This toy, like Beast Machines Thrust, is another of the gifts-out-of-the-backpack Transformers from a good friend of mine, who also collects them. This is a Transformers Energon Starscream.

I wasn’t doing a whole lot of collecting, or watching Transformers, when the Unicron trilogy was being released, so this Starscream was new to me. From the link above, this mostly-green coloring was to emphasize his “Energon ghost” status, which definitely sounds like something that would happen to him. He usually ends up as some sort of ghost or eternal spark, no matter the universe or timeline. Figure it out, Starscream!

The toy is quite good. Despite the heavy torso, the legs are stiff and solid enough to support it when it’s in robot mode. There’s plenty of articulation for posing, but not enough to do any detailed mimicking of the character’s in-show antics. The transformation is a good middle-of-the-road between complex and straightforward. While in robot mode, it’s DEFINITELY a Seeker, it’s less obvious in plane mode.

While I don’t think I would have purchased this toy from off the shelf, I’m very happy to have it in my collection.

I have a couple of friends who are also Transformers collectors. Because they are friends, we do favors for each other. Normal stuff, right? Well, when I picked one of these friends up from the airport, and got him to his hotel, he decided to bring a backpack of Transformers to add to my collection. Hilariously, some of these may have been rescued from my collection of old, from the Before Times. This Beast Machines Thrust is one that very well may have been mine before.

The Beast Machines series was a sequel to the Beast Wars series, and both were animated in CGI by Mainframe entertainment, in Canada. The improvement in both the technology and the skill by Mainframe comes through strongly. While the story was again centered around Megatron and Optimus Primal battling it out, the story seemed darker and more focused on characters looking inward. I remember really enjoying that change-up when the episodes were airing live.

Now, to the toy. Less than with Beast Wars, the first round of toys didn’t bother much with show accuracy. I’m not sure if that was a timing issue or a communication issue, but it always irritated me a little bit. Thrust makes an effort, and I’m happy for that. The transformation is predictable in a good way, but the arm joints have always been loose. It was a nice touch that the feet-wheel can split into actual feet for posing, because the wheel will not support the toy standing up.

While I have to be very careful posing and transforming it due to the loose joints, I am quite happy to have Thrust back in my collection.

What is a Transformers fan to do when he starts working for a company that’s designing autonomous semi trucks? Obviously, they must get their hands on the best autonomous semi truck of all time, Optimus Prime. And that is exactly what I did. I visited Grave Danger in Old Town Lansing (now called Shock Treatment), and picked up the Earthrise Optimus Prime pictured here. Was it worth the $50 price tag?

Usually, I would say that’s too high a price for a toy this size. But for Optimus, and for this particular Optimus, it was absolutely worth it. He’s got the classic look, he’s got elbows, and he’s got knees! He’s got the classic gun, the trailer, and the repair bay!

In robot mode, he looks straight out of the G1 show. In order to get this kind of show accuracy, the bumper and grill couldn’t actually be the same pieces between vehicle and robot modes, so the toy does some very clever hiding and folding away when it transforms in either direction.

With all of his articulation points (down to the fingers!), he can be posed in all kinds of ways befitting of a Prime. And while I don’t have a stand to hold him in that position, you can bet that I’ve done the jump pose!

This toy was one of the few pieces of personality at my desk in a cube farm, bringing me optimism and hope in an otherwise bleary office environment. While it stayed in semi mode for all of that time, the transformation is without hangups, without stubborn or loose pieces, and is honestly a joy. If you’re looking for a fun Optimus Prime that is pretty close to the G1 show, I highly recommend this one. If you can get your hands on it, that is.

In the time between the last post and this one, my Transformers collection has expanded quite a bit. It’s been happening in waves, and they’ll chill for a while on my desk, awaiting their turn to be photographed for the blog. Until, that is, my youngest son starts reminding me that they deserve to be posed and put up on the shelf. He’s right, of course, so I’d take a bunch of photos, do a bunch of happy transformation goodness, consult his superior posing skills, and put them up on the collection shelf. And since I’ve gotten the itch to blog again, I’m diving into the collection photos to kick it all off. So, for your enjoyment, I present Transformers: War for Cybertron Ironhide!

Ironhide is ALWAYS tough. In the TV shows, in the movies, and in the video games, Ironhide is ready to bust deceptichops at a moment’s notice!

My middle son gifted me this for my birthday, and it brightened my trip around the sun. This version is from War For Cybertron, and lives up to the aesthetic of the video game quite well. And I REALLY enjoyed this game.

The transformation was a little finicky, but following the instructions got me through it. I may be getting old, but they’re printing those things smaller and smaller, I swear. Time for bifocals, I guess. Anywho, from robot to off-road vehicle and back to robot was doable without any major irritation or limb separation. Other than the roof of the car on Ironhide’s back, there’s almost no kibble. The wheels add to the robot mode, in my opinion, and the weaponry is appropriately ridiculous for the character.

The most difficult thing I ran into was deciding whether I wanted to keep him in robot mode or vehicle mode when I put him on the shelf. Usually a figure has one mode that is much better than the other, and I tend to prefer the robot mode for posing. But with this Ironhide, it was a close call. I went with robot mode, so he could be posed, but I may yet change my mind.

I’ve always been unsure about whether or not the “Gamer Edition” toys would live up to the hype, but I’m pleased to say that I’m now hoping to add some more to my collection.

Since I was so very impressed with the Kickback re-issue, I decided to collect more of the Legacy Insecticons. It didn’t hurt that I already had named computers after all three of them. I found Bombshell at a Meijer, which surprised me, because their Transformers stock has been very thin for the last year or two. I thanked the collector gods for their die-cast and plastic goodness, and took Bombshell home with me.

Again, this transformation was smooth, straightforward, and not fiddly at all. I had worried about the beetle legs, but I didn’t end up having a reason to. They could have gotten in the way, but they didn’t. This figure didn’t come with the energon accessories like the last had, which I noticed, but wasn’t a deal breaker. Unlike most transformers, I felt that moth modes were equally good, and would be great for displaying the figure. I went with the robot mode for display, because of the greater articulation available. MonkeyLinkMega likes to come up with cool poses for my figures, and that’s something I can’t pass up!

Like Kickback, this Bombshell re-issue is both faithful to the original, and an improvement upon it. The basic modes, transformation, and look are all still there, but the new figure has more articulation, more detail (without having to apply stickers!), and more show accuracy.

Finding Shrapnel is going to be a chore, because it seems sold out everywhere. Fingers crossed for stumbling on one like I did this one!

Let’s talk about Insecticon re-issues. Specifically, let’s talk about the Legacy and Legacy Evolution series. Why, you may ask? You may not know this, but I name my computers after Transformers, and have for a long, long time. This used to be A Thing among nerds. For instance, a friend of mine named all of his computers after South Park characters. Anywho, I had a quick round of three computers (a laptop, a Roku replacement, and a streaming machine for while I’m working on servers in the basement), and I named them all after G1 Insecticons. If I like the Transformer enough to name a computer after it, I usually also enjoy collecting a toy of it. In a stroke of luck, this happened during the Legacy and Legacy Evolution releases, so I picked Kickback up during one of Ace of Hearts‘ Target adventures.

While the transformation is more complex than the G1 version of the toy, it’s still pretty straightforward. There’s a hip rotation, and there’s some feet repositioning, and there’s some neck twisting. Nothing surprising, and nothing difficult.

The joints are stiff enough to be able to pose the figure and leave him that way, and there are enough of them that there’s plenty of articulation. Articulation and detail – in both modes – are where this re-issue shine. In those ways, it is absolutely an improvement on the original 1980’s toy. In every other way, it’s faithful to the original, and a worthy update.