While articulation is limited, I do very much like the figure design enough to ignore it.

 

That one’s a missed opportunity for me. I haven’t even read the IDW comic, but I love the deco and sculpt of that one, and the alt mode is cool.

 

God, it’s like this mold was meant for him, and the Rodimus was the retool/afterthought.

He is so so so good. To think we maybe wouldn’t have ever gotten him if MMC made their (let’s face it, horrible ) decision to stop the reformatted line even sooner.

 

toyhax.com. Also my main source for faction logos.

funny story, this is actually the copy used in Toyhax’s stock photos.

 

I passed in him at first and regretted it, luckily I managed to get him for a decent price recently.

Only major thing off are the back wings, since the car spoiler is supposed to be on his legs.
I considered not installing them at first to better match the comic look.

 

I really dig these guys!

 

It wasn't making the bucks to justify its existence.

I do wonder how much of that related to MMC avoiding low hanging fruit, for whatever reason. There's a reason shelves are full of figures of the same few characters - some characters sell more than others. The third party scene is the same. MMC seems to have made a deliberate decision to avoid going in that direction.

It took until R48 to get an Optimus Prime, for example.

I think it's admirable from an artistic point of view, but I cant help but think that the line would still be going if MMC had peppered in more bankable picks as they went along. There are characters that are both central to the lore and were also heavily involved in IDW stuff that were never given figures, like

Prowl (with MASSIVE retool potential - maybe not followed up on because of GCreations?)
Ironhide
Grimlock (CAD proto abandoned by MMC)
Starscream/seekers (again, mad retool potential)
Blurr (still holding out for a Chromedome retool)
Bumblebee
Shockwave

and so on

 

I feel it was a combination of their hesitancy to tackle figures done by/revealed by Hasbro/Other 3P, such as Grimlock, as well as trying to maximize mold usage even if it hurt the figure, like Whirl, hurt the brand. Their very risk averse nature hurt them i feel.
There's also the fact that the further we get from the IDW continuity the less in demand those renditions of characters become.

 

Lightning & Thunder (Fans Hobby MB-16 Lightning Eagle & Mastermind Creations R-33 Collisus)

 

Not sure if I like Hexatron sharing the shelf with Carnifex and D-Zef; I got him on a whim for $65 yesterday at a 2nd & Charles.

Also debating a WFC Skytread/Flywheels for Tortor to hold. Either that, or take my Generations Deluxe Sky Shadow and break him into pieces to be distributed among the DJD crew...

Love finally having the DJD on display, though.

 

I have sky shadow in kaon's chair on my DJD shelf.

 

I don't see anything wrong with that

 

I've said many times I'd buy at least 1 of each idw fembot mold if they decide to do them. But the seekers is another one I would buy at least 3 of. I do enjoy their idw style but the leader class from cw just doesn't cut it anymore. And I'm still waiting for supermax news.

 

i will give you my left kidney for that helex

 

I got extremely lucky with him - right place, right time. There's an MMC group on Facebook, and I saw a guy list the entire DJD for $850 shipped. I saw the post within 25 minutes of it going up, reached out, explained that I already had Kultur/Tarn, and he sold me the rest for $650 shipped. Because of how good of a deal it was, I wound up giving him an extra $50 to help cover some of the shipping cost and G&S fee...so $700 shipped for the entire DJD minus Kultur; all with their boxes and accessories. Cynicus/Vos was the only figure with any issues to speak of, thankfully.

I made up for the score, though, by WAY over-trading for the Iron Factory DJD set at a local toy store. If I'd been patient and waited a bit longer, I could have scored an insane deal on them, too.

 

Some time ago a friend worked very hard to convince me to get Fans-Hobby's Lightning Eagle instead of MMC's Collisus. Lightning Eagle's nice and all, but I can't help but feel I might have been happier with Collisus instead. At the very least I wouldn't have to set time aside to transform him like I do with Lightning Eagle.

 

Vortex has arrived! If anyone was curious this new reissue fixes the decapitation issue older copies had.