Masterpiece Grimlock

We've known about MP Grimlock since Valentine's Day. However, we now see his packaging, which is pretty swank. It has a lot of similarities to the packaging of both MP Starscream and Skywarp, but is obviously done up in the style of the Generations line (even if it doesn't say so). More pics at TFW.

New stuff on HTS (sort of)

Hasbro Toy Shop has once again had a major transformers update. Unfortunately, it doesn't involve getting Human Alliance Mudflap back in stock; rather, they've put up for preorder a bunch of the new stuff shown off at ToyFair back in February. Stuff like Hunt for the Decepticons movie toys, the first wave of Power Core Combiners, and also the first wave of Generations deluxe toys.

Which is all pretty cool, because I'm excited about almost all of that stuff, except that these, again, are preorders, but they don't ship until August 9th. Makes it all kind of a tease, especially since the toys will probably/hopefully be on US shelves much sooner (hopefully by Botcon next month). They're actually already out in places like Malaysia and Australia, so it really should only be a few weeks before they get here. Which is good, because the pickings are getting very slim at the local Walmart (which never got the ROTF NEST wave with Ratchet and Lockdown, mind you).

Anyway, at least this shows that Hasbro is moving ever closer toward releasing all this awesome new product.

Well, more like $500.

So I registered for Botcon Friday night. I signed up for the Primus package (~$300) and an extra bagged set of the toys ($210) and, after slapping the ten dollar registration fee on top of all that, I'm now over $500 out for this thing. Luckily, I already have most of that saved up for; the cash is literally sitting here. I've got to get it to my dad this week, since I registered on his line of credit.

But I'm pretty excited. I showed my wife some encouraging completed ebay sales of previous years' Botcon toys to help her see that, yes, it is possible that I might be able to pay for the whole trip by selling the extra set of toys (and then some). I also haven't been to Orlando in a long time, and I'll be staying for free with my cousin, so that should be cool.

This is what I'm going to drop $300 on - part V.

And, so, here's Sky-Byte. In him, we finally get a repaint of the fantastic Energon Sharkticon mold and it's done in nice colors and with a new head to boot. Now, I really don't know much about SkyByte as a character, since I never watched Robots in Disguise, so I'm not having fanboy seizures over him, but I always like it when a character can get transplanted from one continuity (especially somewhat obscure/forgotten/underused ones) to another, more popular one (in this case, one of the G1 continuities). In the G2: REdux story, apparently SkyByte is one of the first Predacons, hinting that this continuity will lead into some version of Beast Wars.

This is what I'm going to drop $300 on - part IV.

So, here's the real Botcon exclusive Clench. I'm very pleased with this toy; I think it may be my favorite from the set.

Hall of Fame day 3

The 3rd nominee is Jazz. He's a pretty good choice, and I'm thinking that he might be the only 1984 Autobot car character to choose from. Which I won't; as stated, Soundwave gets my vote.

Oh, and I decided to open Recon Ravage last night. I'm glad I did; he actually does look pretty awesome in hand and also quite different from the original version. Also (and I don't know why it took me so long to think of this), but I finally made fictional sense of him, too - he's ravage after being rebuilt following his death at the hands of Bumblebee. Sure, he doesn't look like this in the post-ROTF comics (where he has been resurrected), but the vaguely-patchwork look he has really sells the "rebuilt without a new paint job" idea I've got.

The Hall of Fame

So, Hasbro let fans know recently that they're making a Transformers Hall of Fame. The "inaugural class" this year will have 5 characters, with four already chosen by Hasbro. They are, pretty predictably:

Optimus Prime
Megatron
Bumblebee
Starscream

The fifth character is to be chosen by the fans via online voting next Monday, the 10th. The nominees were culled from various websites' own polling, and this week Hasbro is posting the 5 different nominees. Yesterday began with Soundwave as the first nominee, and today the second was revealed to be Grimlock.

So, you know, I'll be voting for Soundwave. It just makes sense. He's iconic in the same way Optimus is, and, arguably, is the more recognizable Decepticon compared to either Megatron or Starscream (most people remember "the tape player guy.")

What's neat is that the winner won't be revealed until the Saturday night dinner at Botcon. And I'll get to be there, so that's pretty cool.

I got a letter from Optimus Prime

Well, it's taken a while, but Recon Ravage was waiting on my doorstep after we got back from the park. Honestly, I think I'm most excited about the "$5 off any $20 or more ROTF toy" coupon than anything else; if Human Alliance Mudflap ever appears (within two months, anyway, this coupon expires on July 1st!), I'll use it on him.

Not quite sure what to do with Recon Ravage himself. He looks a little better in person than he did online (especially the chrome, it's pretty awesome), but I'm not scrambling to get him out of the packaging like I am with most transformers. I think it's the yellow that I don't really care for. I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep him, but I may just leave him in package for a while, maybe even take him to Botcon to trade or put him on eBay in a year or two...

Oh, and speaking of cats arriving at my house, exactly two weeks after my daughter was born, my smaller cat had her four kittens. She's a patchwork of white and dark grey, and the kittens are as follows: 2 white, 1 like its mother, and one almost solidly dark grey except for a white patch above its eye (one of them, not sure which).

And I also caved on the Kmart Mini-con 10 pack last night. It's actually pretty awesome, mostly solid repaints. Especially Longview; can't wait to crack him out for the Fourth of July.

p.s.: I've got several pages up now for the mini-reviews; many of them did end up including several toylines (that are at least thematically connected), but I guess the biggest one missing right now is a G1 page. Also, I'll have to shoehorn Machine Wars Megaplex in somewhere; he's not getting his own page. Maybe I can just make a G1/G2/MW page, since MW, for all intents and purposes, seems to be in the G1 continuity (and really is just shy of being a G3 toyline).