stated to be Maccadam). Separately, Hasbro was developing the material that would become The Covenant of Primus, where we were first introduced to Alchemist Prime, the Prime with power of the elements. Alchemist was depicted as a thicker fellow with glasses and a beard, and was said to be one of the only Primes to remain on Cybertron after the Age of the Primes. But it was Transformers Cyberverse that eventually took the idea of a bartender rumored to be an ancient Prime and an actual Prime who somehow remained on Cybertron but is totally unknown and canonized that to mean that Maccadam and Alchemist Prime are the same guy. Which means that, if you competed the build-a figure packed with the early waves of Cyberverse Deluxes, you already have an Alchemist Prime toy! Unlike Cyberverse Maccadam, AotP Alchemist isn't specifically modeled on Youtuber Thew Adams, though there are elements like the knee pads, glasses, the tummy grill, and the circular details on the forearms that call back to that design. They're blended with the greenish color of Alchemist as he appears in The Covenant of Primus and the mustachioed face of the G1 bartender. While I've a fondness for Cyberverse Maccadam, this version of Alchemist is a suitably G1-adjacent blend of the various Alchemist/Maccadam designs in a fairly tidy package. Alchemist's accessories are supposed to be his signature relic, the Lenses. But... the Lenses are really supposed to be his glasses. Despite being modeled on the glasses worn by Alchemist in The Covenant of Primus, these Lenses are too big to be worn by a Titan, let alone a Deluxe. Alchemist's head is on a ball joint. It can tilt up or sideways slightly, but a transformation hinge gives be pretty good downward tilt. His shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees, biceps swivel, elbows bend 90 degrees, no wrist swivels. His waist swivels, hips can go forward and laterally 90 degrees, only slightly under 90 degrees backward. Thighs swivel, knees bend 90 degrees. No up/down tilt on the feet, but his ankles pivot about 75 degrees. I guess the Lenses are his weapon? There are bits on the ends that let him hold them like daggers... Alternatively, there are 5mm pegs on them that let him hold them like a gun, mount to his forearms, or mount to his shoulders. The "blade" of the left lens is set farther forward and hollow on the back, while the "blade" on the right is recessed and thinner, essentially allowing it to slot behind the one on the left and combine to make lenses he can hold and kinda look through. Alchemist's transformation is pretty simple. His head tucks into his chest, and his arms first pull away from his sides and then hinge backward, allowing them to join at the shoulders and forearms behind his back. His waist swivels 180 degrees, his shins open, his feet tuck in, then his legs encapsulate his forearms. Then you just rock the windshield into place. The resulting vehicle is decidedly less Cybertronian that we've seen so far with the other Primes. I don't dislike it, but it almost strikes me as Prime Bulkhead, or maybe Animated or Prime Ratchet. And, huh, I think I've heard that Animated Ratchet is coming in 2026. Well, Alchemist might not have the most Cybertronian alt mode we've seen, but it's a pretty competent Hummer-esque SUV. In alt mode, the 5mm ports that were on Alchemist's shoulders wind up on his roof, so you simply plug the Lenses in there for storage and Bob's your uncle. In the most objective sense, Alchemist is a perfectly competent Deluxe-class toy. He's got acceptably normal articulation, an uncomplicated transformation, and a serviceable alt mode. Frankly, this figure is executed much better than fellow Deluxe Solus. As a character, Marvel UK and The Ultimate Guide don't have the same impact on me as Maccadam's prominent role in Cyberverse, so I kind of wish they'd drawn a little more from that version. I guess his biggest flaw is just that he's the boring Prime. He's not the first, he's not Optimus' mentor, he's not the Fallen or the girl or the trickster at the center of that fall, he's not the guy with the prominent role in Cybertron or the Centaur... he's the bartender. Get him if you're in for all Thirteen, otherwise wait for the repaint.

If there was a Mount Rushmore for heavy metal Ozzy would definitely be on it. Dude was a legend.

Doesn't matter if you're talking Target or Walmart, all the stores around me are the same story- a buttload of unsold Transformers One, some Devastation Optimus Primes and SS Q, and if you're lucky maybe a Bonecrusher or two. Amazon, fortunately, has come through with the rest of the current wave of Age of the Primes. Minus package refreshes, that's just a pair of Deluxes for me, starting with the one you guys are most likely to be interested in- Vortex. For me, Combiner Wars Vortex was kind of a dud. I mean, I get that they were going for toy colors, but even then the purple instead of pink,, blue shoulders, gray combiner peg, and weird yellow missile arms didn't really capture that for me. Age of the Primes Vortex, though, understood the assignment. Cartoon colors? Check. Cartoon details like the weirdly round forearms, intakes on the shoulders, and mostly-black shins? Check again. Too bad some of that black didn't end up on his toes, though. While I've seen some third parties do some impressive engineering to get to a cartoon-accurate Vortex, it's clear that was maybe a bridge too far for Hasbro in a Deluxe-class figure that taking some cues from Hasbro's recent stabs at the Aerialbots and Stunticons. To that end, some compromises had to be made, mostly in his arms. It looks like half his hand is missing, while the backs of his forearms are absolutely loaded with kibble. I find the kibble a little extra annoying, simply because it doesn't really lock into any position and keeps getting in the way. Vortex comes with a trio of guns, the designs of which are again pretty cartoon accurate. The only note I'd make is that they should be mostly blue, with just the barrels of the smaller guns black. Vortex's head is on a ball joint and can tilt up, down, and sideways a little in addition to swiveling. His shoulders swivel and move 90 degrees laterally, his biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist articulation. Depending on how you're posing him, you may find that the intakes or the tail kibble hampering your ability to pose his arm. His waist swivels. His hips can go forward and backward 90 degrees, and laterally over that. His thighs swivel, his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have some slight upward bend, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. For cartoon accuracy the small guns should plug into ports on the outsides of his forearms, and he holds the larger gun in either hand. All the guns use 5mm ports, though, as does his main rotor, so there's nothing stopping you from having him dual-wielding the smaller guns, sticking the main rotor onto his forearm like he's Bayverse Blackout, and stowing the larger gun on his back. Transforming AotP Vortex's lower half should feel pretty familiar... fold the toes down, open the shins, fold the thighs into the lower legs, close the shins back up. The upper body, though, takes cues from the G1 toy, where the arms fold up around his head to make the tail, with just a few added steps to line up the intakes. The resulting helicopter is mostly good. Cartoon accurate blue stripes on the nose, intake/exhaust nacelles, four main rotor blades, etc. My main gripe is that while his legs, back, and arms do a pretty good job of being a helicopter, his head and the front of his torso do not. His head and chest are just kind of an awkward block, which could almost be passable were it not for a gap between his legs and chest where his waist is tapered in. I get why they did it (better-looking bot mode), but would it have killed them to stick a flap on him that could have folded out to fill that gap? You have options for weapons storage. The instructions suggest using tabs on the sides of the guns, and sticking the smaller ones into slots just below the shoulder hinges with the barrels pointing backward (though there's no reason they can't point forward), and using one of the similar tabs on the larger gun to plug it into either side of the nose. It also seems like the small guns were actually meant to go on the helicopter's chin, though. They're not identical; one has the tab on the left, the other on the right, and you can arrange them so that the 5mm pegs touch with the tabs facing upward, and they'll plug into matching slots under the chin. For cartoon accuracy, though, the smaller guns should plug into the 5mm ports on the tail boom. Then ideally you'd want the larger gun, or at least the barrel of it, on the helicopter's nose. I guess the designers gave up here, though. Using the tabs, you can plug it into one of the slots on the chin, or you could even plug the 5mm peg into one of the combiner ports on his shins, but both of those options leave the barrel off-center well below the nose, so low that it interferes with Vortex's ability to sit on his molded, non-functioning wheels. AotP Vortex is a lot like the Aerialbots and Stunticons that came before him... much more cartoon-accurate and a major improvement over the Combiner Wars version, but still severely hampered by a limited budget for engineering. I suspect, for a lot of collectors, being a little better than Combiner Wars Vortex will be enough, as long as the combined mode is better. And while we're a ways off from next year's Commander-class Onslaught and seeing how Bruticus will work, based on their work on Menasor and Superion I feel comfortable telling you that you should get ready and pick Vortex up.

I'll be playing too, the problem is finding time for it with Donkey Kong and Shadow Labyrinth also demanding my attention.

I'm so into that. Earthspark wasn't a great show, and way too many of the Deluxes were repaints and retools of Cyberverse toys, but somehow they keep sneaking in bangers like this and Soundwave.

He'd have to have a remolded head without the vents on the mask, rounder top, and a gray face with blue eyes instead of a black visor. And I wouldn't bet on him shelfwarming. Since no 'toon Seaspray has been announced, even if it's inevitable, people are going to buy the crap out of this one. Think less Retro Gears, more Velocitron Cosmos. Now, what will likely be shelfwarming is Retro Brawn...

A little hollow, but looks better than the old Titans Return one. I'll preorder it when it goes up, but I hope they do a cartoon colored one eventually.

I could take it leave the Jet Jaguar fig, but anything that makes Megatron look like Godzilla and not just dark gray Grimlock is a win in my book.

4 feet tall and an estimated price pushing $700 before shipping and tariffs? No thank you. I'm having a hard enough time finding space for the figures I do buy... like Load Warrior, DreamStar Toys version of Long Haul. Load Warrior's in a bit of a rough spot for me. Like, on the one hand, the overall aesthetic is a match for what DST's been doing so far. But also, could he be more generic? I mean, look at his chest. There's a purple cockpit door and, though they're green and blend in with the rest of the chest, vents flanking it that scream "GUNDAM!" Which isn't necessarily the worst thing ever, but there really isn't much visible alt mode kibble on him at all, aside from some wheels on his shoulders. Stylized though they were, DST's Scrapper was still very obviously Scrapper, and DST's Hook had very stylized bits that recalled the panels over Hook's shoulders. With Load Warrior, if I didn't tell you it was Long Haul, would you have recognized him? Things are marginally improved from other angles. He's got some kibble on his back that looks a like it could be part of his bed, and panels on the sides of his legs that definitely are. And despite the normal generic-ness of his upper body, his legs have a chunkiness to him that modern versions of Long Haul tend to have. Load Warrior comes with a number of accessories. We've got his gun, naturally. There's two rod-like parts, and a part that looks like another gun (with a nice metallic-red diamond painted on it) but isn't, and a pair of translucent red blades. There's also a pelvis and thighs. Open the front and you'll find a slot that you can slide the mushroom peg on the bottom of the Megatron torso that came with Hook. Sadly, Megatron's not whole yet, though, as one of his arms will come with Bonecrusher and the other with Scavenger. Load Warrior's head is on a ball joint with decent enough up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and move laterally over 90 degrees, all on ratchets. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and can bend 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His index finger is separate from the other three, which are molded together. All his fingers are pinned at the base with two additional hinged knuckles, while his thumb has a ball joint at the base and two pinned knuckle hinges. His waist swivels, and he's got about 45 degrees of ab crunch. His hip skirts hinge upward in the front, so his hips can go about 90 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward, and over 90 degrees laterally on some very strong ratchets. His feet don't have any up/down tilt, but his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees. You can actually push them to closer to 90, but you'll have to undo the gray armor behind his foot. The red light thingies on his back can swivel to be more visible, which I think helps give him some character. His gun has slots on the handle that are meant to connect to tabs on the insides of his palms. It works, but it's not the tightest fit and the vibrations from some of the ratchets can cause the gun to come loose while manipulating him even if you aren't touching that hand/arm. The rest of his accessories combine to make a huge axe. Which, I have to admit, looks pretty friggin' sweet. Weirdly, while there is a spot that has the slots to attach to his palm, there's only one, and it's on the bottom third of the shaft. For most poses, I imagine he'll be holding the axe by friction alone. I also can't help but notice some tabs and peg holes and a hinge. It makes me wonder if there's going to be some gimmick for all of this in combined mode. Time will tell. Load Warrior's transformation is less complicated than you might realize from the lack of obvious truck kibble. The grill of the truck was tucked into his backpack, which also makes up the spill guard. His curled up arms make the lights and cab, and then like any good Long Haul is bed is mostly made from his legs. What makes him a tad annoying, despite his seeming simplicity, is the need to have everything lined up in his legs just right, or things won't tab together properly. Also, the instructions are some of the worst I've seen, omitting some steps and, in one instance, continuing from the top row of one page to the top row of the next page, causing major headaches when you follow the numbers from the top row of the page to the bottom row of the same page then realize that you need to do other things first. Worst of all, there's a step for vehicle mode that they don't bother to mention until the combined mode, where midway through the instruction from truck to combined mode they guide you through that step, then promptly have you undo it because it's not part of combined mode. Naturally, I didn't realize that the weird "do this, now undo it" part of the combined instructions were missing vehicle steps until later, so guess what? My alt mode pics are mistransformed! This is pretty much the gist of it, though; what I'm missing are some panels that fold out from inside the shoulders to help fill in the sides and lock in the waist (you can see the green peg it should plug into in the side view there). This allows the front wheels to shift slightly back and tuck in a little more, so they don't stick out quite so far. That said... his robot thighs are still pretty visible, his rear wheels aren't as wide as the front ones, and there's that weird panel running up from the rear wheels on both sides, with a gappy rear and taillights at weird angles. So, yeah, all the vehicles in this set have been a bit stylized and not real-world vehicles, but Load Warrior seems a bit extra stylized. Load Warrior's accessory storage helps a little. Actually, I'd say his gun, which fits between his legs with the barrel pointing in toward the cab, fills in the rear a lot. Then the axe blades tab into the sides, and sure, they do help cover his thighs... but then you've got conspicuous translucent red blades on the sides of a dump truck. And the rest of the axe? Well, there doesn't seem to be a dedicated place to put that stuff. I suppose you can take it apart and stuff the pieces into his bed, which is a fairly solid and adequately deep bed, though one with some obvious robot kibble and one that can't actually tilt. Though the pieces fit, they do not lock down in any way. Although Load Warrior's instructions go from truck to combined mode, I think you're almost better off starting from robot mode. You have to reconfigure his arms an bit and tuck his head in, and bring up the front grill like you're going to truck mode, but his torso is mostly still in the robot mode position. As for his legs, you make him do a split, then shift armor on the backs of his thighs to the sides, which will allow you to open a panel behind it and unlock a joint that drops his lower leg back to vertical. Point his toes down, and that's it. Of course, on his own he doesn't look like much, but if you take the lower half of Megatron, fold out some flaps and move the side skirts to the front, shift the hips down so the legs peg together, then open the backs of the legs, you'll make an armor piece that plugs into Load Warrior's crotch and wraps underneath and fills out Devastator's pelvis. I think it's kind of good that they didn't release Load Warrior first... the robot mode's a tad generic, the alt mode is a little too far from a real dump truck, and the transformation is just a tad more annoying that the previous two releases. That said, with soon-to-be three companies competing for a G1 Sunbow-style MP Devastator, I do really appreciate that DST is bringing a unique aesthetic to their Constructicons, and doing so with gorgeous metallic green and purple paints, plenty of little tampographs, and cool accessories like a big ol' battle axe. If nothing else, I now have three Constructicons that look pretty amazing on a shelf together. If you can only get one Long Haul, well... I guess you'll probably want a more cartoon accurate one to replace ToyWorld's on your MP shelf. OK, but if you can do two, where one is more stylized... actually, I still prefer the Mecha Invasion ones, and they're much cheaper to boot. OK, OK, but if you still have a craving for Constructions that aren't perfect, but still look pretty dang cool, or are looking for something that's a bit better as a display piece than Mecha Invasion's, this is still shaping up to be a pretty good set.