Generations Selects Legacy: Evolution Antagony

Femme-Bot Friday #90

These days, even now I'm back in full-time work, impulse buys of TransFormers toys are few and far between, because my abiding impression is that overall quality has dropped substantially versus toys from a few years ago. Where a new figure is a remake of an earlier Generations toy - especially something like the Kingdom Waspinator mold feeling like a cheap knockoff of the 30th Anniversary toy - I'm even less inclined to pick up the newer version.

However, Legacy Inferno was the first new toy of the Beast Wars character since the 1997 original, which I've never owned, and Antagony was a BotCon 1998 exclusive repaint as a Femme-Bot, which I've also never owned... The new toy appeared to be such a hopeless simplification of the original, losing most of its impressive features, so Inferno was among the majority of Legacy toys that I skipped.

And yet... when I happened upon Generations Selects Legacy: Evolution Antagony - ostensibly a limited edition repaint by Hasbro themselves - at a branch of Game inside a Sports Direct in Eastbourne, that old impulse arose. Could this be another case of buyer's remorse? Let's take a look...

Classics/Masterpiece Starscream

Back when I wrote about Takara's MP03 Starscream, a whole fifteen years ago, I said I'd gladly acquire every iteration of this mold if I had the money and the space. While space is still something of an issue (I am in the process of thinning down my collection, but it's a slow process due to real life concerns), I happened to find this guy on eBay for a surprisingly reasonable price... When I later received a discounted offer from the seller, I just had to buy... Especially as I'd been having a rather trying time at home (due to redecoration work) and in the office, while Courtney was away travelling across Europe, and basically needed something cool to cheer me up.

Since MP03 emerged, I have to confess I've had a love/hate relationship with this iteration. Part of me feels the whole G1 colourscheme does the mold a disservice... but part of me thinks the mold transcends the ridiculously bright paint job, resulting in a truer interpretation of G1 Starscream.

So, let's take another look at this now 20-year-old mold, and see how it stands up to scrutiny in the year that is the 40th Anniversary of the original animated movie...

Retro G1 Brawn

After struggling through my write-up to Retro G1 Gears toward the end of last year, I intended to fast-track this one, to get it out of the way and - with any luck - prevent any ruminating. Thing being, Brawn was always one of my favourites, partly because of the early Marvel UK strip, The Enemy Within, in which he basically gets a blow to the head and goes nuts, then has to prove his loyalty in a battle to the death with Starscream, who's on Megatron's naughty list due to his scheming. The fact that his G1 toy was, let's face it, a little on the goofy side - lanky, with short arms featuring tool-like claws rather than hands, and little 'wings' on his shoulders - just added to his appeal.

The one glimmer of hope I've had for my continued collection of Hasbro's output was kicked off by the last two War for Cybertron chapters, Earthrise and Kingdom, which brought back some of the original, first year Mini Autobots in Deluxe class form. It hasn't all been great - Cliffjumper was a partsformer, and Huffer had the animation-style head - but the most recent bone Hasbro have thrown their GenX audience has been the Retro G1 line as an alternative (and presumably the eventual Retro G1 Huffer will use the toy-accurate sculpt which made its debut as the Go-Bot Road Ranger in a Generations Selects 2-pack).

Their failure to create a new toy-accurate head for Bumblebee meant I had no reason to acquire that one, but Gears got a decent update to the G1 toy's head sculpt, though the toy as a whole was somewhat disappointing (leading Courtney to name him "Gears Starmer"). I've been keeping my eye out for new Retro G1 releases since then, and the second pair came out in the late Autumn/early Winter of 2025, coupling Brawn with... Seaspray, a wholly new take on a figure from 1985, just as we're getting a new Deluxe class Windcharger, the last of the 1984 Mini Autobot set, as part of Studio Series '86.

Brawn is, for better or worse, a retooling of the Studio Series '86 toy which, despite being leagues better than the Titans Return toy, didn't interest me in the slightest due to it having another ugly, animation-style head sculpt. Once again, the question here is whether or not the new, toy-inspired head sculpt is enough of an improvement on this mold... so, let's find out.

Retro G1 Gears

Given that Hasbro have been recycling G1 now for almost five times longer than G1 actually existed, back in the day, it became increasingly baffling to me that each new iteration - particularly from the Prime Wars trilogy onward - that the focus has been wholly on the G1 cartoon rather than the G1 toys. Sure, the argument rages on, that the cartoon is the main reason TransFormers exists as a brand, but that's a particularly American point of view, and has me questioning whether some of these people are actually TransFormers fans, or simply fans of a TV show they view through nostalgia goggles, and afflicted with a compulsion to buy branded merchandise.

However, about 20 years after the Classics reboot, which brought a fresh new look and contemporary engineering to the old-favourite characters, Hasbro seem finally to be acknowledging that some TransFormers fans actually want familiar-looking, contemporary remakes of their old G1 toys... and so we have the Retro G1 line.

Essentially, it's a mix of latecomers in the grey area of an ongoing line that is War for Cybertron, Legacy and Age of the Primes, and including toys which, for whatever reason, are popping up first in the Studio Series '86 line. Their plastic colours and head sculpts are more toy-accurate, but it's like something the TransFormers Collectors' Club would do: a repaint with a new head, packaged under its own brand... only this is specifically targeted at the 40- to 50-something nostalgia hounds rather than the Premium Collector bracket. The inaugural pair were - to no-one's surprise - a repack of the War for Cybertron: Earthrise Bumblebee (which, having been a Netflix exclusive to being with, has since been repainted about a billion times already) that kept the animation-style head, and Legacy Gears.

Much as I might have wanted a new G1-style Gears, it wasn't just the ugly, animation-style head that put me off buying the Legacy toy... So let's see if this cynically-marketed re-release is enough to make me change my mind about an entire mold.

Age of the Primes Onyx Prime

Thusfar, Age of the Primes looks like another toyline that I'll skip almost entirely, with exceptions being those that are either holdovers from Legacy (more likely their 'Retro G1' remixes) or figures like this one, which fits about as well into TransFormers as did the live action movie Dinobots or TLK Megatron.

I have to confess that my knowledge of the Primes is pretty much non-existent, both in terms of who they are and how/why they entered the lore... But, if I had to guess, it was probably Furman (and I'd be right). The idea of thirteen Primes representing aspects of Cybertronian physiology or society isn't inherently bad, per se, just... superfluous... And their introduction into TransFormers media really highlights how astonishingly easy it is for a moderately proficient writer to define authority figures and get a whole community of people to accept them as gods in a religion.

Nevertheless, we're currently at a point in the Age of the Primes line where there's only a couple more of The Thirteen to go - Quintus and Amalgamous, both of whom sound interesting in theory, but look terrible as toys - and I'm highly unlikely to add them to my collection... Let's see if Onyx Prime can help us ascertain why that is...

Cybertron Primus

Here, finally, we have the last of my ancient Draft posts for this blog, now with the advantage of sparkly new photos because the originals (taken in February 2011!) had the same busy background of shelves that all the other images from that era had. Looking back, it's kind of bizarre that it's taken me more than 14 full years to complete this post considering Primus is such a significant figure in TransFormers lore and, in the Cybertron/Galaxy Force continuity amongst others, literally the home planet of the TransFormers.

Given the struggles Hasbro/Takara Tomy had in creating a reasonably convincing Unicron figure for the Armada toyline, one would think they'd have second thoughts about another toy that transformed into a planet. However, idea that Primus - Simon Furman's supposed 'God' of Cybertron - actually transformed into the planet Cybertron itself was clearly too tempting to pass on. There are plenty of other things he could have been instead, if they'd thought about it and, given the average fan reaction at the time to large plastic robots that transform into imperfect spheres, a bit of imagination probably would have been appreciated by many. After all, this was a character who had never before been clearly or definitively depicted in any of the associated media (the weird, Rodimus Prime-inspired version from the 1980s Marvel comics doesn't really count). That said, one can't argue with the dramatic power of a planet that transforms into a colossal robot...

Also, when Galaxy Force/Cybertron rolled around, Unicron had become a black hole (in the TV show) and a tank-thing resembling The Ark from G1 (in the Hasbro toyline), and the revelation of Primus became a plot point, so it was pretty much inevitable that he'd appear in some form.

So, with a still semi-recent, colossal Legacy Unicron toy thanks to the HasLab crowdfunding scheme and a smaller Third Party rival already available, let's - finally! - take a look at the second TransFormers planetformer Hasbro actually released. The only real question was whether the design and engineering teams had learned the right lessons from the reception of Armada Unicron...

Revenge of the Fallen Ransack

It's often said that aircraft don't make for good vehicle modes for TransFormers toys... and with evidence running from G1 Silverbolt to the very latest incarnation of that same character in the Age of the Primes toyline, and even the Masterpiece version of movie Starscream, it's hard to deny. However, there have been rare treats, such as Generations/Reveal the Shield Lugnut, and Third Party companies have worked wonders with movieverse designs, let alone their own unique creations.

So, where goes Ransack fall on this spectrum of achievements? Buckle up, flybots... we're in for a wild ride!

Studio Series #117 Hatchet

It's at least somewhat rare these days that I buy a figure knowing it's going to be shit. Particularly over the last couple of years, as Hasbro's QC is consistently found to be going down the toilet. When they take seven years to complete a set of characters from a movie that came out fourteen years ago, and balls it up not once (SS Crankcase using the SS Crowbar mold rather than TLK Berserker, despite having identical vehicle modes) but twice (as we're about to find out), one has to wonder if the delayed Hatchet precisely because they knew it was shit.

And, in all honesty, I wasn't really intending to buy Hatchet. As far as I'm concerned, Studio Series has devolved in exactly the same way as every other TransFormers line from Hasbro: its core idea - the most screen-accurate 'bots created using final CGI models as the basis - is no longer the foundation of the line, QC and material quality have taken a nosedive, and paintwork has been reduced significantly.

But... As with the Seekers, I felt a compulsion to complete the Dreads at the same scale and so picked him up at the MCM London Comic Con last month. The basis for the compulsion was largely that, while the original 'Commander class' DotM Hatchet toy was very cool for its size, the jet mode really made no sense. So, let's take a look at Studio Series Hatchet. It can't be that bad, surely?

Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-14 Bonecrusher

Considering its humbly-priced and thoroughly impressive beginnings, the Masterpiece line has grown to become - in my opinion - one of the most egregiously overpriced lines in the TransFormers franchise. This is particularly notable in the Masterpiece Movie subline where, at first glance, many of the figures appear to be only small upgrades on the quality of Leader Class toys circa Revenge of the Fallen.

Such was my opinion, at least, when MPM-13 Blackout emerged four years after the excellent Studio Series figure looking similarly underpainted and, in some ways, substantially less accurate, while MPM-4 Optimus Prime, which appeared a full eight years after the Leader class RotF toy, was marred by ill-fitting parts that didn't sit flush until the improved knockoffs appeared some time later. Similarly, having bought Studio Series Bonecrusher, I sold off my original Deluxe class toy, and the prospect of what looked like a sorely underpainted 'Masterpiece' enlargement just didn't appeal.

So, why do I have this now? Well, there are two reasons. First and foremost, MPM-15 Brawl appeared, looking like a substantial improvement on the rather cool Leader class toy from 2007, which got lost by the courier when I tried to sell it on a few years ago, and I was keen to get some form of replacement for him (albeit possibly a KO because, however good it is, it ain't worth £165!), since that had been the only version of movie Brawl I'd bought. This was enough to somewhat rekindle my interest in MPM, generally. Secondly... Game started selling Bonecrusher at half price sometime last year, and still had it in stock when, having started a new full-time job toward the end of January, my first full-month's paycheck arrived in my bank account at the end of February.

So, does slashing the price by half make this a worthwhile purchase? Stick with me, gentle reader, and we'll find out.

A Recommendation and a Question

I'm not generally inclined to make direct recommendations here - links over on the side are as much for my own convenience as to suggest further reading to visitors - but I recently had a video from the YouTube channel Valaverse pop up in my feed, and found it quite fascinating. It seems as though the guy behind the channel is a former Hasbro toy designer who - along the same lines as the folks from Boss Fight Studios - decided to take a big risk and go it alone. Rather than create a wholly unique action figure toyline (and then let it stagnate, its most interesting concepts left unexplored, while churning out licensed products left, right and centre) he purchased the license to 'Action Force' (which is what the smaller GI Joe toys were originally called in the UK, being a spin-off of the larger format 'Action Man') and produce his own characters, costumes and accessories for that.

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...

Real Gear Robots Night Beat 7

Real Gear Robots was a bit of an odd moment for me, as a Collector. Cunningly pitched as movie toys, but originally planned as being tangential to the Cybertron/Galaxy Force toyline, it was precisely the sort of thing I'd aim to avoid these days.

I surely can't imagine a similar toyline being popular now, especially given how simplistic and awkward most of them were... but, for whatever reason, I found the first wave or so quite compelling.

 

Studio Series Core class Concept Art Rumble

Core class looks, for all the world, like it should be a line of pocket-money toys. They're small, they're basic... Similar to the Mini Autobots from Generation 1, but with better articulation. Unfortunately, the £13/£14 UK RRP means they're too expensive to be considered true pocket-money toys... quite apart from being far too expensive for what you're actually getting.

The figure chosen to debut Core class in the Studio Series line was Bumblebee movie Shockwave - a truly baffling choice - which came out four years after the Bumblebee movie, and two years before the Voyager class toy. In some respects, it was also better articulated than the larger version. Some might say that alone made him worth the price - perhaps even better value-for-money than the Voyager - but his 'vehicle' mode was almost identical in structure to the TransFormers Prime version of Shockwave, which wasn't exactly inspiring. There had been no concept art for Shockwave's vehicle mode, theoretically giving the designers carte blanche to create something unique. The other figure in the first wave was Ravage which, arguably, should have been included with SS #83 Soundwave, so it's no surprise that Hasbro would later decide to create more minions for Soundwave, given they're now mining the archives for concept art.

Rumble is an obvious choice, considering his popularity and the frequency of his appearances in the G1 cartoon, and the fact that both he and Frenzy have come along in almost every recent toyline, including War For Cybertron, Studio Series '86 and Legacy, essentially all being Core class, or the closest equivalent in that line... These have all been rather lacklustre, though, so let's find out if the Core class Studio Series Concept Art Rumble breaks this pattern.

Real Gear Robots Power Up VT6

One of the most common problems with the Real Gear Robots line was that it was a combination of extremely basic engineering and the need to ensure the alternate mode was instantly recognisable as the gadget it was intended to represent. Given that many of the gadgets chosen for the line were either awkwardly shaped, or essentially small boxes with buttons.

Over the years, Hasbro and Takara have come up with some genuinely ingenious ways of transforming rectangular blocks of various thicknesses into reasonable-looking robots but, on balance, I'd say they've probably had more misses than hits.

But which category does Power Up VT6 fall into? Read on, and find out..!

 

Human Alliance Skids & Arcee

OK, by this point, I am reasonably certain that this is actually the last - the very last - Revenge of the Fallen figure in my collection, at least until Studio Series adds something worthwhile from that film. As with Mudflap, this toy had been languishing, largely forgotten, in a box for years. The photos I had taken have been awaiting upload from my computer for more than ten years.

Skids and Mudflap were referred to in RotF as 'the twins', but their Deluxe Class toys were surprisingly different, given the limitations of the size class. They had broadly similar Mech Alive gimmicks, but the specifics of their operation were quite different. Their transformations had similar aspects, but their weapon features were wholly unique. The craziest thing about the Human Alliance versions is that they're even more similar in terms of their underlying engineering, despite the (marginally) larger size versus the Deluxe class toys.

So, let's take a look at this much-maligned character, and see how he fares in this underutilised format.

Beast Wars (Reissue) Scorponok

As a Collector who didn't become a Beast Wars 'fan' until long after the toyline had ended, the myriad reissues have been a great benefit to me. Much of my BW collection was obtained via the secondary market, but Takara Tomy's Telemocha reissues back in 2007 allowed me to pick up new versions of key characters featuring more TV show-accurate paintwork, and the Beast Wars Reborn set from the previous year even included retooled parts for greater accuracy.

Hasbro's more recent reissue strategy has been haphazard at best, trickling out random figures, with a strong bias toward recycling the same old G1 molds we've seen in previous reissue lines, but the decision to reissue Beast Wars toys - in recreations of their original packaging, no less - allowed for some more direct comparisons with their contemporary output in the War For Cybertron: Kingdom toyline... and, surprisingly, some of the new toys came off worse for that comparison.

One such example, in my opinion, is Scorponok. I've covered a version of the Kingdom figure in another post, so let's take a look at the original figure... or as close as one can get outside of the secondary market.

Studio Series #93 Hot Rod

I still haven't watched The Last Knight (and still don't intend to), but I have watched enough clips to know two things: that Hasbro's first attempt at a Hot Rod figure back in 2017 was hopelessly inaccurate, and that the writers couldn't decide whether he was supposed to be French, or just somehow 'stuck' with the accent, considering he frequently uses French idioms in his dialogue (consistently addressing Vivian Wembly as "mademoiselle", introducing himself with "Je m'apelle Hot Rod", etc.).

His design was pretty good, though, carrying just enough of the Diaclone DNA exhibited by the likes of Bumblebee and Jazz in the first film - even more surprising considering how quickly Bay's movies distanced themselves from that aesthetic - while fitting in with the sleeker, increasingly humanoid styling of the later films.

Given that I bought DX9's excellent La Hire more than three years ago, one could be forgiven for wondering why I'd bother with Hasbro's Studio Series update of their figure from The Last Knight's toyline... And, granted, it does seem strange to spend £26 on a Deluxe class figure that I know isn't going to hold a candle to a larger, more intricate, elaborate and accurate Third Party Masterpiece-analogue, that I already own, and for which I paid just £77. SS Hot Rod may be just one third the price, but can a Deluxe class toy, as produced by Hasbro in the 2020s, possibly be even one third as good as La Hire?

Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?

Real Gear Robots Zoom Out 25X

If you were under the impression that the Real Gear Robots toyline couldn't possibly get any worse than Speed Dial 800... You'd be about right. However, it's a very close-run thing when it comes to the last few I bought. The funniest thing about the line is that, just 15 or so years later, so many of the alternate modes are so out of date, and Zoom Out 25x is saddled with one such example, along with another of the line's terrible names.

Given that there are already digital (photo) cameras and (ancient-style) cellular telephones available in the line, a camcorder feels like another logical addition. It has as much play value in its alternate mode as in its robot mode, and it's certainly the same kind of consumer technology... But is it a worthwhile addition to this strange and short-lived, movie-adjacent toyline?

War for Cybertron: Kingdom/Golden Disk Collection Mutant Tigatron

Looking back on the War For Cybertron Trilogy, now that we're entering the second year of Legacy, it is quite easily apparent that it was a troubled toyline from the very start. How much it was affected by COVID-19 is anyone's guess but the line, as a whole, was an occasionally glorious trainwreck, with little in the way of consistent direction, particularly when the Netflix series is included in its context.

Siege was a toyline that didn't live up to its promise and which ended before it really got started. Its accompanying show didn't feature half the molds or characters available, yet introduced some who weren't represented on the toy shelves. Earthrise was yet another in Hasbro's seemingly interminable series of 'true' G1 reboots, yet half the expected characters wound up in the Studio Series '86 line, while the animated series was a continuation of Siege that had zero connection to the toyline beyond certain specific figures. Kingdom, meanwhile, was seemingly cobbled together from the end of Earthrise and a Beast Wars anniversary toyline which has continued into Legacy without ever properly acknowledging Beast Wars, or its anniversary, and the Netflix show kept the same old Siege CGI for the Autobots and, while it introduced some of the Maximals, most of the Predacons were absent.

So it seems strange that Hasbro chose to further muddy the waters by creating several unrelated boxed sets, all of which featuring either repaints or minimal retools. The Golden Disk Collection would have been an easy pass for me, in its entirety, were it not for Hasbro's decision to make Terrorsaur part of the set rather than a mainstream Kingdom toy. This one was only of mild interest to me, because the original Tigatron figure was unexpectedly good... but, at £32, Mutant Tigatron was a figure I decided I could live without. However, as part of Hasbro's Advent sale in the run-up to Christmas 2022, they dropped his price to just £16... and I found I could no longer resist.

Studio Series #91 The Fallen

Ostensibly released toward the end of 2022, this figure was rumoured to not be getting a widespread release in the UK, and was almost instantly listed on Hasbro Pulse as 'Sold Out'. Having seemingly missed out there, I bookmarked the figure on Amazon, despite it being priced significantly higher initially, and ended up ordering after Christmas, at a slight discount, using some of the Amazon vouchers I'd received as a gift. Unfortunately, the copy I received was not only headless, but missing the mask accessory, so I had to send it straight back and claim a refund.

By this point, Hasbro Pulse miraculously had stocks again and, given that their standard price was just 90p more than the discounted price I'd just paid on Amazon, I figured I may as well order there... Free delivery as well, thanks to the current Leader class pricepoint, which is always a bonus.

Now, I'm not a fan of The Fallen, per se. Back when I wrote about the original, Voyager class figure from 2009, I described it as "what would happen if you let H.R. Giger design a TransFormer" and as exemplifying "everything that was wrong with the TransFormers movie robots". In retrospect, I have decided that I like the design, in and of itself, but I just don't think it works even as an ancient Cybertronian quasi-deity. The bizarre, monstrous appearance, coupled with the fact that he never transformed in the movie, was a huge missed opportunity within the franchise... but then, introducing a villain like The Fallen in just the second live action movie, only to kill him off so easily at the end, was the quintessential missed opportunity, as well as being, just generally, a terrible mistake on the part of the 'writers'. Perhaps if the writers' strike had been resolved sooner, the movie could have been more coherent, and The Fallen a better-developed and more 'normal'-looking character, with a more significant impact on the franchise rather than just another Scooby-Doo villain of the week...

...But let's not dwell on what might have been... Because here we have Hasbro's latest attempt at creating a toy based on the bonkers CGI, and all we need to know is whether or not it's better than the original.