Dave's Universe Rant: Nemesis Prime Not sure if this is a Target exclusive, or if they're just making sure they have a lot for the holiday season. There's a good chance your store has some in back (DPCI 087-06-0358) but hasn't put them out yet. There's two reasons they wouldn't be out yet. One: According to Mouth04, Target is only putting out 5000 of these now, and saving back 10000 for the holiday season. Two: Target sees Universe Ultras as fungible (vocabulary word of the day!) Fungible commodities are totally interchangeable, there's no difference (as far as the store is concerned) between one box and another box. So if a store has four Tankor/Obsidian sets on the shelf, they might not put out any Nemesis Primes because there's enough Universe Ultras out already. In either case, if you bring the DPCI with you, you should be able to get them to go in back and bring out a box of Nemesis Primes. Here's my review of the original Big Convoy version of the mold: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Japan/NeoLeaders This is NOT the same as the Black Big Convoy released in Japan during Neo. Nor is it the Scourge color scheme. Rather, it's the same basic colors as Armada Nemesis Prime, although in different proportions. CAPSULE Nemesis Prime: A really good mold. Suffers a bit from quality contrl issues, so you may need to take yours back and try again. Perhaps the ultimate expression of the Shellformer design philosophy. Strongly recommended if you do not have Big Convoy, recommended even if you do. $19.99 at Target. RANT The package actually has a unique bio note for Nemesis Prime. The rest of the techspec stuff is mine (using Big Convoy's numbers). DECEPTICON: NEMESIS PRIME Altmode: Woolly Mammoth Function: Harbinger of Doom Motto: "Death is the only right of all sentient beings!" The most vile creation of the evil UNICRON is a creature so shameful and foul that AUTOBOT warriors fear to speak of it. NEMESIS PRIME - the powerful but twisted clone of the legendary OPTIMUS PRIME, pulled out of time and perverted to the cruel villain's purposes - possesses all the knowledge and wisdom of the AUTOBOT leader, but is powered by a deep love of evil and destruction. Perhaps the greatest threat to the Universe ever created by UNICRON, NEMESIS PRIME carries within its body the Dead Matrix, an artifact capable of negating and destroying forever the powerful AUTOBOT Matrix of Leadership. STR 10 INT 10 SPD 9 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 10 SKL 10 Avg 9.875 And yes, "Universe" is capitalized on the box. Packaging: A little disappointing. The box art leaves out the shoulderpads (mammoth head halves), and the prototype pic on the back has the beast mode incompletely transformed (they didn't even bother to massage the body plates into the correct positions). Co-sells on the bottom of the box are Nemsis Strika, Autobot Whirl, Fireflight and Magna Stampede. The back of the box shows off the "Dead Matrix Annex" in the chest (oddly, the Spanish and French translations just says Dead Matrix, nothing about the Annex), the "weapon mode", and describes the leg missiles as being just stored melee weapons. The instructions are complete, showing all the steps and modes of Big Convoy (unlike a lot of recent recolors, that don't show official third modes). Nemesis Prime is clearly seen as dangerous, to judge from the profusion of twist-ties and rubber bands securing it to the tray. There are 16 twist-ties and 8 rubber bands, plus baggies over the feet that are held closed by two of the rubber bands. One of the twist-ties is actually wrapped around the figure's neck. He's mistransformed in the box. Not only are the feet in those bags and shoved back for reasons of fitting in the box better, but his butt is facing forward. His shoulders aren't completely transformed out, and his shoulderpads are in the wrong positions (although this last one is necessary to fit in the box). Apparently they forgot to do the "choking hazard" warnings first time around, because both the box and the instructions have trilingual warning stickers on them. Colors: The Armada Nemesis Prime colors of black, pale tan, red and metallic blue, with some silver accents. The prototype suggests that much of the opaque red was to be red plastic, but the only opaque red on the final product is paint (for instance, the tonfas are painted red, but the crescent missiles that are red on the box are black in the actual toy). The spark crystal is mostly black with the Maximal symbol left clear dark red. There are no Decepticon symbols on this toy. The eyes may be clear red, but there's no lightpiping, and even shining a laser into one eye doesn't really light up the other. The Dead Matrix is essentially the original Matrix that Big Convoy carries, but with no chrome on the black plastic. The chest compartment (Dead Matrix Annex) is painted metalflake silver with metallic blue and opaque blood red accents. The robot head is a very dark blue with gunmetal faceplate, metallic blue helmet "tablet" and light tan fold-out horns. The central core of the missile launcher rifle is this dark blue as well, with light tan muzzle and trigger wheel. Robot Mode Differences: I've heard some say that their Nemesis Primes are a lot stiffer-jointed than their Big Convoys, but mine isn't better and may be a little worse. Iffy quality control in Universe? Whodathunkit? The big cannon piece will stay clipped to the figure's back, but this limits poseability somewhat (it pops off easily). Most of the floppiness is on the joints that hold beast mode panels, though. Other than the feet, the actual pose joints are sufficiently stiff. The fact that the tonfas are painted instead of made from red plastic makes it harder to get them to fit into his fists. I was able to get both in by applying a little Excessive Force (TM), and it doesn't SEEM to be damaging the paint job. On the other hand, the paint also makes the tonfas stay on their joints better, so they don't pop off like the ones on my Big Convoy do. [Later note: some readers report their tonfa paint strips off, so chalk up another thing to Quality Control.] Transformation Differences: About the same. Half your time will be spent massaging the plates into place...the pegs help a little, but there's a lot of "five things need to be in the exact right positions" steps. On mine, nothing I do will get one of the panels from the robot forearms to go into the correct position (on reverse transformation I found that this was because it popped off!). Panels will tend to pop off here and there when transforming, both directions. Beast Mode Differences: Black shading down to silver on the fur and trunk, ivory tusks, red eyes and red blood-stain on the tusk tips. The "Smash Attack" trunk action works about the same as on my Big Convoy. The "Gore Attack" with the tusks is a bit easier to work, and I can get both tusks to rise at once without too much trouble, and without making the beast mode fall apart. Weapon Mode Differences: None, really, but they call it Devastation Mode. Gee, ya think they're making it clear enough that this is not a nice fellow? The springs on the main missile launcher are stronger than those on my Big Convoy, and the springs on the crescent/anchor missiles are about the same. Overall: The ultimate Shellformer, with a robot mode draped in slightly curved pieces of beast hide. But I also mean "ultimate" in a good way, because this shows what can be done with the shellformer design philosophy. It's a good mold, but do watch out for quality control issues. Dave Van Domelen, now to find a space wide enough for Mr. Evil Shoulderpads to stand!