A Prime Nemesis

Or as he is better known, Nemesis Prime!







Yup, he is who he looks like--Optimus Prime. But evil. Of course.



And what else is better than a character than his equal and opposite evil self? I mean, we all know Megatron is Optimus Prime's mortal enemy, but he's still a different character. A corrupt version of a hero, on the other hand, is always be interesting becuase he has the potential to usurp the hero should he fulfil said potential. Which is his. But at the same time the hero's. (Get it? Lol.) And nothing could be worse than a potential hero gone bad.



Now I love the colour scheme of this figure. The metallic turqoise goes well with the black and silver. And there's even attempt to give him a more sinister look in his eyes, which are painted red, but light up purple. Neato.



The disappointing part of this figure is perhaps his grey plastic crotch and upper leg area--this just means I'll have to whip out my brush sometime and highlight some detail. Heh.

I think Nemesis may even look cooler than Optimus. Yup, he does, except that he isn't our favourite Autobot Leader. And as we all know, it's the beauty on the inside that counts. ;)

Here's how I rate Nemesis:

Show Accuracy: 9/10 - He's black. He looks like Optimus Prime. I dig.



Aesthetic: 9/10 - Yes, despite the plactic looking grey of his thighs and groin area, he still looks great. He'll be perfect once I'm done painting him up. If I don't do a screwball job. :}



Poseability: 9.5/10 - Same as Henkei Prime, same mold diffrent paint job. Nemesis is super flexible. Kneel him, seat him, stand him on one leg, dynamic and static, there isn't a pose that he is unlikely to be able to do.



Overall: 9.2/10 - Awesome figure. I'm glad they made this San Dego Comic Con figure available in retail. He's a must buy for any Prime fan. And the best part is, fans love him so much they've also made a BTS and Fansproject trailer for him, as well as Shadow Commander Armour! That's one toy I'm coveting. :P

Bush Minus Two! (Stan's new, new Touch)

As in the emo rapper and the happy gutarist are gone from the video! Apparently due to fan request! They were too entertaining and had to be replaced. With more robot action, of course.

Here's the new edited version.



Yup, not as fun as the pre-edit, of which the embed in my previous post as been disabled but can be found here.

Bring back the two dudes! Especially the happy gutarist, Holger Fath. That's right. Holger. Fath. They were hilarious. :)

Bush's (New) Touch!

As in Stan. And he's got the power!



Gotta love how the song's been given a new lease of life for a different generation in a different time.

Yeah and the rapper and the guitarist are creepy. Heh.

Just sit back, close your eyes, and enjoy the song! ;)

Way ta go, Stan!

Loose as a Goose!

That's what 3 3/4" Marvel Unverse Thing turned out to be. So much so that I posed him like this right out of the packaging:

How could he possibly be so loose? Both shoulders are super loose, especially the right shoulder, his chest joint is loose, making him extra swivel-ly, and his thigh joints are loose as well.

I wonder if it's a deliberate thing done by Hasbro to make 'em more children friendly? Cos his fists, feet and head are nice and tight. Hm.

Still, the figure does look awesome, especially his stoney mug:









And somehow, despite the loose joints, he still poses ok.

And size-wise, Hasbro has done a great job--The Thing is a big figure, but he's still smaller than The Hulk (as he should be), but larger than Wolverine and Cap. (Yay for proportions!)

It's Clobberin' Time!

Still, I did have fun playing and posing this figure. I still have classic Iron Man fresh on card, and I can't wait to get more of this line.

Oh, and a word to the wise: if you do buy the plus size figures, try not to pay more than retail for them.

Scalpers tend to charge more and they'll tell you that the figure is heavier than the rest, thus shipping costs more. It's all crap.

The retail price is the same for all figs, so that means the price of a skinny Ms. Marvel = the price of a 1040 pound hulk. That is if they're 3 3/4" figs of course. ;)

Ratings!

Design Accuracy: 9.5/10 - Instantly recognizeable as the Thing. The colour is spot on, and not completely uniform for all his skin panels, with patches of darker orange here and there. The head is also one of the best I've seen on a Thing figure. Bonus points for the blue eyes! (Otherwise the Ever Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing he would not be. ;])

Aesthetic: 9/10 - He's nicely proportionate to, well, himself. Head is small but not too small, his hands are large but smaller than the Hulk's, and those blue eyes! He's also got a really sad look on his face, which matches Ben Grimm's depressed state while he was struggling to accept that he'd never look normal again. The shading of his skin is also nicely done. And the jutting jaw adds to his brooding look.

Poseability: 7/10 - 14 points of articulation, same as the Hulk. But he loses points for loose joints. and also, there's also a problem with his legs. The lower half of his right is longer than his right! It seems that Hasbro tried to make up for this by hinging the lower right leg a little deeper. Well, it didn't work. So Thingy-poo doesn't stand straight. Luckily he's all about the Clobberin' Time so he'll be in more dynamic poses most of the time.



Overall: 8.5/10 - Still a good solid figure. Better yet if the loose joints are only inherent to my figure. Oh well, I'm sure there's some way to fix him. But meanwhile, he wont be doing any heavy lifting. Just some light stretching.

It's worse than I thought...no wait, it's better!

So I'm cleaning out space on my shelf and rearranging the toys to create more space for my recent acquisitions like Henkei Grimlock and Skyfire.

3 3/4" Hulk, Wolverine, and Captain America get re-posed to face off 2 to 1, with hulk grinding a fist into his open palm, while the other two get posed side by side on one of my spare G.I. Joe stands (Duke's, actually. He's currently driving Indy's Jeep. But that's another story. Heh.)

I used to be a toy hog, I must confess. I would keep my toys unopened, telling mself how great they look in their packaging. But after Transformers Animated and now Henkei/Universe made me want to play with my toys again, I've been playing/posing my action figures, boxes be damned.

So lo and behold I find Justice League Power Escape Superman in the corner of my shelf taking up space. His box was tattered and I remember getting him in a toy sale for a mere S$10. (that's like slightly less than US$7).

The rubber bands holding his collapseable wall had long dried up and snapped, leaving Supes looking like his house had crumbled around him while he was chained up. (Like, I know. What chains could hold the Man of Steel?)

So I bust him out.

First thing I notice is that his arms are loose. Like swinging from the hinges loose. No wonder I saw him going for S$5 after had gotten him some years ago. (Yup, he was stuck in his paper and plastic prison for 5 years. At least.)

But upon figuring out how to make him yank out his chains and cause the wall behind him to crumble, or rather, explode, I actually had a ton of fun busting him from his chains again and again.

You see, this is how he works:

The base of his chains are spring loaded, so you load the ends into the sockets as if they were projectiles from any sort of action figure gun. The base piece of the breakable wall behind him has a long stem which is also loaded likewise in the floor behind him.

Then you hit the two buttons at his feet:

First the one on his right, which shoots out the chain, and with his loose arm, makes him look like he yanked the hell outta the puny steel restraints.

Then the left button,

which produces the same effect, but also ejects the base wall piece and causes the bricks behind him to shatter and fall like a ton of...well, bricks.


Neato. Way more fun than I thought he ever would be.

And being in a black suit with a silver "S" doesn't hurt. :)

Shock to the System

That's what Shockwave is! A Decepticon, a spy, and a fan favourite in G1 or Animated.

And we can't talk Shockwave without revealing a few secrets. But I'm sure if you're reading this, you probably have seen TF: Animated anyway, so I won't be spoling anything. ;)

So this is how we see him in most of Animated:

"That's not Shockwave," you say?

Well you're right. That's Longarm Prime. Check out his head/face and his Autobot symbol.

What I love about him by just looking at the figure is the colour. His body is a slight blue-grey, and his Autobot symbol is silver to match.

His silvery-grey eyes, and his white face match his colour scheme too.




"Well wot's this?" you ask in your best British accent.

This is the same guy, but now he's in his true form--Shockwave! (As Ultra Magnus found out, much to his detriment.)

His white face is gone, he's got the antennae up, and lookie here--a gold Decepticon symbol! And that's just his head! (and uh...symbol...)




Well, check him out in full robot mode--both of them:

Woah there, Shockwave, no need to go pointing that gun everywhere...

Spot the differences!

Shoulders are red instead of black, Longarm's crane pack is Shcokwave's Laser Cannon, and of course the hands!

Overall Shockwave is taller than Longarm.

Oh and his lower legs spin around when he's an Autobot spy. :)


















And the best part is, he's got two vehicle modes!

Autobot Crane, or a Decepticon Tank!

The crane head is Spring loaded, so when you slide down on its switch, the gun snap-folds out with a pop. Cool feature that Hasbro once again didn't really have to include. They've done a lot of these hidden/bonus features for the Animated line and I'm glad that they went out of the way to please fanboys like myself. ;)










So with 4 modes, just how poseable is Shockwave?

He's Staying Alive poseable! Ah ah ah ah Staying Aliiiiiii--iiiiii--ii-iiiiiive....










He's in your face, poseable...



















And he's for sure light piping poseable! Check out the classic cyclops eye!

Here's how I rate him:

Show Accuracy: 9/10 - He looks like the Animated character in not one but 2 robot modes. He's transformed into a crane once or at the most twice as far as I can rememeber. We haven't seen his tank mode yet, though. But 3 outta 4 ain't bad at all--and it still very likely might be 4/4. ;)

Aesthetic: 8.7/10 - He looks great as Longarm, and even better as Shockwave. I love the grey and white base, with metallic grey and metallic red bits. Gotta love the three-fingers hands as well. Paint apps are very very solid. One thing I dislike though, is that his laser cannon fits on his forearm to look like he's holding it. This makes him look like he's toting a mini spaceship in his claws. Looks unbalanced. I wished they could've allowed his gun to be mounted on the top/outside of his forearm like Megatron. I think he'd look cooler that way.

Poseability: 9.3/10 - Well this guy passes the "Down on bended knee" test. You see, with every figure I own, at one point or another, I like to pose it so that he/she/it is kneeling on one knee and firing/swinging their weapons. Well, not many figures can do this, Transformers or otherwise. Shockwave, though, can do this easily. I guess it helps that he has 4 modes, so his joints can bend almost every which way. His feet also bend all the way forward and back and his claws on his hand ar also individually articulated. He can point. Awesome! :)

Overall: 9/10 - Many rate this guy as the best TFA figure. But while I think he's awesome, he isn't Optimus Prime (uh-huh, betcha saw that coming. :P). So great figure, wonderful tranformations, and excellent paint job and articulation. Oh and as an aside, after getting this guy and seeing the purple Shockwave, I kinda not want to get purple anymore. This guy's colour scheme is definitely better. Oh and it's also show accuarate. :)

I guess Shockwave agrees. (Cos he's not pointing his gun elsewhere and not at me anymore! :P)

Classics Mobile Command Base

And guess who's Optimus Prime just got upgraded by the fan-made BTS-01S Mobile Command Base with Rollout Drone today? (That's fan talk for Primes's trailer.) You betcha! For a mere S$50 from Dave's Toylet to boot. You the man, Dave!


Doesn't my Henkei Prime now look classy? Now the crew look awesome smooth while cruisin'.










The trailer stands on its own when detached too.




And guess where the rollout drone is hidden?




















In plain sight!











Prime's trailer fits exactly one deluxe sized vehicle. Or just the drone.










But I guess you can make it look ike a whole string of vehicles came streaming out with some "camera tricks" :P

And the trailer transforms into...

A Mobile Base!

Who would've guessed? (Free auto maintenance included)


Besides the occasional servicing, the place comes in handy when the Autobots need to set up nearby to patrol a strategic location.


The Command Base also functions perfectly on its own when the bots are out on lunch break.

















And the Bots get back just in time for...Decepticon air strike! Look to the skies!


But wait, the aerial assault was only a diversion. Here comes their main assault, led by none other than...

Megatron!























Pity the role of a shield the trailer has to play, you say? Well, it's no wonder he does what he does with stats like these:

Total courage! :)

But a Rank score of 2 means he's ordered around by practically every other Autobot. So that's why they use him as cover.

BTS-o1S Mobile Command Centre is simply beautifully made. Beautifully painted on the outside and wonderfully deatiled on the inside. It comes with the rollout drone, of course, and also an extendable tower which rotates 360 degress and has a grabbing claw. Oh and a nice bonus is that it also comes with 2 "Bee" guns in 2 hidden compartments, which fit Bumblebee and Cliff Jumper perfectly since they don't come with weapons.

I give this baby a 9.5/10. Some of the detail on the inside could've been painted, and some will require stickers, but for overall, I'm really delighted and impressed. For sure, it will complete your Henkei/Universe Optimus Prime. :)