The Energon Pub

I really like what Toyworld has done so far, but this would have to be off the charts unbelievably super awesome for me to replace City Commander after what I spent on him

I'm sold =]

I wonder.. I wonder if they'll make it anything like the recently discovered Ultra Magnus in the IDW MTMTE continuity.

Va'al wrote:I wonder.. I wonder if they'll make it anything like the recently discovered Ultra Magnus in the IDW MTMTE continuity.

I think it is IDW MTMTE Magnus, look at the shoulders! wait what do you mean recently discovered? the one that smiled? I'm not caught up no spoilers please. =X

mooncake623 wrote:

Va'al wrote:I wonder.. I wonder if they'll make it anything like the recently discovered Ultra Magnus in the IDW MTMTE continuity.

I think it is IDW MTMTE Magnus, look at the shoulders! wait what do you mean recently discovered? the one that smiled? I'm not caught up no spoilers please. =X

Issues 18 and the upcoming teased 19 reveal some really intriguing stuff about him.
Catch up!

Va'al wrote:

mooncake623 wrote:

Va'al wrote:I wonder.. I wonder if they'll make it anything like the recently discovered Ultra Magnus in the IDW MTMTE continuity.

I think it is IDW MTMTE Magnus, look at the shoulders! wait what do you mean recently discovered? the one that smiled? I'm not caught up no spoilers please. =X

Issues 18 and the upcoming teased 19 reveal some really intriguing stuff about him.
Catch up!

Whoa really? I want to but its hard because I'm only buying trades (mainly because it's easy to get on Amazon). so only up to MTMTE Volume 4 which should be coming out soonish I think.
When reading trades its really hard to not get spoiled because you're so behind. Like shockwave... yep saw that coming even though I avoided all spoilers! still awesome though =]

This'll be available around 2020?

Toyworld makes great stuff, but they're the slowest 3rd Party out there at the moment.

Mkall wrote:This'll be available around 2020?

Toyworld makes great stuff, but they're the slowest 3rd Party out there at the moment.

I don't know, PerfectEffect is really slow these days too.

Arctorro wrote:I really like what Toyworld has done so far, but this would have to be off the charts unbelievably super awesome for me to replace City Commander after what I spent on him

^-This.

the colours are a bit off, but I like the face sculpt, it definitely captures his personality.

Va'al wrote:I wonder.. I wonder if they'll make it anything like the recently discovered Ultra Magnus in the IDW MTMTE continuity.

it'd be interesting, but as cool as Animusmight be, I'd rather some IDW normal Ultra Magnus, and IDW Star Saber with "real dude stabbing action!"

I basically buy every Ultra Magnus that comes out (within rea$on, of course), so I'm sold on this already. However, I've been very impressed with my not-Throttlebots from ToyWorld, so if this is that same quality, AND is IDW Magnus... wow! I really really can't wait.
Realistically though, it'll probably be 2015 by the time this comes out.
Also, I still want a smaller bot inside of this one, regardless of various (trying to avoid spoilers here) recent events and Furman's intent to not have IDW Magnus have a smaller bot inside.

hpfabe wrote:I basically buy every Ultra Magnus that comes out (within rea$on, of course), so I'm sold on this already. However, I've been very impressed with my not-Throttlebots from ToyWorld, so if this is that same quality, AND is IDW Magnus... wow! I really really can't wait.
Realistically though, it'll probably be 2015 by the time this comes out.
Also, I still want a smaller bot inside of this one, regardless of various (trying to avoid spoilers here) recent events and Furman's intent to not have IDW Magnus have a smaller bot inside.

see, I'd rather not. I want a proper, awesome Magnus that looks Geewunny enough and doesn't partsform out the wazoo. Might be okay if the cab/white robot doesn't "have" to do a lot for the transform, but has the added bonus option of becoming a wee robot, but if they go that route I'd hope it'll be a damned tight fit. I don't want another City Commander style "boots and gloves and a body warmer and hat" style armour.

Agamemnon wrote:

Arctorro wrote:I really like what Toyworld has done so far, but this would have to be off the charts unbelievably super awesome for me to replace City Commander after what I spent on him

^-This.

What has me worried though is the fact that Toyworld's last few releases have been fantastic! So there is a very good chance I'll be getting this guy

Arctorro wrote:

Agamemnon wrote:

Arctorro wrote:I really like what Toyworld has done so far, but this would have to be off the charts unbelievably super awesome for me to replace City Commander after what I spent on him

^-This.

What has me worried though is the fact that Toyworld's last few releases have been fantastic! So there is a very good chance I'll be getting this guy

Yeah, but I think you hit it on the nose. It's going to have to rock out to beat City Commander. And Titanium, for that matter. I love that little guy, and very little parts-forming.

Silhouette reference:


More of this particular design:






As for how its executed, I'd prefer it to be faithful to the comic incarnation it is based on. I don't want it to be a partsformer but that might not be the worst thing either.

For me, a few things are paramount with this project:
The figure retains good articulation.
The armor does not fit over a white Optimus Prime.
The vehicle mode is a cab and car carrier trailer.
He should scale well in robot mode with the upcoming IDW OP and Bomber Megs and not tower over them.


I own FP City Commander not because i like it but because it was a must have for every collection at the time. I missed the first waves and scrambled to get it later at a premium price, that being said, I was tremendously disappointed by the figure once I had it in hand. Yes the engineering is good. Yes the figure in hand was everything I had seen in pictures and video reviews. But lets face it guys, City Commander is a **** figure. Its a partsformer that takes away a lot of range of movement. The proportions of the arms and legs are terrible because it has to fit over an already bulky and kibbly figure. And that lousy "gun" made of the leftover bits is just lazy. The stumpy trailer mode is crap and is hardly a representation of Ultra Magnus.

As a display piece it's fine but at this point it is fast becoming outdated. It's high time that City Commander was retired.

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:As a display piece it's fine but at this point it is fast becoming outdated. It's high time that City Commander was retired.

Agreed. It's the reason I got Platinum Ultra Magnus for my shelf, though IMO he doesn't fit as well as I hoped he would.

This would be a welcome figure, but knowing ToyWorld's schedule, we won't see a prototype until early 2014 and it won't be available until Christmas 2014.

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:He should scale well in robot mode with the upcoming IDW OP and Bomber Megs and not tower over them.

You want a tiny UM because Hasbro went the cheap arse route with the IDW figs?!!

Very doubtful that will happen considering Hegmons size. TW's OP and UM will hopefully be around his size, maybe with UM be the tallest

Wow, no love for City Commander any more. I guess, as I look across the room at it, that I completely disagree. I love the figure and how it looks. True, I would have preferred a lack of a BFG and more car carrier look to the trailer, but I still love him. The parts forming doesn't bother me at all as I had the original G1 figure as a kid.

Still, those seem harsh words. I can totally see how someone would want an upgrade given a lot of the nice figures we've seen lately, but "**** figure"? Wow.

I agree with JRFitzpatrick7's comments regarding City Command for the most part, except calling it specifically a '**** figure'. I think it's the best they could do with what they had to work with pretty much, and for its time, it's quite decent. It is quite lacking and a figure designed from the ground up to be UM should in theory be able to easily achieve something superior to FP's efforts (not that they didn't work miracles, because they absolutely did).

It's the same way I feel about their Bruticus and Superion add-on sets that get so much praise. They are absolutely AMAZING for what they do for those combiner sets, but a standalone, designed from the get-go to be G1 style/classics style combiner will always trump such efforts (I cite what TFC is doing with Uranos and even what FP themselves are doing with the Stunticons for reference).

It's just the way it is. If building on an existing structure or 'canvas' so to speak, the artist is limited by the capabilities of said canvas/structure. If starting from scratch, the sky's the limit.

Mkall wrote:

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:As a display piece it's fine but at this point it is fast becoming outdated. It's high time that City Commander was retired.

Agreed. It's the reason I got Platinum Ultra Magnus for my shelf, though IMO he doesn't fit as well as I hoped he would.

I'm not sure what it is about those prime figures, I just can't seem to work them into my classics shelf. maybe its the faces or the organic sloping shapes throughout the bodies. That is, unless one of them is featured in the back ground of MTMTE as part of Lockdown's forces...LOOKING AT YOU PRIME BREAKDOWN!

Arctorro wrote:

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:He should scale well in robot mode with the upcoming IDW OP and Bomber Megs and not tower over them.

You want a tiny UM because Hasbro went the cheap arse route with the IDW figs?!!

Very doubtful that will happen considering Hegmons size. TW's OP and UM will hopefully be around his size, maybe with UM be the tallest

Oh man, thanks for pointing this out, point of clarification!
I was actually referring to Toy World's releases (still a way out before production/release)
Stealth Bomber Megatron
Ongoing Optimus Prime

xyl360 wrote:I agree with JRFitzpatrick7's comments regarding City Command for the most part, except calling it specifically a '**** figure'. I think it's the best they could do with what they had to work with pretty much, and for its time, it's quite decent. It is quite lacking and a figure designed from the ground up to be UM should in theory be able to easily achieve something superior to FP's efforts (not that they didn't work miracles, because they absolutely did).

That's a good point I had not considered, FP didn't build a figure from the ground up. This is indeed the key to the reason why I don't like the City Commander figure. Because FP had to build on top of the Classics OP mold, they didn't have the freedom of creativity that our beloved 3P companies have today. In a project with those circumstances, I honestly think FP should have simply made an armor upgrade instead of an Armor/Trailer. I think it could have looked a lot better if they didn't also have to worry about making it all fit into a trailer.

xyl360 wrote:It's the same way I feel about their Bruticus and Superion add-on sets that get so much praise. They are absolutely AMAZING for what they do for those combiner sets, but a standalone, designed from the get-go to be G1 style/classics style combiner will always trump such efforts (I cite what TFC is doing with Uranos and even what FP themselves are doing with the Stunticons for reference).

I agree, though I'm not too fond of the Superion Maximus upgrade kit. For what they are, their great kits. However, I'm constantly thinking that I wish FP would remake Brawl, Onslaught, and Vortex to make the figure their own, give him a proper chest shield, give the bots their proper heads and alt modes (poor Brawl), and maybe some ankle lifts and thigh lifts so he's a little taller than FP Menasor. Superion does need to be redone to match the FP/Maketoys(they're more or less the same company you know) scale with proper alt modes and better articulation for dynamic posing Though that would be fixed simply by changing the alt modes. That being said, I'm satisfied with Bruticus for now as I want many other Gestalts done first as I'm sure others do as well.

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:City Commander is a **** figure.

I'm sorry I used such harsh words guys.

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:

Arctorro wrote:

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:He should scale well in robot mode with the upcoming IDW OP and Bomber Megs and not tower over them.

You want a tiny UM because Hasbro went the cheap arse route with the IDW figs?!!

Very doubtful that will happen considering Hegmons size. TW's OP and UM will hopefully be around his size, maybe with UM be the tallest

Oh man, thanks for pointing this out, point of clarification!
I was actually referring to Toy World's releases (still a way out before production/release)
Stealth Bomber Megatron
Ongoing Optimus Prime

Now that we've got that cleared up I can say that I agree 100%

I agree regarding City Commander ageing badly, but this Toyworld would have to be top notch to displace it in my collection. Also the fact that this figure is looking more likely to be an IDW version means I probably won't like it so much aesthetically. At any rate, If I were Toyworld, I would prioritise Galvatron. If any figure needs 3rd-party love, he is it.

Banjo-Tron wrote:I agree regarding City Commander ageing badly, but this Toyworld would have to be top notch to displace it in my collection. Also the fact that this figure is looking more likely to be an IDW version means I probably won't like it so much aesthetically. At any rate, If I were Toyworld, I would prioritise Galvatron. If any figure needs 3rd-party love, he is it.

I could get behind a TW Galvatron, for sure! I still think they need to prioritize the Dinobots, though.