TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Alpha Trion

Galaxy Force Vector Prime was one of those TransFormers toys that, even for its era, had a simplistic transformation, but which transcended this shortcoming through the sheer detail and the extravagant intricacy of its sculpting. The fact that he was an 'ancient Cybertronian' meant that he was effectively an alternate universe Alpha Trion analogue from the outset, so it seemed inevitable that, sooner or later, he would be repainted as G1 Alpha Trion.

What is perhaps a little strange is that BotCon got there first, releasing Alpha Trion as an accompanying figure to their Games of Deception boxed set from BotCon 2007, despite the character not actually featuring in the included comic...

...Because the whole thing was part of the Collectors' Club's own game of deception: the reveal of Alpha Trion was held over for their ongoing multiversal Timelines story in the bimonthly magazine... and was (spoiler warning!) one of the first Shattered Glass characters introduced! Of course, since then, Hasbro has release Alpha Trion toys with almost monotonous regularity, and in a variety of forms.

So, let's take a look at this primary repaint, and see how well it works as this deceptively familiar character...

TransFormers Legends (Takara Tomy 30th Anniversary) LG14 Ultra Magnus

Back in Generation 1, Ultra Magnus was a white repaint of Optimus Prime with a red and blue car carrier trailer into which the cab robot could be plugged (so, originating as Diaclone's Powered Convoy, he was basically a piloted mech piloting a larger mech suit). That seems, for many years, to have given both Hasbro and, to a slightly lesser extent, Takara Tomy a license to repaint any and all Optimus Prime figures white and call them 'Ultra Magnus'. Until recently, the only variations to this rule have been in the original Robots in Disguise/Car Robots line, TF Animated and TF Prime (although the earlier, unique toy was quickly replaced with a remold/repaint of Optimus Prime). The only way one could obtain a true G1 homage Ultra Magnus was to buy FansProjects' City Commander trailer set.

Then came KFC Toys' Masterpiece-scaled Citizen Stack and, soon after, Takara Tomy's offical Masterpiece model, which proved that, not only could Takara Tomy create a unique Ultra Magnus mold, but they could give him a cab that looked almost exactly like MP Optimus Prime v2, yet which transformed entirely differently, along with its car carrier trailer, to create a figure that was reasonably accurate to the TV series.

Then Hasbro announced Combiner Wars Ultra Magus - a trimmed down, IDW-inspired mainstream toy based on approximately the same principles, but with a distinctly underwhelming paint job lifted from the comics.

Leave it to Takara Tomy to repurpose the mold into its 30th Anniversary Legends toyline, with a more G1 toy-accurate colourscheme... But it is really that much better..?

A Second Not An Unboxing Post

A package arrived for me at work while I was away from the office sorting out personal matters. A package from Japan...

I can't deal with that now, but I figured I should at least give you another taste of things to come...

Yep, I can be a G1 Snob sometimes... but, seriously, Hasbro's version looked terrible
even if it is more IDW accurate.