R.I.P. Peter Cullen

I got the bad news on Thursday 8/27/26 that Peter Cullen had passed away sometime the previous day. The context was terrible - Dolly Parton on Tuesday, and then Tim Curry on Wednesday. A truly awful week for celebrity deaths.

I don't want to belabor this post for fear of not completing it, but obviously Cullen's death was a blow to me. His voice was one of the strongest on my childhood, and after spending years listening to Gary Chalk voice Optimus Primal and then Unicron Trilogy Optimus Prime (I never have watched Robots in Disguise - apologies to Neil Kaplan), Cullen returned to the role in grand fashion at the cusp of my adulthood in Jula 2007 in the live action movie, just weeks after I became a father. This, along with other roles like Optimus in Transformers Prime and Thaedus in Invincible, cemented his legacy for my children as well.

Not too long ago, we learned that Walmart would release an exclusive energon-themed capsule line, including clear repaints of Siege Optimus and Megatron, but also Seige Sixgun and Kingdom Slammer and the new Autobot Cybertread and Deception Cybertronic, respectively.

I was already intrigued in Megatron because he is a clear companion piece for translucent Kingdom Galvatron repaint to complete the reformatting sequence from the animated movie. Optimus I wasn't initially sold on; it's probably the weakest modern Optimus mold, can't use the Matrix accessories standardized beginning with Earthrise Prime, and so on. But then people noticed a vague similarity to the art of the Thirteenth Prime in the Covenant of Primus book, and it was pretty much over. This new Optimus repaint could be a figure to more "accurately" represent the Arisen, at least compared to Age of the Primes Star Convoy (who is amazing, but also aesthetically is himself and not some other version of Optimus).

Flash forward to the past week or so, and Walmart stores are beginning to stock these figures. I finally find some last night - 3 of the 4, with only Cybertread missing. I start playing around with Optimus today, and I'd had the Scepter of the Primes out for a few weeks. What happened next was pretty natural...

It's always been a loose fit, but the Matrix/Thirteen Primemaster from the Throne of the Primes set was the most recent Matrix toy when the Siege mold was released, and so some took to giving it (sans frame) to Siege Optimus. It feels much more appropriate in this version of the mold. In fact, it's made me think of the figure as a post-death "one with the Matrix" spirit of Optimus, such that in this image we are seeing the Matrix form Optimus's spirit around itself, even using energon to grant corporeality...

I'm finally getting the chance to wrap up this post over two weeks after Peter Cullen's passing. I did pick up Cybertread this week, so now this version of Optimus is complete with his companion. Even so, I'm enjoyed having just Optimus by himself for a while to focus on the spiritual side of this and to reflect on Cullen's legacy. In a twisted way, his death may have pushed me over the edge in deciding to go see the 1986 movie in theaters; they even announced a short CGI film at the end that includes Cullen's final performance as Optimus. I've never seen the movie in the theater, and I guess the chances are low that I'd see it again on an upcoming anniversary.

Either way, Peter Cullen will be missed. Optimus and the franchise wouldn't be the same without him, and that's also true for untold numbers of people who became fans of this franchise, at least in part, because of the presence of his voice. R.I.P.

New Legends BWII Galvatron: Wow

 

As stated: Wow.

I mean, we all knew that a Beast Wars II Galvatron would be coming eventually; Legacy Evolution Leo Prime/Lio Convoy was released 3 years ago, and Takara's nicer retool was finally shipped later last year after many delays. Then we managed to get both of the BW Neo leaders within about a year and a half, and also the heroic leader from Car Robots/RiD, which is also sort of in the JBW lineage. So, we were missing 2 of the 6 leader characters from that trilogy of pairs: Car Robots/RiD Gigatron/Megatron and BWII Galvatron. 

I feel Gigatron is a bit more up in the air, with his counterpart being a Haslab, but mass retail Lio Convoy has needed his nemesis for quite some time now. I didn't really expect Galvatron to be revealed by Takara (and in the grey model stage, no less), and leads us to the potential problem here: will Galvatron get a domestic release? 

Galvatron here is marketed as part of the New Legends line, a Takara-exclusive line that, up to this point, has only included repaints (or maybe some molds with retooling). Galvatron seems to be the first completely new mold for the line, and there is no language supporting the idea that it will be part of Hasbro's upcoming 2027 line (revealed to be "Age of Evolution" by leaks). The actual problem here is, of course, if Hasbro doesn't release this mold themselves, they will still offer the Takara version, and that will be more expensive. Case in point: the new Nemesis Prime repaint of AotP Star Convoy will be nearly $300 (and that's without the blast effects) before shipping. 

Even so, I'm not quite panicking yet. The Age of Evolution leaks did not include information for Commander nor Titan class. All the photo evidence for the Galvatron grey model suggests that it would be a Commander class figure, and AoEvo could have two commanders in 2027 like it did this year (though that may be less likely if there isn't a completely new combiner set...and to that point, we don't know exactly what is being done for Nexus Prime, aside from the fact that it seems very likely that some AoEvo deluxes are limb bots for him). Galvatron could easily be the commander, or one of two commanders, for next year. 

I'll admit, the design is strikingly similar to the original toy, aside from very welcome tweaks in proportions that make him look a bit more like the anime appearance. This made me feel (perhaps amplified by the context of the Takara unveiling) that the figure was completely designed in-house by Takara, as many brand-unification updates will add tweaks that update a design in some way or another. On the other hand, I guess Magmatron was pretty faithful to the original, even so far as including the Magmasaurus mode, and he is the most similar, recent product to this new Galvatron mold. 

Also, many are making much of the fact that Takara unveiled this mold, and in a grey model state, and that Hasbro just doesn't do that, especially so early, or that Takara doesn't unveil brand unification items first. And this isn't really the case. Hasbro themselves had a big increase last year in showing off products in an early state, unveiling grey protos for TF: One Alpha Trion and Airachnid in a livestream, and also showing a render of Onslaught back at their SDCC presentation, and that toy still hasn't released (they would also display a blue Onlsaught test shot later in 2025). Takara has also unveiled Kingdom Rodimus Prime and Legacy United Silverbolt well ahead of Hasbro, and I'm sure I am forgetting other examples that would be similar to this Galvatron unveiling. 

At the end of the day, all I can do is hope that Hasbro has this new Galvatron in their plans. I really don't know why they'd leave him out when they have already done Lio Convoy, Big Convoy and Magmatron, but they've made stranger decisions before. We'll see!