MCM London Comic Con Oct 2018 - Hasbro Display & Sunday Panel

OK, so Studio Series Devastator was a pleasant surprise... I'm now glad I didn't buy the colossal non-transforming electronic brick version after all... But that particular event-exclusive reveal wasn't the only bit of news, either from the Hasbro/TransFormers panel this afternoon, or the Hasbro booth - the first time they've done such a thing at a UK show, as far as I can recall.

The stand itself was split between Hasbro's Marvel, Star Wars and TransFormers products (interestingly, with the first two currently owned by Disney, I almost wonder why Disney didn't pick up TransFormers when a cinematic outing was first pitched). I had a brief look at the other bits and bobs (the electronic Infinity Gauntlet, Black Panther Mask and a more detailed, multi-part Darth Vader helmet being the highlights) and of course there was a small display of War for Cybertron stuff... but that was even more disappointing than I'd expected. 'Voyager class' Optimus Prime is positively miniscule, little bigger than a Deluxe from a few years back. Megatron looks worse in person than he did in photos, and the rest of the display amounted to Hound, Sideswipe, Cog and Flywheels. That's significantly less than they've revealed between the New York and Paris Comic Cons already, and seems like a pretty poor showing, under the circumstances.

I'll Just Leave This Here...

Yes, it's a terrpible photo... but that there is the upcoming Studio Series Revenge of the Fallen Devastator (wrecking balls not included - someone asked specifically). A few more bits and bobs to come...

Generations (30th Anniversary) Crosscut

The Generations/30th Anniversary toy of Skids was a surprise on many levels - not least that it happened at all. Along with Generations Springer, it seemed to show, at the time, that Hasbro were paying attention to IDW's output and tailoring their output (to a degree) toward those who appreciated the ongoing comic book narrative. While I hadn't intended to buy Skids for various reasons, he ended up being an impulse buy while on holiday a few years ago and I really liked what Hasbro had done to update and improve what had been a fairly poor G1 toy.

G1 Crosscut, meanwhile, was an e-HOBBY exclusive with a 'new' (that is, derived from one of the alternative Diaclone versions of the mold) head sculpt so, when Hasbro announced a Generations version, with a head styled after the original figure applied to the new Skids mold, the fact that I'd enjoyed Generations Skids so much put Crosscut straight onto my want list.

Power of the Primes Evolution Rodimus Prime

If you've read my write-up of Evolution Optimus Prime, you will have gathered that I was pretty lukewarm on this figure. My plan was to skip this one entirely, and instead buy the Shattered Glass-alike repaint, Rodimus Unicronus, because that had the advantage of being a black repaint, and we all know that black repaints are awesome.

Then, this figure turned up on The Entertainer's website for £35 and change - pretty close to half the RRP in the UK, and basically what I considered to be an acceptable price for a figure that hadn't received particularly good reviews. I ordered it, collected it in-store a couple of days later, and had pretty low expections, but ended up leaving a very positive (4 star) review on the website.

Curious to know what I liked about this toy? Read on...

Armada Jetfire

It seems strange to be revisiting Armada - in the sense of actually adding to my Armada collection - but I'm pretty sure my few purchases of this year will be the last from that particular toyline. At the start of the year, I bought a replacement Optimus Prime cab to replace the one I broke while trying to photograph Timelines Astrotrain in Superpants mode the first time. In doing so, I was reminded of how much fun Prime was, and so felt compelled to get Jetfire so I could get some shots of the proper Jet Prime/Jet Optimus, and so spent a while trawling eBay.

Since a brand new, boxed Armada Jetfire turned out to be pretty expensive at that time (prices in excess of  £100 - far more than this toy is worth!), I decided to go for a second hand one, as complete as possible. Many of those available unboxed on eBay were missing parts, partially broken (the accompanying Mini-Con in particular) or both. The most likely one I found was without its missiles/bombs, but I was later able to obtain these separately.

I already know the mold and its shortcomings thanks to Timelines Astrotrain, but let's have a closer look at the original version of the mold...

RID2015/Clash of the TransFormers Paralon

One would think, given the long history of Autobot/Decepticon conflict within the TransFormers franchise, that subtitling one portion of the newest Robots in Disguise continuity "Clash of the TransFormers" would be unnecessarily excessive tautology... Yet here we are. I know nothing about Clash of the Transformers except that it consisted mainly of repaints and was supposedly exclusive to Toys'R'Us.

Carrying on my habit of randomly purchasing RID2015 figures, I picked up this repaint/retool of Scorponok for a fairly flimsy reason, even by my standards: he's a more overt Beast Wars reference than the original version of the mold. Scorponok hadn't looked particularly impressive, being another one of RID2015's bizarre beast-robot Decepticons, but with a beast mode rather than a vehicle mode... making the toy as much a tautology as the name of the subline.

But does the toy rise above this inauspicious start?

NYCC 2018 - First Impressions of the Siege Decepticons

Yes, inevitably, I feel the need to write a little bit about the images from this year's New York Comic Con now surfacing on the TransFormers fan sites. My first impression of the Autobots could be boiled down to a resounding 'Nope'... So the big question is: have Hasbro done any better with the Decepticons...?

Well, for my money... Kinda?

Allow me to elaborate and elucidate...