The Energon Pub

I know translucent plastic gets a lot of **** (and rightfully so) from a toy design standpoint but seeing that special Solus Prime and the red Megatronus make me wish ALL Prime Master had incorporated translucent plastic in their emblem part. It looks good, quite unique and gives it a very cosmic or ethereal look to it, which help sell the idea this could be the 'Spark of the Primes' rather than just an emblem-looking thing. Either that and/or metallic paint could have made these way cooler-looking.

Ooooh, Now we're talkin!

Can confirm that apparently my Repugnus is also coming tomorrow, along with some RiD Cons I ordered after the RiD Top 5 list. Don't know how or why that occurred, but I certainly won't complain. I like this figure more every picture I see of him.

Now I just need to actually get Grotesque

Ah I cannot wait for Repugunus! One of my favorite looking teams is finally going to be complete!

My favorite of the crew though


In other news, this came yesterday!



I can't believe we live in a world where Blastoff, Repugnus, and Punch all get T-shirts, it's insane!!!

I still haven't gotten a shipping notice for Repugnus, but Amazon has charged my card. Here's hoping I get him by the end of the week! I'm liking this free 2-day shipping, but I'm not sure if it's worth $119.99 per year awesome.

Good news Throne of the primes and Predaking came, i now have all the prime masters that fit on the throne

With Transformers Power of the Primes Wreck-Gar being a redeco of Combiner Wars Groove with a new head, a pictorial review felt most appropriate. In it you will get the best look yet at the deco choices and how the accessories can interact with his alt mode. You will also see how he compares with the previous deluxe Wreck-Gar figure and how well he can ride or be ridden on.

This figure is a Walgreens exclusive and is currently listed on the Walgreens website (but not in stock yet) and it is an EB-Games exclusive in Canada, as will now be the case for all Walgreens exclusives distributed in the country.

Here are some shots of the packaging, bot mode mode.











The main difference between this toy and the Combiner Wars Groove toy are the accessories and the head (along with the change in deco of course). So let's look at those now.

The weapon he comes with is the same circular blade weapon that came with Generations Wreck-Gar. It is darker grey and since it was meant for another toy, its integration is far from spectacular (but redeemable). As you will see in robot mode, the fact that this weapon was design for a bot whose hands had open fists, he can only hold it from the bottom this time around making it look ridiculous.





Speaking of ridiculous, this is how the instructions tell us to use both the prime armour and the blade weapon.



However, it'a all 5 mm pegs and holes so you can do with it as you wish.



Here is my favourite way (of what I have tested so far).





About the prime armour, it cannot fit on the robot mode chest, so it is basically a weapon, as advertised on the back of the box. I don't care though, I was never fooled into thinking it was more than a hand for the combiner mode. The hand is also not unique, it is the same mold (and colour) as the ones that came with the Dinobots. The Prime Master cover is grey plastic (instead of translucent.


The other big difference is the head. And yes, it looks small, especially compared to the previous Wreck-Gar toy. The reason it is so small is because the gap for the head when transforming the toy was designed for the traditionally square head of combiner components. So to accommodate his antennas, the head ends up being very small.











So a big question with the Junkions is always in regards to their capability to ride themselves (snicker). Well here you go (the red version of the mold you see is Takara's Afterburner).









Personally, I wont try this again but that's just me.

The instructions only show you how to turn him into an arm, so I will show you below what he looks like as a leg if ever you need this as reference.






And speaking of him as a leg, here he is being used as a combiner leg. To get an idea of him as an arm, you can check out Afterburner.






I hope this will be helpful to those who wondered if they should get him. He does come with a random 1/12 POTP cards. So for all those who do not care about the cards, don't be shy to mention it or put these up for sale either on e-bay or on our boards since there are people out there who will want all twelve.

You know what I'm gonna ask now, right? This is more for if he actually was originally part of of the main retail assortment like Brainstorm was, instead of a standalone exclusive.

Why are there two Solus primes now?

P.S. Mine's preparing to ship too

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:You know what I'm gonna ask now, right? This is more for if he actually was originally part of of the main retail assortment like Brainstorm was, instead of a standalone exclusive.

Well, I can't provide that exact answer for you since I have none officially, but I can offer you some other bit of info regarding this toy's existence that might help us to speculate why this toy is an exclusive for Hasbro's release instead of a mass market figure like it is for Takara.

According to that panel I reported on at RoboCon, the Wreck-Gar head was implied to have been the Takara UW Groove mold's original head pretool. And since the mold itself was a Takara initiative instead of a Hasbro one, that might suggest that the Wreck-Gar head was as well. As such, that would mean that the Wreck-Gar head, like the rest of the mold itself, was designed by Takara without Hasbro's input.

Previously, when this mold was released by Hasbro as Groove, it was as an exclusive. And now, it is seeing release as Wreck-Gar, but yet again as an exclusive for Hasbro, while Takara is putting it out at mass retail despite their first release of it as Groove also having been part of an exclusive boxed set.

What does all of this mean? Well, from how it looks to me, it seems as though Hasbro may be unwilling to put it out at mass retail because it was a design that they had no hand in making, and as such is a design that wasn't made with the budget concerns that usually go into Hasbro's designs for mass retail figures. Whereas Takara's retail budget is less rigid since they're gonna be putting out not only this Wreck-Gar but also Nemesis Prime and the Throne of the Primes (all exclusives on Hasbro's end that likewise don't conform to Hasbro's standards for mass retail figures) at Japanese mass retail.

Uhm... just the product code on the packaging would have sufficed

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:You know what I'm gonna ask now, right? This is more for if he actually was originally part of of the main retail assortment like Brainstorm was, instead of a standalone exclusive.

E2471. One odd bit though, a sticker for a new bar code was placed on top of the plastic bubble directly over where the original bar code was on the packaging.

RiddlerJ wrote:

1533068078-repugnus-29.jpg

Ooooh, Now we're talkin!

YESSS! Love this pic as well

william-james88 wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:You know what I'm gonna ask now, right? This is more for if he actually was originally part of of the main retail assortment like Brainstorm was, instead of a standalone exclusive.

E2471. One odd bit though, a sticker for a new bar code was placed on top of the plastic bubble directly over where the original bar code was on the packaging.

Odd about the bar code, but I've seen similar instances at other stores with repurposed stock.

So no Asst. code then? Then he was planned as an exclusive from the very beginning.

no asst code, just that one product number

That Wreck-Gar is a surprisingly appealing figure. 1 question: where are his gunbarrel nipples?

Groove, Afterburner and Wreck-Gar are the only ones to use this mold? I'm thinking about buying all of them to make a CW biker gang. But who would be the 4th member and who would they combine with?

Rodimus Prime wrote:Groove, Afterburner and Wreck-Gar are the only ones to use this mold? I'm thinking about buying all of them to make a CW biker gang. But who would be the 4th member and who would they combine with?

Those are the three characters using the main mold, yeah. However, Aftrerburner has two decos to choose from, Hasbro's toy-accurate one (which resembles Wreck-Gar to a degree) and TakaraTomy's cartoon-accurate one, that comes with two new-mold guns.

As for the Torso, Inferno has a spot for a miniature bike...

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:Groove, Afterburner and Wreck-Gar are the only ones to use this mold? I'm thinking about buying all of them to make a CW biker gang. But who would be the 4th member and who would they combine with?

Those are the three characters using the main mold, yeah. However, Aftrerburner has two decos to choose from, Hasbro's toy-accurate one (which resembles Wreck-Gar to a degree) and TakaraTomy's cartoon-accurate one, that comes with two new-mold guns.

As for the Torso, Inferno has a spot for a miniature bike...

But wouldn't a fire engine look out if place with a biker gang

With his boxy frame that PotP Wreck-Gar looks a lil more G1-authentic than the RTS figure but it just looks so bland and dull and pointless.

I was looking at 3P Wreck-Gar and his Junkion buddies the other day and they had a gimmick where you could swap the parts easily for different combinations and that seemed like a neat idea for a small Junkion sub-line Hasbro could do. Basically merging the gimmick of their Hero Smashers stuff with actual Transformers figures and totally fits the Junkions characters but then they'd probably get bored with actual Junkions and try forcing all sorts of other TF characters into the gimmick like they've done with combiners and titans... Still it could have been a fun way to have a lil Junkion team and buy duplicates just to swap the parts about. I dunno.


Repugnus still looks like the ugliest transformer i ever did see. Even the colours don't work right (a more orangey shade of yellow would have at least balanced it more than that plain yellow). Again there's a 3P one that actually looks kinda neat (about as good as the basic design could look at least) but not this Hasbro one with the big bug butt...

Everyone is enjoying their Nemesis Primes....and I'm just sitting here happy Shattered Glass Rodi finally made it to my Target. I finally got a chance to reunite Bludgeon with an old pal....

So side picture on Wreck Gar puts him in the Inferno Combiner.

A closer look would reveal that Jazz is an arm, Slag is a leg and Wreck Gar is another limb who's the forth!?!

Probably just another random bot, like moon racer or novastar

This reminds me of Thrilling 30 Megatron's fusion cannon