Metalhawk (Legacy: Evolution/Voyager Class)

Thoughts of Masterforce take me back to the days of fuzzy episodes on worn out VHS tapes and VCD's full of digital noise giving me a different appreciation of toys I already had like Powermaster Optimus Prime and desire for out of reach ones like Overlord. It was exciting to see the Pretenders animated (aside from footage used in commercials and the season 5 intro) lead by Metalhawk. 

Thankfully, Metalhawk these days has the occasional release outside of Japan, like the toy we're looking at today. Released in Transformers Legacy: Evolution, Metalhawk is a remold of the excellent Kingdom Cyclonus toy (who I have, but never talked about here). Unlike his prior updates, this time Metalhawk is based on his inner robot form and not the Pretender shell. I'm a fan of the shells designs,but it's a nice change of pace. 

Metalhawk is a larger toy as a Voyager Class figure that's pleasantly articulated and features his trademark sword and blasters. The blasters are formed by the tail fins from vehicle mode. They join together for form the blaster. The Evo-Fusion gimmick of the Evolution sub line isn't always spectacular, but I guess it makes sense here. In all honesty, it's just clever marketing to keep retailers happy while not sacrificing anything on the toy. Still, it can be funny sometimes. Other than the shell, all Metalhawk is missing is his larger rifle. Hopefully some fan groups produce an aftermarket gun and shell to really round out this pretty solid toy. 

To be honest, if I didn't know better, I would have thought this was a new mold. Metalhawk is a great update to his original toy. They really did a good job here, it looks like he stepped right off the TV screen.  Transformation is easy and felt natural. If you have Cyclonus you already know this as did I. Though it felt fresh this time. Even though I have a few other Metalhawk toys, it's still exciting owning this one. I'm brought back to the days of being a purple haired kid in a dingy hoodie working at a office supply store despite being a shaved haired middle aged man working an office job in a regularly washed hoodie. It's much easier to watch Masterforce now than it was then, though I still have that VCD set somewhere.

Since I'm daydreaming

I love Primemasters. They're a great way to homage Pretenders and Powermasters all in one. But I'll be super honest, I think it would be so freaking cool if there was a way of putting tiny versions of the original Pretender inner robots into Primemaster decoy armor. I loved smallest Transformers back in their day and can't help but to think tiny little transforming bots to go in those tiny shells would just be the Bumblebee's knees. The transformations aren't even complex, so I can't imagine they'd be that hard to pull off.

So... why does' he have to suit up before unleashing his inner robot? He's inside the shell right?

Shell Shock

I got this picture off Google images, apparently someone got this picture from Wowslider. 

I'm not doing a very good job at hiding my excitement for Primemasters. I've been wanting a Pretenders update for a very long time. I had gotten used to homage toys that basically used the shells as the robot mode without any actual shell. Fun Publications did a few Pretenders that I thought were awesome, but whoa nelly not for their asking price. I mean whoa the crap nelly. As Primemasters are basically mini figures using the shells, it's a good way to homage them and really, I like small toys.

Not to mention, I'll never own a Metalhawk. Sure, I have a pvc of him from that one particular wave of SCF, but never the real toy. There were a few updates, a BotCon I had to miss, a box set that sold out before I could commit (and was under the understanding that it would be more widespread... thanks TF news sites!). But never to actually get a Metalhawk. There was a cool Bootleg I saw of him that was floating around back in the day. Yep, never was able to track one down for myself.

But there's a Primemaster Metalhawk a coming, one for $5 that will be easy to get. Well, that's a gosh darn win in my book.