Transformers Prime Ultra Magnus and Thundertron are marked down to $12 at Ross, leading the TFormers.com news desk on this December 19, 2012 Radio Free Cybertron. Kre-O micro-changer Superion and Devastator photos and Transformers Prime Happy Meal toys also surface. Exvee and Rob call More Than Meets the Eye #12 a season finale, and Aimee reviews Spotlight: Orion Pax and Robots in Disguise #12. Chris McFeely joins Transformers Rewind for the Zone OVA and a look back at 2012, a year of great comics, Cyberverse and price hikes.
News
Prime Ultra Magnus and Thundertron Hit $12 at Ross
Forum member Puerto Recon found Transformers Prime Ultra Magnus and Thundertron for $11.99 at a Central Florida Ross. Robots in Disguise Rumble, Vehicon and Knock Out were $7. Brian wasn’t crazy about Thundertron but will buy him at that price. [Source: TFormers]
Exvee Reviews Generations Fall of Cybertron Starscream
Exvee’s TFormers review of Generations Fall of Cybertron Starscream finds the toy a good fit with Generations and, unlike most Fall of Cybertron toys, pretty decent. [Source: TFormers]
Transformers United Seekers Ace Set Images
Out-of-box images and comparisons with the BotCon and Henkei! versions show the United Seekers Ace set. Brian isn’t sold on the idea but admits it looks good, if expensive. [Source: TFormers]
Kre-O Micro-Changer Superion and Devastator Photos
New photos show the Kre-O micro-changer Superion and Devastator sets. Brian calls Devastator the coolest-looking Kre-O item yet. [Source: TFormers]
Transformers Prime Happy Meal Toys
Photos show upcoming Transformers Prime Happy Meal toys. They don’t transform but capture the characters well, and they run alongside a Hello Kitty set. [Source: TFormers]
From New Soundwave: Where to Start With Third-Party Toys
In a clip from New Soundwave, JD Church asks where to start with third-party Transformers on a budget of about $100 to $120. Brian recommends iGear’s Hinch, a standalone figure for about $35. He likes it but wishes it matched the smaller scale of iGear’s earlier Rager, which fits Legends and Cyberverse. They discuss the Fans Project Insecticons, TFC’s Hercules and Phantom hip issues, and the $100-per-limb pricing of third-party combiners. JD has preordered Veer and the Demolition Crew.
JD also reviews the Transformers Legends mobile card game for Android, with iOS coming. Players build a nine-card team with a leader, commanders and weapon cards. Duplicate cards level up others, and robot and vehicle cards of the same character fuse. Battles resolve automatically against other players’ decks. Energon refills over time or through microtransactions. JD calls it a good game in its own right and has lost only once in live play.
Comic News and Reviews
Aimee runs through March 2013 solicitations: More Than Meets the Eye #15, Robots in Disguise #15, Regeneration One #89, Spotlight: Bumblebee and a Fall of Cybertron Dinobots story. She gives Spotlight: Orion Pax by James Roberts and Steve Kurth four out of five. In it, Pax gets a temporary body to secure Ratchet’s release, with Nightbeat, Rack ‘n’ Ruin and Alpha Trion. She gives Robots in Disguise #12 by John Barber and Andrew Griffith five out of five. Megatron returns and is locked up, the Decepticons grow restless, and an upgraded Prowl appears.
Comic Review: More Than Meets the Eye #12
Exvee and Rob say the issue plays like a season finale. It focuses on the aftermath of a battle, using color-coded pages and timers to keep the timeline clear. They praise how it handles Rewind and Chromedome’s relationship, develops Cyclonus through body language and shows Whirl as a sociopath. They call it dense but quick, and among the best comics they’ve read in years.
Transformers Rewind: Zone
Chris McFeely, who wrote the TFWiki article on Zone, joins Rewind. In it, Violent Jagger and his Decepticon generals hunt the Energon-Z and Zodiac, and Victory Saber hands command to Dai Atlas. The crew calls it peak Japanese G1 weirdness. Violent Jagger is formed from the ghosts of dead Decepticons, and Predaking gets cut in half. McFeely says Zone and Scramble City circulated widely because they were short and self-contained. The story continues in translated prose and art on the Allspark’s TF Pulps. Zone was the last animated G1 episode before Operation Combination and G2.
2012 in Review
Brian, JD Church and Chris McFeely look back at 2012. Fall of Cybertron was the year’s standout event. JD loves Arms Microns, while McFeely took time to accept a gimmick pasted onto unrelated fiction. All three call IDW’s comics among the best ever, and McFeely notes strong reviews but flat sales. McFeely defends Transformers Prime season 2 as one long story, though he calls two clip shows in 2012 inexcusable. He argues Prime is the first cartoon made with Transformers as an IP rather than a toy line.
On toys, they name Fall of Cybertron Bruticus the year’s pillar and call SDCC Shockwave a smaller story. They see Toys R Us Asia-exclusive Generations releases as a mixed bag. McFeely wants an answer on why Breakdown, one of the five Prime villains, never got a toy. They note Masterpiece Convoy finally hit Toys R Us, and Brian lusts after Masterpiece Soundwave. Cyberverse is the year’s best toy story, with the full Prime cast and vehicles. Price hikes are the year’s defining trend. Operation Beehive raised about $275 of its $500 goal for toys for kids in need.
Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.