I still need to open my 86 bumblebee and deluxe g1 cartoon "devastation" optimus that was one of the value 2 packs they put out. Some really good ones I never saw in person but I did get the cosmos/armada "wheeljack" sideswipe 2 pack too and both of those were figures I wanted but not at full price or what people wanted for them online. Took a photo of those when I got them too.
I swear the Walmarts in my area have literally nothing when trying to find those two packs from last year but I am slightly convinced my area might be a deadspot when trying to get Transformers or just scalpers going to town. As for unopened/not used figures, I still have that Kingdom Ark titan class still in the box, I only opened it for the blast effects and to see if everything was there when I bought it for sixty bucks at Ross a while ago. I am considering trying to find a place I can pawn it off since I don't have a spot to have it displayed.
Ebay is always a solid option for selling large transformers. That reminds me I still need to get back to cleaning off the used CW devastator I got last year so i can actually display it instead of having it laying down int he shipping box it came in. Despite the crust the few times I've actually had it stood up it's been solid and able to hold any pose even with the arms not being the ratcheted ones of the JP release. some poses do get floppy though due to that. Every other copy I've seen is like busted up or broke in some way but most people jsut seem to break the tab on the foot guy which I am concerned about. Thank god for low prices from people that actually want to make space for new stuff and pay in four or I'd probably never have gotten the thing.
The first few figures they did that with they "made up for it" by including a bunch of wacked out little modularity gimmicks... Yes I know that's just cliffjumper and his several repaints but STILL IT COUNTS. Leader shockwave also comes to mind with him having a modular hover platform that becomes armor that gives him multiple arms and when plugged into his alt mode turns it into a kinda approximation of the several few seconds we see of tidal wave's cybertronian alt mode. It's devolved since then and the price has gone up. Voyagers with trailers are now no longer leader but "commander" class, something that used to belong to big guys like jetfire and sky lynx a few years ago.
I think after nexus and animated ratchet I'm just gonna quit collecting and pray Ross in my area is decent to get shit I passed on since they're putting some legacy united stuff atm. But I am interested in a Bruticus box set so I can have at least a combiner.
The only Studio Series I was interested in on this year was AOE prime but seeing the pics of him I'm just gonna wait on inhand reviews.
You are much better off just going after older used figures either online or in person stores especially if you're american where there's a large and active market for them. there's literally like 30 years worth of great transformers toys out there to enjoy.
IMO aside from the tab issue on the foot and occasional other QC oddities on some copies combiner wars/unite warriors devastator is the best (official) g1 devastator we're ever gonna get. the ss86 one is just a downscaled redo of 86 devastator with added partsforming trailer shit that makes no sense being there. Him being over 300 dollars with somehow even more simplified engineering and sculpt makes it so fucking weird.
it is quite good though i think if i had the hasbro version with the raped elbows on half the individual members i would hate it alot more. i just appreciate how solid and chunky he feels.
I am in the process of trying to put one together for 200$ or under, Ive gotten all of the limbs for under retail but haven't been able to ship them out from Japan(fuck you Iran) and I think they look pretty fun. just need to find a Hook & Long Haul to seal the deal.
I mind the scalpers less than the absolute raping of the budget. it was bad even before then, but its only gotten worse, and will likely to continue to get worse, since goyim seem keen on continuing to buy this slop at full price, or worse, twice or more the price off of scalpers.
a few years ago, before global trade was completely fucked and before trump started his gay tariff nonsense i would have explained to you how easy and cheap it is to just import this stuff directly from Japan. I literally bought up the entire Micron Legend toyline around 2022 for less than most of the Hasbro releases go for. I still buy quite alot from Japan, but thats also because I live in fucking Israel and I'm importing one way or another, but right now is probably the worst time ever to do it.
I got a used complete one for about 90$+shipping last year. he is basically worthless if you look in the right places. alot of older third party toys are like that, which rules because alot of them are great.
So basically like the devastator equivalent of how for the last few years most of my Transformers I've bought are just variants of megatron/galvatron. JP exclusive voyager energon galvatron for a non-scalper price (though he's missing his arm tank and the purple dinobot tail sword) was a highlight of last year specifically. I still have my leader one that was the US version from back in the day. he has his arm cannon but it's not on him and is likely in some unknown region of the house. I'd take photos of the two side by side but there's a a slight custom silver paint on the blue plastic parts thing on the used JP one from the previous owner that'd make it an opsec issue. Just know my JP galvatron G is silver where the blue is on the original figure.
that is practically an urban legend started by Baltmatrix. I have owned at least 6 copies of that mold at this point and I genuinely cannot fathom how you would even accomplish that short of leaving the batteries in with the power turned on AND the batteries in the cabot AND somehow got it to send a signal to the trailer WITHOUT noticing the horrific grinding noise the trailer would make for minutes on end before the motor would actually start heating up to the point of catching fire.
I didn't do that but I did do that on a bunch of my old transformers years ago in like 2012-2013-ish because I was more afraid of them leaking but then the batteries got accidentally scrambled by a family member when I had second thoughts and so i'd be mixing used and dead batteries which is the kind a thing that causes leaking sometimes. So hyeah ironically I'm pretty sure armada optimus is th eonly oen of my old guys that still has his old batteries unless I also forgot doing that.
Battery leaking is the main reason to do it yeah, it'll keep those electronics from going bad over the years, but you also dont want it to randomly activate and either start screaming at you if it has voice lines or set itself on fire if it has a motor. or worse, ive seen people throw battery filled toys in bins with other toys, and they would leak all over everything else, infecting the entire bin.
In some aspects that figure's better than the studio series one, but in others it's not. Biggest one being them cheaping out and not making the individual parts able to become robots of any kind but the gimmick of the screaming and opening mouth are great.
it is definitely better than the Studio Series one. that thing is the biggest pile of shit they have ever shat onto market with the name Devastator attached to it. some of the individual constructicons are OK but its clear they just winged it and had no fucking idea how to make it come together as a combiner. its somehow engineered & looks worse than the fucking Legends toy from 10 years prior.
I mean it's literally identical save for the face having red paint on some panels you could theoretically just add it yourself. I dunno though I kinda like the grey face a bit better even though it's not "accurate" to the final movie design.
yeah but I do have an autistic tendency to want every deco of my favorite toys, so if I *did* see a cheap loose Japanese Mixmaster it'd be a no brainer, but I'm not losing sleep over not having one.
Almost all the promotional images of devastator's model from back when ROTF came out had the gray face too which makes me wonder just how late into development that got added.
for the movie model I definitely think the red looks better, but on the two original toys, grey breaks him up nicer.