Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

Octane and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker Heh, Starscream is an S-37 sans canards.

First look at Transformers:Animated toyline DISPLAY CASE PICTURES!

They are implementing a feature in multiplayer that basically limits you if you are using a plane rated much higher than your opponents. For example, a newer plane is given disadvantages, while an older plane is given advantages as to balance things out. This can turn out good or bad. I wonder if this will diminish the fact that all you have to do to dodge a missle is hold R1 and turn.

Hasbro hinted at releasing them through HTS@botcon. Less than a month.

We are seeing it now in the comics. The new WWIII storyline has Cobra Commander basically at his most powerful state. He has infiltrated the whitehouse and is now a power wielding politician(which the white house doesn't realize who he really is) who may have more power than the jugglers. He knows the entire roster of active and reserve joes, in addition to all of their family members. He just blackmailed Destro into giving him his first son, and handing over entire control of M.A.R.S. in exchange for the newborn Eugen, Baroness and Destro's new baby son. The original plan was for the AK-47 to be included, I can't recall why that didn't happen but that was the original plan. Also Flint originally was supposed to have gloves and the prototype had them. However production was bumped up a lot faster than originally planned and Flint ended up with no gloves. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a gloved version later on. I think the prototype we saw with the gloves probably just had gloved hands temporarily there to give the sculptors an idea of what to sculpt. Now if the gloves were already sculpted for the figure, I'm not sure what happened, perhaps the factory in china mistakenly misplaced the mold? It happens. Its the same reason why some of the old figure/vehicle molds have been hard to find. I picked up the cobra officer today and I like it aside the fact that his elbow movement is hindered a bit. I'm going to shave off some of the plastic in the lower arm to enable full 90 degree movement. I like the figures a lot so far.

If I remember this right, I believe Hasbro stated that the battle pack figures would eventually be released on single cards. However whether this meant the characters or the molds remains to be seen. The closest thing to this are the comic packs with 2 figures and a comic, issue #21 pack coming with Snake eyes or Storm shadow(whether these are repaints or slight retools remain to be seem, I think they may have minimal retools).

Now THATS super poseable! I love the fact that it can faithfully recreate the iconic pose at the end of the Macross Opening.

They are. Firefly, Stalker, Sei Tin, Zartan, and Shipwreck are in wave 3. Depending on which storyline you read, it turns out Firefly was adopted by Koga ninjas as a baby. He was a cobra operative originally set to kill Snake Eyes, and infiltrated the Arashikage clan as the "faceless master". When he realized he couldn't, he told Zartan to do it instead. We all know how that turned out. We are getting either 40 or close to 40 figures this year, including the 25 already out. Actually, we are getting more. Theres the wave that includes IG Destro, another cobra 5 pack, and what might be another joe 5 pack. Then the comic packs, if those make it out by end of the year.

They did, I forgot to mention them since they are similar to Star wars.

The worst thing that happened during Hama's run was that the series ended before Hama could fix things up. Storm Shadow, Billy, the Baroness and Destro were never supposed to stay cobra, however the series ended before Hama's ending for those characters could be written. The brainwashing of those characters that occurred in the last issues was only meant to be temporary. Especially for Storm Shadow, which took 10+years before he finally fought back the brainwashing in the DDP run. Had marvel not abruptly ended the series, Storm Shadow would have been back as a joe since 94. Instead, it was only in 2004-05 where he finally returned away from the effects of brainwashing and overcame it(and finally ended the back and forth hassle of deciding which side he really should be on. For those of you who haven't read the marvel trades, Storm shadow was never an evil character. Jealous, yes. Evil, no. Hellbent on revenge? Yes. Who wouldn't be in his case? He had reason to be angry. Nonetheless his whole reason for joining cobra was just to find who killed the Hard Master, and as Cobra Commander's bodyguard, no one could suspect him, and with him at the upper echelon of Cobra, he had access to a ton of info. He did a good job of coming off as a dedicated cobra agent but then again he was a ninja, deception is their job. Hama's run was pretty good. Storm shadow's origin is still one of the best. After rereading the marvel reprint tpb's vol1-4, I realized how overlooked Storm Shadow was due to the fact that Snake eyes was more popular. Though Snake eyes story is one of pity, it is Storm Shadow who never has his good karma returned to him. Snake eyes has many tragedies, and always has some great thing happen to him. Storm Shadow has repeated bad luck, does great things with honorable intentions, and still gets shafted along the way. One can say Snake Eyes was the better ninja, but I doubt it. Better swordsman may be, but not the better ninja. Lets not forget who Snake Eyes owes his life to from back in their time during vietnam. Basically the stories were good, but the ones to avoid are the ones where Hasbro went ninja force crazy. At the moment, no, but they will be packed together in an upcoming comic pack w/issue #21 "Silent Interlude" from the marvel run. I don't know the full details but I think we may get a repaint of commando Snake Eyes in black with cobra trooper helmet and parachute pack, and a Storm shadow with longer sleeves. Reason being that Hasbro had a poll a few months back for which character fans would want, and Snake Eyes in cobra trooper disguise was one of the options. He did not win the poll but results for him were fairly high in the beginning. Also, in the issue, he infiltrates a castle(Castle Destro?), and throws guard troopers off a building while stealing one's disguise, then annihilating another trooper. Storm shadow had longer sleeves in the beginning of that issue. In person the anniversary figures put the 2002+"new sculpt" o-ring figures to shame. However pics on the net do not this very well. Even the much hyped, over-rated "It's 1985 all over again" wave 7 Venom vs Valor Snake Eyes from 2 years ago does not hold a candle to anniversary Snake eyes. For one thing he can't even hold his weapons! Anniversary Snake eyes looks like what hasbro was trying to do all along with the 2002+snake eyes figures: Make a modern homage to 1985 Snake Eyes They made the 2002 t crotch Snake Eyes too bulky. They made the 2003 o ring version with hindered articulation(+wrist swivels and ankle joints), but came close with a modernized version with a new look for the visor that combined old with new, as well as a new sword. They went basic with the 2004 version. They came very close with the 2005 version but fell short. Whats the use of new weapons if he can't hold them, and why of all snake eyes with swords, did this one not come with a scabbard nor with provision for a backpack or scabbard? Why make a sheath if it can't even fit his knife? A good figure, arguably the best Snake Eyes of that time period since the 2003 version, but one you can definitely say was "1/2 way there". Of all these, anniversary Snake Eyes has the most 1985 influence. He is more accurate, body and proportion wise to Snake Eyes in the comic and cartoon, than the 2002 version. He has more articulation than the 2003 version, and its not as hindered as the 2003 version either. He makes the 2004 version look even more plain and simple than he already does. He goes beyond the 2005 version in regards to homages to the 1985 figure. He has a spot to store his sword, unlike the 2005 version and can hold his weapons. He has a knife that can fit into his leg sheath with no problems. He looks more like the 1985 version than the 2005 version. It is with this figure, even with the inaccuracies using the battle pack mold, that one can finally say "it does feel like 1985 all over again". **Single pack Snake eyes has 3 versions. The only differences are the colors for Timber:white, gray and blackIts the same Timber that came with the 2005 version, and being that I have that version already, I couldn't care less which Timber I got(white).**

Thats what I heard too. The only titanium line continuing from what I recall, is the 3" titanium Star wars line. Not even the action fleet sized Star wars titaniums survived the axe. In my experience, none of the titaniums aside the 3" star wars sold well at all. They were all shelfwarmers. Sure some of the 6" titaniums were based on Don Figueroa's character designs but the engineering was still done by the galoob star wars team, not the TF design team, hence the major differences between titaniums and the mainline tfs.

Adding to that, when Megatron is atop a building with Prime,

Megatron has another production run in fall. It might be a while before we see MP Starscream in japan again, since the mold is being used for Skywarp next. BTW I think what lead to the demise of Titaniums was a combination of factors. First and foremost, the TF design team did not design those. The galoob division that worked on action fleet worked on the titaniums and star wars tfs. This is why there are huge differences between those 2 lines, and the mainline transformers designed by the actual tf design team. Distribution was another problem, however I think this is more of walmart's fault than hasbro's. For all we know their corporate buyers may have ordered enormous amounts of shelfwarmers not realizing said characters were doomed to shelfwarm. Also the waves were rather small. When faced with the superior sculpts, design, and more affordable price of the Classics and Cybertron figures in the same aisle, the titanium line probably lacked consumer attention. Had the TF design team done titaniums we might be seeing a much different story.

Even though Snake eyes comes with a sword from a previous joe line, I think its cool that it was a sword exclusively made for a previous Snake eyes figure and never included with anyone but Snake Eyes. These are hitting stores now. Select walmarts that were doing early xmas endcap displays to guage fall/xmas product interest have them. If your local walmarts do not have these yet, they will in august(the walmarts that did this had their displays up by the 14th, and Denver, Colorado had the first shipments). TRU and Kmart are getting their joes in now. Target is having a modular reset on august 5th with the joes. We got some DCPI/SKN numbers yesterday@hisstank.com from Shogi. Here they are: TARGET: (DCPI) 5 packs 087-06-1908 Singles 087-06-0021 TRU: (SKN) 5 packs 886820 Singles 886790 065356926757 (Cobra 5 pack UPC #) 065356926758 (Joe 5 pack UPC #) Comic packs w/2 figures and a comic will also be appearing for $9.99. Box presentation will resemble the star wars comic packs. Storm Shadow and Snake eyes will be in the issue #21 pack, Scarlett and Hawk in the issue #1 pack. In my opinion a good balance between sculpt and articulation has been achieved.

If I recall correctly, the resin prototype was shown in the slideshow. Tfarhive.com and a few other sites had C-130 down as the plane mode. I can't find the play by play panel report they had but I think it was in there. I do know for sure the numerous tf sites said bomber and C-130, and more than 1 said C-130. I can see fans mistaking the C-130 for a bomber if they are not that knowledgeable on planes. However since more than 1 site said C-130, I think it actually is one. Though I would be happier with a B-52

I'll say more tomorrow but if you guys dig form over function, or a good balance, you'll dig these. Its hard for me to put the new v2 Snake Eyes down. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would. Very impressive. There is no scabbard, but his sword does fit beneath his bandolier and does not fall out due to the hilt. Basically just arrange it like it is on the card art. Not sure if any of you noticed, but some of the art was altered to match the figures. Small differences here and there. Basically these figures do have more articulation than their 20+ year old counterparts but less range of motion in some areas, most notably the hips. However the sculpts are the biggest improvements. They resemble the star wars figures sculpts a lot, and I would not be surprised if the same sculptors worked on both lines, as many things carry over. Before, star wars figures always placed sculpt over articulation. The super articulated figures came out, but still lacked the ball hip mobility of the gijoe figures. Presently they still do. The gijoe line always had it the other way around, and this anniversary line is a balance of the 2. I like the ones I have(single pack stormshadow and snakeeyes). Storm shadow turns out great, this was to be expected. Snake eyes was the sleeper surprise this time around. BTW you can also store his gun between his torso and bandolier on the front, just make sure the back handle is above the grenades.

Octane in Ultra class. Folks at the panel said Octane is a triple changer robot who can transform into a robot, tanker, and C-130 Hercules. Hasbro also said that they eventually want all the triple changers made into classics. Ultra is being put in instead of voyager. Galvatron was being hinted at, as an all new mold, not another megatron repaint. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are a go, they might do Arcee as well, same with Jazz and Prowl. Eventually Ironhide and Ratchet. Go here for tfw's panel report. Botcon unveiling panel

He is a bit taller than classics Starscream.

Yes. $60. MP Prime was around $64@walmart in 2004.

Never reissue those specific versions, but that won't stop them from making vastly different versions of those characters that are in Classics. For example, Dirge and Thrust can be made in Classics provided their wings are all new and different from the Botcon set. Thundercracker could probably be made if the paint job is very different(if its in an even more g1 accurate toy paint job, it should be different enough to stand on its own and not be confused with the botcon set). Hasbro just can't use that specific blue tint, nor the wings made for the coneheads in the boxset. If they are different wings, it should not be a problem.

Yes Barricade is good, a lot more fun than I thought he'd be an Frenzy provides for a nice accessory interactive with Barricade's robot and alt modes. The range of motion is very good, however the spring launched arm is annoying as it does not lock into place securely.

Has anyone here seen Les Chevaliers du ciel(Sky Knights in the US), or Speed and Angels? I'm trying to find a place that has Speed and Angels, the clips I have seen on the main site and youtube are amazing. I'm dissapointed that some of the cockpit footage was taken from inside a hornet when they were showing a tomcat dogfight, but I guess they had to do something for a reinactment.

$60@walmart b/w sept-nov(release date).

New Bumblebee, Final Battle Jazz, Dreadwing and Arcee are wave 2 of the deluxes.

The release date is the 14th, since your store is strict they will probably only start selling on saturday. Select walmarts are getting these early, and some will get them in on the 13th, and sell on monday or tuesday. Some, however will have them this week. Select walmarts will have them to gauge interest for xmas sales. The ones that do this, will have big displays for this and the anniversary gijoes, and will have the displays up by saturday(14th).