Dave's Beast Machines Rant: Optimus Primal Jetstorm Picked these up at Wal-Mart today. Guess all the local branches were waiting to finish post-holiday re-org before putting out any new TFs. Got the last two on the pegs, too. CAPSULES Optimus Primal: Better than I expected from pictures, but has a serious stability problem in both modes. Transformation about as interesting as you could expect from a biped-to-biped transform. A couple of cool gimmicks. Mildly recommended. $9.76 at Wal-Mart. Jetstorm: Great jet mode, great transformation (if painful...I pinched myself something fierce on one of the folding bits), very good robot mode and hover mode. Strongly recommended, best of breed (i.e. of all seven first wave releases). $9.76 at Wal-Mart. DISCLAIMER Okay, I've said it lots of other places, but I think it's necessary to say it here, and in every review where I cover toys that are of "show characters." Hasbro's (Takara's) design teams came up with finalized designs for the toys first, then gave them to Mainframe to work from. Mainframe then modified the designs to fit their own aesthetics, often completely changing the toy around. Thus, when a toy and the show don't match, blame it on the animators for ignoring the toy design. The only blame that can really be laid at Hasbro's feet in this regards choice of colors, since colors can be messed with very late in the production. So they chose to go with designs not quite "show-accurate" for the color schemes. But everything else is a case of the show not being "toy-accurate." RANTS Packaging: Basically the same sort of thing as with the Basics, but on a Deluxe-size card. Optimus has less room taken up by instructions, so his cardback shows more other toys than Jetstorm's does. MAXIMAL: Optimus Primal Altmode: Gorilla Function: Maximal Commander Motto: "Organic life is often hidden, sometimes overcome, but seldom extinguished!" Optimus Primal, the stalwart commander of the Maximals[,] developed his trademark valor and heroism during his role in the Beast Wars. Since returning to Cybertron, Optimus Primal takes on [has taken on] a new role, training his Maximals [in] the methods of conversion - an art practically lost after the evil Megatron's virus wreaked havoc on Cybertron. In robot mode he wields deflector arms which store energy and then regenerate [um?] as energy shurikins [shurikens]. Jump jets on back allow for short-range flight. Has limited insight into past and future. Can see and activate conversion potential in others. STR 10+ INT 10+ SPD 10+ END 10+ RNK 10 COUR 10+ FRP 10+ SKL 10+ Avg 10+ Twist-tie count: None at all. Woo. Beast Mode: In proper hunched over gorilla pose, he's 4" (10cm) tall at the highest point, and as wide across the shoulders. Colors are black, pale gold and translucent blue, with some translucent green bits (like his spark and shuriken). Poseability is so-so. His right rear leg is hampered by a robot mode gimmick, and also has less joint range as a result. His rear half can come apart in a way similar to Ramulus's problem, as there's no peg keeping his hips against his abdomen. His arms effectively have no elbows, because they need to bend back the other way as knees in robot mode. The energy shuriken stored in his left shoulder makes it look like someone set him on fire. He has one gimmick in this mode. But pulling down a tab and then ramming it in (or just pushing down on the panel-tab), his arms spread apart, his mouth opens up and his chest cracks open to reveal his green spark crystal. It's called "Attack Mode," but it looks like he's just shrugging. Sphinx Mode: No, this isn't a real mode, just something I cooked up. The one part in the transformation I needed to look in the instructions for was popping the torso open, since it's VERY firmly in place and I wanted to make sure I wasn't breaking things. But if you just pop that open and don't do the rest of the transformation, you can get a funky four-legged mode with Optimus's robot head. Sort of a sphinx. Transformation: The arms swing down to become legs in much the same way as Silverbolt's or Bantor's forelegs do, but they don't stay snapped together very well. The beast head tucks away nicely, and the rear half of the beast mode does some interesting folding tricks to become the robot arms, but these too don't peg on very strongly. Robot Mode: 5.5" (13.5cm) tall and pretty well-proportioned, if stocky. He has a small backpack which can be interpreted as a jumpjet pack if you're feeling charitable. His head sculpt was followed exactly for the show, although here his skullcap is transparent blue, revealing a green spark-mass inside his head and green glowing eyes. The skullcap can be rocked back a bit to reveal his brains, woo. Legs have good poseability, with hip swivels and so forth, but moving them into position tends to pull the pelvis tabs apart. The left arm has okay poseability, but the right arm has little poseability left thanks to the gimmick. Pull it back, and it slaps back down. The idea is to throw the shuriken thingy. It ratchets in only one direction, so if it overthrows you have to pull it all the way back around (which is a problem in beast mode, since you have to pull the rear end apart to move the leg all the way around). The palm has a little guide showing how the shuriken is supposed to be inserted, but the thing fits so loosely that it's likely to fall out of the hand before you even let go of the arm. Interesting idea, but the execution is wanting. However, not all is lost, as the gimmick also gives Primal karate-chop-action strikes, and a good smackdown to put the hurt on his opponents. TFWWF, anyone? Overall: Not horrible, and actually kinda nice in some ways. But not a really good value for the money. VEHICON: Jetstorm Altmode: Jet Fighter Function: Aerodrone General Motto: "I am not bound by the Law of the Land!" The appointed General of Megatron's aero-drones, Jetstorm is the hotshot lord of the skies over the enslaved planet of Cybertron. Quite a talker, tends to engage in tactics of verbal intimidation. Headstrong attitude and less than modest personality often cause friction with the other generals - but impressive combat abilities speak for themselves. Outfitted with various types of energy blasters and plasma bombs. Extremely swift and maneuverable in vehicle mode. Rather flighty, Jetstorm never touches land - must convert into robot mode [if he must land, converts into robot mode] where he hovers over the ground. STR 8 INT 8 SPD 10 END 8 RNK 9 COUR 7 FRP 9 SKL 8 Avg 8.375 Twist-tie notes: Three rubber bands holding him together. Vehicle Mode: With nosecone retracted, he's 7" (17cm) long with a wingspan just over 5" (13cm). Mainly metallic dark blue with some yellow and blueish silver accents, plus translucent red bits. Wingtips (which are made of rubbery plastic) can either be positioned as hypercritical (swept forwards) like on the show, or swept back. Looks like a stealth fighter on steroids, with almost no undercarriage garbage to speak of...it all integrates pretty smoothly into his vehicle mode. Has nice landing gear, including side wheels that fold out sideways rather than pull out of his legs like with the Cyberjets. The ends of his twin missiles form jet trails out the back of his engines. Strafing beam weapons are mounted on either side of the cockpit. In addition to being able to launch two missiles, he can launch his nosecone forward by half an inch (just over a cm). When extended like this, it can be turned side to side and even look down a bit, a bit the animators must have liked, since the adopted it for the show. A lightpipe end at the back of the cockpits can make two eyes light up under strong enough light. Finally, a bluish-silver panel midway back on his fuselage flips up to reveal a red spark crystal. Transformation: Very complex, with lots of folding bits and pegs and stuff like that...be VERY careful to pay attention as you transform him, since it's not always obvious where things go when transforming back. The pegging even makes sure you can't pop down the nosecone in robot mode... because then Jetstorm would be VERY happy to see you. Anyway, be sure to remove the missiles before transforming, they're bound to go off in weird directions by accident. You have two options in robot mode. You can either fold out the feet and let the legs be legs, or you can very firmly peg the legs together and pull out hover thrusters. Or leave the thrusters hidden for a more show-like look with the lower body just coming to a point. Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall in hover mode, a little shorter in legged mode. There's a nifty little bit about the hover mode: the back of the cockpit forms a little lip on the back unit behind the legs. As a result, you can set Jetstorm up at the edge of a box or the lip of a shelf or whatever, and he'll stay put nicely, like he was flying. His hands are three-fingered claws that look a lot like the claws on Marvel's Lockdown Ultron, and they're on ball joints so they can move around a little. He can hold a missile in each claw if you feel like it. His head is on a ball joint and is made of rubbery plastic. The design of the faceplate seems to be based on a flight helmet with oxygen mask, rather than the solid plate look the animators changed to. Glowing eyes, of course (so far, only Mirage and Buzzsaw lack this feature). Um, and glowing groin, as a side effect of it being his cockpit. Read into that what you will. [Later note: Yeah, yeah...I forgot, Mirage does have the glowing eyes. They just don't work. }->] Everything is pegged together very strongly, and none of the joints is too stiff or too loose. His feet are long enough and have stiff enough ankles to support lots of legged poses if you want to take him out of hover mode. Overall: Definitely the best of the first wave. If you put him next to Tankor, it wouldn't be immediately obvious which one was the Mega, which is hardly a slam of Tankor. If you get only one Beast Machine toy from the first seven, get this guy. Dave Van Domelen, kinda glad Blackarachnia didn't also arrive in the mail today...he's been reviewing for two solid hours now!