Transformers Masterpiece: Optimus Prime

Oh how long have I waited for this figure!  Back in 2003, Takara created a new series of Transformers called Masterpiece.  These large scale, intricate figures featured a mixture of die-cast metal and plastic along with articulation that Transformer figures just didn't have.  A lot of the figures featured homages to their cartoon counterparts and were a smash hit with collectors all over the world.  Convoy, MP-01, was the first release in the Japanese Masterpiece series.  I can still remember my excitement over this figure.  I gladly dropped $65.00 down on a pre-order and began to (impatiently) wait for the figure's arrival.

3 years later Takara released MP-06.  Largely Convoy (or Optimus) was unchanged, but the selling point for this release was the inclusion of his trailer.  I oh so wanted this toy, but the $200 or so price tag was a major roadblock for me.  I remember seeing a few guys at Botcon in 2006 walking around the dealer room holding this mammoth box.  I remember that ugly green monster starting to rear it's head as well.  I never did grab the figure.  For awhile I regretted my decision of not going after the MP-06 release, but thankfully that is all in the past now that I have the Hasbro version of Takara's MP-10 release.

Masterpiece Optimus Prime comes packaged in this huge box.  Like with other Masterpiece figures previously released by Hasbro, the box is constructed of a bottom cardboard tray with a thick plastic "shell" forming the top half.  The box does a good job showing off his included accessories including his rifle, energon axe, Roller, Spike Witwicky figure and the die-cast metal Matrix of Leadership!

As you can see in the packaging, Optimus Prime comes in robot mode with the Matrix exposed.  Sadly I forgot to take pictures of him with this chest exposed once I got him out of the packaging...so take a good look at the above pictures.

Hasbro's release of MP-10 features a more cartoon accurate look while Takara Tomy's release had a more G1 toy look.  I prefer the Hasbro look for two reasons.  1) Lower cost and 2) I just think the figure looks better in these colors.

I can't even begin to explain how awesome this toy is - how much improved upon it is over the original MP-01 release.  This is the definitive version of Optimus Prime to own.  Optimus has a lot of articulation for a figure it's size - head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, fingers, upper torso, thighs, knees (hinge & swivel) and ankles.  Even his iconic blaster rifle is articulated - kind of.  One of my pet peeves about the old G1 toy were the removable fists and the rifle.  What do you do with them after you've transformed him into truck mode.  The fists could fit in the cab's front thanks to the old Diaclone feature, but you were left with keeping up w/ his rifle.  Not anymore!

Optimus' rifle folds up nicely into a rectangle shape and can be easily stored in a new compartment on the back of the figure.  This may be a small feature about the toy, but I love it.  Self contained figures/accessories are a winner in my book.

In addition to Prime's blaster rifle, you also get this cool orange energon axe that he used in battle against Megatron atop Sherman Dam in the old G1 cartoon.  The bottom part of the axe is molded to simply fit over Optimus's fist.  It fits snugly and looks pretty darn cool if you ask me.

The trailer can double as a repair bay for Optimus when in robot mode.  On each side of the trailer is a gray piece of plastic that folds out to store his weapons...another small, but very nice touch.  I don't particularly use the trailer in this fashion, but it's nice to see that the designers included this feature.

Optimus Prime is equally as impressive in truck mode as he is in robot mode.  The truck cab is so beefy...I love it!  From the rubber tires to the subtle additions like the yellow lights on top, I'm so impressed with the vehicle look.  If I had the space and could afford a second MP Prime, I'd be all over it as I would love to display this toy in both forms.

  

One of the included accessories is a small Spike Witwicky figure.  Spike is scaled perfectly to sit inside Prime's truck cab.  Both front windshield panels swing open to reveal a seat for the small figure.

One of the other accessories is Roller.  What G1 Optimus Prime release would be complete without his little buddy Roller?  Even this version of Roller has been given the Masterpiece treatment.  Not only can he hold Spike, but the rear compartment can open up to haul Prime's trailer (which sadly I forgot to photograph!).  He can also wield Prime's rifle so he isn't this little defenseless Autobot anymore.

Roller fits nicely inside Prime trailer.  The rear of the trailer's doors swing open and the a ramp extends from below allowing Roller or the newly released Masterpiece Lambor (Sideswipe) to drive up inside.

Prime's trailer opens up just like the G1 variety and features pretty much the same look.  The small "battle stations" on each side that were originally designed for the small Diaclone figures have been upsized as well and scaled for the included Spike action figure.  I didn't bother to photograph this it  becuase when when I originally took these pictures it was late and I was in a hurry to wrap this up.

How iconic is this?

As I said earlier, this is the definitive version of G1 Optimus Prime to own.  While I love the original MP-01 release, this toy is superior.  First of all I like the smaller scale and the inclusion of the trailer puts it over the top.  The toy is exclusive to Toys 'R Us stores so it isn't the easiest to find.  It's original MSRP was $99.99, but has since climbed to $119.99.  He's readily available on the secondary market, but be prepared to pay as much as double.  If you can grab him for retail or close to retail then do it...you won't regret it.

Before I wrap this up I had to grab G1 Prime off my shelf and snap a few comparison pics so you could get an idea of the new MP scale.  Take a look.

Tried to recreate the death of Optimus scene from the '86 animated movie

KO Korner: G1 Transformers Triple Metamorphs 368 B Cobra / "Battletrap"

It's been awhile since we've visited the KO Korner so let's push past all of the authentic Transformers and the 3rd party stuff and look at an interesting knock off of G1 Transformers Battletrap...or at least half of him.

I've found that these Metamorphs branded Transformer KOs are some of the best on the market.  Usually the plastic is of better quality than most bootleg toys and the color schemes are interesting.  Sometimes they are drastically different like "Quickmix" I reviewed earlier this year while others are subtle changes from the original G1 release.  The latter is the case for this one half release of the Duocon, Battletrap.

Not surprisingly the original G1 box art was used on both the front and back of the box.  The only alteration I can see is the added cobra snake on the copter portion.  I have no idea if the jeep portion of the toy was colored like the G1 release so I can't comment if the colors are toy accurate.  I'd love the pick up the other half, but I'm not holding my breath of ever finding it...or the other Duocon, Flywheels.

Cobra, as he is now called, looks very similar to Battletrap, but there are a few changes.  First off the decals.  You've got the appropriate cobra sticker on the wing, but there is also a clear target reticule sticker on the center cockpit panel.  Speaking of the cockpit the whole think is painted a light shade of purple...which I really like.  The more obvious changes are blue plastic used for the center portion and the added gun sculpted onto the nose of the helicopter.  The guns underneath the wings have also been extended from the G1 release.  These changes give the copter a much more menacing look in my opinion and look really nice.

The last change that I noticed is on the underside of the 'copter.  First of all the colored piece of plastic is orange versus blue.  You may also notice the lack of springs here as well.  With both G1 Duocons when you placed the two vehicles together and pressed down, they would merge together and pop up into robot mode.  The KO loses the spring, but transformation isn't really hindered by this.  The last change I noticed is the lack of the peg hole for the original weapon to be pegged in.

I grabbed the bottom half of my G1 Battletrap to get a better look at the helicopter's portion of robot mode.  Combined together it looks pretty good, but you can tell the shade of blue plastic is darker than the G1 toy.  It's almost a purple blue.  The head sculpt is identical to the original, but you can see there is a lot of over spray of silver paint on the face.

Comparison time!  What good is a review of a KO if you don't have the original toy to put side by side?

Which look do you prefer?

New tail fin stickers!

Here is a better look at the bottom and the missing springs.

I know a lot of Transformer fans could care less about KOs, but I find them intriguing and fun.  I find the characters that these Taiwanese or Chinese companies decide to knock off equally interesting.  Perhaps one day I'll find the other half of Cobra or my namesake (Flywheels), but for now I'll just have to settle with what I've got.  In a lot of ways I like this helicopter better than the authentic version.  He's better armed and has a better look in vehicle mode with the addition of the purple on the cockpit.  I wish the blue was more in line with the Hasbro version, but that is a small complaint.  

I've got a really interesting piece that I'm working on for the next installment of KO Korner that I'm excited about sharing with everyone.  So if you're into KOs or just a fan of a certain TF leader then make sure you keep visiting the blog for the next entry.

Uncanny Avengers

I've been removed from comics now for a couple of years.  It was hard to walk away from all the great stories and characters that I had grown to love over 10+ years, but for several reasons I had to walk.  My brother got me into reading (Marvel) comics back in 1991.  He introduced me to two new comics at that time, New Warriors and the Guardians of the Galaxy.  I went on for several years reading both books until my interest eventually waned.  Even though my brother kept reading, I moved onto other things - like collecting baseball cards (apparent by my other blog - see side bar) and of course toys.

One of my first jobs was working at a local drug store.  Remember when you could walk into a drug store and buy comics of the magazine rack?  The store didn't carry a lot of comics, but we did carry the old Wizard magazine.  Any magazines that didn't sell I got to have in exchange for returning the covers of the unsold mags.  One of these Wizard magazines I kept contained a copy of Uncanny X-Men #320.  This was the first part of the Legion Quest story which would eventually lead into the whole Onslaught story with Professor X wiping Magneto's mind clean and as a result creating the epic entity known as Onslaught.  Marvel Comics would go on to end a lot of their core titles at the time including the Avengers, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and Captain America.  These characters would end up in a pocket universe created by Franklin Richards, son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm of FF fame.  I mention all of this because this one story is what brought me back into comics.

While I enjoyed reading the various X-Men related titles, I jumped on board with Captain America and the Avengers at those titles originally ended.  I enjoyed the whole Heroes Return stuff, but as I grew older and I was working on graduating college I eventually strayed again from comics.  As the 3rd volume of the Avengers was collected by Marvel and released in oversized hardcovers I started my entry back into comics for a 3rd time.  Again it took a big storyline to draw me back in - this time it being Avengers Disassembled.  This time around though I wasn't just reading a few books, I was reading just about all of the non-mutant titles Marvel released.  Over the years I have really enjoyed a lot of the summer blockbuster stories such as Secret Invasion, Civil War and Siege.  However as Siege was wrapping up and the Fear Itself story was on the horizon my family life was changing yet again.  I bought a larger house and moved to South Carolina.  I was now a daddy.  My wife quit her job to be a stay at home mom and raise my new daughter.  I was laid off.  Money was tight.  This brings me full circle to where I began this post.

I didn't completely walk away from comics this time, though I had to really scale things back.  I was reading so many Marvel books some titles had to be cut in order to get down to my now much lower comic book budget.  One of the books I had started to read was the new Guardians of the Galaxy.  I mentioned this title was one of the first books I ever read so I was intrigued about this new cast of Guardians.  I was already a minor fan of Marvel's cosmic characters (thanks in large part of the New Warriors' Nova character) and this new GotG book just took my interest in the cosmic stuff to a new level.  I loved the whole War of Kings and Realm of Kings stories.  However I wasn't able to maintain my comic budget for much longer and I decided to quit cold turkey.

As with my previous hibernation from comics my older brother continued to read.  He would be my source of updates and information about what was happening in the Marvel Universe.  When he told me about the Avengers vs. X-Men event I was so intrigued.  Part of me wanted to pick up the series, but I was already barely affording one book a month (that being the excellent Thunderbolts).  So I passed on buying the books or really seeking out what was happening.  Several months ago I was kind brought up to speed about the AvX events thanks in part to my brother and the Facebook Avengers Alliance social media game.  I was told all about the new Uncanny Avengers book that would be spinning out of the AvX events.  My brother has been using a online comic book service for awhile now and they offer all sorts of discounts, especially on new books.  I got the first issue of Uncanny Avengers for something like 99 cents.  It's been sitting in my office at work for several weeks now, but I took some time at lunch the other day and finally sat down to read the first issue.  I enjoyed it so much that I stopped by this little shop down the road from work and picked up issue 2.

If you don't follow Marvel Comics I can sum up this new Avengers book pretty easily.  After the events of AvX the mutant population is without a leader.  Scott Summers (Cyclops) killed Professor Charles Xavier in a fit of rage let's call it after being consumed by the Phoenix force.  Captain America realizes that he and his non-mutant heroes haven't done enough to protect Xavier's dream of peaceful co-exhistance between homosapien and homosuperior.  In response to this Captain America decides to build a new team consisting of both Avengers and X-Men and asks Cyclops' younger brother, Havok to lead the team.

All the while Rogue and the Scarlet Witch are about to have it out at the foot of Xavier's tomb when they are attacked by a unknown group of individuals.  Both are taken hostage along w/ the body of Xavier.  It is revealed at the end of issue one that the culprit behind all of this is none other than the Red Skull.  His intentions are to remove the brain of Charles Xavier and meld it with his own to eradicate the mutant population.  Sounds eerily similar to Hitler and his dislike of the Jews.

The new book is written by Rick Remender with art by John Cassaday.  With only 2 issues in I'm already hooked and I feel that I'll be contacting my brother to order future issues for me.  While I'm still in the dark about a lot of things, I've kept up with enough to have a pretty good grasp on the overall story.  Marvel also has done a good job with their new Augmented Reality (AR) thing they have implemented.  Now that I have a smart phone I can scan the pages that feature the AR logo and I'm given all sorts of cool little nuggets of info.  I guess this is kind of the new footnote thing in comics.  I can't wait to see how this story continues to develop as it has really caught my attention with just two issues.  While I may not be "back into comics" per se, Marvel will be getting a few bucks from me each month assuming this title continues to captivate me and hold my attention.

Masters of the Universe Classics: Shadow Beast

Shadow Beast was originally released in February 2011 by Mattel exclusively on Mattycollector.com.  This was the 2nd larger "beast" figure they had released at the time.  The first being Gygor - Shadow Beast is a retooled version of the large ape.

Not being as well versed in Masters of the Universe as in other things I had to resort to the internet before making my initial decision of whether to buy this behemoth or not.  I found that these creatures did appear in the original Filmation television series, but also in the later and more modern Mike Young Productions (MYP).

His bio from his packaging:

Great ape-like beasts who live in tribes throughout the dark hemisphere, Shadow Beasts can only come out in the absence of light. Originally created by Count Marzo as a weapon to use against his enemies, the beasts were driven back by Princes Keldor and Randor and forced to reside in the shadows of Mount Barathrum. There they developed a long standing hatred of both the Human and Gar race. Easily manipulated, the ever growing colony of Beasts was later controlled by Beast Man in the service of Skeletor to take down Eternos Palace. With their great strength and stealth-like appearance, Shadow Beasts are more than a match for most heroic warriors!

Being that I already owned the awesome MOTUC Count Marzo figure I decided to go ahead and pick up this beast.  It also helped after I went back and watched a few MYP episodes and I was reminded at how awesome those beasts looked.

 

 

Let me start off by saying this figure is big, solid and heavy!  Now the original mold was used for the big ape Gygor and looking at the main body you can still see the ape like features.  This isn't a bad thing as both versions of the Shadow Beasts depict them as big, lumbering creatures.  However add the new head, hands and feet and you've got a great new figure.  I love the sculpted muscles and fur on this figure.  The Four Horsemen did an excellent job sculpting this large figure.

I particularly like the head sculpt.  From the large single black horn on the forehead to his exposed teeth this guy looks pretty menacing.  And let's not forget those red eyes.  I can see why Beast Man originally controlled these creatures.

His lone included accessory is this large spiked club.  I don't care if I was the most powerful man in the universe, I would not want to get hit by that thing.  Just like with the figure, great detail was put into the design and sculpt of this accessory.  This thing almost looks like a real piece of wood!

Shadow Beast features a good amount of articulation for a figure of it's size.  The shoulders and elbows feature hinge joints giving him good range of motion in his upper half.  Being that this toy was originally an ape the arms seem exceptionally long.  If you put his arms up and out he could even rival Shaquille O'Neal!  His squat, short legs can only move at the hip thanks to a swivel joint.  His head and hands & feet also feature a swivel type joint.  Thankfully the figure does stand well without any extra assistance.  Kudos to Mattel for pulling this off.

As I've paired down my MOTUC collection I've been back and forth on whether or not I wanted to keep this big guy.  He's very cool looking, but man does it take up a lot of space on a shelf.  I'm still debating this and his future is up in the air, but don't take my wavering on keeping him that the figure isn't worth owning.  It's a very solid piece and displays quite nicely - especially with his "leader", Count Marzo.

Transformers Arms Micron: Terrorcon Cliffjumper AM-08

When TakaraTomy sent out solicitations for AM-08 how could you not want this figure? Even though Cliffjumper didn't quite look like this in the Transformers Prime cartoon (being purple and all), this figure immediately jumped up on many people's want list - including me.

Exclusive to Japan, Terrorcon Cliffjumper is a translucent purple "redeco" of the First Edition Cliffjumper mold. Throw in a new Micron, C.L. and you've an excellent new toy to place on your Decepticon/Destron TF Prime shelf.

Terrorcon Cliffjumper comes packaged in the now standard Arms Micron boxes. Not only does it show his Micron, C.L. interacting with the toy, but other Microns (sold separately).

As you can tell there are a few mold changes for the Arms Micron release. Added are Micron ports to the car's hood and rear of the vehicle. I personally don't mind these small additions. If anything it just gives the car more "character".

Being an Arms Micron release means stickers. The windshield and windows are all black metallic stickers along with the tail lights. These stickers were nice and heavy feeling and nicely cut - they were very easy to apply. Thank you TakaraTomy for that...the stickers have deterred me from opening a lot of these Arms Micron toys.

Outside of the purple translucent plastic, maroon was used for the other robot bits. This all comes together nicely and gives off an evil vibe. A few more stickers were added to 'bot mode - around the hands, above the waist and on the shoulder pieces.

The new head sculpt looks equally as impressive as does the rest of the figure. I love the look of the broken horn.

Cliffjumper still retains his blasters that are hidden underneath this forearms. Simply lift up the forearm panels and rotate the fists around and wha-la!

The included Micron is an interesting one. C.L. transforms into what appears to be a double chainsaw type on weapon. At first I wasn't sure about him from the pictures I saw online, but once in hand he has become one of my favorite of these new snap together Microns.

The little guy was challenging to assemble. The sides of the figure are actually two large pieces that attach to the center via clips. These were very tight and hard to snap on.  I want to pick up the red recolor of this figure, but I hope he goes together easier than C.L. A lot of people early on dubbed this little guy Ravage and I can see why. He does resemble some sort of feline. Like with most of the Micron figures the majority of the stickers on the sticker sheet go on him. Thankfully his stickers are fairly big and apply easy. The only sticker you may need a toothpick to apply is the little red sticker for his cyclops eye.

Now that there has been a Terrorcon Bumblebee figure released in Japan, Cliffjumper will have another Terrorcon to pal around with. I'll eventually get that BB opened, stickered and photographed as well...just depends on how many dang blamed stickers I'll have to mess with!

Being an exclusive to Japan this version of Cliffjumper may set you back a little more than a typical Arms Micron release. I can't necessarily recommend him to everyone, especially with the SDCC and the upcoming First Edition Terrorcon versions floating around out there. It's a great figure none the less with in my opinion one of the best new animal based Microns.