The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[sh9000]

This book.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

Is there a nice coffee table book that compiles all the G1 box art as high quality prints?

As @sh9000 mentioned there's Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging by Jim Sorenson and Bill Foster and published by IDW.  The catch is that it was released back in 2014 and it's out of print.  I was lucky to pick up a used hard cover a few years ago for around $25 USD, but a quick search today has the paperback going for $50-$60 and hard covers over $100.  If you can track down a reasonably-priced copy, though, it's probably what you want.

If you can read Japanese or just want to look at the pictures, there's also The Art of the Transformers.

Finally, it's not exclusively G1, and it's not limited to box art, but Jim Sorenson also released Transformers: A Visual History.  I can't really comment on those last two, though, as I don't own them.

[Scyla]

19 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

As @sh9000 mentioned there's Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging by Jim Sorenson and Bill Foster and published by IDW.  The catch is that it was released back in 2014 and it's out of print.  I was lucky to pick up a used hard cover a few years ago for around $25 USD, but a quick search today has the paperback going for $50-$60 and hard covers over $100.  If you can track down a reasonably-priced copy, though, it's probably what you want.

If you can read Japanese or just want to look at the pictures, there's also The Art of the Transformers.

Finally, it's not exclusively G1, and it's not limited to box art, but Jim Sorenson also released Transformers: A Visual History.  I can't really comment on those last two, though, as I don't own them.

Thank you for all the hints were to start looking. I will check Mandarake if they have the Japanese one since I plan to order from them next month.

[edit:] Many thanks to @sh9000 too. Didn’t see the post at first.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Scyla

[tekering]

Finally, you'll find some unreleased packaging art published in Transformers Vault:

This book.

It's quite a comprehensive tome, and indispensable for any Transformers fan. 

[sh9000]

Robosen Grimlock.

Edited July 19, 2023 by sh9000

[Scyla]

The Robosen Grimlock looks awesome. Even better than the MP Grimlock it seems to be based on.

I can hardly comprehend that it automatically converts. I need to watch a video later.

[Convectuoso]

 

[mikeszekely]

Robosen Grimlock looks really good, but for $1500 I think I'd rather get a big curved ultra-wide monitor.

[nightmareB4macross]

As cool as that figure is, I just don’t see the allure. Sure it’s self transforming, but if it has no power it has no playability.

Still an awesome figure.

[MKT]

1 hour ago, Convectuoso said:

 

They really topped Optimus Prime with this one! 

[jenius]

52 minutes ago, nightmareB4macross said:

As cool as that figure is, I just don’t see the allure. Sure it’s self transforming, but if it has no power it has no playability.

Still an awesome figure.

I pull Optimus out at kids parties and it's usual pretty fun for a bit, but a little scary given how expensive it is.

[mikeszekely]

Commander is the only class with a once-a-year release.  Tonight we're looking at the other annual figure, Legacy Evolution Titan-class Nemesis.

We're going to do this review backward, because reasons.  The Ark was an interesting choice for Kingdom's Titan... they'd run out of the really big G1 characters, and the mainline hadn't really branched out from G1 yet.  But as the ship they crashed into a volcano and the Autobots used for their home for the first two seasons, the Ark was sort of a character in its own right.  Sure, it didn't transform in the cartoon, but why do robots that turn into vehicles need a larger vehicle?  And even if they do, Omega Supreme, Jetfire, and Sky Lynx already set a precedent for the Transformers transportation also transforming.  Who's to say that the Ark doesn't transform (although, with hindsight I might have argued that they could have done Animated-Universe Omega Supreme instead).

With the Ark now existing in Titan form, it does make a certain amount of sense to do the Nemesis, too, despite being less well-known.  Some background, I'm guessing most of you know that the Nemesis was the ship the Decepticons used to chase after the Ark.  It, too, crashed on Earth, and its discovery in South America kicks off the season 2 episode "Microbots."  It was also a plot element in the Beast Wars episodes "Nemesis" (parts 1 and 2), where Tarantulas actually discovers the Nemesis in the ocean and Megatron uses it to attack Mount Saint Hillary before Rhinox crashes a shuttle into it, presumably sending it crashing what would become South America.

Unlike the Ark, the Nemesis was never the Decepticon's base.  Rather, in the three-part "More Than Meets the Eye" series that kicked the cartoon off, the Decepticons were gathering materials to build a new ship to take them back to Cybertron.  That ship, retroactively named the Victory, was sabotaged by Mirage and crashed into the ocean.  It's the Victory that becomes part of the Decepticon's undersea home for most of the first two seasons.

One of the design features of the Nemesis is that four wings oriented around the rear of the ship.  Having them all here makes the toy accurate in that sense (and probably works fine in the void of space), but chances are you're going to want to sit this thing flat.  We can do this by splitting the bottom wing and splaying it out.

What I find interesting is how similar the designs of the Nemesis and the Victory were.  Both have the four winged arrangement, primary hulls that taper toward the nose, canards on the front, rounded sections on the bottom, and conning towers or bridges opposite the round parts.  That said, although it's a bit narrower and has a more hooked nose in the cartoon, the smoother hull, the rounded leading edge on the upper wing, the fins on the left and right wings, and the lack of engine pods above those wings definitely mark this ship as the Nemesis, not the Victory.  The only element that doesn't really match the cartoon is the rear, which is depicted in "Microbots" as as having two engine bells set a bit apart from each other and a pair of fins in between.  I can see why that element wouldn't really have worked here, though.

Aside from a little trouble getting some panels to stay tabbed in place, I really dig the ship mode.  Something about the shape in hand reminds me of a shark.

So, accessories.  Unlike the Ark, the Nemesis doesn't have a lot.  Most disappointingly there's no smaller robot included as there has been with most of other Titans, including the Ark.  But we shouldn't be surprised, last year's Legacy Metroplex also lacked a smaller robot despite the original coming with a Minicon.  Anyway, what you do get is a gray sprue, and the sprue contains a trio of squarish triple-barreled guns, a trio of round double-barreled guns, and a quartet of tiny Seekers.  To my knowledge, the Seekers are Thrust, Ramjet, Earthrise Starscream, and Siege Skywarp.

To install the guns, the round ones go in a trio of pegs on top of the ship.  Just behind them are two little cutouts for two of the square ones.  The third square one goes on top of the bridge tower; there's actually two ports up there.  The one in the front is for the guns, the one in the back is for the top of the tower, which isn't attached in the box.

On the sides of the ship, behind the canards, you'll find little doors that flip up to reveal retractable gray platforms.  The platforms have the Earthrise connectors we saw on stuff like Battlemasters, Prime's trailer, and various ramps on Omega Supreme, Scorponok, and Sky Lynx (but don't work with Trypticon, Fortress Maximus, or the Power of the Primes bases).  These platforms have little bumps on them that allow you to attach the tiny Seekers.  The platforms can be retracted while the Seekers are attached.

There's also a ramp on the back.  It also has the base connector, but it and the space inside are much smaller than the Ark's.  You can toss a loose Seeker slug in there, but you may find that even a Micromaster is a cramped in there.

Like the Ark before it, the Titan-class Nemesis was given a robot mode.  The designers meant for her to be a bit more monstrous than the Ark, drawing her with long, spindly limbs and kind of a hunched posture.  I'm not sure she needs to hunch.  In some ways, the design has kind of grown on me.  I dig the big, pointy shoulders, thin torso, and clawed hands.  As the Ark's face was meant to be that of the Last Autobot from the Marvel comics, and the Last Autobot's face was designed to basically be the Autobot symbol, the designers wanted the Nemesis' face to be a Decepticon symbol.  To avoid making her look like Tarn, though, they gave her face more of an armored design than a mask like Tarn's, with the middle of her brow being inspired by Starscream's crown from the '86 movie.

She's got a few issues, though, that I think are a lot less excusable on a $200 toy of this size than they are on a $20 Deluxe or even a $30 Voyager.  All of her wings when unfolded prove to be hollow on the inside/bottom.  It's not exactly the end of the world for the wings coming off her calves, or the one that makes up her backpack, but some of those waffles are plainly visible on her shins and the sides of the canards facing forward on her shoulders.  The kibble that folds back along her knees isn't the prettiest, but I can live with it.  Worse is the flaps dangling off her elbows.  $200 and the best they can do is have it rotate so it sweeps back a little?  They couldn't double hinge it to fold up against her shoulders or anything?

Nemesis' head is on a hinged swivel, with really good up/down range.  The base is at an angle, though, so turning her head simultaneously gives it a sideways tilt.  Her shoulders rotate on ratchets, nothing unusual there.  What's a bit more unusual is the lateral movement.  There's a ratchet inside the purple part, but it only moves a click or so laterally.  A second, also-ratcheted hinge just above her elbow allows it to move out at that point, too, but even combined we're talking about just 45 degrees or so of range.  If you want more, you can unlock the shoulders and use the transformation hinge to swivel the entire gray armature, but that joint is on the wrong side of the swivel.  Moving on, her biceps swivel.  Her elbows are double-jointed and bend 180 degrees combined, but both joints are friction joints.  Her wrists swivel.  The fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base, but they don't have any additional knuckles and all her fingers are one piece.  Her waist swivels on a ratchet.  Her hips ratchet forward about 90 degrees, backward a bit less than that due to kibble getting in the way, and laterally over 90 degrees if you can manage to get her arms out of the way.  Her thighs swivel on ratchets, and if you move some kibble out of the way her knees bend on ratchets a little over 90 degrees.  Her feet don't have any up/down tilt, but her ankles swivel on ratchets, and they have about 30-ish degrees of pivot.

If you were keeping score, that's ratchets in her waist swivel, thigh swivels, and ankle swivels where they probably weren't strictly needed, but none in her elbows.  Remember that.

While the Ark is just supposed to punch stuff, I guess, Nemesis can actually arm herself.  You can yank her canards off and wrap her fingers around them to give her comically tiny axes.  Alternatively, you can pull the wings off her shins.  One end has a barrel that flips out, and inside the edge there's a handle.  The handle has tabs that plug into her palms, allowing her to turn the shin armor/wings into guns.  But, remember those friction elbows?  They can't really support the weight on of the guns on my copy.  Her upper left elbow seems especially weak, even after I tried tightening the screw there.  Not using a ratchet in at least one of the two elbow joints on either side is a serious design flaw, and my single biggest issue with the figure.

As for the other accessories, they pretty much stay where they are.  The round guns just chill on her chest and tummy.  Two of the square guns wind up on the backs of her shoulders.  Somewhat amusingly, the third square gun winds up pointed at the back of her own head.  Maybe that's Megatron's failsafe for keeping her under control?  It'd have been nice to have spots to redeploy them to be more useful in robot mode, but I can't really find any.  As for the Seekers, they're in her forearms now.  You can still open the doors and slide the platforms out, and it actually works even better in robot mode because there's a little slider you can use to move the platforms in and out.

I think it safe to say I'm having somewhat mixed feelings about Nemesis.  On the one hand, she does look kind of cool in bot mode, and I think they did a really good job attempting to capture that weird (presumably Floro Dery) G1 animation design in a package that also transforms into a robot.  I'd go so far as to suggest that if you have the Ark you should probably go ahead and pick up the Nemesis as a companion piece.  But if you don't have the Ark you're probably better off skipping the Nemesis.  Like Metroplex, Nemesis has seen a price increase over the War for Cybertron Titans, including the Ark.  That in and of itself wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but that price increase seems to be buying less actual toy.  As noted, her wings are all hollowed inside, and aside from a few slugs she doesn't come with any accessories or smaller figures.  While not noticeably different from Metroplex or the Ark, the plastic does feel thinner and bendier than Scorponok or Omega Supreme, and the lack of ratchets in her elbows drops her robot mode from a solid B to a C-.

And it's at this point that I'll offer an opinion that's probably going to be a bit more well-received here than a certain Transformers message board I won't name- I think it's time for Hasbro to retire the Titan class.  Consider the following points:

1. Hasbro's struggled to make Titans profitable.  I don't know if they've admitted it openly, but I've heard as much from reliable inside sources.  This has forced Hasbro to raises prices on the class, doubling from $100 to $200 since Thrilling 30 Metroplex ten years ago.  That's way beyond impulse buy pricing, and while the success of the Masterpiece line has shown that adult collectors are willing to spend a lot on premium toys, "big" is not a synonym for "premium" and unfortunately the other way that Hasbro's tried to make Titans more profitable has been to reduce costs.  I don't care how big she is, Nemesis doesn't feel like a $200 toy, and that's going to make people even more hesitant to buy.  Anecdotally, I'll point out that you can still buy both of the previous Titans, the Ark and Metroplex, from sellers on Amazon for under $200.

2. Titans are kind of too big.  I mean, yeah, guys like Metroplex and Fortress Maximus are supposed to be huge (unless we're talking Marvel comics), but even with fairly simple engineering just picking them up off the shelf and transforming them is a chore that requires a good bit of room.  Speaking of room, not counting combiners like Predaking and Devastator, I've got nine Titans on display now, and they take up an enormous amount of space.  I Black Zarak in a difference spot, but the other eight are on a table and they take up basically enough surface area for me to display the entire Season 1 cast in a combination of Deluxe, Voyager, and Leader (including Dinobots), plus Jetfire.  On a shelf their vertical height would take up the same space as two shelves of smaller figures.

3. What really big characters are even left to make?  I know Tidal Wave from Armada is often suggested, but I've heard that Hasbro is planning on doing Tidal Wave as a Commander-class and retaining the original toy's ability to interact with Megatron.  If Hasbro wants to keep turning ships into robots I suppose you could do the Autobot shuttle, the Revenge, the Minnow, or the Quintesson ship from the '86 movie.  Maybe the Axalon and the Darksyde from Beast Wars.  I think as you go down the list of ships, though, interest in transforming Titan-class versions probably goes down (although I'd low-key love a toy of the Revenge).  Beyond that, maybe the aforementioned Animated-universe Omega Supreme, and that's about all I could come up with. 

What I think Hasbro could/should do instead of Titans is do more Commanders.  Again, there probably aren't a ton of robots big enough on their own to be a Commander (although, off the top of my head, Tidal Wave and Broadside).  But Hasbro has shown that the Commander-class is a good price point for the torsos of combiners that can come with whatever kibble they need for the gestalt, characters that combine with part of their alt mode for a super mode (which alone could be another four Optimus Primes- Power Master, RiD 2000, Energon, and Cybertron), etc.  Even if we start adding Commanders to Studio Series (as Hasbro is set to do when they announce Ultra Magnus this week) two a year seems like it'll take forever to cover every character that could benefit from the extra budget that the Commander-class affords.

[nightmareB4macross]

13 hours ago, jenius said:

I pull Optimus out at kids parties and it's usual pretty fun for a bit, but a little scary given how expensive it is.

That’s actually a great way to entertain and introduce kids to transforming robots.

I salute you good sir.

[sh9000]

[mikeszekely]

Not a ton of surprises at SDCC.  As expected, they announced the Commander-class SS86 Ultra Magnus

as well as expected SS86 repaints Frenzy (red)

and Ratchet.  

Also in Studio Series, we got some looks at Core-class Exo-suit Noah

Novakane (a repaint of Freezer)

and Nightbird (who looks kibbly, but better than the previous non-SS Deluxe).

Moving into Generations there's going to be a Pulse-exclusive repaint of Hot Shot in his red Powerlinx colors who looks to come with more accessories than the original, including Jolt.  I wonder if there will be more Powerlinx Gen Selects with Minicons?

a Shattered Glass set of Rodimus and Whisper (Rodimus being SS86 Hot Rod, and Whisper looks like a repaint of Earth-mode Sideswipe)

and a Menasor gift set in toy colors.

They also showed Towline, a Target-exclusive repaint of Scraphook that was already up for prerorders and sold out on Pulse, and Medix, who I'm not sure what his deal is.  I think he was originally going to be a Walgreen's exclusive.

They showed off the remaining three Amazon comic book sets.  They are Nacelle, yet another repaint of the Siege Seeker mold.

Javelin and Kaskade.  Javelin is a retool of Studio Series Bumblebee Arcee, and Kaskade is a light retool of Siege Chromia.

And Nova Prime, who's a not-extensive-enough retool of Siege Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime.

Finally, they showed off the Walmart Toxitron figures.  I think most of them have leaked, and some have started showing up in stores ( got my hands on two of them, but not the one I REALLY want).  They are:

Toxitron (repaint of Laser Optimus)
Grimlock (repaint of SS86 Grimlock)
Jazz (a repaint of SS86 Jazz)
Sideswipe (repaint of earth-mode Sideswipe)
Mirage (repaint of earth-mode Mirage)
Dead End (G2 repaint of Dead End)
Laser Cycle (repaint of Road Rocket)
Cloudcover (repaint of Ramjet)

Not shown was the War Dawn set that's supposed to be the SDCC exclusive.  And no preorders for anything yet that I could find.

BTW, if anyone happens to see G2 Grimlock at Walmart grab one for me.

Edited July 21, 2023 by mikeszekely

[sh9000]

I'll get Ultra Magnus, Ratchet, and Frenzy.  I'll probably get Menasor just because.

[mikeszekely]

I'm in for all the Studio Series stuff.  I'm probably passing on Towline and Medix.  I'm also in for the other Amazon sets.  On the fence for the Shattered Glass set, the Menasor set, and Hot Shot.  I'm not sure about the Toxitron stuff.  If I see them I might buy them, but aside from Grimlock and Dead End I'm not going to go out of my way to get them.

Edited July 20, 2023 by mikeszekely

[Hikuro]

Well speaking of the Toxitron/G2 lineup, I was at my local walmart picking up some stuff for dinner and I had come across Cloudbreaker, Jazz, Mirage, Sideswipe and surprisingly, Deadend. I almost pickedup Mirage and Jazz but really what I wanted was the G2 Deadend, so I skipped the other two. Truthfully I absolutely dislike the Neon colors the others have....if they broke the colors up a bit more I would had gotten those figures as well.....but when I was looking at them surprisingly Sideswipe and Deadend were the only good looking ones out there.  So I guess for now I'm sort of invested in the G2 Menasor lineup meaning I now have to huntdown Shadowstrip. That's not gonna be fun he's sorta expensive, never even came across him at all versus the other Velictron sets. 

[M'Kyuun]

On 7/19/2023 at 9:26 PM, mikeszekely said:

Commander is the only class with a once-a-year release.  Tonight we're looking at the other annual figure, Legacy Evolution Titan-class Nemesis.

We're going to do this review backward, because reasons.  The Ark was an interesting choice for Kingdom's Titan... they'd run out of the really big G1 characters, and the mainline hadn't really branched out from G1 yet.  But as the ship they crashed into a volcano and the Autobots used for their home for the first two seasons, the Ark was sort of a character in its own right.  Sure, it didn't transform in the cartoon, but why do robots that turn into vehicles need a larger vehicle?  And even if they do, Omega Supreme, Jetfire, and Sky Lynx already set a precedent for the Transformers transportation also transforming.  Who's to say that the Ark doesn't transform (although, with hindsight I might have argued that they could have done Animated-Universe Omega Supreme instead).

With the Ark now existing in Titan form, it does make a certain amount of sense to do the Nemesis, too, despite being less well-known.  Some background, I'm guessing most of you know that the Nemesis was the ship the Decepticons used to chase after the Ark.  It, too, crashed on Earth, and its discovery in South America kicks off the season 2 episode "Microbots."  It was also a plot element in the Beast Wars episodes "Nemesis" (parts 1 and 2), where Tarantulas actually discovers the Nemesis in the ocean and Megatron uses it to attack Mount Saint Hillary before Rhinox crashes a shuttle into it, presumably sending it crashing what would become South America.

Unlike the Ark, the Nemesis was never the Decepticon's base.  Rather, in the three-part "More Than Meets the Eye" series that kicked the cartoon off, the Decepticons were gathering materials to build a new ship to take them back to Cybertron.  That ship, retroactively named the Victory, was sabotaged by Mirage and crashed into the ocean.  It's the Victory that becomes part of the Decepticon's undersea home for most of the first two seasons.

One of the design features of the Nemesis is that four wings oriented around the rear of the ship.  Having them all here makes the toy accurate in that sense (and probably works fine in the void of space), but chances are you're going to want to sit this thing flat.  We can do this by splitting the bottom wing and splaying it out.

What I find interesting is how similar the designs of the Nemesis and the Victory were.  Both have the four winged arrangement, primary hulls that taper toward the nose, canards on the front, rounded sections on the bottom, and conning towers or bridges opposite the round parts.  That said, although it's a bit narrower and has a more hooked nose in the cartoon, the smoother hull, the rounded leading edge on the upper wing, the fins on the left and right wings, and the lack of engine pods above those wings definitely mark this ship as the Nemesis, not the Victory.  The only element that doesn't really match the cartoon is the rear, which is depicted in "Microbots" as as having two engine bells set a bit apart from each other and a pair of fins in between.  I can see why that element wouldn't really have worked here, though.

Aside from a little trouble getting some panels to stay tabbed in place, I really dig the ship mode.  Something about the shape in hand reminds me of a shark.

So, accessories.  Unlike the Ark, the Nemesis doesn't have a lot.  Most disappointingly there's no smaller robot included as there has been with most of other Titans, including the Ark.  But we shouldn't be surprised, last year's Legacy Metroplex also lacked a smaller robot despite the original coming with a Minicon.  Anyway, what you do get is a gray sprue, and the sprue contains a trio of squarish triple-barreled guns, a trio of round double-barreled guns, and a quartet of tiny Seekers.  To my knowledge, the Seekers are Thrust, Ramjet, Earthrise Starscream, and Siege Skywarp.

To install the guns, the round ones go in a trio of pegs on top of the ship.  Just behind them are two little cutouts for two of the square ones.  The third square one goes on top of the bridge tower; there's actually two ports up there.  The one in the front is for the guns, the one in the back is for the top of the tower, which isn't attached in the box.

On the sides of the ship, behind the canards, you'll find little doors that flip up to reveal retractable gray platforms.  The platforms have the Earthrise connectors we saw on stuff like Battlemasters, Prime's trailer, and various ramps on Omega Supreme, Scorponok, and Sky Lynx (but don't work with Trypticon, Fortress Maximus, or the Power of the Primes bases).  These platforms have little bumps on them that allow you to attach the tiny Seekers.  The platforms can be retracted while the Seekers are attached.

There's also a ramp on the back.  It also has the base connector, but it and the space inside are much smaller than the Ark's.  You can toss a loose Seeker slug in there, but you may find that even a Micromaster is a cramped in there.

Like the Ark before it, the Titan-class Nemesis was given a robot mode.  The designers meant for her to be a bit more monstrous than the Ark, drawing her with long, spindly limbs and kind of a hunched posture.  I'm not sure she needs to hunch.  In some ways, the design has kind of grown on me.  I dig the big, pointy shoulders, thin torso, and clawed hands.  As the Ark's face was meant to be that of the Last Autobot from the Marvel comics, and the Last Autobot's face was designed to basically be the Autobot symbol, the designers wanted the Nemesis' face to be a Decepticon symbol.  To avoid making her look like Tarn, though, they gave her face more of an armored design than a mask like Tarn's, with the middle of her brow being inspired by Starscream's crown from the '86 movie.

She's got a few issues, though, that I think are a lot less excusable on a $200 toy of this size than they are on a $20 Deluxe or even a $30 Voyager.  All of her wings when unfolded prove to be hollow on the inside/bottom.  It's not exactly the end of the world for the wings coming off her calves, or the one that makes up her backpack, but some of those waffles are plainly visible on her shins and the sides of the canards facing forward on her shoulders.  The kibble that folds back along her knees isn't the prettiest, but I can live with it.  Worse is the flaps dangling off her elbows.  $200 and the best they can do is have it rotate so it sweeps back a little?  They couldn't double hinge it to fold up against her shoulders or anything?

Nemesis' head is on a hinged swivel, with really good up/down range.  The base is at an angle, though, so turning her head simultaneously gives it a sideways tilt.  Her shoulders rotate on ratchets, nothing unusual there.  What's a bit more unusual is the lateral movement.  There's a ratchet inside the purple part, but it only moves a click or so laterally.  A second, also-ratcheted hinge just above her elbow allows it to move out at that point, too, but even combined we're talking about just 45 degrees or so of range.  If you want more, you can unlock the shoulders and use the transformation hinge to swivel the entire gray armature, but that joint is on the wrong side of the swivel.  Moving on, her biceps swivel.  Her elbows are double-jointed and bend 180 degrees combined, but both joints are friction joints.  Her wrists swivel.  The fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base, but they don't have any additional knuckles and all her fingers are one piece.  Her waist swivels on a ratchet.  Her hips ratchet forward about 90 degrees, backward a bit less than that due to kibble getting in the way, and laterally over 90 degrees if you can manage to get her arms out of the way.  Her thighs swivel on ratchets, and if you move some kibble out of the way her knees bend on ratchets a little over 90 degrees.  Her feet don't have any up/down tilt, but her ankles swivel on ratchets, and they have about 30-ish degrees of pivot.

If you were keeping score, that's ratchets in her waist swivel, thigh swivels, and ankle swivels where they probably weren't strictly needed, but none in her elbows.  Remember that.

While the Ark is just supposed to punch stuff, I guess, Nemesis can actually arm herself.  You can yank her canards off and wrap her fingers around them to give her comically tiny axes.  Alternatively, you can pull the wings off her shins.  One end has a barrel that flips out, and inside the edge there's a handle.  The handle has tabs that plug into her palms, allowing her to turn the shin armor/wings into guns.  But, remember those friction elbows?  They can't really support the weight on of the guns on my copy.  Her upper left elbow seems especially weak, even after I tried tightening the screw there.  Not using a ratchet in at least one of the two elbow joints on either side is a serious design flaw, and my single biggest issue with the figure.

As for the other accessories, they pretty much stay where they are.  The round guns just chill on her chest and tummy.  Two of the square guns wind up on the backs of her shoulders.  Somewhat amusingly, the third square gun winds up pointed at the back of her own head.  Maybe that's Megatron's failsafe for keeping her under control?  It'd have been nice to have spots to redeploy them to be more useful in robot mode, but I can't really find any.  As for the Seekers, they're in her forearms now.  You can still open the doors and slide the platforms out, and it actually works even better in robot mode because there's a little slider you can use to move the platforms in and out.

I think it safe to say I'm having somewhat mixed feelings about Nemesis.  On the one hand, she does look kind of cool in bot mode, and I think they did a really good job attempting to capture that weird (presumably Floro Dery) G1 animation design in a package that also transforms into a robot.  I'd go so far as to suggest that if you have the Ark you should probably go ahead and pick up the Nemesis as a companion piece.  But if you don't have the Ark you're probably better off skipping the Nemesis.  Like Metroplex, Nemesis has seen a price increase over the War for Cybertron Titans, including the Ark.  That in and of itself wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but that price increase seems to be buying less actual toy.  As noted, her wings are all hollowed inside, and aside from a few slugs she doesn't come with any accessories or smaller figures.  While not noticeably different from Metroplex or the Ark, the plastic does feel thinner and bendier than Scorponok or Omega Supreme, and the lack of ratchets in her elbows drops her robot mode from a solid B to a C-.

And it's at this point that I'll offer an opinion that's probably going to be a bit more well-received here than a certain Transformers message board I won't name- I think it's time for Hasbro to retire the Titan class.  Consider the following points:

1. Hasbro's struggled to make Titans profitable.  I don't know if they've admitted it openly, but I've heard as much from reliable inside sources.  This has forced Hasbro to raises prices on the class, doubling from $100 to $200 since Thrilling 30 Metroplex ten years ago.  That's way beyond impulse buy pricing, and while the success of the Masterpiece line has shown that adult collectors are willing to spend a lot on premium toys, "big" is not a synonym for "premium" and unfortunately the other way that Hasbro's tried to make Titans more profitable has been to reduce costs.  I don't care how big she is, Nemesis doesn't feel like a $200 toy, and that's going to make people even more hesitant to buy.  Anecdotally, I'll point out that you can still buy both of the previous Titans, the Ark and Metroplex, from sellers on Amazon for under $200.

2. Titans are kind of too big.  I mean, yeah, guys like Metroplex and Fortress Maximus are supposed to be huge (unless we're talking Marvel comics), but even with fairly simple engineering just picking them up off the shelf and transforming them is a chore that requires a good bit of room.  Speaking of room, not counting combiners like Predaking and Devastator, I've got nine Titans on display now, and they take up an enormous amount of space.  I Black Zarak in a difference spot, but the other eight are on a table and they take up basically enough surface area for me to display the entire Season 1 cast in a combination of Deluxe, Voyager, and Leader (including Dinobots), plus Jetfire.  On a shelf their vertical height would take up the same space as two shelves of smaller figures.

3. What really big characters are even left to make?  I know Tidal Wave from Armada is often suggested, but I've heard that Hasbro is planning on doing Tidal Wave as a Commander-class and retaining the original toy's ability to interact with Megatron.  If Hasbro wants to keep turning ships into robots I suppose you could do the Autobot shuttle, the Revenge, the Minnow, or the Quintesson ship from the '86 movie.  Maybe the Axalon and the Darksyde from Beast Wars.  I think as you go down the list of ships, though, interest in transforming Titan-class versions probably goes down (although I'd low-key love a toy of the Revenge).  Beyond that, maybe the aforementioned Animated-universe Omega Supreme, and that's about all I could come up with. 

What I think Hasbro could/should do instead of Titans is do more Commanders.  Again, there probably aren't a ton of robots big enough on their own to be a Commander (although, off the top of my head, Tidal Wave and Broadside).  But Hasbro has shown that the Commander-class is a good price point for the torsos of combiners that can come with whatever kibble they need for the gestalt, characters that combine with part of their alt mode for a super mode (which alone could be another four Optimus Primes- Power Master, RiD 2000, Energon, and Cybertron), etc.  Even if we start adding Commanders to Studio Series (as Hasbro is set to do when they announce Ultra Magnus this week) two a year seems like it'll take forever to cover every character that could benefit from the extra budget that the Commander-class affords.

Enjoyed the review, Mike. As it happens, my copy arrived today, and yeah, she's a big girl. I like the style they went for, as well as the juxtaposition between the Ark's bulkiness and Nemesis' lankiness. The snap-on rotating cannons are the way to do business and I still lament that they didn't do the same for the Ark. My copy's elbows are also weak, but I was able to get a half-arsed pose, although the gun is drooping. Given her size, I'll have to put a smaller Autobot in the line of fire so it looks purposeful.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I can't get the top part of her mask to budge- it's stuck tight. I looked to see if there was some sort of release mechanism, but I don't see one and the instructions appear to have you just manually push it up.

Edit: So, I'm dumb. I watched a vid review and realized my mistake; I was trying to push the center part of her crest up not realizing it was stationary and only the bits underneath moved. Another humbling moment served to me by a toy.

So far as more titan class figs go, the Ark and Nemesis are the only two I own, although I'll admit I was tempted by Omega Supreme. Honestly though, the only other titan fig I want is Animated Omega Supreme. We're long, long overdue a toy for that character, who played a rather significant part in third season. But, I want it to be good, which kinda makes me want to see a third party tackle it. I find it extremely odd that, given all this time, not one has done it, and like Hasbro themselves, interest in Animated seems off-scale low.

So, moving on to SDCC.  I guess we can put to rest the conjecture over whether Ultra Magnus will be an all-in-one or a white Prime with armor. He's all-in-one since that's how he was shown in the film. He looks excellent, certainly worlds better than the god-awful Siege and Kingdom versions. My concern, however, is that it doesn't appear as if the cab can rotate independently of the trailer, a feat that they managed to accomplish with Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus. If such is the case, it's more regression in engineering, and a lamentable loss of playability in a tractor trailer alt mode.

 However, in this pic it appears to be turned ever so slightly, and man do I hope I'm wrong and it does turn. I'll happily eat my words.

I hope Gears is the next minibot made deluxe.

I'm definitely down for SS86 Ratchet, Frenzy (still wish those elbows bent), and UM.  Wish they'd revealed SS86 Swoop in that mess, but ya can't have everything.

Edited July 21, 2023 by M'Kyuun

[sh9000]

Here's the back of Ultra Magnus.

[mikeszekely]

4 hours ago, Hikuro said:

Truthfully I absolutely dislike the Neon colors the others have....if they broke the colors up a bit more I would had gotten those figures as well

Yeah, that's my big problem with the Toxitron stuff.  Nacho cheese Jazz is kind of ugly, I'm not sure why they didn't use the actually released G2 colors.  And Mirage... well, he really needs a new mold that isn't a repaint of a figure that was kind of awkward in the first place.  But something about that neon yellow Grimlock just sings to me.  I very much want to get him.  Dead End mostly because I do have Shadowstrip.  I ordered Cloudcover online because he looks kind of nice.  The rest are something I might pick up if I see them on the shelves, but if I miss 'em I won't be bothered.

57 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I guess we can put to rest the conjecture over whether Ultra Magnus will be an all-in-one or a white Prime with armor. He's all-in-one since that's how he was shown in the film. He looks excellent, certainly worlds better than the god-awful Siege and Kingdom versions.

It's a bit of a bummer for me, since I had Magnus as a kid (and I still have a G1 Magnus!), and the white Optimus was a HUGE deal to 7yo me.  I'm willing to forgive it, though, because Magnus looks fantastic.  Like, maybe better than the MP good.

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

My concern, however, is that it doesn't appear as if the cab can rotate independently of the trailer

I think it does, in a manner that's probably similar to CW Magnus.  It definitely turns at least a bit.  If I may borrow some pics from another board...

53 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

Here's the back of Ultra Magnus.

Eh, while I'm over there...

Anyway, like I said before, I'm definitely in for the Amazon comic packs and all the Studio Series stuff.  I'm leaning toward yes on Hot Shot and the Shattered Glass pack, but I think I'm out on the Menasor gift set.  I think if they'd put a little effort into remolding Menasor's head and chest to look more like the toy, and maybe gave the cars their toy-style heads, I'd have bought it for sure, but just changing the colors a bit and adding some tampos isn't really selling it for me (especially since the first releases of Dragstrip and Dead End already have some toy-style stripes).

I'm hearing that the Amazon stuff will go up for preorder some time Friday.  Not sure about the rest of it, or when the War Dawn pack will go up.

[sh9000]

I think I'll still get the Menasor set.

Edited July 21, 2023 by sh9000

[mikeszekely]

I can't confirm any of this yet, but...

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

I hope Gears is the next minibot made deluxe.

Pulsecon is September 22nd, and I'm expecting them to reveal the title and first wave of the third part of the Legacy trilogy.  That announcement should include Gears, for an early 2024 release.

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

Honestly though, the only other titan fig I want is Animated Omega Supreme. We're long, long overdue a toy for that character, who played a rather significant part in third season. But, I want it to be good, which kinda makes me want to see a third party tackle it. I find it extremely odd that, given all this time, not one has done it, and like Hasbro themselves, interest in Animated seems off-scale low.

I don't want to get your hopes up, because I haven't heard anything about 2024's Titan* (which, if it even exists, I really hope is the last one).  But Hasbro's definitely not done with Animated.  In fact, I'm being told that Animated Bumblebee will be joining Gears in that first wave of Deluxes, and Animated Prime will be one of the Voyagers in that wave.

*Nothing on the Titan, but supposedly Armada Tidal Wave will be the Commander-class for next year.

[JB0]

I'm disappointed that the other cassette-bot that partners with Rumble(Blue) isn't named Rumble(Red).

[Scyla]

It seems like the Ultra Magnus took a lot of inspiration from the Masterpiece version. But the Studio Series heute one has a way better head sculpt.

[sh9000]

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-evolution-g2-universe-dead-end

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-evolution-g2-universe-sideswipe

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-evolution-g2-universe-autobot-mirage

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-evolution-g2-universe-laser-cycle

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by sh9000

[mikeszekely]

Ugh, of course Pulse sold out of Dead End before I could get online.  And they didn't even bother to put up Grimlock.  Those are the only two I actually care about.

Pulse also sold out of the Amazon Javelin & Kaskade pack and Nacelle, but you can still preorder Nova Prime.

https://hasbropulse.com/collections/new/products/transformers-legacy-evolution-leader-class-nova-prime

Or you can still get all three packs at Amazon (like I did).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDHHBXMZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDJ5T6H4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDGLX8HL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Nothing yet for the Shattered Glass or Studio Series stuff.  Powerlinx Hot Shot is going to be a Pulsecon thing.

[mikeszekely]

Stranger Things X Transformers Code Red.  $45, available later this year.

[sh9000]

Sorry @mikeszekely.  I'm not sure if G2 Dead End is still available to preorder at Walmart.  I couldn't find the links.

[M'Kyuun]

10 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I can't confirm any of this yet, but...

Pulsecon is September 22nd, and I'm expecting them to reveal the title and first wave of the third part of the Legacy trilogy.  That announcement should include Gears, for an early 2024 release.

I don't want to get your hopes up, because I haven't heard anything about 2024's Titan* (which, if it even exists, I really hope is the last one).  But Hasbro's definitely not done with Animated.  In fact, I'm being told that Animated Bumblebee will be joining Gears in that first wave of Deluxes, and Animated Prime will be one of the Voyagers in that wave.

*Nothing on the Titan, but supposedly Armada Tidal Wave will be the Commander-class for next year.

Thanks, Mike. I set a reminder for PulseCon. I hope Gears or Windcharger, or both will be announced, although I strenuously doubt they'll exhaust their supply of G1 minibots that quickly. Hasbro enjoys the slow troll b/c they know these waters are biting. Damn them for exploiting my addiction. 😁

Fear not; I've neither the internal fortitude nor the sense of grandiose self-delusion to really become excited for anything Animated from Hasbro. In the same breath, I like Legacy Prowl, but calling a spade a spade, it's not really Animated, is it? Inspired, yes, but that's not the same thing when so much liberty is taken with the design to make it homogeneous with G1. I like the Animated aesthetic, and that's what I want in an update- improved versions of the original toys. I'm not sure why they feel the need to make both Prime and Animated designs look like G1; I'm a G1 fan, but I don't want or expect every TF theme to fall into that aesthetic; I enjoy the variety in design directions, and it boggles my mind that Hasbro doesn't want to celebrate that in Legacy, the perfect forum for all these other themes that have come and gone. But Armada still looks like Armada. Bayverse still looks like Bayverse. BW still looks like BW. The game toys still look like they did in the games. So why are only Prime and Animated getting the G1 makeover? I conjecture that the designs were too complex for them to execute at the current price points per size class, so the only solution they could come up with to still do them but in an affordable way was to simplify them within a shared G1 aesthetic. I'd love to know the real answer as well as if there are any plans at all to ever do pure Prime and Animated figures again.  Given how Animated has been ignored since it's cancellation, I'm thinking not. What a shame. An even greater shame is that no third party seems to want to touch it, either. I'd love to see what NA or MS could do with those designs, even if it means they'd only be legends scaled. 

I digressed a bit there. Titan class, for the most part, has never really interested me, outside of the Ark and the Nemesis. As I mentioned, I fence-sat on Omega Supreme; I never really cared for his character or his toy design in the 80s, but I freely admit to being rather impressed by the titan class fig, even if is a parts-former. I just think it was done well for what it is, and for the first time, I gave serious thought to buying a titan fig. I didn't then, but when the Ark was announced, that had my attention and ultimately my buy-in. Likewise, the Nemesis. The only other titan class toy I want is Animated Omega Supreme, and possibly a Lugnut variant. That's a bit of a grail toy for me now. Such a huge missed opportunity back in 2009, and still so to the present, IMHO. Concerning the possible upcoming Animated Bee and Prime releases, I can only assume that they, too, will be amalgamations of their Animated selves and G1. Not what I want at all, but I'll see how they turn out, regardless. I love Animated Prime's toy design, and I really want them to stay true to it. Fortunately, I have my excellent voyager fig on my shelf, and he looks awesome. All I can wish for is an update with improved articulation, but alas, I fear that's not what we're going to get. 

Circling back to the titan class conversation, I know there are likely a great many fans who want Broadside to occupy one of those slots. Personally, I've always felt he had two of the most egregiously mismatched alts of any of the triple changers. There's no way around the absurd amount of mass-shifting involved and IMHO, it just wouldn't translate well at titan scale, as there's no plane as big as an aircraft carrier, even if the aircraft carrier at titan scale would still be way under scaled itself. Questionable design decisions, but I guess practicality wasn't always at the forefront when designing these things.  Too, these were aimed at 8–12-year-olds at a time when toy lines came and went in a season or two, so I doubt any thought was spared at the time that these things would still be popular and being made into modern toys some forty years on. That said, I look at Broadside's alts and just shake my head with incredulity.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Stranger Things X Transformers Code Red.  $45, available later this year.

Um...wow.🤨 So this thing gets a number of additional accessories and a fair bit of paint/tampo, but Ironhide, a major character from G1, didn't have his iconic yellow stripe nor his back cannon, and the upcoming Ratchet doesn't have his red stripe nor the large red cross on his van mode, nor any sort of mechanical tools, like say a welding torch. It bugs me when main characters get shorted and these exclusives seem to enjoy far more budget. It should be the other way around.

[mikeszekely]

5 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

In the same breath, I like Legacy Prowl, but calling a spade a spade, it's not really Animated, is it? Inspired, yes, but that's not the same thing when so much liberty is taken with the design to make it homogeneous with G1. I like the Animated aesthetic, and that's what I want in an update- improved versions of the original toys. I'm not sure why they feel the need to make both Prime and Animated designs look like G1; I'm a G1 fan, but I don't want or expect every TF theme to fall into that aesthetic; I enjoy the variety in design directions, and it boggles my mind that Hasbro doesn't want to celebrate that in Legacy, the perfect forum for all these other themes that have come and gone. But Armada still looks like Armada. Bayverse still looks like Bayverse. BW still looks like BW. The game toys still look like they did in the games. So why are only Prime and Animated getting the G1 makeover?

Honestly?  Because Bayverse (and technically the game stuff) exist in the Studio Series line, which is focused on accurately representing the source material (within the confines of the budget allotted).  Armada, Beast Wars, etc already kind of fit with the G1 aesthetic.  Animated and Prime are the only ones that really stand out.  I rather expect that if they did decide to do Bayverse within Legacy it'd get the G1-ified aesthetic.

I'm not exactly beat up about it, though.  We've had this discussion before, but while I enjoyed the Animated cartoon and think the style is fine for a 2D medium I think it looks awful translated to 3D.  I wouldn't mind seeing unique characters from Animated getting the Legacy treatment, like Lugnut and Lockdown, but even with my large collection of Bumblebees and Primes I already know that's two slots next year I wish were taken by almost anything else.

10 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Circling back to the titan class conversation, I know there are likely a great many fans who want Broadside to occupy one of those slots. Personally, I've always felt he had two of the most egregiously mismatched alts of any of the triple changers. There's no way around the absurd amount of mass-shifting involved and IMHO, it just wouldn't translate well at titan scale, as there's no plane as big as an aircraft carrier, even if the aircraft carrier at titan scale would still be way under scaled itself.

I mean, yeah, technically the most egregious, sure.  But it's not like a locomotive and a space shuttle, an oil tanker and a passenger plane, or a dune buggy and a helicopter don't have their own crazy size discrepancies.  In a world where a giant robot turns into a human-sized tape deck or a different giant robot turns into a handgun to be used by his smaller allies I think most of us just accept the mass shifting and use the scale chart for their relative robot sizes.  I'm not sure if Broadside appeared on any official scale guide, but I think based on his appearances in the cartoon a Jetfire-sized Commander-class should be enough.

4 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

So this thing gets a number of additional accessories and a fair bit of paint/tampo, but Ironhide, a major character from G1, didn't have his iconic yellow stripe nor his back cannon, and the upcoming Ratchet doesn't have his red stripe nor the large red cross on his van mode, nor any sort of mechanical tools, like say a welding torch. It bugs me when main characters get shorted and these exclusives seem to enjoy far more budget. It should be the other way around.

I mean, to be fair, this Code Red looks to be remolded from the Deluxe toy, not the Studio Series one.  That's a $25 figure with a $45 price tag, then.  That's where your budget for remolding, paint, and accessories goes.  The crossovers benefit from not having to be stuffed into a specific size class.

I feel you on Ironhide and Ratchet, though, especially since they're the same size as the Delxues.  I get the extra Voyager budget paid for much better engineering, but a little paint would have been nice.  Oh well, I'm sure I'll get the Reprolabels for Ratchet, same as I did for Ironhide.

[F-ZeroOne]

On 7/19/2023 at 6:07 PM, Convectuoso said:

 

So how much more to get an auto-transforming Grimlock that speaks intelligently like the Marvel UK version? 😄 [1]

I'm not a big "Transformers" guy - I mean, I grew up with them and I'll always like them in that sense, but I don't go out of my way to collect them or anything - but I recently saw the forthcoming Studio Series Movie Brawn and for the price, just couldn't say "no". Brawn - the original minibot toy version - was the first Transformer I ever owned and while I wish they did a version in the Studio Series that replicated that, this new one is just close enough. Am the only one who prefers the originals "grapple" hands though? 😃

[1] I'm sure most of the people reading this know this, but just in case - in the UK, the G1 Transformers comic was printed weekly, and usually had a US reprint strip and an original UK strip in each issue (at least, thats how I remember it - possibly they alternated from one to the other at times depending on available material). This could lead to some interesting variations in content; for example, UK Grimlock was rather more intelligent than how his cartoon counterpart is usually depicted, and again if my memory serves more so than the version in the US strips.

[sh9000]

The Hasbro Pulse Store in San Diego will be giving away exclusive control drawing reproductions of 1985 G1 Jetfire and Blaster.

[sh9000]

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-generations-shattered-glass-collection-rodimus-sideswipe-and-decepticon-whisper