Masterpiece Lambor G-2 Version (G2 Sideswipe, 2012)

As my brother Nick and I have spent the past year doing Not Your Father's Autobot, one of the things we've often commented upon is the incongruity created by the fact that the comic nominally focused on Generation 2 features so few of the actual toys from that line. One notable exception to this is Sideswipe, who from the first issue was featured in his distinctive G2 color scheme. When the Masterpiece line chose to homage this toy with "Lambor G-2 version" (using the Japanese names for Sideswipe and G2, respectively), they went a step further, not only homaging the G2 toy, but specifically the character's depiction in the comic.

Masterpiece Artfire (2017)

While the Masterpiece line has tended to focus on prominent characters that appeared in the Transformers cartoon, the same need to maximize the return on the costs of producing molds that applies to standard toylines also applies to the Masterpiece line. Perhaps even more so, given the costs inherent in producing such high-quality figures. This explains why comparatively obscure characters such as Artfire get featured in the Masterpiece line before arguably more-popular characters who would have required the construction of all-new molds.

Masterpiece Bumblebee (2016)

In just another couple of weeks, the Bumblebee live-action movie will hit theaters. While I'm going to wait for reviews before committing to see it, myself, now seems an appropriate time to feature the definitive version of the original Bumblebee character, in the form of Masterpiece Bumble (as the character is called in Japan, and I do indeed have the Japanese version).

Masterpiece Exhaust (2015)

Repaints have been an economic fact of life for most Transformers lines, and the Masterpiece line is no exception. For some molds, such as the one shared by Prowl and Bluestreak, the repaint options are immediately obvious.^* But, for molds created to depict a character that had no mold reuse within the original Transformers line, the Masterpiece creators have had to look elsewhere for inspiration if they want to recoup the costs of creating the mold. Arguably the most frequent source of such inspiration has been the Diaclone line which created the molds for the original Transformers toys in the first place. Thus, it was fairly intuitive that the Masterpiece Wheeljack mold (released in 2014) could be used to represent the "Marlboor" variant, widely known in collector circles as an obscure pre-Transformers use of the Lancia Stratos mold.

If only things could be so easy....

Masterpiece Bluestreak (2015)

One of the most persistent myths of the Transformers franchise was the existence of a "blue Bluestreak" among the original Transformers toys in 1984. Between a combination of Bluestreak's color-suggestive name, his box art, and the promotional images of the toy in Bluestreak's original instruction book and the catalog that came with that first run of toys (both of which used a Diaclone toy instead of the version eventually used for Transformers production), many fans were convinced that the original Bluestreak toy was indeed blue rather than the silver and red color scheme that was actually used (which, it should be noted, had no precise Diaclone equivalent, the closest Diaclone example having a black hood and top that the original Transformers version lacks). I myself remember seeing the silver-and-red toy in the '80s and thinking that the blue version used with all those packaging materials must have reflected some earlier variation that I had simply missed in the earliest days of the franchise. But, to this day, no legitimate sample of the toy in blue has ever surfaced in Transformers packaging.

Masterpiece Ultra Magnus (2014)

Over the past few years, the Masterpiece line has been the place Transformers fans look to supply the most definitive versions of iconic characters, and last year's Ultra Magnus release is certainly no exception. It should perhaps be noted that this isn't the only Ultra Magnus toy to bear the "Masterpiece" label. A repaint of the original Masterpiece Optimus Prime, in white, was released roughly a decade earlier. However, this Masterpiece Ultra Magnus is the first such toy with a mold created expressly to be Ultra Magnus, and as such resembles the "iconic" version of the character far more than the first Masterpiece Magnus.

2014 Transformers Advent Calendar - Day 4: Masterpiece Grimlock

The Transformers Thunderous Thirty #25 - Prowl

Prowl was one of my first Transformers, and so I've always had some affection for the character. Unfortunately, my impression of the character differs significantly from the now-prevailing opinion held by most fans. Personally, I think Prowl has gotten a bad rap.

Prowl's original Tech Specs bio calls him "a listener, not a talker," and emphasizes that Prowl is a being devoted to reason and logic. I have thus always imagined Prowl as a perhaps-friendlier version of Mr. Spock, and Prowl's (admittedly unremarkable) appearances in the cartoon seemed to support this interpretation. Unfortunately, because those appearances in the cartoon were so few, and did so little to flesh out Prowl's personality as distinctive (and Prowl's comic appearances of the era did even less), another interpretation has since taken predominance.

In the last few issues of the Marvel comic before it was cancelled (and presumably in some issues exclusive to the UK, as well), Simon Furman started writing Prowl as a foil to the aggressive Grimlock (undeniably Furman's favorite character). While Grimlock was promoted to the role of Autobot leader (completely ignoring Grimlock's earlier, undeniably disastrous, run as leader under previous writer Bob Budiansky), Prowl became a whiny, very un-reasonable character who opposed everything Grimlock wanted to do (and, adding insult to injury, Grimlock was invariably proven right in these arguments). Prowl came off as the guy who thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and thus comes off as a condescending jerk who everyone hates. Unfortunately, this is the characterization of Prowl that seems to have stuck.

In fact, recent interpretations of the character have only heightened Prowl's antisocial tendencies, making him into an almost amoral schemer willing to do horrible things so long as he believes (again, being smarter than everyone else, after all) that it is to the Autobots' benefit in the long run.

These less-flattering versions of Prowl's character have held dominance for far too long now to ever expect a return to the "friendly Spock" interpretation that never really got any meaningful appearance in the fiction in the first place, but that's still the way I prefer to see the character, and I'm sticking to that.

The Transformers Thunderous Thirty #15 - Skywarp

One of the new shows on the CW television network this year is The Tomorrow People. Long-time readers (and sci-fi fans) may already know that the show is a remake of a show from the 1970s in the UK. For those who aren't familiar with the show, it centers around a group of people who represent the next stage in human evolution, possessing special abilities. Perhaps most prominent among these powers is the ability to teleport instantly from one location to another. Skywarp is perhaps best known for having this ability. But whereas the "Tomorrow People" use their powers to help each other, Skywarp is just a jerk.

Since Skywarp is a Decepticon, that may perhaps seem like it's stating the obvious, but it bears emphasizing. Other Decepticons may crave power, but Skywarp just likes playing mean tricks on others (including others on his own side!). A popular meme among fans over the past few years involves Skywarp pushing unsuspecting people down stairs. To the best of my knowledge, this has yet to happen in any official story, but it's still well in keeping with the established personality of the character.

Perhaps it's a good thing, then, not only that Skywarp is the only one of the Decepticons (at least, within the Generation One continuity) who can teleport, but also that he's so incredibly stupid. So stupid, in fact, that he's completely dependent on having someone in charge tell him what to do if he's to be of any value whatsoever to the Decepticon cause.

Of course, that's probably small comfort to the hapless victim who finds himself suddenly pushed down a flight of stairs by someone who wasn't even behind him the second previously....

The Transformers Thunderous Thirty #14 - Optimus Prime

There can be little doubt that Optimus Prime is the most iconic Transformer of them all. The sheer number of toys dedicated to the Generation One version of the character alone demonstrates the enduring popularity of the character. If further evidence should be needed, one need only observe what happened when the 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie came out. But I've told that story already....

But why has Optimus Prime been so popular? His quasi-religious ability to die and come back to life again (now so common it's become a cliché) cannot be the cause, as it was Prime's popularity that caused Hasbro to bring the character back after having killed him off for the first time back in the 80's, while quite a few other characters were allowed to remain dead without much notice.

To some, it may seem like Optimus Prime doesn't have much personality aside from a stereotypical "hero" archetype, and there is certainly some truth to this. While later interpretations of the character (notably under comics scribe Simon Furman) have given Prime additional layers of self-doubt and anguish, even these came after his original fan-demanded return to the world of the living.

Indeed, I would argue that it is precisely because Prime fits our heroic stereotypes so well that he has been so beloved by so many fans. Prime is the one that can be depended on to save the day. When all hope seems gone, once Prime walks onto the screen, the viewer knows that everything will work out all right. I suspect that this was the intention even from the beginning. One can certainly hear overtones of "John Wayne" (best known for playing other iconic, if occasionally stereotypical, heroes from days gone by) in voice actor Peter Cullen's portrayal of the character in the original cartoon.

Now, nearly thirty years later, the concept of Optimus Prime is still beloved by many, although most children today are more popular with some other iteration of the character, whether through the live-action movies, or perhaps the recently-completed Transformers: Prime cartoon. While each of these versions represents its own unique take on the character (even if most of them today are still voiced by Peter Cullen), each one retains those heroic archetypes that made the original version so popular. If the history of the Transformers franchise has proven anything, it is that the concept of Optimus Prime will never die.

Just a few of the Optimus Primes I own.

The Transformers Thunderous Thirty #3 - Rumble

It is perhaps noteworthy that, for the first year of the Transformers franchise, the bad guys were outnumbered by the good guys roughly two-to-one! While I can't speak to how well that ratio has held up in other eras of the franchise, having more Autobot (good guy) figures than Decepticons (bad guys) has definitely been a recurring reality throughout the years. Indeed, on the assumption that kids don't want to buy "bad guy" toys, there are whole years of the Japanese line where Deceptions are all but absent altogether! I can't say I've ever quite gotten my head around that assumption myself. As a sometime-actor in grade school and college, I know that role-playing as bad guys can be tons of fun! As one of the best-remembered bad guys from the early years of the Transformers franchise, it's hard to imagine kids not wanting to have a Rumble figure of their very own!

Let's get the alt-mode out of the way first. Rumble was one of several Decepticons that turned into microcassette tapes. Kids nowadays probably have no idea what this is, outside of a funny-colored rectangle, but cassette tapes were in wide usage during the 1980s, and Transformers that turned into cassettes were almost always popular. That said, cassette tapes admittedly don't make for very exciting photographs!

So let's move on to Rumble's robot mode (using the recent Japanese "Masterpiece" version of the character for demonstration purposes^*). Rumble is a red-and-black robot, at least, in the original version and most subsequent official depictions over the years. However, this is admittedly at variance with the 1980s cartoon, which made a mistake late in the start-up process and switched Rumble's color scheme with something more closely resembling his same-mold twin Frenzy (about whom I'll have more to say in coming weeks). This has led to one of the most long-standing debates within the Transformers fandom, often shorthanded along the lines of FIRRIB, short for "Frenzy is Red, Rumble is Blue" (after the cartoon depiction), although several other permutations are out there, depending on the fan's preference. My own preference is that the cartoons made a mistake (ably demonstrated by noting that the cartoon "bible" itself has a note calling Rumble a "red robot"), and I'm actually kind of annoyed that after being consistently red in toy form for over 25 years, Hasbro has recently started to cave to the cartoon's disproportionate popularity, and has started releasing (or, in one case, planned to release) blue Rumble toys these past couple of years (although I'm pleased to learn that the recent Toys R Us exclusive American re-release of this same toy maintains the "Rumble is Red" identity).

Rumble's most distinctive feature is the one from which he gets his name. Rumble can cause earthquakes! In the cartoon, this was famously depicted by having Rumble's arms turn into massive pistons with which he would pound the ground. The original toy had no such pistons, even as accessories, and so other depictions had Rumble create earthquakes differently (the comic suggested that Rumble sent vibrations through his legs, for example). However, the cartoon's pistons quickly became rather iconic, and so it was no surprise to see them depicted in toys as the character came back in other forms over the years. Rumble is now fully equipped for maximum destruction!

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^*Thanks to my brother Nick, for the generous use of his Masterpiece Rumble figure while we were on vacation visiting him and the rest of my family this past week. Nick also helped set up lights to make this photo shoot a success. I do apologize to those of you who have perhaps noticed the very slight transformation error. I discovered after completing the photo shoot that this toy allows you to extend Rumble's torso upward slightly to reveal a bit of a red abdomen, in keeping with the Rumble/Frenzy animation model. The decision not to take up more of our vacation time to retake the relevant photos was mine and mine alone.

Weekly Transformers Feature: 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime

In the beginning, there was Optimus Prime. The original leader of the Autobots (at least in real-world terms), Optimus Prime is the standard by which all other leaders are measured. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that more toys have been devoted to this character than any other. As I celebrate the one-year anniversary of weekly Transformer features on this blog, and 2009 is the 25th Anniversary of the Transformers franchise, it only seems appropriate to devote some space to the 20th Anniversary version of Optimus Prime from 2004. Of course, it's fudging things a bit to call this a 20th Anniversary toy. This mold was originally released in Japan as "Masterpiece Convoy" in 2003 (too early for the 20th Anniversary, although admittedly only by a month). But since I have the Hasbro version, we'll go with the "Anniversary" name they gave it.

As the name "Masterpiece" might imply, this toy attempts to give fans a version of Optimus Prime that pulls out all the stops. And it truly is an impressive toy. I'll say that right up front, because this needs to be kept in mind whenever I have something less complimentary to say about it. And the first "less than complimentary" thing I have to comment on the truck mode. It's nice and all, but just by looking at it, one still gets the impression that it was done almost as an afterthought. I'm not talking about the short smokestacks, although fans are eternally peeved about that problem. That's just something that Hasbro feels that they have to do for safety reasons, and no amount of fan complaining isn't going to get around that. No, I'm thinking more about the fact that the proportions are just... "off" in regard to what a real truck would look like. The other minor peeve I have with this toy is that Hasbro seemed to feel it necessary to put "battle damage" over certain parts of the toy (like around the Autobot insignia seen here). The Japanese version doesn't have this so-called "feature," and I've never cared for it. Suffice it to say, I wasn't consulted....

If the vehicle mode was an afterthought, it's only because the priority for this toy was getting the robot mode just right. And I'd say that they've more or less succeeded. The only real quibble I have is the presence of more of that "battle damage" at Optimus Prime's mid-section, but what's done is done, and it's not too difficult to overlook. This mode has a rather amazing range of stable poses. My brother was able to demonstrate this perhaps better than I can, but he was using items that didn't come with Prime. Here's another shot that I took of Prime on his own.

This toy really shines when one accounts for some of the minor extra details they added in. First off, those fists aren't just pieces of plastic with holes in them where you can insert a weapon. Those fists actually open up and grip the weapon. While Prime doesn't have the individually posable fingers that a couple other large toys have, that actually doesn't bother me much at all. For one thing, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in making my toys do rude hand gestures. For another, I'm actually concerned that so much posability is asking for trouble in the form of loose finger joints in the future. I'm not particularly concerned that Prime will someday be unable to hold his Ion Blaster, or the scale-appropriate Megatron seen here.

The designers of this version of Prime seemed to take delight in giving homage to features that showed up rather rarely in the cartoon. That hand-held non-transforming Megatron is one example. This "Energon Axe" is another. The only time this ever showed up in the original Transformers cartoon was in the second part of the original 3-part miniseries, when Prime uses it to battle Megatron atop a dam (this incident was also copied almost exactly as part of a UK comic story, although the retelling is so similar I hesitate to call it another instance of the axe's use). Even so, this axe has somehow become iconic, and so other Optimus Prime toys over the years have included a similar accessory (unfortunately, I don't think most versions including the axe have ever been available to the mainstream American market).

Taking advantage of the toy's remarkable articulation, both arms have "Datacom Interfaces" (that's what the instructions call them) that Prime can use to communicate with (or perhaps, in the case of the image of Starscream seen here, spy upon) other Transformers (the image on the other arm's interface is that of Bumblebee). While I'm on the topic of communication, I should also mention that Optimus Prime's head has a button in the back that, when pressed, moves the faceplate just a little bit, as if to emulate Prime "talking" behind it. Again, a rather minor touch, but it does demonstrate the amount of care that went into creating this toy. Unfortunately, I don't know how I'd "show off" a feature so subtle with a static image.

If the designers were willing to give such time and attention to features such as Prime's Energon Axe, you'd better believe that they also included what has perhaps become Prime's most iconic accessory of all, the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, which stores inside Prime's chest. My apologies for the fuzzy picture here, but I wanted to demonstrate how the Matrix lights up when the button on Prime's shoulder is pressed. You can even take the Matrix out, put it in Prime's hands, and have him open it up (to eradicate the "hate plague," perhaps?). Last week, I talked about how gimmicks often get in the way of the figure itself, but for the most part, the gimmicks on 20th Anniversary Prime are rather unobtrusive (indeed, although I did criticize the vehicle mode earlier, that seems to have been caused more by attempting to faithfully replicate Prime's animated character model in robot mode than by any of these gimmicks). That's an amazing achievement in itself. Of course, it should be noted that all this craftsmanship didn't come cheap. This toy easily sold for about $70 when new. In fact, I'm such a cheapskate, I wouldn't have this toy at all if it wasn't for an offer I found online that enabled me to get Prime for free by committing to a DVD club membership (which, having completed the minimum requirements long ago, I have since canceled). Having managed to find a way to get this toy while remaining financially responsible, I'm rather glad to include it as part of my collection.

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The Secret to Masterpiece Megatron's Scale Revealed!

A lot of fans were really excited about the prospect of a "Masterpiece" Megatron toy to correspond to the "Masterpiece Optimus Prime" of a few years ago. More specifically, they were thrilled that there would be a Megatron "in scale" to Prime (at least in terms of robot mode). Now, I've already commented on the ultimate futility of "scale" arguments, but the reality is that this makes a big difference to a lot of fans.

But let's face it, how many adult fans (those most likely to be able to afford these particular toys) are actually likely to physically engage their robots in battle? After paying all that money to import the toy from Japan (which will never be made available domestically, because of the realistic, if admittedly oversized, gun mode. This gun mode is a reason I will never have this toy in my home, either. I'm not a fan of realistic guns.), owners of Masterpiece Megatron would never risk chipping the paint or denting the plastic (even assuming they don't have the childish impulses they once almost certainly had when the Transformers started out in the '80s)!

But, fear not, Transformers fan! For I have discovered the real scale to which Masterpiece Megatron was constructed, thanks to a picture from my brother (who doesn't have the hang-ups I do about this toy). This picture clearly shows that Megatron was intended not for battles with the demonstrably heftier Masterpiece Prime, but for display with the original G1 Laserbeak toy, which was often traditionally shown in precisely this position atop Megatron's arm. Here they are, together again as they were always meant to be!