Recently in review Category

Kind of amazed how awesome the Breakaway and Fracture repaints turned out to be.

Damn fantastic!

You can see I opted for the Hasbro Silverbolt too. After getting him, I can safely say that an extra $25 is not worth the G1 paint job!

Blitzwing really is the shocker though. Others may like him but I wish I'd never bought him.

He's loose as shit and quite frankly he's just an ugly robot.

And what's up with the continued craptastic quality control?

Fracture's paint job... and even Breakaway's is kind of crappy. For me there's enough good in the figure to outweigh the bad. And they also were cheaper.

But Silverbolt?

His waist is totally f'd up!

I've definitely seen this more and more. I think I'll start tagging the figures that have problems so I can look... over the course of the ones I buy from a given line... to see if patterns arise.

China is not going to become our Overlords with this kind of shoddy toy painting!

Now this is the way this mold is supposed to have been painted!

The predominantly orange and black colors, with a bit of light blue and silver/grey really works.

The red flames and exposed carb just make this one of the best painted alt modes in 20+ years of TFs.

Now the original Cybertron Wheeljack Downshift was ok, but with this repaint in Big Daddy hotness comes a repaint that is worth every penny.

However, with that said, mine has awful quality control as is even broke.

The silver should paint is really bad and the one clip to hold his waist to his chest is broken off.

This iteration of Skyblast is everything I could ever want in a Transformer.

All I gotta say is that if you like Robot Heroes then you have to pick up the Wal-Mart Online Exclusive set!

Sure you are saying "But Nala... They're just repaints!" but I'm here to tell you that you MUST own them!

Throw away your original Prime and Megs because these metallic finish bad boys are the way they should be!

Translucent Mirage? He's utterly tits-awesome as we say here in the House of Love!

Cliffjumper? Well he actually is better for this mold then when originally painted as Bumblebee.

Skywarp? Well... ok. He's lame. But I'm just not a Seeker guy.

Go online now and buy the Decepticon Sneak Attack set.

Do it now!

Yes. I know. It is Wal-Mart.

And yes, they suck.

But join me in being a total crack whore addict.

You must have these guys!

Well after waiting for 2 months my KISS Player Autolooper has finally arrived.

Or I suppose you can can him Autorooper, as the Japanese translation puts it.

Pick your favorite and go with it.

Ok. I got around to snapping some quick shots of the new wave minicons in bot mode.

Overall, I can't say I'm a huge fan of minicons.

Give me Micromasters any day over these guys.

And believe me. I'm not a G1 guy at all.

(Lotsa big ass photos in this one kids.)

After really putz'n around with the new minicons, I kinda wish they'd gone with a Classics Micromasters kind of vibe and by that I mean tiny versions of more standard looking bots.

Wow!

These guys are... how does one put it without offending... um... different.

I don't think I can put into words how totally unprepared I was for the level of suck that these 2 figures have made me feel.

Well... suck may be too harsh. They don't totally suck total balls. But they do suck partial balls.

Prime's truck mode (below) is just plain awful and contributes to his faults.

It is sad.

Anyway...

The new Jetfire figure in the Classics line is pure unadulterated love.

I think I may have just come across the worst single figure ever to bear the Transformers brand name.

And I'm talking worse than Wheelie and worse than Quickswitch.

So as you can probably tell from from a ton of my posts today I ended up going to the Iacon One convention this weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Evebird, Mr. N., and Giga and I trekked there in the Evewagon and it wasn't too bad of a trip. Getting there seemed to go by pretty fast actually and Fort Wayne is about right on the edge of the distance I can tolerate riding in a car at any given time.

The trip was good. The con?

While this is a bit premature with 3 more figures still to be acquired, I've got to put my two cents in on the recently released Titanium Series figures that I do have.

This includes War Within Optimus Prime, Unicron, Beast Megatron, Sidewipe, Jazz, and Starscream.

Well...

I was looking at Remy Rodis' new 10th Anniversary Beast Wars Optimus Primal gallery and you know what? I don't think I'll take a liking to this figure.

There's just something that doesn't jive well with my expectations of what a "Primal" figure should be nor with what I thought current engineering and design could give.

However, with that said, if the head was retooled slightly and his redeco was more white, I'd totally love this as say Magnus Primal, the "brother" of Optimus Primal in the tradition of the whole G1 Prime/Ultra Magnus brotherhood thing.

In fact, the gorilla mode in this pic makes it even more a Magnus Primal for me.

So I've been a total loser today and have been trying to figure out the best way to take toy photos with what I have available here in the Attic and with my old but trusty Olympus 2020Z camera.

I decided I'd spend some time with the new Transformers Universe Bonecrusher, who happens to be made from one of my favorite molds: Car Robots Build Boy.

Introducing...

Transformers Universe Bonecrusher!

So I opened the Scrapmetal I got the other day.

As is usual with the Cybertron line, the basics (scout class) are really pretty outstanding.

Now in Galaxy Force he's called Ramble and is more or less, with the other colored version out there, an very loose homage to G1 Rumble and Frenzy.

Other than the color and the silly "piledriver hands" I'm not seeing it.

He's more insect-like and even more vehicle like, reminding me more of a standard anime mecha than anything standard for Transformers.

I wish my camera were better and I could get in on the detail of his head but alas, grain city!

Ok. I'm gonna flat out say it: I loves me this Clocker repaint known as Swerve!

Mr. McBeard says "Swerve looks like the Batmobile for Alpha Flight" and that's true. He does. And I love it! (If Marvel owned it he'd be definitely done as Guardian's transforming vehicle in that mechamorph shit crapfest.)

Once again I think it is because of the simple color palette. I like the silver exhaust pipes. I like the huge black windshield. I'm not a fan of the huge autobot symbol on the hood but hey, I can't win everytime.

Swindle is a repaint of Hardtop and to me looks like a knock-off Transformer. The plastic even feels sort of knock-off-ish.

If he had black rubber wheels I'd probably like him a helluva lot better. I mean, as a vehicle he's suppose to have wheels that help him blend in as a "robot in disguise" so brown doesn't cut it. Ever!

Why Hasbro just didn't call him Beachcomber, color him blue and grey like the G1 Beachcomber who was the first TF dune buggy, and call it a day is beyond me. Kids wouldn't care and collectors who tend to like G1 shit would buy it as an homage. So I'm laying bets on this being a 2006 or 2007 Botcon exclusive.

Cybertron Swerve: Yay!

Cybertron Swindle: Meh!

Yay!

In the past line Energon we got Arcee and in Cybertron we get another female Cybertronian in the form of Thunderblast.

Alas, unlike Arcee, Thunderblast has a lot to be desired.