Phil's Transformer Reviews: 2018

Wednesday, 23 May 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Moonracer

Like many UK fans the source of my Transformers fiction pre Beast Wars comes mainly from the comic so I had no idea who Moonracer was. I thought I vaguely recognised her when the toy was revealed but I was probably confusing her with one of the many repaints of Energon Arcee like Superlink Paradon Medic or Botcon Chromia, both of whom have a similar colour scheme to Moonracer's mint green and white. Research revealed that she appeared in one episode of the cartoon's second season, The Search for Alpha Trion, which wasn't broadcast in the UK or released on video, and was part of a group of Female Autobots. The later point will become relevant later.

Robot: She feels very Arcee, different colour, new head even though there's never been a Combiner Wars Arcee, though if TFCC were still going I'd lay money on that being done as an exclusive. The robot mode feels very tall & thin but she's the same height as her wavemate Snarl so I guess that's her thinness emphasising her height. Beyond her almost generic female Transformer body the dominating feature is her backpack formed from large parts of her car mode folded up: it's HUGE, about twice the size of her Prime armour which is the same mould as Jazz's but in mint green with white thumbs and a clear blue gun/cover. The Prime armour attaches to her chest with slots in the chest's sides fitting the tabs on the Prime armour thumbs. In addition to the Prime armour she comes with a black gun with a 5mm peg handle and 5mm peg rear.

Articulation: ball jointed neck, shoulders, elbow, and hips. The ball joint on the neck on mine is very loose on both the copies I hve. The neck also folds forward & back at it's base. There's a turning waist joint, actually two waist joints as we'll see from the transformation. Double bending knee and a very odd ankle joint which has a bar at the side of the foot & leg which swings up at the top where it joins the leg, but no further back than a 90° angle with the leg. Where the bar meets the foot the foot can pivot sideways giving her the equivalent of an ankle rocker joint.

Slightly worryingly the ball joints on the shoulders are made of clear plastic as is the entire chest, which folds forward as part of the Transformation. Clear parts that move and take stress have a habit of breaking

Can't say the robot is thrilling me, sorry!

Transformation: bring the feet together then rotate the feet forward and up so the slot near the toes fits over the tab sticking out the side of the leg. Rotate the waist joint 180° and fold the clear par of the backpack down over the legs, locking the feet into it. Rotate the upper waist joint 180°, lift the chest up, fold the head back into it, and fold the chest back down. Bend the elbows 90°, rotate the arms at the shoulders so the lower arms point up. Fold the white sides of the backpack up, making sure tabs on them fit slots on the shoulder and that tabs on the robot's lower arm panel meet slots in the rear of the white back panel. Fold the hands in.

Car mode is long and thin, which is vaguely what you'd expect from the robot. Unfortunately it looks little like her Cybertronian vehicle mode which she had in the cartoon which may be a black mark for some people. It's also the first Combiner Wars deluxe to be moulded as a a Cybertronian vehicle rather than an Earth based one although several, notably the Technobots, were adapted from Earth vehicles. There's a single Prime Master footpeg on the top of the vehicle, enabling them to use the car as a giant skateboard! A 5mm hole is on either side of the vehicle at the back and they're the best place to mount the gun and the Prime armour: She's got a 5mm hole at the front of the car, but that points down slightly allowing insufficient clearance for either item at the front of the vehicle. The hole at the rear also doesn't point directly back, it's slightly pointing up meaning the gun looks at an odd angle and the Prime armour needs it's peg hinge bent. As a further complication the hole at the back has a cut in it severely reducing the clutch between it and anything placed in it.

So neither of the stand alone modes has set my world on fire. Nothing disastrous in either of them, just nothing wildly interesting. The limb modes however, and their transformation in particular is a different story:

Arm mode: bring the feet together then rotate the feet forward and up so the slot near the toes fits over the tab sticking out the side of the leg. Rotate the upper waist joint 180°, lift the chest up, fold the head back into it, and fold the chest back down. Bend the elbows 90° then rotate the arms at the shoulders so the lower arms point forward. Fold the white sides of the backpack up, making sure that tabs on the robot's lower arm panel meet slots in the top of the white back panels. Fold the hands in. Fold the combiner connector out. Transform her Prime Armour into hand mode and place into the hole in her robot mode feet/front of the car.

Does what you'd expect though th part of the robot's backpack that covers the legs in car mode either needs to hang off the arm or be folded up and gets in the way in either case.

Leg mode: This proved interesting! I thought it was move the arms forward, fold the combiner connector out and stick a foot in the 5mm peg hole on the front of the car, but that produces a leg that's far too long. Useful paired with itself or a longer leg made from her repaint Novastar maybe. I haven't experimented to see if any of the other hidden socket limbs, Rook I'm looking at you, match her in length!

The actual transformation to leg mode is much more complex than any other Combiner Wars style combiner: Fold the front section of the car, containing the front wheels, forward 180° under the car so that the tabs on it's underside recess into the holes on the robot's legs:it's a bit fiddly and you'll need to use both knee joints. Raise the part of the robot's backpack that covers the upper legs in car mode and fold out a mint green piece with a 5mm socket in it from the front. Fold the backpack flap back into place, locking the 5mm socket between the robot's knees. Fold the white car sides containing the arches for the rear wheels out to the sides, unlocking the robot arms which you then swing up 90°. Fold the car sides back in with the tab on the upper arm panel fitting in a slot on the top of the car sides. Fold out the combiner connector out and push a foot into th hole at the bottom of the leg.

OK when you get there but the lock between the robot's knees and the piece holding the 5mm hole isn't good, it feels like it's more reliant on the stiffness of the hinge to the piece than the connections between the piece and the knees.

Then we have the thorny issue of who to combine her with. To reiterate, in The Search for Alpha Trion Moonracer was part of a group of six Female Autobots with Firestar, Chromia, Greenlight & Lancer which was led by Elita One. Power of the Primes has toys of Elita-1 and Firestar, renamed Novastar but no other members of the group. Since Chromia has been done in Generations and has gone on to have a reasonably independent fictional existence you'd expect Greenlight & Lancer to be filling the roles of the two remaining limbs for the combiner? No. Unless they show up as exclusives, Hasbro has shown no signs of doing them. I suppose, given that they're Cybertronian vehicles, they might show up in the next toyline War For Cybertron. There aren't spare female Autobots in Power of the Primes, or Combiner Wars for that matter, to complete an all female combiner like Victorion or Megatronia. Of course it needn't be an all female combiner: mixed sex combiners were established twenty years ago in Beast Wars II with Scylla forming part of God Neptune. There aren't even enough spare Autobots in the main line with just Jazz being not definitively assigned to a team, although his packaging artwork does picture him as part of Elita Infinite alongside a grey/black Jazz repaint. The remaining unassigned deluxes in the line, Dreadwind & Blackwing, are both Decepticons which seem to gravitate more naturally to being used with Starscream and I don't have Elita-1 down as having the cross faction combining powers that Galvatronus and maybe Grand Scourge seem to have. The exclusive Wreck-Gar seems the best bet to complete the team but then it doesn't quite have the coherency that a robot formed from the all female group in the cartoon would seem to have. The solution I've reluctantly gone for is to buy doubles of Moonracer & Novastar to act as stand ins for Greenlight & Lancer temporary limbs for Elita 1nfinite until better alternatives emerge.

So yeah. OK but not thrilling robot and vehicle but the some very interesting transformations.

Moonracer is sold at 1 per case in Power of the Primes Wave 2 alongside 2 each of Snarl, Sludge & Rippersnapper and one of Blackwing. Blackwing and Rippersnapper return in Wave4, the wave which introduces Moonracer's repaint Novastar, but wave 2 is the only place to get Moonracer making her statistically the hardest to find Power of the Primes deluxe. Why not continue her into Wave 3, alongside the remaining Terrorcons, instead of bringing the unwanted Jazz back again?

Generations Power of the Primes Novastar

The Female Autobots group member Firestar is renamed Novastar for Power of the Primes, presumably not to infringe any trademark Marvel has on the name through the super heroine seen in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.

To make the new toy everything green becomes red. The white piece in her body becomes grey. The white of her upper legs, hands and Prime Armour thumbs turns orange. The rest of the white turns red. The gun and head are replaced with new ones to further distinguish her from Moonracer.

Future Repaints

Greenlight and Lancer. Let me finish my Female Autobots combiner.

Wouldn't be 100% surprised to see this back as either Arcee or Chromia either.

Tuesday, 22 May 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Rippersnapper

Rippersnapper was the Shark monster Terrorcon. For some reason I never cottoned on he was meant to be a shark when I was younger, the significance of the fin on the back of his gun evading me. The arms and legs, not noted features on a shark, distracted me and I think I thought he was a T-Rex or similar, something reinforced by the reuses of his Cyberverse Legion version. But an odd shark monster with arms and legs he is!

The original Rippersnapper was always short and squat in robot mode, with very small arms, so it almost feels odd to see the same design stretched out to the proportions of a Combiner Wars/Power of the Primes deluxe: he almost feels too tall and thin now! The arms especially feel quite long & spindly, but as we'll see they're pulling double duty as the beast mode arms too and to facilitate this he has Wolverine style claws on the back of his hands. The hands are worth drawing attention to because they turn! I can't remember the last time I saw a rotating wrist on a deluxe and nowadays they're increasingly rare on Voyagers and Leaders! In addition to the wrists he has ball joints at elbow, shoulder, neck & hips, his waist turns and his knees bend.

Rippersnapper come with two long thin symmetrical guns, attached to his back out the package. I think they're meat to be each barrel of his old Shark's fin gun but they just lack the character the older weapon did. They can be rotated down out the way, or left pointing up over the shoulders, or removed to act as hand guns. However before you remove them it's worth noting that there's probably a right way round to be mounting them on the back and it's not how they're mounted out the package. The reasoning for this won't become clear till beast mode though!

He also come with Prime armour, which is moulded the same as that found with the Dinobots, and both the armour and it's cover/gun are in the same blue as his arms. I've got two Rippersnappers but one of them has a cover/gun that doesn't quite hold in place. It's the only Power of the Primes toy I've had this problem with. The Prime armour itself attaches to the chest via a 5mm peg hole, concealed under a flap on his combiner connector.

Transformation: Remove the Prime Armour and, if you've moved them, attach the guns to his back. Turn the head 180°. Fold the beast head forward over the robot head, concealing it, and tab into place. Rotate the waist 180°. Open the back of the lower legs and fold the upper legs down into them before closing again. Tab the robot lower legs and tail halves together, folding the tail out. Unpeg the beast legs, a shallow peg on the body recessed into the inner side of the knee, and pose. Rotate the wrists so the claws are on top of the hands.

The beast mode is the original toy's shark monster but upscaled and with added articulation. Arms retain what movement they had in robot mode, legs have ball jointed hips and bending knees. The mouth opens, revealing his face if you've forgotten to rotate the head during transformation. The fin is now moulded into his back giving the gun barrels the freedom to fold forward or back. Now I think that when folded forwards, pointing out beside his head, the little Primemaster peg on each gun should be on top, allowing a Prime or Titan Master to stand on the gun and for the sight to be on top of the barrel. Another pair of footpegs is provided just behind the fin plus a pair of tabs on his lower back for attaching his Prime Armour in this mode.

The Dinobots were good updates of their originals but on the strength of these two mode alone Rippersnapper is the stand out deluxe in Power Of The Primes so far. He's just so fun.

But Rippersnapper also functions as a combiner limb, primarily for Abominus.

Leg Mode: take the beast mode and fold the tail forwards under the body. Fold each knee forward and peg onto the rear of the body. Bend each arm then rotate 180° at the elbow so the arm points back and then tab onto the body. Fold the beast head back, fold the combiner connector out rotating the robot head into the body. Fold the beast head onto the beast's back.

Solid functional leg. No complaints here.

Arm Mode: Take the robot mode and tab the legs together. Fold each beast leg knee forward bringing the feet in. Bend each arm then rotate 180° at the elbow so the arm points back and then tab onto the body. Fold the beast head back, fold the combiner connector out rotating the robot head into the body. Fold the beast head back onto the robot's back's back.

Decent arm mode too. All the beast parts lock easily enough, no loosely hanging kibble.

Win Win all round. Best POTP deluxe.

Rippersnapper is sold in Power of the Primes deluxe wave 2, with 2 of Sludge, 2 of Snarl and 1 each of Moonracer and Blackwing.

Generations Power of the Primes Blot

Since Blot & Rippersnapper are both bipedal monsters, it's not a surprise to find them sharing parts but it isn't a huge amount. The Prime Armour, waist, hips, upper legs and Combiner Connector are the same on both toys albeit cast in pale purple for Blot.

Future Repaints

The Terrorcons have led something of an interesting life as recolours of their Beast Hunters versions: Rippersnapper & Blot appear in Predacons Rising as Clear Rippersnapper & Clear Blight, in Transformers Go as the purple Jurara and red Burara and in Transformers: The Last Knight as the black Glug & Gorge.

Ripprsnapper has also been used as Cyberverse Cindersaur, though a repaint as that is unlikely thanks to the forthcoming Legends. However Rippersnapper has also been a Cyberverse version of Grimlock no less than four times now for Age of Extinction, the Generation One Legions, another Age of Extinction Legion and a Toys R Us 2 pack.

Monday, 21 May 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Snarl

Snarl was the first Dinobot I got when I was younger, a weapon less 1990 purchase off a market stall in Kingston that had previously only ever supplied me with bits of the matchbox version of Judge Dredd's Land Raider. It would be a years or so before I acquired Grimlock & Sludge, courtesy of their gold box classic versions an my first Slag was a green G2 version, with an original following shortly after: to this day I have never owned Swoop. So I have something of a soft spot for Snarl.

Straight out the packaging he's evidentially the original Dinobot. Legs are spot on, with the dino head halves now hidden behind the legs instead of at the sides. The body has been thinned down, with his combiner connector replacing the cockpit for a Diaclone warrior. The arms are slightly beefed up and in an odd choice the shoulders are now clear plastic instead of the grey used for the legs. As this piece has the ball joint for his shoulder embedded in it it is a worry for later. His forearms have been lengthened and are now gold, another odd choice: I'd have made them black but then that would be too much like Sludge maybe? Like the original his tail is split in two and spread out as wings behind and just above his shoulders but, if I'm being picky, the flat inner face now face front rather than the curved one.

Articulation: ball jointed head & shoulders, bicep swivels & bending elbow. Rotting waist. Ball jointed hips, thigh swivel and bending knee. 5mm hands to hold his weapons, but he's missing his signature gun coming with just a clear sword, not even red like Swoop's and the original Dinobots. Like the other POTP land based deluxe Dinobots, Sludge & Slug, he has 5mm ports on both shoulders and on the middle of his chest though the chest port is mounted on his combiner connector. As per the other Dinobots he comes with Prime Armour, which can be attached to his chest, used as a weapon or forms a combiner hand: you can pick his out easily as the 5mm peg is gold on his, not black like the others.

Transformation: remove his weapons. Pull the tail halves back and fold the head back into the exposed cavity. Fold the tail halves closed and swing up covering the robot's neck. Fold the hands into the forearms, bend the arms and swing the shoulder joints back 90°. Swing open the panels on the rear of the legs, tab the legs together, fold the lower legs back 180° at the lower knee joints, close the panels , fold the head forward and position the forelegs.

So very nearly spot on: the tail has too muck silver grey in it's base and isn't gold. The gold robot forearms now make sense as they're serving as the Stegosaur's rear lower legs which always were gold but folded back under the arms on the original Snarl. Arm articulation for the robot is transferred to the rear Stegosaur legs, forelegs rotate at the hips & bend at the knees. Rear legs hips have 5mm peg holes on the side for mounting weapons, they're the only ones on the dinosaur mode. The top of the rear of his body has a Primemaster footpeg on either side and there's another on the inner faces of the largest pair of plates, which can fold to the sides.

Apart from the robot shoulders, which worry me, a pretty decent go at reinterpreting Snarl. Needs his original gun though!

Snarl also serves as a combiner limb, principally for the Dinobot combiner Volcanicus.

Leg mode: Take the beast mode. Fold the head down underneath the beast, exposing a 5mm port. Swing the rear legs down and tab onto the grey front of the beast, swinging the forelegs up. Fold the tail forward & up, don't split the tail as some of the first pictures of the combiner did, and fold up the combiner connector.

Solid leg, with the tail covering a large part of the combiner's upper leg.

Arm Mode: take the robot mode, fold the tail back & bring the tail halves together. Fold the head back and raise the combiner connector. Bend the arms at the elbows, rotate 180° at the bicep and tab the gold forearms onto the sides of the red body. Open the panels on the rear of the legs and fold the 5mm port down behind the feet. Close the panels up again, tab the legs together, rotate the waist 180° degrees and insert his Prime Armour's peg into the hold under the legs to act as a hand.

Again a decent arm. No complaints.

So a pretty good update of the original toy plus two decent limb modes. A definite win!

Snarl is sold in Power of the Primes deluxe wave 2, with 2 of Sludge, 2 of Rippersnapper and 1 each of Moonracer and Blackwing.

Generations Power of the Primes Sinnertwin

The Power of the Primes version of Sinnertwin reuses a number of parts from Snarl, notably most of those moulded in black on the Dinobot. The fists, elbows, combiner connector, waist, hips and upper legs are all reused on the Terrorcon, but in a greeny blue colour. The only obvious black part from Snarl not reused is his head!

Future Repaints

When Snarl was released as a Diaclone Toy his chest was black instead of red. His Generation 2 toy was available with his silver grey swapped for either Green or Red.

When Snarl's toy was unveiled at Hascon 2017 images showed him with an additional gun in Dinosaur Mode which was missing from later images and the finished toy. This gun resembles the weapon on the front of Dinoforce Goryu's Pretender Shell which, coupled with the Yokuryu head for POTP Cutthroat accidentally shown at NYCC 2017 makes many people think a Dinoforce/Dinoking repaint of the POTP Dinobots/Volcanicus might be coming. However I'm not sure Snarl will stretch to being Goryu's Monster Pretended repaint Scowl.

Sinnertwin's Beast Hunters version Twinstrike has a Clear Yellow repaint in Predacons Rising, a Green version as Transformers Go Garara and a Grey/Black version as Transformers The Last Knight Thrash.

Tuesday, 27 March 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Sludge

The original Slag & Sludge always had vaguely similar lower legs, formed from the rear of their beast modes, so it comes as little surprise to find them sharing parts on their Power of the Primes versions. They share robot legs, arms, hands, combiner connectors & guns. The arms have black paint on the forearms, as per the original Sludge but this will have an effect later. The unique pieces here are the body and head: From early pictures I thought that Slugs's chest appeared to form Sludge's back but in hand it's obvious they're different pieces, but I could see that maybe this was the plan at one stage. It's somewhat of a surprise not to see the combiner connector in Sludge's chest: done in black that would have made for a decent simulation of his Diaclone pilot's compartment. Instead there's an area painted black with a 5mm peg hole in it for mounting Sludge's Prime Armour on. The wings, formed from the front of the dinosaur body, are still there but sit slightly lower than we're used to with Sludge. The head, modelled on his animation bucket like design, can turn freely on Sludge which is the only change in articulation to Slug. His only real weapon is his gun, identical to Slug's. It would be nice to have something closer his original and I'm sure Shapeways will provide. It would also be nice to have his sword. However since I've doubled up on my Dinobots so I can have them individually and as Volcanicus I have a spare set of weapons from those combined so Sludge gets Snarl's sword.

Transformation: Remove the gun and Prime armour. Raise the arms, fold the hands into the forearms and fold the wings closed across his chest. Rotate the waist 180° then transform the legs just as you did for Slug. The back of the wings, now the front of the dinosaur, tabs into Sludge's robot feet. Rotate the biceps 180° then bend the elbows and swing the shoulders back so the bottom of the feet on what is now the front legs are level with the feet on the rear legs. Raise the flap on the Dinosaur's neck, which is down the robot's back/underneath the dinosaur, and fold the neck over the robot's head closing the flap to conceal it. Rotate the mid neck joint so the head is the right way up.

Bar some slight colour differences, the back is grey instead of chromed silver and the front lower dinosaur legs are now painted black thanks to his forearms not being stored under the dinosaur, this isn't a bad go at doing a new Transformers Brontosaurus, a beast mode that's been frequently skipped when the Dinobots were re-released. Before his Film and Platinum Editions, the last time Sludge was a Brontosaur was in the Gold Boxed Classics line, when only he, Grimlock & Snarl were released. These later two also appear in G2 but Sludge is replaced by Slag, creating a further link between the two, and the only appearance of a Sludge between then and Age of Extinction is as a Dimetrodon in the Wal*Mart exclusive Dinobots line. The head's nice, complete with opening jaw. Forelegs are identical to Slug except Slug's inner leg is the outside of Sludge's resulting in the loss of two 5mm peg holes. The new back legs worry me: solid units made out of clear plastic. I'd have made them in grey plastic like the original! A pair of Titanmaster footpegs are on top of the shell, with a 5mm peg hole on each side for the gun and Prime Armour. In theory either could fit in the 5mm looking hole on the top of the back of the neck but the earlier feels a bit loose, and already has stress marks on mine, while the latter is a bit too small for a 5mm peg.

Sludge also forms a limb for the Dinobot combiner Volcanicus.

Leg Mode: Start from the dinosaur mode, fold the tail back, fold the forelegs along the sides of the dinosaur, then fold the neck back onto the back of the dinosaur. Initial pictures showed the dinosaur head upside down in this mode, putting a lot of people off, but the swivel mid neck allows it to be put the right way up. Fold up the combiner connector.

Arm Mode: Start from the dinosaur mode, transforming the rear of the dinosaur into the robot legs and tab them together. Repeat with the neck and forelegs as above.

Generally really happy with Sludge. Very good modern interpretation. The back legs worry me, but I'll be careful with them.

Monday, 26 March 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Blackwing

When Blackwing, a new version of Powermaster Darkwing was revealed at the San Diego Comicon 2017 Collector's Preview Breakfast it was clear he was an obvious retool of Combiner Wars Air Raid. But like his brother Generations Power of the Primes Dreadwind, a Skydive retool, the story when in hand isn't as simple as it first looked.....

Large amounts of the toy are the same: everything from the waist downwards is constituting the grey used on the waist, tail wings and lower leg halves, the harder cyan plastic used for the hips, upper legs & inner leg strut, the rubbery cyan plastic used for the tail find and blue plastic used for the knees. Elsewhere on the toy the blue plastic recurs on the lower arms, unchanged unlike his brother, while the rubbery cyan gets painted grey on the jet nose. Everything else is not found on Air Raid despite parts looking quite similar in jet mode. What's interesting is Blackwing seems to share a sprue with Dreadwind which wasn't present on either Skydive or Air Raid: this is moulded in the same blue plastic as the lower arms & knees and consists of the lower part of the combiner connector, marked with an upside down trapezium, and the fingers, thumbs & hinge of the Prime Armour. The top of the combiner connector is new, in a contrasting grey, but it's obscured from the front by a blue fold down panel which, with the rest of the new blue body, does a good job of impersonating the original Darkwing body from the front. The head is a spot on replica of the original, moulded in grey with a lovely painted purple visor. The wings on his back look the same as Air Raid's but aren't: although the same general shape they're missing all the detail of the original's wings. The appear to be purple but a small tab sticking out the bottom reveals them to be moulded in blue plastic, so probably on the same sprue as the body & chest panel. The base of the wings, in grey like most of the robot's black is a new piece. The wings can no longer fold back like they could on Air Raid which is a shame because if the could he'd have looked more like Darkwing in robot mode. Instead they now rotate at their base for reasons that will become apparent. Blackwing comes with two small guns that vaguely resemble the original's but aren't anywhere near big enough.

The robot mode isn't a bad go: if you said "Make Darkwing from an Combiner Wars Aerialbot" this is about what you'd imagine it would look like in robot mode.

Transformation: almost the same as Air-Raid, but the head needs to be reversed first. Where the jet nose was previously pointing up on the robot's back and needed folding up & forward, it now points down and is just folded up on a hinge that looks far too thin! Two nabs on the back of the nose notch into the body to secure it.

The jet mode is very very similar to Air Raid's. In fact looking at it you wonder what the point is with the parts that have been changed and remoulded! He now has a Titanmasater foot peg on either side of the body and the 5mm hole on the top of the jet is still there which, like Dreadwind, allows the Prime Armour to be mounted like a G2 Decepticon jet voice box. Gone are the 5mm holes under each wing so to mount the guns in this mode you'll need to use the 5mm holes on the side of each arm, inherited from the original Air Raid forearms.

The point of the new parts becomes clear now: they're needed for the combined Dreadwing jet mode, a signature feature of the original Dreadwind and Darkwing toys. The nose & top of the jet, anything that was on the back of the robot, all folds back at what was the robot's waist bringing the robot head with it, attached to the back of the jet by a thin strut and not to the combiner connector. The wings then rotate 180° at their base: they're attached by ball joints but seem to pop off really easily on my copy. I notice the grey plastic the socket pieces are made of looks a flatter, less glossy, grey than the rest of the toy and feels a bit rubbery. A strut with a 5mm peg on it folds out the robot's back into the space previously occupied by the head on the top of the combiner connector. Fold the back of the jet back down into place, with the nose folded onto it's back, like in robot mode, and the robot head folded back into the base of the nose. Take the Dreadwind jet, with it's wings moved so they're alongside the rear of the jet, and plug the post on the front of Dreading into the hole on the back of Blackwing.

Yup, that's it, one 5mm post securing the two halves of the combined Dreadwing jet together. The connection is poor, as both halves turn in relation to the other and it easily falls apart. The wings from Blackwing have tabs sticking up from them in this more which looks like they should lock into something but I have no idea what! The don't slip under Dreadwind's wings and there's no tab holes there for them to fit into! It looks sort of like the original Dreadwing, albeit with Blackwing's head obviously on display. It's a very odd thing, they've gone to a lot of effort to make it possible to combine the jets and then just given up at the last minute. Whereas the changes to Dreadwind are minimal, though the wings would have been better kept behind the shoulders in robot mode, Blackwing's changes destabilise the mould a bit by having wings that pop off and don't fold away in robot, arm or leg mode. I can see why they did what they did but that combined mode needed to connect together much more solidly to work and if it didn't do that then they were almost better off not bothering: both Dreadwind and Blackwing would have been better toys with just the robot mode changes.

Arm Mode: From robot mode, tab the legs together and fold the head bck into the nose. The shoulders need to be folded up onto the top of the body, with the arms pointing out to the sides and then bent at the elbow so the lower arms are along the side of the body allowing the unused tabs on the wings to attach to slots in the forearms.

Leg mode: From plane mode fold the jet nose and back, not just the nose, back onto the tail fins. Fold the nose and first portion of the back forward so the tabs on the underside of the air intakes tab onto the slots on the rear of the body. The wings can be then swung in and then folded straight up the back similar to how they were on the previous Air Raid leg mode. The wing base ball joints do tend to pop out when you do this though!

Blackwing is one per case of 8 in Power of the Primes deluxe wave 2: he is due to return in Wave 4.

Future Repaints

If there is any justice in the world then Dreadwind and Blackwing should be repainted into Buster & Hydra.

Monday, 26 February 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Alpha Trion with Landmine and Alchemist Prime with Submarauder

Prime Masters

The Prime Master size is the successor to Titans Returns Titanmaster. Both sizes use identical figures, down to footpeg holes, ankle spur, articulation, size and transformation. Gone is the Head on their back, replaced by one of the symbols of the twelve Primes, which leads us to believe there will be twelve Prime Masters. The Prime Masters bear the names of the Prime whose symbol is on their backs. The Prime Masters have replaced the chest screw with a pin which makes customising them much harder: several were intending to replace the Prime symbols with the faces of the Pretender robots that their Decoy Suit represented.

The Transforming accessory is now replaced by a Decoy Suit, about 5cm high x 3.5cm wide x 1.5cm deep, based on the shell of a 1988/1989 Pretenders Character. This opens up, via a hinge on the feet, to accommodate a Prime Master inside. Since Prime Masters & Titan Masters are the same size your old Titan Masters can also fit inside the Pretender Shell. The shell has holes in it's feet the same size as the Titanmaster footpeg holes, but the spacing varies from toy to toy. The shell's arms are articulated at the shoulders allowing them to raise. The hands are a 3mm peg hole which it can use to hold it's weapon. The weapon can also be attached to the Pretender's back via studs on the side of the weapon which fit dimples either side of a gap on the back. The gap size varies between the different shells so a shell can only store it's own weapon like this. The Pretender shell itself can transform into a weapon: the weapon on the back folds up so it's pointing out from the head and a 5mm handle folds out between the shell's feet enabling it to be held with the plainer back of the Pretender shell facing up. The transformed Prime Master can attach to the top of the weapon via two footpegs, forming a cube that powers the weapon, or the Prime Master can sit in it and act as a gunner. The weapons are perhaps a little large for a deluxe, suiting the Voyager and Leaders toys better.

The shell & Prime Master are seemingly constructed with just two frames of plastic: One contains the back of the shell, the weapons mode handle and the chest & lower legs of the Prime Master. The other contains the weapon, the arms of the shell and the arms, upper legs, head & backpack of the Prime Master.

There is something of a discontinuity having a different character inside the shell instead of who the shell originally belongs to!

Alpha Trion with Landmine

Landmine was missed out from the retail range in Japan, with Metalhawk taking his place in the Wave 1 Pretenders. So it's kind of funny that Alpha Trion with Landmine is a repaint of Vector Prime with Metalhawk. Blue becomes off white, Dark Grey becomes yellow and the chest of the Pretender is a new piece moulded in grey plastic, then painted yellow, resembling Landmine's original shell. The gun is unpainted here and does a better job than on Metalhawk, resembling Landmine's original gun

The inner robot is a little way off for Landmine: they've got the grey arms & head, with it's yellow painted face, right but everything else is all over the place. As for being Alpha Trion, well yellow & grey are not Alpha Trion's colours!

Landmine's release, opposite Skullgrin, completes the ground based Pretenders from the 1988 Wave 1.

Alchemist Prime with Submarauder

Submarauder was the seagoing Decepticon in 1988's Wave 1. He has a pale blue Decoy Suit, with white arms and a front moulded in the same colour but heavily painted to match the back of the Decoy Suit: for both Landmine and Submarauder you wonder if Hasbro might have been better breaking the "front moulded in the same colour as the arms" pattern! Suiting his nautical status he's armed with a trident which sadly he can only hold in front of him and not upright! However if you're a Diaclone Reboot fan you might have DA-12 Gyroseptor or DA-13 Dartloader both of which contain a piece for turning a 3mm peg through 90°

The Alchemist Prime Primemaster is white, with blue chest & lower legs and looks nothing like Submarauder's inner robot!

I'm borderline on the weapons mode: the stabbing trident works much better than Skullgrin's claw, but it still has a big blocky base. However it can be held upright. If there was a Power of the Primes version of a certain seagoing Combiner, he'd make a good weapon for it.

Friday, 2 February 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Tailgate

In 1986 five of the 1984 Mini Autobots, inherited from the Microchange toyline, were remoulded and redcoed to become new characters: Brawn, Cliffjumper, Gears, Huffer & Windcharger became respectively Outback, Hubcap, Swerve, Pipes & Tailgate. Of the 1984 Minibots only Bumblebee missed out on a redeco primarily because he was still available in the 1986 cases. This makes the decision to paint the similarly moulded Cliffjumper yellow as Hubcap look even more odd but evidence exists that Hubcap should be white and Tailgate yellow which is how things have remained. We missed out on a white repaint of RTS Windcharger, he instead gets coloured black as Wipe-Out during Transformers United. So when Tailgate gained in popularity after the launch of Transformers: More than Meets the Eye it was no surprise to see Tailgate released first during Generations Thrilling 30 and Windcharger become the redeco during Combiner Wars. The problem here is the T30 Tailgate is strongly modelled on his More Than Meets The Eye appearance, and not his 1986 toy or briefly seen cartoon appearance and Windcharger inherited those characteristics leading to a toy many were not satisfied with. That lead to Power of the Primes Windcharger in Legends Wave 1 and since a toy/cartoon style Tailgate is an easy redeco it quickly followed in Wave 2 to avoid any possibility of money being left on the table rather than in Hasbro's bank account.

So this is nearly a straight colour swap: red plastic and paint turn white, grey turns a greeny blue. A new head appears to mimic Tailgate's original. It's cast in the blue green plastic with white paint on the head surround and silver on the face plate. Silver is also used on the chest to make it look more like the original Tailgate's. I had thought from the photos that it was a new chest but something looked a little odd about it. In hand I can see it's the same and I can also see why it looks odd on him and Windcharger: It's an amalgam of their chest designs with paint and decals used to bring out different details here, but ultimately it doesn't look 100% right on either toy.

Transformation and articulation is the same, there isn't a lot you can say to describe it other than this is a repainted Windcharger with a new head. Ultimately if you want the MTMTE character, this isn't the toy for you and you should track down the T30 version. But if you don't care which Tailgate, or specifically want the toy/cartoon version than this is the toy for you.

Future Repaints

Repaint Tailgate in black as Wipe-Out from Transformers US #27 please!

Generations Power of the Primes Battleslash, Roadtrap & Battletrap

Generations Power of the Primes Battleslash

When Battleslash was first leaked to Transformers fans he appeared to be called Battleclash. Somewhere along the line that's become Battleslash which looks a little odd when there's already a Dinobot Slash in the previous wave of Legends toys.

Battleslash is a new character appearing for the first time in Power of the Primes. He's mainly white robot with a slightly odd looking stance thanks to his wide waist and legs. The chest is pushing big buttons for me reminding me of SOMETHING, with a Decepticon symbol in the middle and two barrel ends set into purple panels to the sides. His right arm has a helicopter blade on it, reminding me a little of Power Core Searchlight. He's got 5mm Fists but no weapon, a rotating head and ball joint knees, hips, elbows & shoulders. The shoulders are very odd: the base of the ball joint points back rather than into the body so you'll be pushed to get a full range of movement from them: they'll raise from by the side to pointing forward but no further, bu swing them out to the sides and he can raise his arms above his head.

Transformation: fold the chest forward, fold the head into it and fold the chest back up. Fold the back down, releasing the tabs into the shoulder hinges, and fold each shoulder hinge 90° out to the sides. Fold the sides of the lower leg down under the feet and rotate each lower leg 180° at the knee. Separate the waist and fold each waist half up through where the arms were so the legs meets and tab together above the robot's neck, where the head was. Swing each arm round on the shoulder hinge so they're pointing out to the sides. Fold the arms down so they point the same way as the legs.Swing each lower arm in 90° at the elbow. Bend the elbow 180°, a motion it couldn't manage in robot mode, so the front of the lower arm lies along the inner face of the upper arm and tabs into place. Fold the arm halves up over the robot's thighs and tab together, then tab into the robot's knees. Close the back of the chest, the helicopter's cockpit and fold the helicopter's nose into place.

Yes.... those arms weren't fun to Transform. You can see what's meant to happen but the series of steps you need to go through is somewhat complicated.

As helicopters go Battleslash feels quite chunky. It's also got a massive square hole in the front of the nose which looks rather unsightly. A weapon that fitted into the gap might have been nice. There's accommodation for a Titanmaster on the tail against the tail fin but, like Slash, he needs to bet sat with the knees bent the wrong way. He looks like he'll be decapitated but incredibly he blades will spin and miss him ..... but it's close.

Compared to recent vehicle Legends Battleslash feels a little sub par: the vehicle isn't quite right and there's nowhere to sit the Titanmaster inside him. However Battleslash has one more role to play .....

Generations Power of the Primes Roadtrap

Roadtrap is a squat chunky blue robot with some yellow, pink and silver detailing. Like Roadtrap his chest design, panels on the upper chest slanted in towards each other reminds me of someone but I'm not sure who. He's got ball joints at the knees, hips, elbows and shoulders.

Transformation: Pull the black struts the wheels are attached to down under his feet. Fold the pink painted upper portion of the lower leg back 90°, taking the upper leg with it, and fold the pink bits forward again so they're sitting further back than they were previously. Fold the chest down so it covers the lower legs. Fold the shoulders out to the sides and back so the arms are under the vehicle and tab the arms into the top of the vehicle. Fold the wheel struts back so they rest against the hands. Fold the robot head & neck down under the rear of the vehicle.

The slightly odd shaped chest now produces a slightly odd shaped load on the back of the van/pickup (I'm pretty sure it should be a van but I'm being generous here) which tries to help disguise what a mess the rear of the vehicle is. It fails completely, it is a huge mess and not helped by being one of those Transformer modes that wants to undo itself and needs regular massaging back together.

Once again, like Battleslash, there's nowhere for a Titanmaster to sit inside the vehicle so he's perched on the back, either with his knees bent the wrong way, or hanging off the back of the load, or awkwardly sloped backwards.

The robot is OK, the transformation is novel and clever but the alternate mode looks a load of rubbish. Fortunately there's a bit more too it.

Generations Power of the Primes Battletrap

A long long time ago there was a Transformers Van and Helicopter who had no alternate modes but combined to form the robot Battletrap. Personally I think Battletrap had the wrong name and that name should have gone to the tank & fighter jet combination known as Flywheels whose name I think is more appropriate to the car & van. Your mileage may vary on this theory. In both cases the air vehicle was placed onto the land vehicle and they would autotransform into the robot.

The general thought on how to update these characters was to turn them into Triplechangers as was done with Botcon Battletrap & Titans Return Skytread (Flywheels). However when two toys named BATTLEclash and RoadTRAP were leaked, emphasis intentional, fans mediately spotted what the names were suggesting that each individual mode had been given a robot and they combined, a bit like Multiforce or Energon Powerlinx toys.

So to combine the toys start from robot modes:

Fold Roadtrap's chest down over his upper legs, folding the arms back behind the legs and tabbing in place: simple.

Battleslash on the other hand.... fold Battleslash's chest forward, fold his robot head into his chest and fold he chest back into place. Straighten the arms to the sides, pull the back down releasing the shoulder hinges and fold the arms across the chest. Separate the hips and fold them up onto the sides of the body to form Battletrap's shoulders with Battleslash's legs as Battletrap's arms. Fold Battletrap's head out of Battleslash's back and fold Battleslash's back closed to form Battletrap's chest. Fold the helicopter nose down under Battletrap's chest and put Roadtrap's head into the hole in the helicopter nose.

The combined robot is around deluxe size: Titans Return Perceptor is on my desk and they're a very similar height. The connection between the two halves is surprisingly good, pick him up by the upper body and there's no hint of he legs wanting to come away. The connection is so good that you're happy using his waist, formed from Roadtrap's neck, to turn the upper body to the sides. He looks very similar to the original Battletrap, blue legs & head and white body, just the arms have changed colour now being white.

Articulation: head turns as does the waist, which we've already said. Ball joints at the shoulders, elbows and hips. All of Roadtrap's leg articulation is within Battletrap's legs but effectively it's all been immobilised by the small robot's arms. Folding the small arms out would give you more place the legs could bend but I imagine without the they WOULD bend and it's better to settle for less articulation but a robot that will stand straight and stably.

Battletrap has 5mm peg holes in his hands but these are obscured by Battleslash's heel spurs sticking out the front of the hand: you'll have trouble getting a lot of weapons into those holes in a way the Battletrap will be able to hold them pointing straight in front of him. The point is rather moot in that neither he or his components have any weapons for you to use.

Both components have their downsides, especially in vehicle mode, but I rather like Battletrap himself. My enjoyment will be improved later on if they do Flywheels using the same combination system allowing you to connect Battletrap's top half to Flywheel's lower half and vice versa.

Tuesday, 16 January 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Slash

There have been several attempts to add new characters and dinosaur forms to Transformers Holy Quintet of Dinobots Grimlock (Tyrannosaurus Rex), Slag (Triceratops), Sludge (Brachiosaurus), Snarl (Stegosaurus) and Swoop Pteranodon. Notable additions are found in Beast Machines, RiD/Armada, Power Core Combiners and Age of Extinction.

However in the Classics/Genertions line there's only been one real Dinobot previously, the 2006 Classics Grimlock toy. 11 years later all the Dinobots are being redone and they've got a new friend, the female Velociraptor Slash.

Slash's robot mode has got the Dinobot look of silver, black and red dead on but something doesn't feel right: the figure is far too slight for a Legends class toy with a thin body and limbs that feel more like an old Best Wars basic. This is most obvious in the hands, a thin strip of plastic round what looks like a huge 5mm hole. They look oversized and I'm worried that a few years down the line we'll see quite a few of these broken.

Articulation: ball joints at hips & shoulders. Bending knees & elbows. A turning head. Thigh swivels, which are used mainly for the Transformation. I'm wondering why we don't see ball joints at the elbows and knees, would have saved the need for those thigh swivels.

Transformation: fold the tail up off her back over her head. Swing each thigh round 180° then Tab the lower legs together. Bend both knee & hip forward 90° bringing the legs up over the chest where they tab in place. Fold the robot feet back. Bend the arms 90° at the elbow then swing each arm forward about 45°. Fold the dino feet out under the hands. Open the flap on her back folding out the dino head nd bringing the dino arms forward with it. Position both and close the hatch on her back.

No real complaints here about the dinosaur mode: it's a velociraptor done in the original Dinobot style. The small arms move up & down at the shoulder, the mouth opens and the head leans back as well as the arm articulation for the robot being carried over to the dinosaur legs.

My problem here is the Titanmaster compatibility: the Titanmaster is supposed to sit in the compartment on her back the dinosaur head is stored in during robot mode. The problem is it's not long enough to accommodate a Titanmaster with it's legs bent at the hips and stretched out in front. To seat a Titanmaster in there and secure it's ankle spur you need to bend the knees forward and keep the hips straight which looks wrong. There's no footpegs in the compartment so standing the Titanmaster in there isn't an option and it's difficult to seat it naturally on the back of the dinosaur with the legs inside the compartment.

It's nice but you feel she could do with being a bit bigger and bulkier. It almost feels downsized from a normal Legend by 10%-20% to make it clear she is a she rather than a he. Slightly larger would make her feel more appropriate for her size class and fix the problem with the Titanmaster not being able to sit in her properly.

Wednesday, 10 January 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Leader Optimus Prime

Power of the Primes Leader Optimus Prime

There's not been a Leader Class original Optimus Prime toy in Generations before: the cab only Classics, Combiner Wars & Titans Return toys were all Voyagers while the Classics 2 Pack, Reveal The Shield and Thrilling 30 Orion Pax were deluxe. The only Optimus with a trailer in the Generations line is Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime, clearly modelled on the original 1988 Powermaster Optimus Prime but missing the original's cab turns into a robot gimmick going straight from cab & trailer to Super Robot. This irked some people at the time and has led to at least one third party solution.

Straight out the box Optimus Prime is a leader sized version of the familiar 1984 robot. But even here there's bits that don't feel right: grey panels on the outer side of the arms and legs mar the appearance and indeed turning the toy side and to the rear on you discover he's nearly entirely grey on the side & reverse of the arms & legs as Adam@16bit.com's photos show. So straight off the bat this is a toy whose robot can only really be front on. The arms are especially annoying as there's a grey portion on the upper arm above the shoulder joint. Worse still the fists are grey: they've always been the same colour as the legs, usually a variant on blue, for 1984 Optimus Primes. The fists are grey because they're part of the lower arms which are painted red on the exposed surfaces: why not make them a separate piece in blue, on the same sprue as the legs & head and in the bargain give us a rotating wrist, sadly missing on this toy?

Articulation: ball jointed head, rotating shoulders that raise out & up to the sides, bicep swivels, bending elbows, universal hip joints with high thigh swivel beneath them, bending knees and ankles that bend forward at the bottom of the leg and forward, back & to the sides at the foot. As well as the lack of wrist swivels there no waist swivel either.

Optimus has two accessories: his gun and a matrix.

The gun is nice, possibly my favourite bit of the toy. Looks a lot like the original Optimus gun with an extra 5mm handle half way down. The barrel is a 5mm hole so you can plug extra weapons into the end and there's a pair of 5mm holes either side of the rear of the gun. It can be held in his hands or plugged into 5mm ports on the outside of his forearms. Personally I'd have put these on his upper arms so the super robot could use the Powermaster shoulder cannons!

The matrix is modelled after the movie matrix with a silver surround that unfortunately he can't hold, and a clear blue core, painted orange over the outside that glows when held up to the light. The core has the same proportions as as a Titanmaster head, Primemaster or Combination enigma so lots of odd swapping can be achieved as shown in these tweets: one, two & three. The Matrix fits into Prime's chest: open his cab windows and you find underneath..... another set of cab windows? Right ..... Open those too and there's a slot in there for the matrix. Manoeuvring it in is somewhat tricky though and is somewhat easier when the cab is removed and in vehicle mode without the second set of cab doors and rim of the body obscuring it.

Prime's cab is released by pushing down on a button on the rear of his waist and pulling the cab out. Once removed it's obvious that the cab has it's own arms and the blue flatbed forming the rear of the body is also a pair of legs: Leader Optimus Prime has Powermaster Optimus Prime's power up gimmick. Fold the legs down off the back of the cab: they're tabbed into the sides of the yellow rectangle. This reveals the smaller robot's chest. Rotate each leg 180° at the thigh and fold the feet out. Fold the chest down, fold the super robot head in and fold the smaller robot head out. Fold the chest back and fold the head onto the body. Unfold the arms and fold the hands out. Pull the gun apart and place one in each hand.

Oh dear, it's Orion Pax, Optimus' form pre Optimus Prime as seen in the Transformers Cartoon episode War Dawn. Cards on the table: I'm a Marvel Comics fan, in particular the UK version, where there's no Orion Pax so I'm not particularly fond of this aspect of the character. But Cartoon fans are equally entitled to their toys as are Comics fans, more so as it's arguably better known in most markets, so I'm not opposed to Orion Pax toys existing. I can see what they're getting at here: Orion Pax is remade in the cartoon to become Optimus Prime, in a similar way to how Hot Rod becomes Rodimus Prime or Megatron becomes Galvatron. But I'm not really liking the figure. They've done his curved form some justice here but that's going to cause trouble in a minute. Articulation isn't bad: head leans forward & back and turns, but isn't ball jointed. Arms are ball jointed at shoulders and bend double at the elbows. Ball jointed hips, thigh swivels and bending knees.

I think one of my big problems with this mode is the rest of the super robot, the vehicle's trailer, just sits there doing nothing. No base mode, no weapons platform, it's either the trailer or the empty chested super robot. Titans Return Powermaster Prime might have had a poor base mode but at least he had one!

Orion Pax becomes the cab of the vehicle mode. Unhitch the head from the body and fold it and the chest forward. Fold the arms up at both elbow joints and fold the fists in. Swing each arm back 180° at the bicep and fold the arms over where Orion Pax's chest was. Fold the feet down under the legs, turn each leg in 90° at the thigh swivel and tab the bottom of each leg together. Fold the super robot fake chest halves out to the sides and back to form the sides of the vehicle with the window parts then folding down to become the lower sides with their attached wheels.

From the front, great, and as I've hinted it's much easier with less obstruction to get the matrix in and out in this mode. From the sides and the back, a complete mess with the arms and Orion Pax chest & head hanging out the back of the cab. It feels like no effort has been made to conceal them. There's some indication the forearms for Orion Pax should tab onto the back of the chest: slots on the forearms match tabs on the back of the chest. However this does nothing to improve the look of the vehicle. Hopefully the trailer will:

Start by folding the exhaust pipes back into his shoulders.

Fold the knees forward about 20° and the hips back by about the same amount. Fold each foot forward 90° at the top ankle joint and back 90° at the rear ankle joint. Fold the sides & rear of the legs, made up of grey panels, out to the sides of the leg. At the first joint fold that up 90° so the second third of the folded up panel is level with the first. The third third is pointing down: fold the side of that forward 180° then fold the entire panel towards you 180°. Then fold the entire panel assembly forward & in 90°, meeting over the front of the legs to form the roof of the trailer.

Raise each arm up 180° to the sides: there's a grey flap at the top of the shoulder that will lift up to allow you to do this. Rotate each shoulder 180° so the grey rear of the shoulder and the truck strip panels faces forward. Fold the bottom of the truck strip panel down to cover the hands. Raise each arm 90° out to the sides and fold out a panel from the side of the arms to sit along the side of the fist. Fold the panel on the bottom of the arm down 90° so it's flush with the panels on th side of the arms. Fold the body panels the shoulders are connected to forward 90°: the arms now point forwards. Fold the arms down to the sides as best you can before folding the body shoulder panels in a further 90° so the shoulders are in front of the chest. Tab the panels folded out from the rear & sides of the arms, now both on the sides of the vehicle, into slots on the panels from the legs. Peg the gun halves into the roof. Fold down the trailer hitch from the front of the vehicle and hook into the back of Orion Pax's head.

That was a nightmare. A whole load of panels that need to be folded in the right order or you'll stress something trying to do the next step. But was it worth it? In one word: no!

To be fair the basics of the trailer is right with the silver sides complete with stripes and Autobot symbols. But there's far far too much red on the front, the top of the super robot's chest, and the top, the front of the robot's arms. This last part is particularly vexing as the robot's arms were spoiled by having trailer panels hanging off two sides of them and now the trailer is spoilt by the arms being exposed. Neither mode is right, compromised by the other. The original Powermaster Optimus Prime had the super robot arms exposed at the front of the trailer but that kind of word, more so on the Japanese version with the retracted fists. Functionally it's poor as well. There's holes in the rear of the roof showing a compartment inside but the trailer door, formed from the super robot feet, don't want to fold down to form a ramp and when you do get them open what looks like a big space is irritatingly too small to get a Legends sized car in. Trailer does have a pair of 5mm holes on the roof, for mounting guns on, and four Titanmaster pegs.

This toy is a mess. It works if you want a large Optimus to look at front on or possibly an Orion Pax. The Pax compromises the vehicle's cab and the super robot and trailer compromise each other. The grey on the super robot arms stands out a mile and the grey fists is unforgivable on a toy of this size.

Effectively this is half of the gimmick they didn't stick in Titans Return Powermaster Prime done with a 1984 Optimus Prime and it hasn't worked at all. It almost feels like Powermaster Prime has been split between two toys, one in Titans Return and one in Power of the Primes with neither quite working properly.