Shade

I'm undecided. I want to see the rest of him first. I do wish they'd left the head lasers off though, and gave him his old anntenne. Then he'd look more like classic Shockwave instead of a VF-1J.

Soon.

He's going to be $59.99 at Target. For that low low price, there's no way I can justify paying the $100 or so for better smokestacks and a clean paint job.

Alternators Smokescreen has absolutely no twist-ties, actually.

I actually have nail clippers set aside just for those damn twist ties. Could have used them a couple of years ago when one of my friends picked up Brave Maximus at BotCon. When he saw how many twist ties were holding him down, he nearly cried.

Car Robots was released in Japan in 2000, and RiD was released in America in 2001. It should also be noted that TF: Universe has released three repaints of the Lamborghini Diablo mold this year alone. Two con-exclusives (Sideswipe and Sunstreaker), and one mass-market (Inferno).

This is the way I see it. Takara doesn't license anything, they just use the designs. That led to some problems in American when Car Robots was imported as RiD. Super Sideburn, as well as the con-exclusives Roulette and Shadow Striker, now have the Dodge logo on the hood, after Dodge had a talking to with Hasbro. Wild Ride had to be slightly remolded when he became X-Brawn so that he wasn't an exact copy of a BMW car, and thus pissing them off. So, Hasbro licensed the designs, mostly so that they could be released in America with no problems.

If those aren't the serious subs, go here. This has a large number of TV-Nihon's subs, including all of the live-action Sailor Moon eps to date.

HLJ has images of the Takara box up. And it beats the Hasbro packaging from the sheer fact that it's not total ass. Aside from that, it's rather blah. Takara's done better.

Well, the Wrangler and Corvette have been confirmed as the next designs, yeah, but I'm willing to bet that Takara saw the sales for Smokescreen and responded, "Repaint it! Repaint it NOW!" And the 'Vette's going to be Tracks. We all know it.

And coming soon from Takara, we have the first Binaltech repaint. Probably Bluestreak, from the name.

On the other hand, Hasbro and Orson have repeatedly stated that 20th Prime will have the same die-cast content as MP Convoy, and the people who've gotten copies of the short stack Prime (which we've generally assumed to be the Hasbro release) confirm that he has the same amount of diecast as the long stack prototypes floating around (chest, shins, etc). It's more likely that they got 20th Prime mixed in with Binaltech vs. Alternators.

And on a side note, the computers at Target have Prime listed at a mere $59.99. For that, I can easily ignore the brief period of exclusiveness that Toys We Be has, and just wait for him to show up elsewhere. Add to that the fact that dirty paintjob doesn't bother me at all, and I can't see myself spending the extra $25-40 just for Takara's long smokestacks. Others may have that extra money to blow on them, but I don't.

Well, can anyone read what that article says? It could just be that the Prime shown there is one of the test shot Primes floating around.

Only the Viper was actually licensed in RiD, and that only happened after the series was released. It's why blue Sideburn doesn't have the Dodge logo on the hood while Super Sideburn does. Lamborghini never really said anything, and BMW gave Hasbro the Evil Eye, leading to Hasbro's paint mods on Wild Ride/X-Brawn. Not sure how Takara got away with things. Beast Wars happened because G2 was dying off, and Hasbro decided to take a chance and let Kenner completely revamp the concept. The awesome show that accompanied the line certainly didn't hurt. Armada was mostly ehn, and I'm rather glad for Energon, because I can spend my money on other things now. On a side note, I've come to believe that G2 is when the European designers left their mark on Transformers, because that's when the Neon hell truly started in America, something that was already present in the European exclusive TFs. Just look at Thunderclash or the European Actionmasters. Worse colors than even Energon has.

Yeah, cause stuff like the 20th Anniv. Prime, and Alternators Smokescreen and Sideswipe are sooooooo crappy. Oh wait, they're not.

So that's what his color scheme is going to be, huh? Looks better than Energon Optimus.

His toy does. It's a white Optimus Prime wearing his trailer. In the cartoon or comics leading up to now, no, he's always been portrayed as a solid bot. The Dreamwave comic is the first to reflect the toy in that fashion.

Of course, it doesn't actually say that the Takara version won't have battle damage. It just says Optimus Prime will, and says nothing about Convoy over the sea.

That's Chromedome, 2nd in command of the Headmasters. There's also Junior toys for Ginrai and Super Ginrai out there.

All around favorite - Gundam Mk II - It's the RX-78, only with muscles. Runner-up - Hi-Nu Gundam - Mainly because I made one into a monster unit while playing G Generation Zero. If I'd had the money, I'd consider buying the B-Club 1/100 mod for the MG. Up and coming - Providence Gundam - NT equipped Gundam Mk II on steroids.

Looks like the Master Grade to me. You can see the shoulder panels where you extend the veriners. The finished product looks good, but on a side note, I sooo hate the GP01Fb's clown feet.

Actually, that wouldn't surprise me at all. A mere color change for three different varients? That's the kind of thing Bandai loves to do. They've only just announced the 1/100 Blitz Gundam so there's still time, especially since the 1/144 Astray won't be out until next month.

And the Flipchanger Jets (RiD paint job) own the Cyber Jets.

And personally, I rather like that Asuran didn't have to kill his father, like most people expected. It's good to see the even the common soldier could see that killing half the planet was a bad thing. It's not the kind of thing you'd see from the Zeonists, who would gleefully scream, "SIEG ZEON!" while shooting Earth. Of course, the Alliance is a lot more ruthless than the Federation was. While the Alliance happily used doomsday weapons, the Feddies would have just sat around with their thumb up their... yeah.