Tribute Orion Pax

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Tribute Orion Pax

When loose images of this toy first appeared in late May 2017 people weren't 100% sure if it was the assumed Targetmaster Crosshairs toy people were expecting from Kup or a new version of Orion Pax who'd been an eHobby repaint of Reissue Targetmaster Kup. The Instructions which emerged a few days later confirmed the toy to be Orion Pax, with the Box and box back images following.

Now I'm in he UK, we didn't get much exposure to the cartoon so I'm not married to the idea of Orion Pax being a pre war Optimus Prime like some fans are. However I don't have any objection to the idea of Optimus Prime being something before he became Optimus Prime and since this is a previous established character repaint, I've no problem with them pulling the same trick again.

Mostly it's a set of simple colour swaps. The grey of the legs and lower body becomes a paler grey, the mint green on the inner sides of the legs and under the feet becomes a pale blue colour which is shares with the parts previously in grey on the guns & Titanmaster. The wheels & chest plate become clear blue. Everything else is red, with the two grades of plastic in the arms not quite matching. A new blue face piece, featuring Optimus Prime's head with it's mouth-plate changes to a mouth, finishes the toy off.

My immediate reaction is the blue looks too pale for Optimus Prime but a quick image search confirms it's just about right for the blue used on Orion Pax in the Cartoon. There's a bit too much red on the outer side of the leg too. While which parts are on which sprue may have influenced that decision there's no reason I can see that this couldn't have been painted, like the leg fronts are, and the effect on the vehicle wouldn't have been too detrimental.... in fact looking at the vehicle I'd have liked the leg fronts cast in blue to give an all blue flatbed for the pick-up: the red rather stands out!

Minor colour gripes though. The overall effect does the job adequately and Kup was a fun toy with an interesting transformation so this is too. My only concern with doing this is that it's colours are very similar to those for a Targetmaster Crosshairs so does doing this rule that toy out?

And, although this is obviously a pre Earth Optimus Prime pack with Orion Pax packed with a fairly similar to the original War For Cybertron Optimus Prime, it might have been nice if they'd sneaked in a repaint of Titans Return Wheelie as Dion further mimicking the eHobby Targetmaster Kup recolour that this Orion Pax was inspired by.