You can already see the cost cutting on Metalhawk.

1. Outer wings don't fold in. Just sculpted detail.
2. Painted canopy instead of clear plastic.
3. Hands fold in with no cover panels.
4. NO landing gear. And I mean SERIOUSLY HASBRO, WHAT do you have against wheels/props now?

 

What’s funny to me is that Skyquake pretty much doesn’t have any of those issues, so I guess you have to be a leader to have landing gear now?

 

Seeing the TR and this new one side by side you really see the improvement and how much better this new one is.

 

And Skyquake is pretty much a beefier Voyager (looking at you Scourge).

 

10 figures and 4 repaints plus Nemesis Prime comes with a new weapon, so I’m not concerned.

 

I am used to hollow forearms and they usually don't bother me, but at least in pictures MH's arms look more hollow than normal. And I don't get how they save money by doing this as a partial, but can't cover up the gaps the way they did with Cyclonus.

 

Gotta love how both of Metalhawk’s figures are retools of beloved decepticon jet molds lol

That being said, I’m so glad I didn’t track down the TR version. This just looks so much better, and I like that Cyclonus’ transformation scheme carries over. Do wish he had some form of landing gear, but oh well.

 

Glad that the retail Twins are getting their windows painted red. I was worried they\'d loose that cause of the demand for Rewind.

 

Someone said landing gear is now only available at the 55.99 price point now. Sigh and I believe it.

 

Blaster's asymetrical eyes sure are weird and unnecessary.

 

Wait, I thought a lot of people preferred painted windows etc over clear plastic, especially because clear plastic tends to be quite brittle? Was that not why I got the impression a big reason people preferred the Buzzworthy Kup and Cliffjumper over the SS86 and Earthrise versions was because the former use painted windows instead of clear plastic?

 

I'll take it over the generic stoic face they've been giving every single chug release in the last couple of years.

 

We could have just had the smirk and normal eyes instead of this deranged look in his eyes that doesn't match the character.

 

He’s noted as "a clone that didn't work out so well for Shockwave as planned." so it seems to fit the character pretty well.

besides, it’s about time we got a face in this line that isn’t a default blank stare. Actual personality.

 

i mean it's literally a face he makes in TFTM, it's why it exists

 

Twincast wasn't in the movie. This head isn't on Blaster.

Nah. Figures should have default expressions.

 

I like somewhat more expressive expressions that match the character, like Knockout just looks wrong without his smirk. Hell, I have Toyhax on my SS86 Starscream that add a smirk. Expressions just belong on certain characters.

 

I love the Kingdom Cyclonus mold but I don't think that it translates too well for Metalhawk. The robot mode looks great but that jet mode just looks like a flying brick. I'm starting to think that Armada Starscream or Jhiaxus might have been better to redo into Metalhawk. I wonder if you can still swing the arms down to the back of the jet like Cyclonus and if that would help the jet mode.

 

Speaking of which, what are the bets that Legacy Jhiaxus is going to be retooled to be Thunderwing, I mean even his alt mode looks like Thunderwing double pretender alt mode.

 

Hm... I actually can see that, yes. And if you have a much smaller robot to act as the extended nose cone and yet fits inside the reasonably large space inside Jhiaxus' robot mode chest, you also have a variation of the Pretender gimmick.