All of the unveiled figures look great! But let’s be real…
The Animated bois really, REALLY stole the show. Optimus looks almost perfect and Bumblebee looks great… if a bit flawed.
While Legacy Animated Prowl did looked alright and was pretty well-liked by the fandom, he was a little too… generic looking? It looks like Hasbro really stepped up their game for the new Animated figures for this line.
Transformers Animated is back in full force!
Seriously, all of the pictures of Optimus make him look incredible. He’s not like the overly generic Legacy Prime Bulkhead or Arcee, Optimus genuinely looks like a modernised Animated Optimus Prime. His proportions are cartoony and his head-sculpt is full of character.
The original Animated Voyager Optimus Prime that came out in 2008 already had pretty great posability to begin with but the Legacy United update looks like he got a significant articulation upgrade. Seriously, he looks like he can pull off some dynamic poses.
Also, it was pointed out on Twitter that Optimus went the extra mile for show accuracy in vehicle mode. I thought his front wheels looked weird being covered by the bumper… but it turns out the cartoon just gave Optimus’s truck mode weird proportions.
The only three things I’m wondering about Optimus now are:
1) Is there going to be a retool as Cybertronian Mode Optimus, Wingblade Optimus or Powermaster Optimus?
2) How big and dense is Optimus compared to other Voyagers?
3) Just how quickly are they going to put out a variant with a mask-plate?
Legacy Animated Bumblebee also looks great. The head-sculpt, accessories and car mode are just perfect while his proportions look great.
However, there are a few sticking points.
1) Bumblebee is tiny for a Deluxe class. From the looks of it, he’s shorter than Earthrise Cliffjumper and has less accessories on top of that.
2) He’s got a lot of clear plastic. His chest is basically all clear plastic with paint and it’s full of joints. Bumblebee’s fragility and longevity… it’s concerning.
Everyone else looked great too!
The rest of the Legacy United line also looked like plenty of fun!
The biggest welcome surprise besides the Animated boys was Core Class Energon Megatron. An Energon/Superlink figure so early and it’s tiny but perfect? The only thing I wish they did was give him a handheld sword instead of the tank/sword hybrid.
Megatron’s wave-mate being an obscure Transformer from Beast Wars II that turns into a Tasmanian Tiger is amazing. Seriously, a Tasmanian Tiger. Also, he looks like a good figure in both modes.
The Rocklord homages look wonderfully wacky and are probably going to be incredible fidget figures that you can mess around with all day. Seriously, Rocklords? That came way out of left field.
While Legacy Rescue Bots Chase isn’t a big priority for me, he does look like a solid CHUG-ification of his Rescue Bots design. I’m actually more curious what they’re going to retool or repaint him as since he looks like he could be used as multiple characters.
Legacy Prime Thundertron is also a big surprise since almost everyone thought he was going to be a reskin of Leo Prime. Instead he came out as the best looking of all the Prime updates so far if you’re just going off pictures. Thundertron wasn’t in the show at all and he got an incredible looking figure.
Windblade looks like a good figure… but I can’t put my finger on which Windblade she’s supposed to be. She could easily be a G1, RID 15 or Cyberverse Windblade. No matter what, she looks like a solid Transformer and is continuing the trend of better designed fembots that started with Legacy Elita-1.
I’m not going to lie… the Leader figures are pretty underwhelming compared to everything else that was revealed. Laser Optimus is just a repackage while I have no attachment to Metalhawk at all.
Still, Metalhawk does look like a chunky Leader. They look like they’re both on the tall and wide side for a modern Leader and that’s always appreciated. Compared to the original figure, the proportions and paint both look improved on the new Leader… at least in my opinion.
Closing
If you couldn’t tell, I’m hyped for this new line of Transformers and I’d buy all of them on release if I could afford it. Seriously, Hasbro really stepped up their game since the start of the Legacy line and I’m impressed.
I’ll probably only get Animated Optimus and Energon Megatron at first since I get the feeling that they’re going to sell out then become hard to get a hold of really quickly.
Starscream's Vizier 