Yeah but how else did they paint the light bar black when the base plastic is blue? Unless that’s a seperate piece of plastic and I was unaware of that.

But I hope they do change it to something like yellow or maybe just blue.

Honestly yeah I’d have preferred if they had gone full female sculpt. Might’ve been better that way

 

Looks like trash. Original mold's arms and hips do not lend themselves to making this a male bot.

 

The proportions look fine to me. Not every "male" bot has to be built like a brick shithouse, just like not every "female" bot has to be built like the silhouette on a trucker's mudflap.

 

Agreed. In this universe Nightbeat does kegels.

 

Its no more Trash than MP Tracks. Yeah, he looks awkward, but not horribly so. I did tweet Fanshobby & ask if there were going to be any additional changes, like removing the siren & at least attaching panels to the rounded bits, and that got a like. So this might not be the final design.

Even if this is basically all we get, it doesn't look terrible, but more like a lanky guy dressed up like Nightbeat. I might still pick him up, but yeah I wouldn't mind to know that some additional changes might still be made.

 

That's the marvel comic design, right? The asymmetrical chest is toy accurate though. I don't think of the old marvel comic as being consistent enough to base designs on it over the toys and toon.

 

I just want a minerva with the toy and anime accurate chest, meanwhile everyone else wants a completely different toy.

 

True. The original toy is asymmetrical, but there never was a toon version of him. Just the toy and comic version(marvel and eventually idw).

Though if you wanna get nitpicky, this is the only "toon" version of Nightbeat from the 1988 commercial and it's using the Transformers "Universe"/Marvel design:

 

Put me down as the one person who would be fine with it being 100% just Minerva in Nightbeat colors so that it can be Nightbeat from the Legends manga.

 

If they had just done there Minerva in Nightbeat colors with a visor instead of regular eyes I totally would have gone in on this.

 

True, with dreamwave in between keeping the asymmetrical. Idw looks like it was mostly asymmetrical as well. I don't know, to each their own, but the chest is one of the most noticable things that makes it nightbeat to me. Symmetrical is just too generic.

 

It probably would’ve been better just to do 2 versions. Full blue and yellow Minerva then one that’s totally redone as a regular Nightbeat.

 

I didn't get the Minerva toy because the appearance of the robot mode was such a departure from the look of the character. A consequence of the altered transformation. This Nighbeat suffers from the same, except I care about Nightbeat.

Although I applaud the remoulding, I dislike the moulded emergency lights on toy and think the figure is too feminine for the hard boiled detective.

However, I can count the number of Nightbeat remakes ever made on the fingers of one hand: the fanclub version (a repaint of E HotShot) and the Generation one (a repaint of Bumblebee). Neither of them are good Nightbeats. Fansproject was likely going to release one, but that ship has sailed, sunk and rotten away. Was hoping MMC would release a MTMTE/LL version, but it seems unlikely.

Despite everything I have against it, I will likely get this. Because this might be the only Nightbeat we're going to get.

Although the Sunbow cartoon ended with The Rebirth (1987), Transformers was always more than just the cartoon. The Marvel comics (US) continued until 1991.

In the USA Hasbro kept releasing Transformer figures until 1990 (years after the cartoon ended). After 1990, Hasbro kept producing Transformer toys just not for the USA (mainly sold in Europe). Then in 1993 Hasbro launched a new Transformers series called Generation 2, officially ending G1. (Japan did it's own thing and continued with G1 until Beast Wars.)

Thus (originally) G1 is every figure released under the Transformers brand in the non-Asian market from 1984 all the way up to 1992.

Nighbeat was released in 1988 as part of the second wave of Headmasters. With production of the the cartoon over, his only depiction back then (outside of the toy's bio) was indeed the Marvel comics. In it he was portrayed as a sort of Private Investigator, featuring quite prominently in several issues. He made an impression making him a popular character that was reused in most notably IDW. (In Japan the Nightbeat toy was recoloured and released as Minerva in Masterforce, and this toy is the reversal of this.)

 

Ngl I’m actually liking this a lot more. I think I just wanna see more direct pics with full colouring to really sell me. Less tilted photos that force me to imagine the whole picture.

 

Possibly as a limited release. But if they did, I'd hope they make more tweaks on him so he's more unique from his "sister"

 

Nightbeat came along just after my childhood run with TF toys ended and I've never read the comics, so I have no attachment to the character. As someone who is unbiased in that sense, my comments are as follows:

1. Athena's shape in my opinion isn't much more feminine than MP Tracks's is masculine. Simple tweaks to her toy make for an adequately masculine figure, in my opinion. However, I don't think TT did enough to Tracks to make Road Rage appear female. All seem close to gender-neutral to my eye.
2. The original Nightbeat toy could very well have depicted a female character, from what I see in photos of it. It's not hyper-masculine at all, especially for the time. The comics version, though, is anything but svelte.
3. Personally, I find the whole gender thing irrelevant anyway, considering Cybertronians don't reproduce sexually. But I get that the character was originally designed as "male" and that many want "him" depicted as such. No male that I know would electively wear those colors, though, except for a few obnoxious Tarheel grads that I know.
4. This is a sub-par mold to be receiving so many repaints. Maybe FH is just trying to recoup initial development costs, but I would think investment in a newer, better figure would be the smarter move.
5. If not for my strong dislike of baby blue and flame paint jobs, this might be the only figure of this mold that holds any interest for me at all. (I have no attachment to Minerva or Windblade, either.) If they painted the car up in Gulf racing livery, though, I'd probably buy it and park it next to Downbeat on the shelf.

 

Hey look, an actual Nightbeat! Something Hasbro hasn't produced since 1988 despite some of the most connected and unusual fans pushing him constantly. It's not 30% Nightbeat, it's just Nightbeat!

Minerva is on her way and if she's good I'm probably down for all of these. I have no idea why Hasbro chose to skip all of the Headmasters in their Headmasters line a couple of years ago, but here we are.

 

Yeah that’s what I mean. 2 Nightbeats, 2 distinct interpretations.

 

This was no surprise after Minerva of course, and I was interested to see how it would turn out (since Nightbeat was always a favourite character of mine), but the bot mode just isn't doing it for me. I know it would have been asking too much to alter the actual transformation, but I was hoping he'd end up more... I dunno, 'squared off' for want of a better phrase?

Alt mode is lovely though, and makes me want a 'proper' MP version of Nightbeat's Marvel design more than ever.

Yeah this is what I'm really after. Guess I'll just wait and hope that someone eventually tackles the guy and goes Full-Marvel on him!

Yep, I guess they're going for the G1 toy colours, but I tend to think a Porsche needs a nice deep metallic blue (especially one with flame details!). Moot point perhaps, since I don't think I'll get this figure, much as I crave an updated G1 Nightbeat.