Death's Head
19-08-11, 09:17 AM
There comes a time with any passionate interest, where your attention wanes and the stuff that’s being produced doesn’t fire your imagination, or worse, you fulfil most of your collecting goals. So it has been for me and Transformers. I still love ‘em, but the buzz isn’t what it was (not helped by some truly appalling comics – which is what got me into TFs in the first place). Until I landed Nemesis Prime. Not the crappy Armada Deluxe, nor the expensive Masterpiece figure, or the Classics version. No, the Nemesis Prime. The Big Convoy repaint from the original Universe line.
I’m not a massive fan of evil Primes, I like RiD Scourge, as he was his own ‘bot, but cackling evil clone versions of Prime? It smacks of a lack of imagination (seriously, go look in any US fiction – chances are there’ll be an ‘evil twin’ in there somewhere). But this guy, I fell in love with him the minute I clapped eyes on him. As much as you can have love for an inanimate plastic bit of nonsense. He’s been a frustrating gap in my collection for about five years now, so much so, that at one point, I thought ‘F**k it, I’m never going to own one.’ And moved on, occasionally checking ebay for any UK sightings. I won one a little over a week ago. (He’s a C8 figure, missing two missiles and in a sun faded box, if you’re interested!). I’m so overjoyed just to own the guy, that he’d have to be made of sh*t and razorblades for me to be disappointed with him. I’ll try to be as balanced as I can in this review.
Nemesis Prime comes packaged in robot mode, and he’s a corker. He stands around 10” tall (excluding kibble) and looks like a right bruiser. Colour wise, he’s a nice balance of bone white, black, metallic teal and silver, accented with translucent and solid reds. His eyes are as black as The Pit, evoking his cold, dead spark (or something equally emo). The detail on him is superb, as you’d expect from Takara’s designers at the turn of the century (seriously, between Beast Wars Neo and Car Robots, we have some of the most beautiful looking Transformers toys ever). The only misstep is a failure by Hasbro to do anything with that Maximal symbol on his chest. Although it’s rendered in black, it’s still visible. Nothing really to get upset about, and nowhere near as bad as the slightly clumsy tampographs on other Beast-era toys appropriated for the Universe line. I just wish that, having gone to the supposed expensive of redecorating the toy, Hasbro couldn’t be arsed to stick a Decepticon or (more appropriately) a Predacon logo in there.
As something of a ‘final solution’, Nemesis is armed to the teeth. Like Beast Wars Megatron, he has harpoon-style missiles that launch from his shins. These have some fair propulsion, but as with BW Megs, they go off with the slightest touch. I’ve repeatedly shot myself in the face with them and had them disappear behind furniture during transformation already. Being a slow learner, it took me a while to accept that I’ll just have to leave them out when I’m transforming him. On his shoulders, the two halves of the mammoth head house some (non-firing) missile pods, and there are some machine guns mounted on his hips. On his back is mounted a frighteningly large gun, which makes me recall all those preposterous Image comics where folk would totter around with unfeasibly large weapons. All credit to the designers that Nemesis can wield this thing without toppling over. My favourite piece of Nemesis Prime’s armoury though, has to be those amusing looking vibrators that pop out of his forearms. He can quite literally f**k you up in every sense. Frightening.
As with all Beast Wars toys, Nemesis Prime has a laudable (and sensible) amount of articulation and can strike some nifty poses. And look dangerous in every one. No wonder Hasbro thought this guy would make for a good villain. The mould is incredibly violent looking for a good guy, even a Prime (or Convoy!). The piece de resistance for the toy is the Dead Matrix Annex (if I had a preposterous office block, I would definitely name one of the floors this). Open up his chest, and you reveal the Dead Matrix; an artefact capable of negating and destroying forever the powerful Autobot Matrix of Leadership. It says here. Nemesis Prime can hold this in his hands too! Although not over his head in a Hot Rod stylee.
Now, you may have spotted from his appearance, that Nemesis Prime is covered in panels and animal parts, which marks him out as shell former. Well, yes he is. Whether you think this is a total cop out or a good way of achieving realistic animal forms, I’ll leave to your judgement. I don’t mind it, and the end result is good. It’s just getting there. You have to do a lot of fiddly twisting and just-so alignment of parts to get all to clip in place. And then you have a right hefty, evil looking...woolly mammoth. Oh yes. The mammoth has no articulation whatsoever, but is heavy enough to put through someone’s window and can form a comical attack mode, which is only overshadowed in the ridiculous stakes by Beast Wars Bonecrusher’s laughable attack mode.
In short: Nemesis Prime is f**king awesome. If you get the chance, pick one up.
259260261262
I’m not a massive fan of evil Primes, I like RiD Scourge, as he was his own ‘bot, but cackling evil clone versions of Prime? It smacks of a lack of imagination (seriously, go look in any US fiction – chances are there’ll be an ‘evil twin’ in there somewhere). But this guy, I fell in love with him the minute I clapped eyes on him. As much as you can have love for an inanimate plastic bit of nonsense. He’s been a frustrating gap in my collection for about five years now, so much so, that at one point, I thought ‘F**k it, I’m never going to own one.’ And moved on, occasionally checking ebay for any UK sightings. I won one a little over a week ago. (He’s a C8 figure, missing two missiles and in a sun faded box, if you’re interested!). I’m so overjoyed just to own the guy, that he’d have to be made of sh*t and razorblades for me to be disappointed with him. I’ll try to be as balanced as I can in this review.
Nemesis Prime comes packaged in robot mode, and he’s a corker. He stands around 10” tall (excluding kibble) and looks like a right bruiser. Colour wise, he’s a nice balance of bone white, black, metallic teal and silver, accented with translucent and solid reds. His eyes are as black as The Pit, evoking his cold, dead spark (or something equally emo). The detail on him is superb, as you’d expect from Takara’s designers at the turn of the century (seriously, between Beast Wars Neo and Car Robots, we have some of the most beautiful looking Transformers toys ever). The only misstep is a failure by Hasbro to do anything with that Maximal symbol on his chest. Although it’s rendered in black, it’s still visible. Nothing really to get upset about, and nowhere near as bad as the slightly clumsy tampographs on other Beast-era toys appropriated for the Universe line. I just wish that, having gone to the supposed expensive of redecorating the toy, Hasbro couldn’t be arsed to stick a Decepticon or (more appropriately) a Predacon logo in there.
As something of a ‘final solution’, Nemesis is armed to the teeth. Like Beast Wars Megatron, he has harpoon-style missiles that launch from his shins. These have some fair propulsion, but as with BW Megs, they go off with the slightest touch. I’ve repeatedly shot myself in the face with them and had them disappear behind furniture during transformation already. Being a slow learner, it took me a while to accept that I’ll just have to leave them out when I’m transforming him. On his shoulders, the two halves of the mammoth head house some (non-firing) missile pods, and there are some machine guns mounted on his hips. On his back is mounted a frighteningly large gun, which makes me recall all those preposterous Image comics where folk would totter around with unfeasibly large weapons. All credit to the designers that Nemesis can wield this thing without toppling over. My favourite piece of Nemesis Prime’s armoury though, has to be those amusing looking vibrators that pop out of his forearms. He can quite literally f**k you up in every sense. Frightening.
As with all Beast Wars toys, Nemesis Prime has a laudable (and sensible) amount of articulation and can strike some nifty poses. And look dangerous in every one. No wonder Hasbro thought this guy would make for a good villain. The mould is incredibly violent looking for a good guy, even a Prime (or Convoy!). The piece de resistance for the toy is the Dead Matrix Annex (if I had a preposterous office block, I would definitely name one of the floors this). Open up his chest, and you reveal the Dead Matrix; an artefact capable of negating and destroying forever the powerful Autobot Matrix of Leadership. It says here. Nemesis Prime can hold this in his hands too! Although not over his head in a Hot Rod stylee.
Now, you may have spotted from his appearance, that Nemesis Prime is covered in panels and animal parts, which marks him out as shell former. Well, yes he is. Whether you think this is a total cop out or a good way of achieving realistic animal forms, I’ll leave to your judgement. I don’t mind it, and the end result is good. It’s just getting there. You have to do a lot of fiddly twisting and just-so alignment of parts to get all to clip in place. And then you have a right hefty, evil looking...woolly mammoth. Oh yes. The mammoth has no articulation whatsoever, but is heavy enough to put through someone’s window and can form a comical attack mode, which is only overshadowed in the ridiculous stakes by Beast Wars Bonecrusher’s laughable attack mode.
In short: Nemesis Prime is f**king awesome. If you get the chance, pick one up.
259260261262