Snarky, affable con artist? How can I not love him? Hubcap!

While researching Hubcap’s complete lack of U.S. fiction appearances for the first 18 years of his existence, I came across the best description of his circumstance by way of the TFWiki:

“Despite his availability with the rest of the ’86 Mini-Vehicle assortment, Hubcap was omitted completely from the original cartoon. No character model was drawn up for him, and he was similarly absent from the Marvel Comics The Transformers Universe bio series, despite having a full-length bio written by Bob Budiansky. The reason for this omission is unknown.”

This created a situation where, very much like Scoop, I was aware of Hubcap, but not overly invested in adding him to the collection. The third character/toy that falls into this same category is Jackpot. It was Jackpot and Hubcap’s appearance in the TFCC story Gone Too Far that made me want to pick both of these guys up.

Out of the two of them, I liked the hapless but affable con artist Hubcap best. Though the chances of getting a Classics-style update to Jackpot are even more remote now that we are getting a toy of Animated Jackpot through the TFCC Figure Subscription Service, we got an updated Hubcap through the amazing work of Venksta over at Renderform.com.

With colours to match either Reveal the Shield Bumblebee or Legacy of Bumblebee Bumblebee, I went with the Reveal the Shield release.

Though the Legacy release has a closer yellow colour to his G1 incarnation, I wanted to differentiate Hubcap further from my Classics Bumblebee, that and the orangish red in his face goes really well with the slightly orangish yellow of the body.

As with the other replacement head sets for the Minibots, the “Hub Scout” set includes some serious weaponry for Hubcap.

Though Hubcap is more of a talker than a fighter, so they seem excessive. The generic ”Cruiser” hatchback alt mode does a good job in place of his G1 toy’s Porsche 924 Turbo.

I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it. Transformers Prime Optimus Maximus!

Beyond stocking my work desk by continuing the Legends class toys, the Cyberverse line also introduced the new playsets that I am definitely a big fan of. With the Dark of the Moon line came first Bumblebee and the Mobile Battle Bunker and Starscream with his Orbital Assault Carrier. They were cool, high on play value, but nothing too mind-blowing for display.

Then the next wave consisted of Megatron and Optimus Prime, both of which actually integrated with their action sets as trailers in alt mode and armor/flight suits in robot mode. Upping the ante for display, especially in alt mode.

In the following wave, Ratchet and Shockwave continued the integration with alt mode, but lose any real integration with robot mode.

Then came the brilliant Dark of the Moon release of The Ark. Rather than a made up (other than Optimus’ trailer, I guess) accessory, here we had an attempt to deliver a show-accurate representation of a piece of Transformers fiction that wasn’t actually a Transformer. My thoughts on the subject were pretty straightforward:

More, please!

And Hasbro obliged. Not just once, but twice within the Prime Cybververse line we get Wheeljack’s spaceship, the Star Hammer (or Jackhammer if you prefer the show’s name) and a Decepticon Energon Driller.

However, they also decided to go in a completely different, larger-scale direction.

Optimus Maximus is intended to be a battle platform with two modes; the mech-like robot mode and a seated robot mode rolling battle station mode.

The intention, of course is to populate the battle platform with Cyberverse Legion and Commander Class ‘bots.

Run, Steve, run!

With missles and sounds and lights (even though, like most Cyberverse, the light-piping gimmick doesn’t work at all), Optimus Maximus provides plenty in the way of play value for the kids. With no fictional appearance, or for that matter basis for existing outside of his box text, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with him.

Then I saw him in person and… don’t laugh… was drawn to how much he resembled a piece of “exploded view” art.

Especially when set against a single-coloured background, Optimus Maximus looks a lot like a deconstructive study of an Optimus.

And that’s not including the fact that at his scale, I can populate him solely by incarnations of Optimus just for the heck of it.

Hyper-Pan-Dimensional-Super-God-Optimus-Mega Force Roll Out!

Even with how much I like the look of Optimus Maximus and despite having see the Bumblebee Battle Suit in person as Botcon, I am still on the fence as to whether or not I am going to get that one when it comes out.

Unfortunately, he looks a little less Deconstructive art and a little more Dadaism…

Growin’ up may be hard to do, but so is growin’ down. Goldbug part 2!

If you read the comments from yesterday’s post, you’ll notice that I accidentally left someone out. I had thought to mention the Reveal the Shield release of “Gold Bumblebee” but couldn’t initially figure out where to work him into the post, thinking that I would go back afterwards and slot him in somewhere. Clearly it slipped my mine, as Flywheels from over at Random Toy Reviews kindly reminded me. Incidentally, Flywheels is going to be picking up the other Goldbug upgrade set, the RF-006 “Gold Scout” set from Azim Venksta over at Renderform, so hopefully we’ll see a post of that version over at Random Toy Reviews sometime soon?

Following the two most likely unintentional Goldbug homages of shiny gold G2 Bumblebee and the 2010 shiny version of United Bumblebee was an outright homage in the form of “Gold Bumblebee”.

Initially I was going to say that I was disappointed in this little guy, but the more I looked at him today at work (all of the little legends class, Cyberverse, Robot Heroes, etc. go to my work display), the more I liked him. Yes, he has Bumblebee’s smiling, happy face rather than Goldbug’s stoic faceplate, after all he is just a repaint of Classics Legends class Bumblebee, but taking the trademark blue in the head and extending it to the legs and arms is a really nice touch. Just out of curiosity I googled around to see if anyone did an upgrade head for this little guy and low and behold I found a TFW2005 Radicons post that shows a really good custom job.

Not needing any customization at all is Gold Bumblebee’s alt mode, with its sparkly, gold-flecked paintjob.

I do believe Classics Goldbug would approve.

“Fist bump, little dude.”

Growin’ up is hard to do, especially when your teammates flat out refuse to let you. Goldbug!

In the 1986 Marvel comics crossover between G.I. Joe and the Transformers, imaginatively titled G.I.Joe and the Transformers, a case of mistaken intentions (a hallmark to this day of Marvel comics) has unfortunate consequences for Bumblebee.

Three issues later he is brought back in a newly created, more powerful body and declares,

Umm, alrighty then, Goldbug. Good luck on that respect thing.

Anyway, the following year Goldbug received a toy with a very distinct blue version of his original faceplated G1 toy headsculpt. Unfortunately — despite the “dignified” new name — this toy was a Throttlebot, falling somewhere between the simplistic small-child focused Cyber Slammers and Gravity Bots lines sold for the recent movie. About a year and a half later, when the Classic Pretender toyline was scheduled for release, the comic book writers had to get Bumblebee back into his original body. Having been deactivated half a year earlier by a superpowered Starscream, it wasn’t too difficult to have Ratchet rebuild Goldbug,

But why did Ratchet rebuild Goldbug back into Bumblebee? Was that the only schematic Ratchet had on hand to go off? Was there some sort of restriction due to how quickly he had to rebuild him?

No, Ratchet just liked old Bumblebee better than new Bumble-Goldbug-bee. For no other reason than “personal preference” Ratchet negated Bumblebee’s one attempt at “growing up”. That was effectively that for Goldbug.  Ironically, G2 Bumblebee would be a little bit of an homage, intentional or not, being a literally Gold Bumblebee.

Another homage came in the form of Takara’s 2010 rerelease of United Bumblebee, also in shiny gold. I skipped over it as between Hasbro and Takara it was the fifth use of this mold for Bumblebee. I would almost regret that decision when two different 3rd party groups announced they were releasing upgrade heads to turn your gold United Bumblebee into Goldbug. Then, just before the release this year of Beelzeboss’ (the folks that did the awesome Cliffjumper upgrade head and weapons) “Growing Pains” set BigBadToyStore suddenly had the shiny gold UN-07 United Bumblebee in stock and for a price of $30! For an import at all, that’s pretty darned good, for a two year old import, that’s great, so I jumped on it.

Unfortunately the shiny gold paint used is prone to scratching and this toy has scores along the hood due to being packaged in robot mode.

Still, even with that flaw, he makes for a splendidly blinged-out Classics Goldbug, a figure we most certainly won’t see out of Hasbro due to Bumblebee’s new status as the flagship character of the Transformers brand. Of course, I say that but thanks to the somewhat recent IDW comics, Goldbug in their universe has been established as a completely different character unrelated to Bumblebee. Though this approach is understandable, it is a little bit disappointing in its disregard for the origins of the original Goldbug.

IDW, helping make this picture make a little more sense.

Beyond his stint in the Marvel and now IDW comics, Goldbug did make one more fiction appearance resulting in another wonderful toy.  In an interesting twist, as part of the Botcon 2008 Shattered Glass set we get our Evil Autobot version of Bumblebee in the form of “an upgraded form and a new identity as Goldbug”.

Based on the Cybertron Hot Shot mold with a suitably blue new head mold, somewhat ironically it appears it took going evil for our intrepid young Autobot to actually grow up and get some respect from most of the other Autobots.

Also, with the theme for Botcon 2012 being the invasion of the Classics-verse by the Shattered Glass folks, this right here could very well happen some day.

‘Til All Are Displayed! The Collection… well most of it.

I was just looking at the pictures on my “‘Til All Are What Now?” page and thought it was just about time for an updated shot of my Transformers display.

As I sit at my computer typing this out a turn to the left reveals three shelves, each roughly six and a half feet tall, as well as an assortment of smaller satellite shelves. To my immediate right is display shelf 1. Topped by three (soon to be three and a half) shelves of the star of Transformers — no, despite what they would have you believe recently, not Bumblebee: Optimus Primes and Convoys of all shapes and sizes.

Working our way counter-clockwise, shelf-by-shelf from there we have:

• Half a shelf of Hot Rod/Rodimus Primes.
• Ultra Magnus’ (Magni?) and Blaster and his tapes.
• Smaller Constructicons and a slew of Micromasters.
• Constructicons (old and new) and other combiners.
• Scorponok, SkyLynx, and Omega Supreme.
• In the middle is the Dark of the Moon shelf and Kre-O Optimus, which is a bit of a mess at the moment.
• My wife’s “girl Transformers that could kick your tailpipe” shelf.
•  The multiple incarnations of Mirage, Prowl, and Jazz.
• The Targetmasters.
• Finally, the Headmasters and Wheeljack.

On the wall opposite display shelf 1, there are shelves 2 and 3 and two more ancillary shelves.

For this one, I’ll do each shelving unit individually, starting on the top left:

• Various incarnations of Star Saber (except an actual Star Saber, sadly) and Dai Atlas (with an actual Dai Atlas, happily.)
• Two shelves of Minibots and their updates.
• An entire shelf of Grimlocks.
• The rest of the Dinobots, as well as Grimstone and his Dinobot drones.
• The G1 repaints from the newest movies; such as red Ironhide, white and blue Jazz, and Revenge of the FallenSkywarp (look! I finally found my G1 repaint Movie (2007) Starscream!)

Display shelf 3, starting at the tippy top:

• AssortedGods, Monsters, Primes, and one tiny Fortress Maximus.
• The Animated Shelf, including the full 2011 Botcon set and TFCC Exclusive Animated Cheetor.
• The G2 and G2 Classics with all the glorious colours of the rainbow.
• The first section of G1 and G1 Classics Autobots.
• Shattered Glass and the second section of G1 and G1 Classics Autobots.
• The Movie (2007), RotF, and DotM Leader and Human Alliance class toys.
• More Combiners! Predaking!

Display shelf 2, from top to bottom:

• Shockwaves, The Fallen, and movie Megatrons.
• G1, G2, Masterpiece, Classics… just a whole bunch of Megatrons as well as Classics Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge and their updates.
• TheshelfoftheSeekers.
• Soundwavesgalore and mini-cassettes (and updates) galore.
• G1 and G1 Classics Decepticons.
• Japanese Beast Wars, including my beloved Tako Tank.
• Another shelf full of combiners.

The last little shelf is a mishmash of stuff:

• Smokescreens G1, Classics, and Alternators (soon to be joined by RotF and Cybertron Smokescreens once I dig them out.)
• The Generations Junkions.
• Scan series Bumblebee, Sideswipe…
• …Ratchet and Ironhide.
• The Power Core Combiner Autobots.
• The Power Core Combiner Decepticons.

Oh yeah, also Supreme class Beast Machines Cheetor standing to the side.

With the exception of G1 Metroplex and Cybertron Metroplex that stand ever vigilant above my computer (which is itself named Metroplex) and an extra Micromaster Tailwind, that is the entirety of my current display.

However, though admittedly a lot of floorspace is taken up by the display (and yes, I am aware that I am very, very lucky to have a wife that is not only ok with, but actually encourages my collecting and displaying), it only amounts to a little under half of my total collection. The rest are in plastic bins in a closet.

One day I will have an entire room devoted to the collection, until then, I’ll keep enjoying them by occasionally pulling them out of their bins to take pictures of them for this blog. That way I get to share the joy this collection brings me (and yes, a little showing off too.)

Kinda like Spock minus the charm. G1 Prowl!

[Much like Ironhide's post, this post will be completely ignoring IDW's 2007 assertion that Beast Wars Prowl is the same character as G1 Prowl. In this case especially because they already had a better Beast Wars Prowl to choose from.]

Prowl is kind of a tool. That’s the eternal summation of his fictional appearances. All of them. Rather boringly logical, he’s a stickler for protocol, kind of a teacher’s pet, or something like Star Trek’s Spock without any of the charm. At one point Prowl became interesting in the IDW comics when it was revealed that he was actually logical to the point of coldly calculating and sometimes morally ambiguous, but they put a stop to that pretty quickly (much to the chagrin of the fans.)

As toys go, he is one of the original Autobot cars, and the car that was released — minus the lightbar — as Bluestreak that same year and then Smokescreen the following year. *gasp!* Yes, Hasbro has been doing this repaint thing the whole time! Everyone that gets offended by it nowadays just need to realize that and hush up.

Despite his reputation as a jerk, he’s still been a mainstay of the Autobot forces, which was enough to garner him an update in the Classics line.

Of course, this being a longstanding tradition, Prowl’s Classics release was then remolded into Bluestreak (now called Silverstreak) and then into Smokescreen. In between his G1 and Classics releases, Prowl also received an update in the Alternators line.

“This time I have a nightstick and I’m not afraid to use it.”

From a Datsun 280ZX to an Acura RSX to a Nissan 350Z, his two updates stay true to his original alt mode, being deco’ed out as standard Japanese police cars.

I don’t know, maybe being a jerk pays off? Prowl’s original toy received three reissues (of which mine is the 2003 Commemorative Series release), plus updates and even a release in the recent Kre-O line.

Stuffy, uptight, and demanding times three and a quarter.

Pay no attention to the Formula 1 race car, he’s a spy. G1 Mirage!

Mirage has lent his name to many a Transformer since his original appearance, but most are along the lines of,

“Hey, it’s a Formula-1 race car Transformer, we have to name it Mirage.”

R.i.D. Mirage came closest to a real homage (Mirage homage! Heh, say that five times fast) by actually being a blue-and-white Formula-1 race car. Energon Mirage gets the award for being the least homage-like by not only being the wrong colours but being a speedboat, not to mention a Decepticon.

Of course, being a Decepticon isn’t that much of a stretch for Mirage. Much like Thundercracker, who is “not totally convinced of the Decepticons’ cause”, Mirage is “unsure of Autobot cause… can’t be fully trusted.” Thanks to that line from his G1 techspec with very few exceptions Mirage has been either an outright traitor or at least suspected of being a traitor in his fictional appearances. Another line that seems to carry over to his fictional appearances along with this inherent distrustfulness is “Prefers hunting turbofoxes on Cybertron with his high-priced friends.” Basically, I think the writers just have something against rich people.

Over the years his function of “Counter Intelligence” and his original cartoon ability to turn himself invisible has since been boiled down to “Spy”. Naturally. Because nothing says “Spy” like a ground effect laden race car for an alt mode.

Sadly, Mirage’s G1 toy has been guaranteed not to be reissued. Reportedly at Botcon 2005, Hasbro announced that the mold had been “lost”. Luckily for those of us with no original Mirage and a serious distaste of the secondary market, a Chinese knock-off company decided to reverse engineer Mirage into a very high quality knock-off. Thanks to my lovely wife, the G1 Mirage-shaped hole in my collection has been filled this holiday season.

The counterfeiters didn’t stop there though, they actually made a slight improvement over the original release. Certain stickers have actually been replaced with full-on paint applications; such as the stickers of red and white stripes that run up the sides of his alt mode.

Sorry, Hasbro and Takara, but in this case you’ve been one-upped at your own game. Of course, I don’t feel bad about this considering Hasbro’s statement about no reissue, so I count no harm no foul on this one.

Mirage took a little researching, as his labels weren’t something I had paid too much attention to before. I did know that “Ligier” was Mirage’s name for his Japanese release, but what I didn’t know was that it actually comes from the name of the Motorsport team that fielded this particular Formula 1 car, the number 26 JS-11 driven by Jacques-Henri Laffite.

“Elf” comes from the French oil company “Elf Aquitaine”, “Citanes” is a deliberate bastardization of “Gitanes”, a brand of French cigarettes, which lead me to this particular sticker,

It took me a while to figure out what it was supposed to be (turns out I could have just read his Wiki entry a little more closely) but I finally hunted it down. The original cigarette company, Gitanes, had a dancing “gypsy” lady for a logo. Though the original designers chose to bastardize the name, they didn’t bother to modify the logo itself.

Another reason I am perfectly ok with getting a “brand-new” Mirage, is that his original toy has a bad habit of breaking at the waist pivot, making an intact, good condition Mirage even harder to find on the secondary market. Now, I don’t know if the knock-off addresses this at all, but either way, I am being very careful with him.

Mirage went on from G1 to get a G2 release in the Go-Bots line as well as a planned G2 release as a “flip-changer” which would see release in Machine Wars instead (more on that in a moment), but neither was as grand as the concept art for a repaint of his G1 toy done in pure G2 style, note the wonderful alligator image on his arm and the scales on his legs.

From my post on the recent Transformers Vault book.

Back to that Machine Wars release of his planned flip-changer G2 release. The “flip-changer” part is that he mostly transforms with one spring-loaded click, in his case by lifting his rear spoiler. Unfortunately they decided to go with a “close enough” approach on the colour choice and made him teal and white. They also changed his alt mode number from “26″ to “7″. Both of these changes, as well as the fact that the mold later saw release as R.i.D. Skid-Z, contributed to my continued ambivalence towards it. In 2004 in the Takara-only Robot Masters line, they saw fit to correct this by painting him a more appropriate blue and giving him the correct number.

They also gave him some extra weaponry.  He comes with the mold’s original two-piece blue gun that allows for storing in alt-mode, but, like other Robot Masters releases he comes with an additional (very shiny) weapon, which clearly was not designed for this line originally. They couldn’t use the original G1 toy’s sponsorship labels and instead chose to cause an odd meta-self-referencing situation by replacing them with the toyline name and his ID number.

Heck, even Mirage’s original name in Japan, Ligier, was now off limits. They got around that by naming him Rijie, which apparently has the same pronunciation in Japanese anyway. Not sure how that makes everything ok with trademarks and whatnot.

Next up in 2006, we got a release of Mirage as my favourite car in the Alternators line. Though I did an entire post on him already, he still deserves his place within G1 Mirage’s post, (also, I can never get enough of him) so here he is again.

Who needs to be a Formula 1 racer when you’re this pretty?

Just a great job on the headsculpt. Definitely more square than the original, but still very Mirage.

Where was I? Oh, yes, 2006. The end of 2006 saw Mirage get an absolutely amazing update rather early on in the Classics line. Back to his original alt mode, he got his 26 back.

This time his sponsorships became a mix of Transformers homages like Witwicky Sparkplugs and Lithonian Drivetrain, and designer in-jokes, such as “Plasma Injection Energy” or P.I.E. (mmmm, pie) and “F.P. Racing”, a reference to Hasbro designer Joe Kyde’s RPG guild. Keeping that integration of his weapon in alt mode, this toy is brilliant with a great Mirage head update and absolutely phenomenal articulation

Such a perfect update, it inspired one of my favourite pieces of fan art. From Xiling on Deviantart breathes such life into the character with just one image.

Given how perfect his Classics update is, I’m not sure where that leaves his Robot Masters release in my collection, but I like it so much it will probably still find a place on display.

But, wait, who’s that little guy? Another present I received this year (apparently the year of Mirage?), that would be the great little Kreon release of G1 Mirage, sold with the Mirage Kre-O set. Now, I have stated previously my feelings on the Kre-O releases, but to sum it up: I’m probably never going to go to the effort of building Kre-O Mirage’s robot mode. They did a good job of capturing his Classics headsculpt, but the rest of the body just doesn’t look worth the effort to me.

His alt mode is great and there’s no way I am passing up the opportunity to let Kreon Mirage drive himself.

So here you have it, the very odd evolution of Mirage.

What’s black and white and red all over? Classics Jetfire!

Jetfire has a somewhat dramatic character history, but not nearly as dramatic as his toy’s history.

In the original cartoon, he was a scientist, friend to Starscream, and a Decepticon defector. In the Marvel comic series, he was a Decepticon construct given life by the Creation Matrix. In the Dreamwave series he is back to being a scientist and ex-friend of Starscream but never actually joined the Decepticon side. By the most recent series, the IDW comics, he is still a scientist, but his connection to Starscream or the Decepticons doesn’t resurface. Though his character’s history has become steadily less dramatic, his G1 toy’s history has not. As such, it is pretty much guaranted it will never receive a reissue.

Like Sky Lynx the following year, Jetfire’s original toy was actually a design Hasbro licensed from another company. Unlike Sky Lynx, Jetfire was a toy used in the very popular “Super Dimensional Fortress Macross” series – most widely known in the U.S. as one of the first of three Japanese cartoons that were dubbed and combined into the “Robotech” series. Due to the fact that Hasbro had licensed the toy in the U.S. for use as Jetfire, Matchbox was then unable to release it as part of their Robotech line. Because Hasbro had licensed a toy that was made by Takara’s competitor, just like Sky Lynx, he never saw release in Japan. An even bigger competitor of Takara, Bandai, now owns the mold, basically sealing the fact that there is no chance of a reissue. However, I am perfectly fine with this. Whereas I do want to add the mold to my collection, I honestly don’t want to own G1 Jetfire. For me, this toy will always be the VF-1 Valkyrie from the Macross/Robotech series and I will most likely pick up one of Bandai’s many reissues one day. I have always been very partial to Roy Focker’s VF-1S.

Mostly, I am fine with the lack of an actual G1 Jetfire in my collection for two reasons. First, being a predominantly white toy, he is very, very prone to discoloration or yellowing over time. Second, the Jetfire from my childhood not only doesn’t look like the Macros VF-1 but his name isn’t even Jetfire, it’s Skyfire.

Reportedly giving in to Takara’s unwillingness to promote a competitor’s toy, Jetfire received a drastic makeover in the cartoon. So drastic, in fact, that he even got a different name. No toy of this Skyfire model was ever made and, with the exception of a short appearance in toy form in 2001 as a Decepticon in Robots in Disguise, the name itself slipped into someone else’s trademark territory — it appears now to be owned by Skyfire Labs Inc., makers of some sort of mobile web browser.

So what do you do with this convoluted past? There was an attempt, as part of the ill-fated Titanium line. Titanium Jetfire was based on his appearance in Dreamwave’s War Within series and, to put it frankly, not a good toy. I owned it for a very short period of time before exiling him from my collection. Next he was included as a part of the Classics line in 2006. This time the designers decided to incorporate all of his patchwork past. To start off, his toy includes a removeable helmet that looks like the VF-1′s head.

Underneath is a robot head with a much more cartoon-accurate face.

This toy is just the ultimate in happy mediums between those that grew up with the original Jetfire toy and those who remember him mostly as Skyfire from the show. Along with the removeable helmet, his robot mode is a perfect amalgamation with his cartoon model’s gun, upswept wings, the placement of the vents on his chest; and his G1 toy’s backpack, prominent forearm guns, feet, and colour scheme.

When the Botcon organizers were looking for inspiration for their Shattered Glass version of Starscream, they didn’t have to go too far. With the original cartoon’s assertion that Jetfire and Starscream had once been lab partners, it made perfect sense to use Jetfire as the template for this noble, good version of Starscream.

If only they were in the same universe, these two would be the greatest bromance Transformers has ever seen.

He also adds a nice touch neither the G1 toy nor the cartoon had: cannons that flip out from his backpack that can be brought to bear for some extra firepower in robot mode.

There are some hints from the cartoon, like a squared-off rather than rounded nosecone, but his alt mode takes more strongly after the original toy.

The guns can be deployed in this mode as well.

Best of all, just like the VF-1 toy, the boosters can be removed and the toy’s wings mimic an F-14′s ability to sweep forward or backward.

Of course, this goes for robot mode as well.

Speaking of similarities to the VF-1 toy, I would a remiss if I didn’t mention GERWALK mode. In Macross (Robotech called it “Guardian mode”), the VF-1 had a third mode, the “Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-joint” mode. Basically a fighter plane with arms perched atop backwards bent (or “chicken walker”) legs. This mode was a half-step between “Battroid” (robot) and Fighter modes and used in the show as a defensive VTOL landing/takeoff configuration. The G1 toy, of course, being the actual VF-1 could pull off the GERWALK mode.

This lead to every vaguely plane related Transformer in history being put into GERWALK mode at one time or another. Classics Jetfire can do a pretty good imitation of it.

Of course, doing that is just making me want to go online shopping now and find myself a 1/55 scale VF-1…

Definitely, definitely, *not* Nexus Maximus. Timelines Nexus Prime!

When the five separate components are presented with the option to join with each other and reform Nexus Prime, they are clearly given the choice,

“TO DIE. TO BE REBORN. OR TO LIVE AND FADE AWAY.”

This means they have found the answers they were searching for. Or rather, that four of them were searching for; Heatwave seemed quite content to ignore the big, empty space that was his past. It also means that to truly wipe out that void and rejoin that past they must lay down their individual lives.

Where once there was a void there would now be a history that was truly legendary, they were all pieces of one of the original Primes, one of the original thirteen Transformers. Each Prime was given a station. Nexus Prime was to be guardian of Rarified Energon, the basis of all Transformers life, the building block of both their bodies as well as their souls, their Sparks. Another of the Primes, Prima, the Warrior of Light, carried a sword and within the hilt of his sword was the Matrix. Yeah, that one:

His sword, the Star Saber, was so powerful that it could destroy entire star systems. In order to keep it from being used by evil — perhaps even another of the Primes, Megatronus, also known as The Fallen — Alpha Trion and Nexus Prime split the sword into five pieces. Nexus Prime would take each piece and hide it. In order to ensure that no one Transformer knew of the location of all five pieces, Alpha Trion and Nexus Prime first used the sword to cleave Nexus Prime into five separate robots. However, the plan worked too well. The five components of Nexus Prime became lost to time, living out their own individual lives, unaware of their true identity and no longer aware of where the five pieces were hidden. Given the choice to recombine, they somewhat reluctantly took it and now are traveling across the dimensions trying to recover the five pieces of the Star Saber.

When they recombined, they lost their individual lives but became part of something far more powerful. Nexus Prime now had access to all of the individual five’s special abilities, basically giving him mastery over energon in all of its forms. Now, as far as the fiction goes, this combining and never coming back apart works very well. He is given standard proportions and something that his toy doesn’t really have. Actual fists.

Nexus Prime, from the cover of the Transformers Collectors Club magazine issue 30.

Don’t get me wrong, his toy is absolutely amazing, and as a collection of the Energon series combiner pieces, it is very flexible (if not transformed exactly as the instructions state) and can form two very good hand-like appendages. However, the thought of him never again separating into his five components would be very sad indeed.

Maybe Primus thinks it’s unbecoming of a Prime to parade around as an entire military lineup, but I think the idea of a Prime that can become five separate, super-powered robots is quite grand.

Then, when they hit a threat too large to take on divided, they can unleash the might of Nexus Prime.

"Hey! I have hands. Sort of..."

Hasbro has stated that his “correct” assemblage is as the image from Issue 30 shows above. That is: Landquake as the right and Breakaway as the left arm; Topspin as the right and Skyfall as the left leg. However, I cannot abide that on his toy. Topspin’s combiner piece actually creates the most hand-like of all of the pieces. Additionally, when not transformed like the instructions, he allows for an actual elbow joint, so I swap Breakaway and Topspin.

Nexus Prime’s name itself has also been subject to a little bit of unintentional hilarity. When the fiction for the character was submitted, he was a Prime, but for some reason, when the names of ”Maximus Prime” and “Prime Nexus” were submitted for the toy itself, Hasbro actually told the Collectors Club no. Hasbro instead suggested they drop the “Prime” and just use what was left over. Therefore, the TCC released his toy name as “Nexus Maximus”.

Here’s a lesson for all of you that are in the job of naming things for release to the public: use Google. (Warning: putting Nexus Maximus into Google may will return results that will make you giggle, if not outright blush. That’s all I’m saying.)

His name was officially changed to Nexus Prime and a humorous image was thrown up on the TCC forums where Aquarius, the hippy Quintesson from Shattered Glass, explains that the name “Nexus Maximus” was the fault of a bad translation job by Alpha Trion’s minicon companion.

I wonder if Beta Maxx was also in charge of proof-reading this comic, considering Aquarius' name is misspelled.

Nexus Prime is listed as an Autobot but has Decepticon, Autobot, and even red “heroic Decepticon” symbols on him. The individual molds actually keep the spark crystals from their original versions with Autobot symbols for Skyfall and Breakaway,

and Decepticon spark crystals for Heatwave, Landquake, and Topspin.

All titter-inducing naming accidents and symbol confusions aside, this toy was well worth the five years it took to complete.

Arise, Nexus Prime!

Too bad direct sunlight is bad for Transformers or I would station him permanently in a window in all his translucent glory.

Where does pacifism get you in the middle of a war? Strapped to a table in Shockwave’s operating room! (Classics) Timelines Breakaway!

When we last left our intrepid, dimension-hopping hero and anti-hero, Skyfall and Landquake, they had jumped from their original universe, the one featured in the Cybertron storyline, to the Classics universe. Finding themselves underground in front of a pool of rarified energon, the very building block of Transformer life; they are confronted by another Autobot that bears a striking resemblance to them both.

Boring personality but damned pretty toy.

For all of Landquake’s complexity of character, Breakaway is the opposite. He pretty much shows up, goes completely Ghandi on Skyfall and Landquake, and then decides it is story time. The storyteller in this case is Breakaway’s computer guardian, the Caretaker, and the story itself, fills in some of the questions regarding who these three are, and why they feel so connected to each other. Before we can get to any of the really good details though, the Caretaker ushers them into a portal. They find themselves in the Transtech universe and on their way to meet one more of their odd little family. Along the way, Breakaway will find himself strapped to an operating table being experimented on by that universe’s version of the demented scientist, Shockwave.

This is why you need to stay close to your group when touring other dimensions.

Luckily for him, Skyfall and Landquake join in a rescue mission and free him with the help of that universe’s Alpha Trion. Granted, Alpha Trion stabs and kills Skyfall moments later. Just goes to show, you can’t trust anyone in the Transtech universe.

For the majority of his fiction appearances, Breakaway remains a rather bland, vaguely preacher-ish character who is a little too naive and trusting. The one thing about him that is interesting, though, is his power. He is able to manipulate “raw Energon to heal even catastrophic wounds instantly.” A pacifist and somewhat supernatural healer? I think someone might have a Jesus complex. Heck, he even arrives shrouded in a halo of light.

Just like his brothers, Breakaway is able to use his combiner pieces as weapons, unlike his brothers, they are molded out of solid plastic and not meant to represent energon weapons.

Using the Energon Windrazor/Treadshot mold, he transforms into a heavily modified F-22 Raptor.

Looks like he should be strawberry flavoured. (Kids: don't lick your toys, despite appearances sometimes they are not fruit flavoured.)

Mounting his weapons on his alt mode’s wings just looks odd as they protrude way too far back.

With gun barrels on both sides and folding joints in the middle, it would have been so much better if the toy designer would have found a way to mount them with both barrels pointed forward.

Up next: Dead Autobot? Check. Vaguely messianic Decepticon? Check. Pacifist Autobot attempting to out “messianic” the Decepticon? Check. Now we just need a sycophantic psychopath with the power to pull sparks from their bodies with a touch. Timelines Topspin!