More Power! PM Prime is so good he gets a 2nd post. People say the Super Robot mode is a brick but that ignores the great standing side-kick he can do (powerful enough to knock apart Menasor in my games). I was always sad he didn’t have Roller but Overlord’s car makes a nice HiQ-compatible stand-in

Transformers Action Master Devastator & Scorpulator! Evidently Nucleon both shrunk & trapped the Constructions in their combined form (unless this is a clone like they tried to build in the Earthforce story Desert Island Risks). Still, they gained a cool scorpion pal who forms a gun & leggy backpack

Transformers Meanstreak! My odd fondness for the G2 Power Masters even extends to this ruddy-faced freak. Weird & shitty as his bot mode is the car is BADASS. His angry lil earmuffed head combined with the Decepticon logo hiding on his door stickers had me cast him as a dirty TRAITOR in my games

Mini Boglins Swamp Carry Case! You can see why the Tribes moved into a house as it’s not exactly the most inspiring playset (the “tree” & “bridge” are a bit crap) & it can be difficult to close unless the Boglins are aligned just-so. Still, it’s pretty & does have a lot of charm #vintagetoytuesday

Transformers Action Master Prowl! Using his advanced logic centre to sense the end of the toy line was near Prowl hedged his bets by investing in a sweet Turbo Cycle/Battle Emplacement & getting a part-time job on CHiPs. Sadly the blue & white on both Prowl & the bike tend to discolour horrendously

Transformers Power Master Staxx! I like this odd duck truck even if nobody else does. Fun & cool guns too. Like Ironhide his soft head sculpt lacks a mouth which again I kinda like. What I don’t like is one of his 2 variants has sparklier plastic & can suffer from Gold Plastic Syndrome - watch out!

Transformers Hydraulic! Alright I guess but he just felt like an inferior retread of Mudslinger. His sole role in my games was being strong and getting killed a lot. I didn’t even bother to think up any powers/abilities for him. He is nice & sturdy though so you could do a good “throwing a guy” pose

The Deluxe treatment! The Deluxe Insecticons finally all represented in Generations. And don’t they look lovely together? They do run the full spectrum of update effort (from Kickback with a new head, through 2 incredible retools, to the most 1:1 G1-with-knees ever) but still make a great team

Transformers Action Master Starscream + Turbo Jet! In a nice bit of visual continuity Starscream carries over his deco from his Pretender form. Rides into his latest scheme in style on his Turbo Jet/battle chariot. Will its missile launcher & force field allow him to finally topple Megatron? (no)

Overlord’s box is pretty damn majestic too. That glorious golden Euro Classic-style box shines on the shelf & the box back mural is beyond epic. LOOK AT IT! I used to spend hours staring at it on the back of my Motorvator boxes. The excellent tech specs really make Overlord sound almost supernatural

Transformers Big Hauler! He was he leader of my Monster Truck Patrol but leading a patrol of gun fodder wasn’t all it was cracked up to be (he sent his CV to the Off-Road Patrol) . I liked his smokestack feet, which could deliver laser kicks & of course I saw his shoulder detailing as beam blasters

One advantage Velocitron Crasher has over Fracture… firepower!

Transformers Overlord! Breathtaking (probably literally, given all the killing). Didn’t have him as a kid though I played with one at a friend’s house & fell in love (found out about him too late, Santa had apparently already got me LEGO for that Christmas). Awesome, HUGE & packed with play features

Transformers Action Master Rollout! Not doing much rolling since Nucleon. He’s a covert operative though doesn’t seem like he’ll be doing much of that either being bright orange. He likes to kick ass & fortunately he’s equipped to do PLENTY of that with his heavy armaments & his battle drone, Glitch

Transformers G2 Power Master Ironhide! As a kid I decided this wasn’t the original Ironhide (what with him being dead & this looking nothing like him) but rather a new bot named after him who tried his best to live up to the legend & mostly succeeded. Mostly. Has a chin but no mouth which is a look

Transformers Heavy Tread! Didn’t know what to make of him (had never seen a monster truck show). My guess was some sort of odd pimped-out agricultural tractor (like Dragstrip mated with a Massey Ferguson) & as a result I made him a mad farmer with a country bumpkin accent - ‘ere, get offa my land! 🚜

Battle Beasts Slowpoke Sloth! The most adorable Battle Beasts but that won’t stop them gutting you like fish when they eventually catch you. A 2-toed sloth but in fact has 3 fingers, boy I really hope someone got fired for that blunder (another blunder- I swapped his weapon with Bodacious Bovine 😣)

Transformers Action Master Axer & Off-Road Cycle! Yet another Decepticon Action Master who is in it for the money (between him, Gutcruncher & Banzai-Tron it must cost Megatron a fortune) this bounty hunter must be good at his job to afford such a bitchin’ hog (though apparently can’t afford an axe)

Transformers Slow Poke! My fav of the Patrol. His shoulder cannons endeared him to me (of course) but it was his tow hook that made him useful. Acted as a Hoist-style service & repair bot who assisted Fixit in salvaging wounded comrades (often the wounded bots would be the members of his own Patrol)

… it’s of course that they were all responsible for blowing up Bumblebee in their respective universes, requiring him to be rebuilt into Goldbug! And now he wants REVENGE! (It’s interesting that the Decepticons didn’t destroy Bee at all - indeed in 2 versions it was heroic characters that got him!)

So who can tell me what these guys have in common? (… not Flash specifically, more his organisation)

I have the Power! (… wait, wrong franchise) - it’s Powermaster Optimus Prime! Incredibly when I was little I used to resent having this toy rather than the original which is crazy as it is SO good & I had so much fun with it. I gave my small robot Pretender Jazz’s rifle as he can’t hold his well

Transformers Treadshot! This gunslinger used to turn into a gun (he’s based on 357 Magnum Robo, an obscure non-Takara toy) but since Nucleon Catgut does it for him! Love that his gun can plug into his vestigial gun barrel chest. Lot of confusion around his & Soundwave’s gun, this is the right weapon

Transformers Micromaster Monster Trucks Patrol! Never my favourite Micros though they made for good grunts & cannon fodder & their strength was always handy in a scrap (… until they inevitably got brutally killed, anyway). They had better luck in vehicle mode, flattening most foes with ease

Di-UH-Cloooooooooone! Always nice to complete a team, even a small one, with both Diaclone colour Titans Return Jumpstarters! Twin Twist & Topspin look very handsome in their red & navy blue pre-Tf liveries & aside from the lack of ankle rockers you’d never guess this design is nearly a decade old

Despite the Nucleon you can sort of bodge an alt mode for Soundwave if you’re feeling very creative and even more charitable. And hey, it’s no worse than a couple of the official Action Master Elite alt modes! (… you might even say that it is… superior)

Crashing out! The maniacal laughter booms as Crasher meets Fracture (…& Crasher. & Crasher. & Sports Car). Finally got Velocitron/AoTP Crasher & added her to the gang. Honestly she’s not as good as Fracture (Classic Mirage = GoAT) though she does look a bit more like Gobots cartoon Crasher so yay

Transformers Action Master Soundwave & Wingthing! Lost his tape deck mode, retained his fondness for trusty animal friends. Actually less articulated than the original toy but looks fantastic. Many guides give him Treadshot’s gun but this is the one he was packaged with. Wingthing has a great design

Transformers Groundhog! In my games his engine was a powerful beam cannon & he had a flame exhaust. Transformers Groundhog! In my games his engine was a powerful beam cannon & he had a flame exhaust. Transformers Groundhog! In my games his engine was a powerful beam cannon & he had a flame exhaust….

Don’t talk to me or my son, or my Japanese son, or my partially translucent son, ever again

Quite possibly the ugliest Transformer ever made. How do you fuck up *Smokescreen* - historically one of the best-looking Transformers - this badly? The awkward, janky toy was already pretty bad but then someone slapped on the laughably amateurish deco with “38” graphics done in MS paint. Awful.

Transformers G2 Power Masters! Though cancelled in the USA these pullback powerhouses brightened up much of the rest of the world (if only with their colours). Made by Hasbro without Takara input and you can REALLY tell. I’m very fond of them as despite their simplicity & soft sculpts they’re fun!

Transformers Action Master Rad & Lionizer! Always thought his aerospace engineer function was the coolest, I had him designing shuttles. Power Plans say Rad’s feet are “biodirectional weapons systems” (maybe he knows Bronson from Round the Twist?). Lionizer is smug he has a CHUG update & Rad doesn’t

Transformers Roller Force! INCREDIBLE head design, incredible colours, weird name. Was my patrol leader. Loved his spoiler/leg transformation. Imagined him as a rocket propelled menace with a razor-sharp bumper, slicing bots in half and not stopping to exchange insurance details!

Thinkway Toys Jurassic Era Transformable Dino-Eggs Triceratops! A high quality bootleg of the Bandai Tamagoras / Egg Monsters toy. These were mercilessly bootlegged from the 80s-now, this one coming out just in time for Jurassic Park. Shame this one wasn’t used a a Meteorb as it actually looks rocky

Transformers Action Master Krok & Gatoraider! Puntastic pair- Krok is FOOT soldier who kicks & a sports star paired with GATORAIDer. This is good stuff! The only original character AM with a speaking role in Marvel (as Bludgeon’s right-hand bot). He disappeared by G2, shame- colours would’ve fit!

Transformers Motörhead! HE KNOWS HE’S GOING TO LOSE, COS GAMBLING’S FOR FOOLS, BUT THAT’S THE WAY HE LIKES IT BABY HE DON’T WANT TO LIVE FOREVER (… he won’t forget the joker)

Transformers Retro Minibot Seaspray! I loved Seaspray as a kid (that’s my original meeting the new guy) so was very happy to add this new version to the hoard. He’s wonderful, if oddly over complicated, and a big improvement over the very square Minecraft-ish Titans Return version. 5 star(fish)

The Phantomstrike Squadron set I got yesterday is missing the gun barrel part for Shrute so looks like it’s going to have to go back to Pulse (asked if they could source the missing bit, not hopeful). Made me sad thinking what happens to the returned toys. Let’s hope they live on a nice energon farm

Transformers Action Master Elite Windmill! A visually interesting guy with cool tech details, boss gun arm & pegleg made out of bombs. His copter mode looks like it was cobbled together out of random tech by a madman (been busy Wheeljack?). Whirling scythe gimmick would be fun if it wasn’t so frail

Transformers Micromaster Barricade! Not much of an outlaw considering the cops stole his name. Really liked the spoiler/leg transformation. Not so keen on his tiny Tyrannosaur arms. He delivered powerful stomping attacks in my games, flipping foreword after transforming to kick & trample

Apparently I make for a moderately unsettling monkey

Late to the party with the Rise of the Beast Optimus Primal mask but glad I got there as it is a lot of fun!

“You destroy everything you touch, Megatron!” “Because everything I touch is food for my hunger… my hunger for POWER!” “No! I’m going to end your hunger once & for all!” (pretty cheap that Megs didn’t include a mace when Prime had his axe but I was able to wedge R.E.D. Megatron’s mace in)

“Surprise Megatron, meet Superion!” After getting Superion and Megatron today I was able to give Menasor and Optimus Prime their rivals at last. Can’t believe I’ve never noticed that Prime/Superion and Megatron/Menasor are quite well colour-coordinated. Very satisfying!

It’s my birthday. Yay? Thankfully a stockpile of new toys take the sting out of aging somewhat even if my withered, ancient and enfeebled fingers can’t get them out of the packaging as quickly as I used to

Speaking of Bee domination, in the UK in 1991 EVERY version of G1 Bumblebee was on shelves. Goldbug, Pretender & Action Master were all shipping generally (images from the 1991 Hasbro UK catalog) & the official Chinese reissue of the original was a Woolworths exclusive (images from Transformerland)

Transformers Action Master Bumblebee + Heli-Pack! Bee domination is nothing new, a version shipped every year of G1 & this lovely last entry represented his animation model for the 1st time. I like how his proportions make him look much shorter than other AMs even though he isn’t. Heli-Pack is fun!

Transformers Micromaster Race Track Patrol! They look like they crashed into the highlighter pen factory. That they were exciting despite being the 4th car patrol is a testament to how nice they are. The Earthrise versions inexcusably boring’ed up their colours so enjoy their original dayglo glory!

Had some deliveries over the past few days. The local residents are eager to see if they have got any new teammates amongst it all (they have) but I’m not opening it yet…