The Energon Pub

With Generations we fans have something we're not entirely used to: options, Drift or Blurr being the main ones. Naturally, most of us seem to be choosing both. Straxus (calling him Darkmount is like the old WWII tradition of nicknaming someone after their hometown) recently got a new head and color scheme to become another Marvel Comics focus character: Skullgrin. I was totally pass on this from all the pics I'd seen. The head looked doofy, the colors sucked, even the pickax looked bad in white. I tell you now, good friends, something I rarely admit too.

I was wrong.

Skullgrin is amazing! The colors are balanced, the head looks menacing, even the pickax looks like it's made of some weird transforming bone! He looks like Dethklok designed a Transformer. I dare say that if Skullgrin had come out first, Straxus would've looked like crap by comparison and been a shelfwarmer. Let me put it to you this way: I picked up Thunderwing at the same time and this is the first and only time I'm bringing him up. If you find Skullgrin, grab him and don't let go until you're at the register.

Protip: he looks far better with the chest coverings on and the backpack splayed out. They don't go so far as to look like wings but they add presence and mass to the figure.

Five of Five: Perfect Score.

Glad to hear that you like him. I was kind of on the fence about getting him since I already have Straxus and wasn't sure if I wanted to get the same mold twice.

Also, I do see what you mean. It's becoming more common for figures to not only be simple repaints, but reMOLDs of older figures. It's really a great move on Hasbro's part, because many fans (myself included) were less likely to purchase a simple repaint of an already purchased figure. However, if you change the paint AND the head sculpt, fans are WAY more interested. This is basically why I picked up both Blurr and Drift. Different paint aps, different heads, different weapons, and a different spoiler. In my eyes, they're two entirely different characters loosely based on the same mold. I can also see myself getting the Tomahawk remold (if that ever even comes to fruition) simply because it'll have different colors and a different head sculpt.

This kind of shows that you Hasbro is paying attention to the older fans. The bad news is that now my wallet will be crying more than ever!

More Pickaxe...

Yes....

Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Diem wrote:Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Strange, you'd think some place like San Francisco would have some very decent toy stores.

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

Diem wrote:Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Strange, you'd think some place like San Francisco would have some very decent toy stores.

Nah, Target, Walmart, K Mart and Toys R Us are all, as I understand it, banned from having their stores inside the city itself. It's just little mom and pop toy/comic stores with high prices and elderly stock.

I'm actually considering cutting off one of the sides of the pickax to make it a scythe. I'm going to wait until I find another one first. The plug will still work so it won't effect the tank mode at all!

Diem wrote:

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

Diem wrote:Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Strange, you'd think some place like San Francisco would have some very decent toy stores.

Nah, Target, Walmart, K Mart and Toys R Us are all, as I understand it, banned from having their stores inside the city itself. It's just little mom and pop toy/comic stores with high prices and elderly stock.

Snap. Same deal here, though I don't have to go very far to get to a TRU or Walmart.

kirbenvost wrote:

Diem wrote:

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

Diem wrote:Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Strange, you'd think some place like San Francisco would have some very decent toy stores.

Nah, Target, Walmart, K Mart and Toys R Us are all, as I understand it, banned from having their stores inside the city itself. It's just little mom and pop toy/comic stores with high prices and elderly stock.

Snap. Same deal here, though I don't have to go very far to get to a TRU or Walmart.

Ouch, that's rough. Are these city beautification laws? The city where I grew up didn't allow car dealerships in city limits.

It Is Him wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:

Diem wrote:

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

Diem wrote:Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Strange, you'd think some place like San Francisco would have some very decent toy stores.

Nah, Target, Walmart, K Mart and Toys R Us are all, as I understand it, banned from having their stores inside the city itself. It's just little mom and pop toy/comic stores with high prices and elderly stock.

Snap. Same deal here, though I don't have to go very far to get to a TRU or Walmart.

Ouch, that's rough. Are these city beautification laws? The city where I grew up didn't allow car dealerships in city limits.

I think in San Francisco it's more to stop big business trampling the mom and pop stores. An odd side-effect is that there are an absurd number of Walgreens stores in the city center.

Didn't SF also just ban McDonald's from including toys with Happy Meals? Hope for your sake they don't have any cool TF stuff upcoming

Optimum Supreme wrote:Didn't SF also just ban McDonald's from including toys with Happy Meals? Hope for your sake they don't have any cool TF stuff upcoming

Uhm, they do, actually. New toys based on the movie.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Optimum Supreme wrote:Didn't SF also just ban McDonald's from including toys with Happy Meals? Hope for your sake they don't have any cool TF stuff upcoming

Uhm, they do, actually. New toys based on the movie.

To be fair, he did say COOL TF stuff...

On topic, I'm just getting both. I don't know how much extra I've spent in recent months going back and buying all the classics repaints I skipped at retail or when the secondhand market was favorable. Although I'm at least making up for it a little with some of the exclusives that are going for like half the price. I'm hoping BBTS with have a Black Friday or post-Black Friday sale so I can put in an order for Strafe who's already ridiculously discounted. But there looks to be enough in stock to wait for another 15%.

Post black Friday=Cyber Monday

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Optimum Supreme wrote:Didn't SF also just ban McDonald's from including toys with Happy Meals? Hope for your sake they don't have any cool TF stuff upcoming

Uhm, they do, actually. New toys based on the movie.

It got unbanned, possibly due to Dreamworks forcing it through to promote Megamind.

Diem wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Optimum Supreme wrote:Didn't SF also just ban McDonald's from including toys with Happy Meals? Hope for your sake they don't have any cool TF stuff upcoming

Uhm, they do, actually. New toys based on the movie.

It got unbanned, possibly due to Dreamworks forcing it through to promote Megamind.

God bless capitalism and the free market. It's beautiful.

Diem wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Optimum Supreme wrote:Didn't SF also just ban McDonald's from including toys with Happy Meals? Hope for your sake they don't have any cool TF stuff upcoming

Uhm, they do, actually. New toys based on the movie.

It got unbanned, possibly due to Dreamworks forcing it through to promote Megamind.

As far as I know, the toys were banned, the mayor vetoed the ban, the veto was then overturned. What's going on?!

Diem wrote:

It Is Him wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:

Diem wrote:Nah, Target, Walmart, K Mart and Toys R Us are all, as I understand it, banned from having their stores inside the city itself. It's just little mom and pop toy/comic stores with high prices and elderly stock.

Snap. Same deal here, though I don't have to go very far to get to a TRU or Walmart.

Ouch, that's rough. Are these city beautification laws? The city where I grew up didn't allow car dealerships in city limits.

I think in San Francisco it's more to stop big business trampling the mom and pop stores. An odd side-effect is that there are an absurd number of Walgreens stores in the city center.

This, pretty much. Can't say it works all that well though. There aren't any decent small toy stores within Vancouver city limits anyway, at least ones that have a good selection of TFs. Half the comic shops went out of business in the past year too.

OK, back on topic: can this mold hold those detachable weapons? Can he use that gun as a handheld gun?

The detachable weapons connect but they don't have handles for him to hold. I just checked and his hands can hold the standard round peg weapons. Plus his grasping hands allow him the hold slightly smaller handles like Drift's large sword perfectly fine.

Diem wrote:

It Is Him wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:

Diem wrote:

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

Diem wrote:Skullgrin is double value for me because depending on how I'm feeling he can either be a slightly dopey movie star or a guy trying to gather Ten-Chi-Jin energy. Nice.

I don't have him yet. Stupid San Francisco with its no decent toy stores.

Strange, you'd think some place like San Francisco would have some very decent toy stores.

Nah, Target, Walmart, K Mart and Toys R Us are all, as I understand it, banned from having their stores inside the city itself. It's just little mom and pop toy/comic stores with high prices and elderly stock.

Snap. Same deal here, though I don't have to go very far to get to a TRU or Walmart.

Ouch, that's rough. Are these city beautification laws? The city where I grew up didn't allow car dealerships in city limits.

I think in San Francisco it's more to stop big business trampling the mom and pop stores. An odd side-effect is that there are an absurd number of Walgreens stores in the city center.

Don't worry there, LOST. I see what you did there.

Mykltron wrote:OK, back on topic: can this mold hold those detachable weapons? Can he use that gun as a handheld gun?

Sort of. It's a bit tricky -- the guns don't clip onto or peg into his hands-- but he can grasp the little clips.

I havn't seen Skullgrin yet, but I agree. I think this new Retool procedure as opposed to straight repaints is an idea that was long overdue.

Noideaforaname wrote:

Mykltron wrote:OK, back on topic: can this mold hold those detachable weapons? Can he use that gun as a handheld gun?

Sort of. It's a bit tricky -- the guns don't clip onto or peg into his hands-- but he can grasp the little clips.

Hurray!

Neo Tallgeese wrote:I havn't seen Skullgrin yet, but I agree. I think this new Retool procedure as opposed to straight repaints is an idea that was long overdue.

It's not a completely new procedure, I mean, I wouldn't have bought an Armada Skywarp if they hadn't retooled the head from Starscream/Thundercracker (and technically, they even were doing this back in G1, the third year minibots for instance), but it is pretty cool that they seem to be doing it a lot more often now than they had been.