No. It would have been nice, but no. Takara-Tomy doesn't seem interested in doing any of the canned repaints either.
It would be nice if TRU would do spring and fall exclusives again of the unreleased four deluxes, like they did in 2010. Problem is, the repaints wouldn't sell as well. Wasp comes the closest to having a show appearance, and that usually helps sales of repaints.
Best case scenario: Animated goes into an extended lull. RTS, Generations, United, then DOTM early summer which will probably run for the bones of a year, and Prime as well. Takara and Hasbro have enough going on already. There's a slim chance they'll manage to shoehorn what's left into Generations, somehow, but by the then Animated will be over quite some time. For those of you who want a Blackout, i'd say just cough up the extra 25.00 or so and be done with it. The others, yes some are too shiny. Suck it up, or get good with an Airbrush.
No reason not to get the japanese blackout. The only metallic paint he has is red, which doesn't show up that much. It doesn't look bad at all. Hell, a few US Animated toys have metallic paint too (Like Sentinel's oddly metallic neck), so it matches.
I just found a Blackout for $46 ($55.50 shipped) on a site called vnctoys.com. I don't actually have him in hand, but the tracking number says it was delivered. I've just got to go pick it up (I don't have packages delivered to my apartment). I thought it was a pretty good price, considering.
Even if that's true, which I doubt, there's no guarantee they won't be dumped in Mexico or something.
Yea, that is a real nice price, considering BBTS and TFSource would be around the same and they are sold out. It seems like if you were waiting on Blackout, you've missed your chance since he's selling out everywhere now. My price was not nearly as good as yours... I spent $67 shipped on mine from Ebay for an open but complete one, but he also came with a Galaxy Force figure. I probably overpaid a tiny bit but he is one of the last figures I need for my Animated collection so I'm glad he is en route.
I'd be happy if these suddenly ended up at TJ MAXX or something random like that. But I'm not getting any hopes up. C'mon, TakaraTomy, go for the easy cash grab and make me a Thundercracker!
I think the only thing the Hasbro version of Blackout has on the Takara (IMO) is screen-accurate beady eyes, where the Japanese version has the whole eye area painted red. That's an easy fix though. Contrary to popular belief - that's not true.
Oh. That's a bummer. I wait for the day that they all get dumped in the UK and we can finally laugh and say we got something first!
