Prime Time

So, I managed to successfully order the NYCC Exclusive Transformers Prime set last week, which arrived today. I expected the set to sell out quickly, but as of today it's still available on HTS.

Getting this set is a bit weird. First of all, it's the first NYCC exclusive - so far, the only exclusives for comicons have been at SDCC, and this was announced just a few days before NYCC, so it sort of came out of the blue.

Also, these are my first Transformers Prime toys. Normally, exclusive repaints of toys don't get released until after said line has been out for a while, but that's not the case here - TFP deluxe Optimus got an exclusive release for SDCC, but only with exclusive packaging, but other than that, "normal" TFP toys won't get released until next month at the earliest (a full year after the show debuted).

Now, had this set just been the taxi-flavored Bumblebee, I probably wouldn't have gone for it. What really made this set a must-have was the deluxe Arcee in G1 colors. See, Arcee is blue on the show - a bit confusing, since Chromia's traditionally the blue fembot, and has more than once shared motorcycle-based bodies with Arcee - so I didn't really know if I wanted the normal release as Arcee, since I thought it was pretty likely that it'd get repainted in Arcee's traditional pink and white (or at least pink/magenta, like the movie versions).

Turns out that I was right, though I was expecting a G1-style Arcee repaint much later in the line and as a retail store exclusive of some kind. To end up getting it before Chromia, er, show-accurate Arcee, even hits stores is pretty great.

Of course, Bumblebee isn't bad, either. In fact, I'm really having more fun with him. It's a neat mold that certainly echoes the various movie BB toys in many, many ways, but much cleaner lines, so it really exemplifies the "movie/animated" view of the TFP aesthetic.

Oh, yeah - the set includes two of the human figurines from the upcoming Optimus/Megatron deluxe Entertainment Pack. We've only got Raf and Jack here, since they are the "buddies" for BB and Arcee, respectively. They both get decked out in "NY" shirts with Autobot logos, a sort of take on the classic "I <3 NY" shirts."