The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Kuma Style]

6 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

OMFG!!!    This is awesome, who put that out?

 

Also, gibs doggo moar treats pls.  Doggos need all the treats.

Maketoys Utopia and that girl gets treats on top of treats, smh.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Kuma Style

[tekering]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

He's a lot smaller than Hasbro's Titans, but he's a lot better.

I'm still waiting for the OSKO. 

Oh, and speaking of which...

Holy sh!t, dude.

I've been waiting ten years for Bayverse figures like this. 

[mikeszekely]

Is that Shockwave an OSKO of the Studio Series one?

Newage Mista has been on my radar, but I've got too many other priorities ahead of it.

[Kuma Style]

Just in.

[Convectuoso]

3 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

Just in.

Great purchase! I look forward to seeing your pictures of it!

[CoryHolmes]

 

Maketoys Utopia and that girl gets treats on top of treats, smh.

Not enuff treats.  Moar treats!

[tekering]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Is that Shockwave an OSKO of the Studio Series one?

Yeah, with all the usual engineering improvements (ratchets, LEDs, additional articulation, and no rubber parts).

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Newage Mista has been on my radar, but I've got too many other priorities ahead of it.

I don't follow third-party news much any more, so "Mista" went right under my radar.  I never even saw it coming. 

[Kuma Style]

3 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Not enuff treats.  Moar treats!

Alright, we're done with all that.

--------

 

 

[tekering]

I'm happy to say "Optus Pexus" lives up to the hype... 

Kuma Style's gonna love this one. 

[Scyla]

@tekering huge handy hype?

[mark-1s]

7 hours ago, tekering said:

I'm happy to say "Optus Pexus" lives up to the hype... 

Kuma Style's gonna love this one. 

/\/\/\/\/\

Now that's freakin' hilarious!

[Kuma Style]

[tekering]

Master Made a lot more figures that I'd realized! 

I love their Metroplex, and I've admired their Omega Supreme from afar... but I think I really need that Devastator. 

Thanks for the heads-up, TJ! 

[Kuma Style]

There's talk about the Maketoys Gaurdia reissue over at TFW so figured maybe as well bring some of it here;

I'm pretty hyped for it because of seller's regret but in general how do you guys feel when you see a company doing constant mold reissues and repaints vs. new molds? 

 

[mikeszekely]

13 minutes ago, Kuma Style said:

There's talk about the Maketoys Gaurdia reissue over at TFW so figured maybe as well bring some of it here;

I'm pretty hyped for it because of seller's regret but in general how do you guys feel when you see a company doing constant mold reissues and repaints vs. new molds? 

 

I suspect Maketoys ran into some financial trouble. If reissues are what it takes for them to get back on even footing so that they can do new molds I'm fine with it. Besides, it'll give people who didn't get Utopia the first time a second chance to own one of my favorite 3P figures of all time.

[Kuma Style]

7 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I suspect Maketoys ran into some financial trouble. If reissues are what it takes for them to get back on even footing so that they can do new molds I'm fine with it. Besides, it'll give people who didn't get Utopia the first time a second chance to own one of my favorite 3P figures of all time.

I'm on the same page... and do you mean Guardia vs having said Utopia?

[tekering]

Guardia has always been one of my favorite combiners...

...so much that I seriously considered picking up the YES-Model OSKO.

I sure hope the reissue sells well for them. 

[Kuma Style]

@mikeszekely @JB0 @Convectuoso

Do you guys talk about the Big Firebird non-TF stuff here like the Henshin Girl Combiner in this thread or is there aa more appropriate spot? I saw Lumitent I believe but didn't know how broad it ranges.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Kuma Style said:

I'm on the same page... and do you mean Guardia vs having said Utopia?

I mean Utopia is one of my favorites. For some reason, maybe because we've been talking about it, when you wrote "Guardia" my brain was like, "They're reissuing Utopia? Awesome!"

Guardia seems a bit riskier. It's got it's fans (I love the combined mode), but the market for combiners that size seems to have dwindled. If a reissue doesn't perform and they're already having financial difficulties it could break them. But I'd love to be wrong; Maketoys is one of my favorites 3Ps.

[mikeszekely]

18 minutes ago, Kuma Style said:

@mikeszekely @JB0 @Convectuoso

Do you guys talk about the Big Firebird non-TF stuff here like the Henshin Girl Combiner in this thread or is there aa more appropriate spot? I saw Lumitent I believe but didn't know how broad it ranges.

It's Transformers-adjacent enough for me, I don't have a problem with it being discussed here.

[Convectuoso]

40 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

It's Transformers-adjacent enough for me, I don't have a problem with it being discussed here.

Same here

[Kuma Style]

10-4. Thanks guys.

[JB0]

5 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

in general how do you guys feel when you see a company doing constant mold reissues and repaints vs. new molds? 

On the one hand, it is great to see them putting more units of a toy out there to meet the demand. Some of these were heavily underproduced in their original runs.

On the other... it should be alongside new releases, not in place of them. 

[M'Kyuun]

5 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

@mikeszekely @JB0 @Convectuoso

Do you guys talk about the Big Firebird non-TF stuff here like the Henshin Girl Combiner in this thread or is there aa more appropriate spot? I saw Lumitent I believe but didn't know how broad it ranges.

No problem here, either. Actually, I thought it looked like a neat set and considered getting the red motorcycle girl, but in the end, I just stuck with Nicee. So yeah, bring on the pics/review, Kuma.

[mikeszekely]

16 hours ago, tekering said:

I'm happy to say "Optus Pexus" lives up to the hype... 

I've been waiting and waiting for my usual store to get him in stock.  They changed their date for Pexus and Naval Commander to April, so I canceled my preorders and just ordered both from The Chosen Prime.  Really looking forward to reviewing both of those.

[Kuma Style]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

On the one hand, it is great to see them putting more units of a toy out there to meet the demand. Some of these were heavily underproduced in their original runs.

On the other... it should be alongside new releases, not in place of them. 

I'm in agreement here... especially when a company has teased/previewed SO much more.

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

No problem here, either. Actually, I thought it looked like a neat set and considered getting the red motorcycle girl, but in the end, I just stuck with Nicee. So yeah, bring on the pics/review, Kuma.

Ok cool... I'll probably do a summary of it to get conversation going tomorrow since legit nothing has been posted about it here. Gonna take a bit to gather pics and info 
"
--------------

 

[Convectuoso]

Great shot! Thanks for sharing it, @Kuma Style

[glane21]

Just got in the SX-01 Thunder Warrior  because I’m a sucker for the F4 Phantom.  Size comparison with a DX VF-1.  I’ll post plane pics once I transform him.

[sh9000]

[mikeszekely]

I hope it's not just Newage. I've had Fans Toys Smokey languishing in my stash while I've waited for something else to avoid paying $12 in shipping.

EDIT: it's just Newage.

Edited February 12, 2021 by mikeszekely

[Kuma Style]

On 2/12/2021 at 4:47 AM, Convectuoso said:

Great shot! Thanks for sharing it, @Kuma Style

Ty man.

----

 

[mikeszekely]

Here's some food for thought... in 2006, when Hasbro launched the Classics line, G1 was 22 years old.  That was enough time for those of us who watched the G1 cartoon and had the G1 toys to grow up, get jobs, and start spending our disposable income on nostalgia.  However, years have passed since then, and there were plenty of kids who grew up with different Transformers.  Transformers Armada turns 19 this year, which is just three years shy of G1's age when Classics hit.  Are there enough adult Armada fans willing to spend like the "geewunners" to support a market for MP Unicron Trilogy figures?  It seems that Fans Hobby is willing to test those waters with the release of Naval Commander, their MP-style Armada Optimus Prime.

I'm not really up on Armada; I watched it once, probably 15 years ago, and I didn't collect the toys.  A couple of things jumped out at me, though.  The first was that Naval Commander seems to lack some of the bulk Armada Prime had.  This seems to be largely due to transformation; his legs are on a slider that makes his thighs a bit longer, and some of the front of the truck that filled in Prime's sides just gets folded up and hangs out behind Naval Commander's head.  He's definitely too big to be CHUG, as he's more than a head taller than ER Prime and nearly twice as tall as my old Cybertron-edition Bendimus Prime, but he's also shorter than the core robot for Power Baser (who's similar in size to MP-10/MP-44/MS-01/TE-01).  After talking to some people who are way more into Armada than me, though, that size might be correct, as Armada Prime is supposed to be shorter than G1 Prime.  Naval Commander has a lot details you'd expect on an Armada Optimus, but I find the colors a bit of an odd choice.  Like why are his thighs, feet, and biceps mostly white?  Fans Hobby seems to have been working from an old piece of Dreamwave-era sourcebook art (that was also used for one of the DVD covers), and that art was probably based on the Deluxe-class toy often referred to as Bendimus Prime for the unusually high (for the time) amount of articulation it had.  That'd also explain the gold hands.  But, that art and the toy actually had silver thighs and silver feet, plus red biceps.  The Super Base toy also had silver thighs and red biceps, but blue hands and feet (which is, IIRC, what the PlayStation 2 game used).  But with many sources to choose from and Takara setting the "cartoon or bust" trend I think the best choice would have been to copy the Armada cartoon- blue feet with gold tips, silver thighs, gold biceps, and silver hands.

Naval Commander comes with a ton of accessories.  You get a trailer, like the old Super Base toy, with two detachable containers.  You get a blaster.  You get a Matrix.  You get six missiles.  You get a mini car.  And you get a set of clear eyes and different "ears" for the super mode head.

The missiles can fit into one of two launchers on the front of the trailer.  There's a row of buttons on top to fire the missiles.  A missile can also got into the barrel of the blaster.  The button to fire it is molded into the ribbing on the barrel.

The containers nominally fit onto the sides of the trailer.  There's a flap on the bottom that reveals some molded details painted to look like missiles, but that'll come into play more later.  A flap on the side opens to reveal a hollow space you can store the mini car in.

You could also put a Micromaster, Siege or G1, or some original Armada Minicons inside, because in car mode the mini car is about the same size as those toys.  It transforms into a mini robot that's supposed to be the Minicon Sparkplug.  He games some size as a robot, standing over a third taller than a Siege Micromaster. The engineering would be kind of interesting for a figure that size, if the build of the figure weren't so bad.  The struts his arms are on don't stay tabbed in, and his arms constantly pop off at his ball-jointed shoulders.

As for Naval Commander himself, his head is on a ball joint with the ball in the torso instead of the head, so he can look up and down a fair bit as well as tilt his head sideways much more than you'd actually need.  His shoulders are also essentially big ball joints.  They rotate fine and even give him a bit of a butterfly joint, but lateral range is fairly limited.  You can use the transformation hinges in his torso to get a little extra range, but we're falling into the Studio Series Hot Rot/Warbotron trap of arms that can't move laterally if they're raised.  His biceps swivel.  His ratcheted elbow bends 90 degrees.  However, if you pull on his arm it'll stretch out and click into place for alt mode, but that also reveals a second joint that you can use to get an additional 45 degrees of bend.  His wrists swivel.  His fingers are molded into a curl, but they are pinned at the base so he can open his hands and his index finger is separate from the other three.  He does have a waist swivel, but you have to pull out some white pieces on his hips to unlock it.  His hips are ratcheted and can go laterally 90 degrees and forward or backward a little less than that.  He's got swivels above and below his knees.  Note that for robot mode you're instructed to pull his legs out, like you do with his arms for alt mode, but I think he looks better if you don't.  It makes him look slightly stockier, hides the thin part of his knee, helps keep the lower swivel in place (which you mostly wouldn't use for this mode anyway), and it doesn't affect his slightly-under-90-degree ratcheted knee bend.  His feet don't tilt up, but his toes can bend down, and his ankles can pivot about 30 degrees.

His gun works like most Fans Hobby weapons.  There's a groove in his palm and a rail on the back of the gun's handle that slides into that groove.  Although I don't have it shown in the above picture the barrel of the gun does collapse, but it still looks too big for him.

As far as other accessories go, the Matrix does fit into his chest.

And the trailer turns into a base.  It's got ramps and decks for smaller figures like Micromasters and or Minicons, and Naval Commander's gun does mount onto the upper deck in a spot that lets him use it like a turret.  The containers can either plug into the ramps, or they can clip onto the struts that hold the upper deck up.  I can't remember if the base mode turned up in the cartoon, but I do know that the original toy's base mode was a bit different.  That's typical for Fans Hobby, though; they tend to go for more stylized designs.

Naval Commander turns into a truck.  Again, it seems big compared to CHUG figures and small compared to MP stuff, but it's not like I'm an expert on Armada scale.

The truck itself seems a little off to me.  Like, it does have the arms barely-hidden along the sides, and the silver swooshes on the hood.  But the headlights are vertical next to the grill, rather than horizontal and more on the fenders.  There's no taillights, even though the spot where they could have easily been molded painted is totally covered in every other mode.  And the white feet are really working against him in this mode, as they stick out like sore thumbs.

You might have also noted that the smokestacks are on the back of the cab instead of the sides.  They're actually on sliders that cover his elbows; in robot mode they keep his arms from bending the wrong way, then move so they can bend backward for transformation but block his normal elbow bend.  The slider moves the smokestacks from the outside of his forearms (the sides of the truck) to the front of his forearms (the back of the cab).  Also, maybe they thought it was more like a real truck to have smokestacks on the back?  Regardless, if you don't like it you can move them; just pop them off and plug them into a second pair of tabs on the backs of his forearms/sides of the truck.

Naval Commander can, of course, pull his trailer.  There's a multi-hinged armature underneath.  Folded one way and it acts like a foot to hold the front of the trailer up when it's not connected.  Folded another way and it becomes a hitch, with a pair of slots that fit into tabs on Naval Commander's feet.

The combined truck mode looks pretty good.  The trailer is a bit taller than Power Baser's, but also a bit shorter.  Since Power Baser's trailer wasn't tall enough and Naval Commander looks like a smaller-scale a shorter trailer works for him.

The missile launchers on the front of the trailer are a bit different, and the top of the trailer isn't as hollow as the original Super Base toy.  But with the containers plugged into the sides and blue stripe it looks pretty close to my eye.

The handle on Naval Commander's gun can plug into either of the 5mm ports on the top of the trailer.

Alternatively, you can fold the handle in and then fold out two ball-jointed arms on the side.  Each of those arms plugs into one of the two ports, which allows the gun to be more centered on top of the trailer.  Or, you can fold everything in and use some tabs on the side of the gun to attach it to the underside of the trailer.

And yes, those treads are rubber, and they do work.

One more thing about those peg holes... there's more than just two on top of the trailer, and they're for more than plugging his gun into his alt mode.  There's also a pair on the back of Naval Commander's hip skirts, just in front of where he connects to the trailer in truck mode, as well as one on either side of the trailer hidden behind the removable containers.  The 5mm peg holes can be used to attach Siege Micromasters.  You'll notice that there's also a fold-out peg behind each of those peg holes.  That peg has a hole with a tinier peg in it, and it's the connection for the mini robot.  It also happens to be the connection for original Armada Minicons; I don't have any Armada Minicons, but I did stick Naval Commander's mini robot onto one of Bendimus Prime's minicon ports.

Now, I don't know if this was a thing from the cartoon or the original Super Base toy, but Fans Hobby insists that this is a mode, with some ramps folded out from the trailer and the missile launchers moving on their struts.  The instructions even show a container at the end of a ramp, like I have it here, but I can't find any way to physically connect the container to the end of the ramp.

While I'd be totally content with just the core robot, Prime often combined with his trailer into a super mode in the cartoon, and Naval Commander replicates that, too.  He bulks up quite a bit in this mode, as he's now ever so slightly taller than Power Baser in his combined mode.

Aside from the use of white instead of silver for his thighs and biceps, I think the super mode looks pretty good.  He's got the gold hands, and gold details on his shoulders, pelvis, and knees. His feet are black.  The cartoon kind of cheated a little by more or less making panels on the sides of the trailer just disappear or perhaps blend into his thighs; Naval Commander has his as hip skirts, and that's fine. He retains the butt flap of both the cartoon and original toy, but it's split into two tails  The containers on the outsides of his legs aren't accurate, but they're removable if they bother you plus they serve a purpose should you keep them.  I guess the biggest departure is that the top of the cab-chest opens up to both fill in some gaps but also to reveal a large gold spot.

In super mode, Naval Commander's head is again a ball joint.  The instructions helpfully remind you that you can pull on his head to extend his neck, giving him decent enough forward, backward, and sideways tilt.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can move laterally on another ratchet (how far depends on how his arm is turned; in theory up to 90 degrees but his wheels often collide with his shoulder pads before that).  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little short of 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  In this mode his fingers are more articulated; the thumb is on a ball joint at the base with one additional hinge.  Each finger is pinned at the base with two additional pinned knuckles, and each finger is separate from the others.  His waist swivels.  His hips ratchet forward and backward about 90 degrees.  They also move laterally on ratchets, but here's the weird thing- they go to about 45 degrees, then they just stop.  There doesn't appear to be anything about the way they're molded or any kibble in the way.  They look like they could go all the way to 90 degrees.  But there's resistance, and I don't want to break anything by forcing it.  So we move on.  Thighs swivel, and ratcheted knees bend 90 degrees.  At first I thought his feet seemed a bit limited, but they actually drop down a bit.  This allows you to get some up/down tilt on a soft ratchet, plus the toes bend up, and 45 degrees of ratcheted ankle tilt.

The super mode holds the gun exactly the same way as the core robot.

Now here's something I don't think the original toy did.  The butt flaps can rotate to the sides, and the missile launchers on them can move around on their armatures to face forward.  Meanwhile, if you left the containers on his legs you can open the flaps to show off the faux missiles.  To top of the look, the Minicon ports on his knees can telescope outward, making it look like Naval Commander has guns on his knees, while you can use the ports on his shoulder pads to mount actual Minicons or Siege Micromasters.  Alternatively, you can move the containers from his legs to his shoulders if you prefer.

Speaking of preferences, you'll recall from the accessories that we have some options.  You have to first remove the super mode head by moving the flap it's on and unscrewing it from the bottom.  Then, you have to remove three more screws to pull the head apart.  With the head disassembled the eyes just fall out, and you can slide the ears off.   The default ones are kind like flat wings.  I prefer the alternate ones, which are more like pipes.  I think that they're more accurate.  The clear eyes are for if you want to use the light up gimmick.  Despite having a drawer full of button cell batteries I don't have the right kind for the battery box that fits in his head.  Besides, even if I did the amount of time I'd have the lights on vs off doesn't make clear eyes worth it, and the metallic red paint on the default eyes looks fantastic.

Ok, you guys know I love Fans Hobby.  I've bought their Monsterbots, Power Baser, their Godbomber, their Overlord, Scourge, Laser Prime, both of their trailers, and Minerva.  I've praised them for making solid figures that are sturdy and fun to actually mess around with and transform.  And I want so badly to tell you that this is more of the same.  I want to recommend it.  But I can't.  Almost as soon as Naval Commander left the factory reports of cracks started popping up on Weibo.  Fans Hobby acknowledged this, blaming the factory on using the wrong size pins for some of the hinges.  They said it would be corrected on the next batch (due in April), but offered to replace any broken parts.  But here's the thing, I don't think the problem is the pins.  The problem is the red plastic.  It feels a lot like the plastic Fans Toys used on Tesla, which itself was notorious for developing little cracks.  It feels very brittle.  I noticed cracks on some of the hinges right out of the box, and some after handling it.  There's cracks on the roof hinges, the hinge under the window, and on the white plastic where his chest flips up.  There's stress marks and the beginnings of cracks where his shoulders tab into the nose of the cab, and in other places where parts were screwed or pinned at the factory.  I'll be contacting Fans Hobby to see what they say, but I almost feel like the entire core robot needs to be replaced from the waist up.  I'll note that I have transformed the core robot, both to truck mode and to super mode, a couple of times now and none of the cracks seem to be getting any worse, but "not getting any worse" isn't really giving me the warm and fuzzies.  Right now, I'd say if you're interested in Naval Commander that you wait a few months and see if the QC is better on later batches.  As it stands, $200+ is too much to spend on a figure that comes cracked in the box.

[Kuma Style]

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2021 by Kuma Style

[mikeszekely]

So while I liked yesterday's Optimus a number of QC issues really damped my enthusiasm.  But you know what could cheer me up?  Another Optimus!  This time it's MMC's Optus Pexus.

Ok, so technically Pexus is supposed to be IDW Orion Pax, and based on the details I'd say that Alex Milne's work on the More Than Meets the Eye story "Shadowplay" is the prime inspiration (pardon the pun), but the design was also used in Transformers Vol. 2 #22-23, also by Milne (with some subtle differences like straight pipes on the legs and more silver on his ribs, and smokestacks on his biceps) and as Optimus Prime in Livio Ramodelli's Autocracy/Monstrosity/Primacy series (with smokestacks, different shoulders, and a different head), and all of it ultimately goes back to Don Figueroa's design for Optimus in Stormbringer (with yellow eyes and windows, blue biceps, and silver forearms), which he based on his earlier work on Dreamwave's War Within.  Basically, this is established to be Pax/Prime's body (with minor modifications based on the artist/and isssue) in pre-reboot IDW from at least the time Pax became a cop on Cybertron all the way until he got his first Earth mode.  So Pexus still counts as Optimus.

Regardless of the details, Pexus does a great job capturing most of the details from Milne's art.  The only major contention people seem to have is that the large tires sit on his backpack, rather than in his torso with his shoulders sprouting from them.  Let's say that while they probably could have designed a figure with the wheels in the shoulders deliberate engineering choices were made that necessitated getting them out of the way.

The question is, where is he supposed to fit in?  He's part of MMC's Reformatted line, which implies CHUG.  However, previous Reformatted figures of characters that appeared in MTMTE have scaled best with stuff like Thrilling 30 Brainstorm and Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus, which are significantly larger than the scale established by Hasbro in the War for Cybertron Trilogy.  If you have many of those figures he should fit in with them perfectly (I made the somewhat unfortunate decision to sell off almost all of my Reformatted stuff), but as Pexus stands even taller than stuff like Maketoys' Striker Manus or Planet X's Jupiter you're probably going to find him too big fit in with your WfC stuff.  On the other hand, he's only a little more than a head shorter than MP-10/MP-44/MS-01/TE-01.  If you consider that Orion Pax could have been smaller before he became Optimus, like Hot Rod is smaller than Rodimus Prime, then perhaps Pexus could be an MP Orion Pax.

Or, you know, maybe scale doesn't have to be the be-all-end-all of collecting Transformers, and maybe you just want a cool robot toy.

Whatever the case, Pexus comes with a few accessories.  You get a "core", which is obviously the Matrix.  You get a pair of arm blasters, which I'd love to say you can just stick on his arms and forget about since they stay in the same place in both modes, but you kind of need to remove them for transformation because they get in the way of opening up his legs.  You get a pair of replacement fingers.  And you get a pair of black collapsible rifles.  Now, I also got a second pair of rifles in gray instead of black, but this is apparently the first-run gift for some stores (I'm not clear on if it's just for North American stores, if it's for non-Asian stores, or if it's for non-Chinese stores).  If you bought it from Planet Steel Express the first run gift is instead an alternate head based on their original design, before MMC tweaked it based on fan feedback.  By now, I can't promise you'd get any special extras.

Remember when I mentioned "deliberate engineering choices" a bit ago?  Yeah, those choices were about giving Pexus an insane level of articulation.  I mean, articulation was supposed to be a selling point for Striker Manus, but Pexus makes that figure seem like a brick.  Seriously, Pexus has so much articulation his manual has a whole section on it.  But I'll do my best to cover it here- his head is on a hinged ball joint plus a second transformation hinge, so he can look almost straight up, he can look 45 degrees down, he can tilt his head sideways, and he can rotate at the neck.  His shoulders rotate, and there's a hinge inside his shoulder armor that allows for 90 degrees of lateral movement.  He's also got two more hinges for shrugging, plus a hinge for a bit of forward and backward butterfly joints.  His biceps swivel.  His elbows are double-jointed for a bit short of 180 degrees of bend, revealing some nice piston details in the process.  His wrists swivel, and they're hinged so they can bend up and down.  His thumb is on a ball joint at the base, with two additional knuckles.  Each finger is pinned at the base from the palm to the back of his hand, allowing his fingers to splay apart, with three knuckles on each individual finger, giving his hands the kind of articulation you don't normally see on anything smaller than a combiner.  His upper torso has a double hinge that runs from his chest to a ball joint behind his grill, giving him a back bend, ab crunch, swivel, and sideways tilt, but if that wasn't enough he seems to have another ball joint at the bottom of his torso for extra sideways tilt and extra ab crunch, plus another swivel at the waist.  At first it might seem like his hip skirts will get in the way of his hips, except the entire joint can swing down and forward (the designer tells me this Gundam-inspired trick was something that the factory wanted to nix, but he insisted they retain), so he can actually kick forward well over 90 degrees (the hips themselves are ratcheted), backward a little under 90 degrees, and laterally (still ratcheted) a little over 90 degrees.  Molded details on the backs of his thighs prevent them from swiveling 360 degrees, but the range they have feels natural.  His knees are single hinge that can bend something like 160 degrees, but that's not even the cool part.  He has a double-hinge with piston details that's folded behind his knee pad.  When his leg is straight it folds up and pushes the knee pad out, but when you bend his knee it unfurls and wraps over the joint, bending the knee pad back with the joint in the process that reminds me of the armor moving over the frame of some Real Grade Gundam kits.  Meanwhile, panels at the top of his calves slide down into his legs to get out of the way when his leg his bent but keep the gaps covered when his leg is straight.  His feet have some hinges for very good up and down tilt, plus his toes can tilt up further.  Finally, his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees, but both to the inside and the outside.  All this articulation makes Pexus incredibly fun to play and pose with since with just a few exceptions (I could use more ankle pivot) you're limited more by your imagination than the range of the joints.

As far as his accessories go he can hold his rifles just fine using a system that's actually a bit backward from the norm.  It's his palms that have tabs on them, and they fit into slots through the handles of his guns.  My guess is that there isn't really room for slots in the palms between the screw that holds his hands onto the wrist hinge and the pins that allow his fingers to splay.

The guns can also be stored on his back, in one of two ways.  The first is that there are small tabs on the sides of his backpack that fit into the second and smaller slots on the sides of the barrel.  On my copy that fit is really loose, though.  The other way is to use the larger tab on the back/underside of the backpack, which fits into the notch of the rifles' sights.  Since that part of his backpack moves either way the guns can either chill on his back or swivel over his shoulders.  Makes me glad for that second set of rifles so he can carry them while having back cannons.

As for the "core", there are slots in the handles that theoretically fit the tabs on his palms.  In practice his hands are too wide to fit his fingers inside the handles.  Also, while you can get his hands close enough together to hold the core over his head you're not going to be able to his arms over his chest and get his hands close enough for both to reach.

His chest can open so you can insert the core, but here's another catch- there's only room inside for the sphere.  You have to remove the handles.  There are tabs on his hips that allow you to store the handles there, and you don't even have to remove them for transformation.  I'm still worried about losing them, though, so they're staying in the box with his spare fingers.

While his articulation makes Pexus an excellent action figure, he does still transform.  Here's how he looks with Earthrise Prime and Striker Manus.  The transformation isn't terribly complicated, although the way his legs transform is pretty interesting.

Is it comic book accurate?  Kind of.  For starters, I should point out that he didn't transform in Stormbringer or Transformers Vol. 2 (in this form).  This makes Ramondelli's art in Autocracy #1 the first official appearance of this alt mode.  Now, Ramondelli's art can be a bit indistinct at times, but I don't think it really looked like this.  Then again, while he didn't transform Figueroa did do concept art for Prime's Stormbringer alt mode, and Ramondelli was a bit off from that.  He appears briefly in alt mode during MTMTE, and Milne's art is closer to Figueroa's concept.  Now, Pexus is certainly the ballpark of that art, with the ridged chest and blue chest windows front and center, a cockpit on tip, vents behind the cockpit, legs at the back, etc.  But there are some differences, too.  Pexus has visible joints flanking the cockpit, smaller front tires and finders that the art didn't, and he's not as sleek and flat, because his arms tuck into his shins instead of angling down so that the arm guns can run into the pipes on his legs.  Again, though, I suspect that many of the alt mode compromises are concessions to the robot mode and its articulation.  I'm not saying that such concessions are always worth it- I expect a recognizable Earth mode to be a bit closer, but for a character with a seldom-seen Cybertronian alt mode like Pexus the tradeoff is more than worth it.

As I alluded to, the core handles can still store on his robot hips and removal is unnecessary for transformation (but I'll still be putting them back in the box).  The arm blasters don't run into the pipes on his legs, but they do go back onto his arms.  His rifles have longer slots near the tip of the barrels.  First you fold the handle into the magazine, then the bottom of the magazine has both a tab and a slot that allow the two rifles to connect to each other.  The connected rifles then use the slots to grab onto tabs on his robot arms.

He rolls well enough, I'll note that the tires are plastic.

Pexus' biggest flaw is his mediocre alt mode, but he's not the kind of figure you're going to have it alt mode often.  He's the kind of figure you keep on your desk, posing and fiddling with, because his robot mode is so amazingly good and fun.  Honestly, this was never my favorite Optimus design.  It always reeked of being Figueroa's attempt to rehash his War Within design while being just different enough to acknowledge that IDW isn't Dreamwave.  As for Milne, I suppose he could have given Pax a different design, as there's plenty of time for him to change into the Optimus we see in Stormbringer, but he didn't and then Ramondelli was kind of stuck with it.  I decided to get Pexus mostly because I have a collection of Primes, but I was more excited for Naval Commander and MMC's upcoming Star Convoy.  But everyone was talking about Pexus like it's going to be the figure of 2021, and after getting him in hand I'd say those people are probably right.  Optus Pexus isn't just one of the best transforming toys I've owned, it's one of the best toys of any kind I've owned.  Don't worry about how Pexus fits into your collection, where you're going to display him, or if you have the space for him.  Just buy him, you won't be sorry.  Highest recommendation from me.

[Scyla]

Good reviews Mike. I wish all the FansHobby releases where better in quality and aesthetics. I would have bought Power Baser and especially Double Evil in a heartbeat if they had better proportions,  more involved engineering and better build. As is they don’t do anything for me and I fear no one else will do a God Ginrai and Overlord in the foreseeable  future. Hopefully Hasbro tackles them in their Commander Class.

As for Optus Pexus thankfully his hands don’t look that oversized in person. And while he is great I think that this will a special one-off release to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Reformatted line and not indicative of future releases. 

That could also mean that we won’t even see any repaints of him which is why I bought it and didn’t wait for a black and teal repaint. I want to celebrate with MMC this awesome line of toy that had far more hits than misses (looking at you Boreas/Jaegertron).

It is amazing to me that MMC is going on for that long and that they had the restraint not to release any more Optimus homages after their very first release Knight Morpher Commander.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Scyla