Pre-Orders Open for Adamas Machina AM-T02 Predaking

I recently got both of this year's Commander sets, and the trailers that Long Haul and Silverbolt got saddled with reminded me of just how hard it is to get a lot of G1 gestalts "right", necessitating so many attempts over the decades. It's easy to say "show/comic/concept-art/etc-accuracy", but choosing which compromises to make is more art than science.

I think Predaking's the most extreme case, where designing his best possible toy is a form of mad poetry. He's remembered as being the most bad-ass of the combined bunch, yet he never acquitted himself that well in vintage G1 fiction. It was mostly because of how imposing his toy was, yet it needed better proportions like the show model. Which show model? The moment the Predacons slammed together to face Tornadron is seared into my brain, and many others, as the most epic in any Sunbow show, but when you go back and study Call of the Primitives, the colors are wrong no matter how you slice it. PotP Predaking was awesome and necessary, but left a lot of room for improvement, which Flame Toys provided, having proportions that evoke COTP, but in more...proper colors? Even the new kibble storage deviates while hitting the right notes, like the Preda-feet being mounted on Tantrum's sides to parallel his 4 hip mounted gas tanks while Headstrong and Rampage now have single-barrel back-cannons, and somehow it works.

Yes, I'm tempted to drop $350, as this looks like the best Predaking ever. But definitive? I dunno, someone should take another crack at the team in another 7 years. Or maybe 14 if SS'86 continues into TF:TM concept art/early-draft-characters and we get Anibots that form Dragon Beast. Then take another crack at Predaking.