Dave's Kiddie Transformers Rant: Robot Heroes Wave 4 (Movie Wave 2) Optimus Prime / Scorponok Protoform Jazz / Decepticon Brawl Ironhide / Bonecrusher Armor Bumblebee / Starscream Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/123/RH4 Again, in assortment number order (83564 through 83567). I got these all from hasbrotoyshop.com. It's worth noting that, at this time, these are the only toys of Protoform Jazz, of Prime with a sword, and of Bumblebee with his helmet down. CAPSULES Optimus Prime / Scorponok: This Prime has a better sculpt in general, but less pose and the sword isn't movie-accurate. Scorponok is cute, but minimally poseable. Recommended. $5.99 at HTS. Protoform Jazz / Decepticon Brawl: Jazz is an interesting design unlikely to be seen in any other toy, and Brawl really works at this scale. Best of the wave, strongly recommended. $5.99 at HTS. Ironhide / Bonecrusher: Ironhide has big guns but some pose issues, and is hurt by a lack of paint on his face. Bonecrusher's head is all wrong, and he can't stand without using one arm as a tripod leg. Mildly recommended. $5.99 at HTS. Armor Bumblebee / Starscream: Bumblebee has the faceplate and the AllSpark, and seems to be the 70s version, decent all around. Starscream is rather fugly, though, even considering the source material. Mildly recommended. $5.99 at HTS. RANTS Packaging: Same style as the first movie wave, but with the proper characters on the backs. Some of the package art is a little weird, not quite matching the toys (Bonecrusher's face looks more gorilla-y, Prime's got a more "normal" face instead of the bizarre mechalips the toy has). Pegs: All of these have thin pegs, the sort that feel like they're gonna snap before popping apart. I suspect that the thicker pegged versions were the original batch, and they changed it to reduce the chances of parts coming off and being choked on. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME This one differs from the wave 3 mold in several ways. The most obvious difference is that the right arm is in sword mode rather than gun mode. However, it's not movie-accurate, the blade is the wrong shape. The head is cocked to the right a little bit, and the faceplate is retracted to reveal rather ugly lips. The left arm is still bent 90 degrees, but in more of a "checking my watch" pose. The chest sculpt has narrower windows with armor plates to the sides of them. The knees are a bit lower, giving the legs a subtly different feel. The arm detailing and proportions are also noticeably different, and there's more detail sculpted into the legs. In fact, there's really nothing exactly the same between the two, they're totally independent sculpts. 2.5" (6.5cm) tall, made of the same dark blue plastic as the wave 3 version. The paint job is very similar as well, but not identical. The left elbow is painted silver, and the silver goes farther down the backs of the thighs. The ankle wheels are painted black with no gold accent, while the fenders over those wheels are red. The flame decos are different as well. The red Autobot symbol is printed on the right shoulder, and is larger than on the wave 3 version. Unfortunately, while the sculpt is a bit more detailed and the paint job slightly better, the poseability drops. Just neck and shoulders this time, no waist joint. And the head being cocked to one side results in a more limited range of positions for it that look good. DECEPTICON: SCORPONOK Scorponok is in beast mode (thankfully), head cocked slightly to one side like a puppy dog, and tail arching over his back. All six legs are in neutral position, and his claws are open wide. His mandibles are positioned to look kinda like a smile, but he doesn't go as far as Frenzy in having a bizarre humanlike smile pasted on. 2.75" (7.5cm) long and 2.5" (6cm) wide, he's a low-slung 1.5" (4cm) high at this tail. Still, he takes up more space than most Robot Heroes. Made entirely of light gray plastic. He has black or very dark gunmetal paint on his claws, stinger and a couple of panels at the root of his tail. His four eyes are red and slightly chibi. There's gold paint on his face, back, "kneecaps" and the turbine intakes on the palms of his claws. He has a black Decepticon symbol printed on his back, left side front. There's swivels at his "shoulders" and that's it. No head joint, no tail joint, no attempt at making the legs poseable. The tail's flexible enough to bend around, though. AUTOBOT: PROTOFORM JAZZ This is an odd one. It looks like they took the Protoform Prime model and then tweaked it, changing the shoulders and chest, adding a piece to the left forearm to evoke the Crescent Cannon, etc. But the head still looks solidly Prime-like, and he has the ape feet of Proto Prime. Of course, we saw so little of Jazz in Protoform mode in the movie that it's quite possible the actual CG model *is* just a tweaked Prime. Anyway, he has somewhat over-long arms, open-palmed hands (rather than the claws he gets in regular mode), and a backpack that has what looks like a Cyber Key slot at the bottom. :) In any case, this is likely the only toy we're going to get of Protoform Jazz (plus any possible recolors). A hunched-over 2.25" (5.5cm) tall, made of slightly metallic light blue plastic. Basically the same color plastic as the Deluxe Protoform Prime, maybe a little deeper of a blue. There's extensive silver paint, on forearms, faceplate/ears, chest windows, kneecaps, groin and parts of his backpack. There's bits of gold on his tarsals, shoulders, backpack and a couple of conduits on the right forearm. His ankles, thigh fronts, cables on thigh sides, and details on shoulderpads are painted black, and he has a black Autobot symbol printed on his left pec. His eyes are painted bright medium-light blue. Swivel shoulders and neck are the sum of his joints. In fact, I'll cut to the chase at this point and reveal that nothing in this wave has a waist joint. Except for Scorponok, they all have neck and shoulders, with thin pegs. If you stand him with both arms forward, he's liable to tip over. DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON BRAWL Stepping forward to the assault with all weapons deployed. Right arm is more or less straight with a huge weapon box on it and an open grasping hand. The left arm is bent in a "ready to punch" pose, hand in a fist and blades deployed. There's no attempt to give him a more obvious mouth, which I appreciate, although his eyebrows are so exaggerated that it looks like he has a Moe Howard haircut. 2.5" (6cm) tall at the gun barrels, only 2" (5cm) at the head. Totally made from olive green plastic. The fists and the treads flanking the head are painted black. The right arm main gun, left arm secondary gun and blades, the face and the toes are painted silver, and a silver Decepticon symbol is printed on the center of his chest. There's gold accents on his shoulder missiles and various joints. The eyes are painted red. He has the standard three joints, but the shouldertreads keep the head from moving much. AUTOBOT: IRONHIDE Seriously crouched and stomping forward with both arms straightened and holding up his huge weapons. For some reason, his head is positioned to look down a bit, as if he's concentrating on killing Mojo the chihuahua. He has a nine-barrelled cannon on his right arm, and a big energy blaster with sight on his left. 2" (5cm) tall at the head, but rather crouched over as mentioned already. Made entirely of black plastic (and hence of the highest possible quality ;) ), there's no paint on his face except for the bright blue eyes, so the detail is largely lost. There's dark gold paint on his "ears", thigh fronts, gun barrels, chest, back and hinder. He has silver "windows" on his back, plus silver bumper, pelvis and feet. The backs of his fists are also silver, and he has a silver Autobot symbol printed on the middle of his back. The muzzle of his left arm cannon is painted bright blue. Standard three joints, no particular restriction. DECEPTICON: BONECRUSHER He's skating along, with his left leg trailing so significantly that he can't actually stand up on his feet, he needs to support himself tripodally with his left arm. His right arm is free to reach out and has a grasping hand, but his left hand is in a fist. He's acquired an actual mouth, which is smirking. He also has a flattened gorilla-like nose. It's all rather un-Bonecrusher-y. Only 2" (5cm) tall, but almost bent double in his skating pose. Made of a light tan plastic with medium-dark paint on the six tires. The center of the face, the forks on the back, the elbow joints, kneecaps and heel spurs are painted silver. The fists, pelvis and the rest of the face are a darkish gold painted. He has red eyes, and a dark gray Decepticon symbol is painted on his left shoulder. While the pose is nicely dynamic, the fact it needs tripod support means he really only has one effectively poseable arm, plus the head. The way the head is positioned limits it to about 45 degrees of movement to either side. AUTOBOT: ARMOR BUMBLEBEE Battle helmet in place (the only toy so far to have the helmet), he has the AllSpark tucked under his right arm, while his left arm is bent in a vaguely warding position. He's in a wide stance crouch. Mold-wise, the limbs are pretty much the same as the wave 3 version, but the chest is significantly different. It's not indisputably the 70s Camaro front end, but it looks closer to that than to the Concept Camaro front. [Later note: if you want to be charitable, the RC Spychanger Bumblebee from Radio Shack could be considered to have the battle helmet head. And it's close, I guess, but looks kinda generic overall, like it was designed from early sketches and a lot of guesswork.] 2" (5cm) tall at the head, gain about a quarter inch (0.5cm) to the top of his wing-doors, he's made of bright yellow-gold plastic. The windows, headlights and eyes are painted a bright blue that has a strong UV glow. The toes, chin and license plate are silver, while the chest stripes are black. He has a red dot on his forehead, and a red printed Autobot symbol on his left shoulder armor. The AllSpark is painted dark gold, as are his forearm circles and the sides of his knees (plus one shin detail, but not the other). The most extensively used paint is a metallic blue, which is seen on the metacarpals of his hands, the under-armor bits of his arms, legs and feet, his entire abdomen, and the exposed parts of his face. The right arm has almost nowhere to move, being blocked in by the wing door and the right knee, but you can force it around those obstacles if you really want. The left arm can look like it's warding, or raised to be waving. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM This one...doesn't quite work. It starts with the already gorilla-like proportions of the character, then has it down on one knee in a pose that almost requires the right arm for a tripod. The right hand is posed to be a support anyway, not an attack claw. The head is sculpted weirdly, and looks like someone blew off the poor guy's jaw to expose the inner structure underneath. The wings are a separate piece as with Megatron, so make sure you don't accidentally buy one without wings. He has clawed, three-fingered hands rather than anything like the Voyager toy. 2.25" (5.5cm) tall, but if he straightened up that'd be closer to 3". very long arms. The whole thing is made of taupe (brownish light gray) plastic. The wings, thrusters, lower face, crest details, hands, feet and shoulderpads are painted silver. There's a dark gunmetal paint on the forearms and shins, and black on the sides and back of the torso (plus a little at the waist). He has red eyes and red stripes on the wings, plus a red printed Decepticon symbol on the back of the right wing. Standard three joints. He can stand with the right arm raised, but it doesn't look right when not used as a support, and it can only rise to straight ahead for a "talk to the hand" sort of pose. Dave Van Domelen, wouldn't mind a Protoform Prime remold as Protoform Jazz sold as a store exclusive or something.