TransFormers Legacy: Evolution Deadeye Duel 2-pack - Kaskade vs. Javelin

(Femme-Bot Friday #87)

It struck me in the afternoon of January 1st that, as of this year - and, more specifically, yesterday - Femme-Bot Friday has been a feature of this blog for ten years. That being the case, I thought it appropriate to try to post something special... which might have been easier if the franchise had offered a greater quantity of worthwhile Femme-Bots. It would have been wonderful to hit FBF#100 for this anniversary, but that could only be achieved by re-posting Femme-Bots that I'd posted about before FBF became a thing.

And, while it would have been ideal to celebrate 10 years since I kicked off this feature with a post about Flame Toys' Arcee model kit, I haven't yet taken sufficient photos for that figure (lack of time, motivation and daylight over the last few months being largely responsible), so we're just going to have to make do with a Legacy: Evolution versus set that - miraculously - pits two unique Femme-Bots against each other. Little did I know, before I started writing all this, but this set actually refers to a specific story in the IDW comics, though the two featured characters don't exactly face off.

Is this unprecedented boxed set worth the investment? Well... That's an especially astute question, given my opinion of Hasbro's current output...

2024 Retrospective

Another year, another Retrospective... and another occasion where I started writing this in early January, specifically because one of my predictions for the year had been borne out by the end of the first week of the year.

While it may not be a particularly significant for this blog, specifically, this year marks my half-century... which somehow just doesn't feel possible. Most of the time, I try not to think about it, lest I fall into the rabbit hole of wondering where by 40s disappeared to (and, for that matter, my 30s!).

Galaxy Force (Toy's Dream Project) Fang Wolf Black Version

I mentioned in my write-up to Cybertron Snarl that the figure had been an easy pass - the toy didn't look that great, not least due to a bizarre choice of colourscheme. Even the Takara version looked a bit crap, so the one I bought myself was for the purpose of a custom repaint, and then a friend bought me another for my birthday. However, when the Toy's Dream Project repaint was announced, that caught my attention because the mold itself isn't bad.

Like the TDP Soundblaster and the more sober official repaint Dark Ligerjack, and as the name 'Black Version' would suggest, it's a darker repaint... though mostly grey rather than actually black. I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for a 'black' repaint, but is a darker colourscheme enough to properly demonstrate this mold's merits?

Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers Annual 1986

It has occurred to me that, if I'm not going to blast through all four of the TransFormers annuals I own as quickly as possible, I should at least try to deal with one every year... and, having dealt with the 1985 annual in January of 2022, I'm a little overdue on this one, even in the worst case scenario.

With the advent of Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers annuals, and since I was a regular reader of the TransFormers comic (when the newsagents actually received it and remembered to add it to our newspaper delivery) it became inevitable that I'd continue to receive them as Christmas gifts. I mentioned in the write-up of the 1985 book, I'd been getting other annuals for years already, and TransFormers pretty much became my primary interest once they appeared on the scene.

While I probably enjoyed the first book at the tender age of 11, looking at it again, more than thirty years later, I found its content almost frustratingly bad, not helped by the distinctly variable artwork throughout. Let's see if the second collaboration presents any improvements...

Hybrid Style THS-02 Convoy

This probably should have been posted a little closer to the 40th Anniversary date, or at least to my write-up of Earthrise Optimus Prime - the most recent G1-style Prime toy in my collection to be packaged with a trailer... Then again, I should probably have got to this oddity - and its two mass-released contemporaries - far sooner than I have, since I bought it eighteen years ago. 

Hybrid Style was a very short-lived, utterly Convoy-centric line which aimed to be 'Miniature Masterpiece', but ultimately failed to find much favour among fans. Only two molds were created - a remake of Galaxy Convoy (because Galaxy Force was in full swing at the time) and this G1 version, because there always has to be a G1 version. Subsequent to this 'vanilla' version, two black repaints were released, one of which was only made available in China.

Given that I own G1 Optimus Prime, Takara's MP01 (and, later, the Hasbro version of MP10), it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I'd acquire the Hybrid Style version of the original Autobot leader... Though I confess that I had some reservations from the start, due to its small size and some rather tepid reviews online at the time.

Sixteenth Anniversary

As we mark another year of this blog's continued existence, the sense of ennui is strong. Hasbro have singularly failed to produce anything I was willing to pay full price for, even in those very few cases where I actually bought official merchandise. Meanwhile the Third Parties continue to pack in far more bang for your buck. Broadly speaking, what you get from Third Parties is a smaller range of better-engineered products at almost any scale... But the Masterpiece analogues is where they're really starting to shine. While Hasbro only recently finished off its 2007 Masterpiece Movie series with the last Decepticon, Brawl, several different companies have now released their interpretations of Dark of the Moon Megatron and Age of Extinction/The Last Knight Optimus Prime, Unique Toys released their take on DotM Mirage/Dino and revealed Revenge of the Fallen Skids and Mudflap, while amazing-looking figures of RotF Sideways and AoE Stinger magically appeared earlier this year.

As paid work (and my birthday) permitted, I made only a handful of purchases, fewer even than last year. My two Hasbro purchases both left me feeling a little ripped off, even having acquired both at a discount (a Legacy 2-pack for less than the cost of a single Deluxe, and a Core class figure for about £2-3 less than RRP). The new comic book series has been gaining a lot of praise in the fandom but, to me, it looks like an even worse version of the 1980s Marvel comics, and much of the narrative that some are describing as 'peak fiction' just seems like over-the-top nonsense to me. There have been no further rumblings about a live-action follow-up to Rise of the Beasts, but the first trailer for the CGI animated movie TransFormers One seemed to pitch it as a comedy road movie (which, I gather, is more a fault of the trailer than the movie it's advertising). There really doesn't seem to be much to get excited about... But I can't say I'm unhappy about not finding myself in accordance with the vast majority of blinkered, hardcore GeeWunners and those who think 'Bayhem' applied to a comic book story is a good thing...

So, again, we're celebrating an anniversary with a pretty negative vibe and, as always, we'll begin with the Dishonourable Mentions: