Masterpiece Rodimus Prime was revealed (in color) at this weekend's C3X Hobby in Japan.  Okay, woo, so he transforms from  Hot Rod to Rodimus Prime to Hot Rod's car to Rodimus Prime's truck, which is sort of neat, I guess, if you like awesome things.  But it all pales in comparison to him finally being the right color.

Oh, yes, he's magenta, folks.

He's gonna be about $200 to import, so I think I'm going to pass on him.  I do that kind of money for Grimlock, but not Hot Rod.  If he comes out in the states, I'll probably pick him up, but there's no promises that he'll remain that purply color, so it's a bittersweet decision.  Though, as I was reminded by AllSpark dude Powered Convoy, a large-ass Rodimus toy would go perfect in a Wreckers display.  Now that's tempting!

Today I found the new "Pursuit of Cobra" wave at Target and picked myself up an Arctic Threat Destro, who you may remember from this past week's Toy News International strip.

He comes with a lot of accessories!

I'm not a big fan of getting more accessories than a character can hold or holster.  These new G.I. Joes seem to be really pushing the concept of having as many accessories as possible, so it doesn't really suit my fancy much, but I'm happy for those who enjoy having a variety of accessories with each figure.  Me, I just lose them if they're not stowed somewhere.  Hell, I lose them even if they are!  Also, if all the accessories are awesome, it forces me to choose between them.  How hard-to-please am I.

Arctic Destro does come with quite a few awesome accessories.  Okay, the climbing picks I can take or leave, but they seem to store okay on the backs of his shins (immobilizing him in theory), so no harm no foul.  But his squirt gun is awesome.  His larger gun is connected to his backpack via a tube, and I noticed while playing with him that there's a big button on the backpack you can depress with some effort, plus a small  hole on the front of the gun.  That's pretty neat!  Water squirter!  Destro also comes with a smaller gun that looks like it has a canister of ooze or something in the front, like he uses it to vaccinate people.  That one's okay.  But what's pretty awesome is the drill.  He comes with a drill!

Now, he can't hold both the drill and the gun and the other gun... These are hard decisions!  Unfortunately, to get him to hold all of his accessories with none left prone on the shelf next to him, I have to shove the awesomer drill through the tube on his backpack to stow it, while putting the less awesome canister gun in his one empty hand.  Not my preferred hierarchy, but apparently I value complete weapons storage over awesomer weapons.

He also comes with two pieces of ice that you can attach to other figures to simulate Destro having used his freeze gun/water squirter on them.  That's pretty damn neat.  I kinda want to stick them on him, too, as if he's just really really cold, but the one that hooks up and around the shoulder doesn't fit on him at all, what with the winter jacket's hood.  So it has to go on another Destro or something.  As shown.

Oh, and the goggles.  He has goggles.

P.S. There's Shortpacked! strips tomorrow and Sunday.

Oh god you totally need to come to New England Webcomics Weekend! Get tickets before they sell out! And THEY WILL.

The Mike statue is still stuck in customs (probably because he's calling all of their moms a prostitute), but that doesn't mean we can't forge ahead full speed on the next project!

Since the Rule 34 website (google it yourself) is apparently all about the torsos of the DeSanto girls, how about a 3D representation of one?  Check out the cropped photo of the first pass on Patch Together's Robin DeSanto statue.  It's friggin' godlike.  These guys just keep getting better and better at making my characters into tangible things, short the unavoidable speedbumps such as Mike's Impossible Hair.

Robin is still up for preorder, and if you order her during the preorder period, you get $5 off the price for jumping on it so early!  That's a steal, especially for how amazing this thing is gonna be when it's done.

Rule 34 is not so big about Amber.  They only care about her if she happens to be in the same edited image as Robin.

Here's quick note about my BotCon 2010 bagged set auction: It ends in a day!  That's quicker than Rome was built!

Here's Animated Ironhide, Rodimus Prime's Toys "R" Us exclusive casemate.  There's not a lot to say about him that wasn't said about Ratchet.  He has a new head!  His red is very Cel-Animation-Red, if you know what I mean.  Muted, what with the televisions.  He has a lot of paint operations on stuff that is usually superfluous, probably because he didn't need much paint, what with being entirely red, and so they had to use up their paint budget somewhere.  Like painting his accessories entirely silver, even though they could have been fine left black, especially since they're made-up weapons for the toy and they could be any color.  He has the black areas under his eyes painted, and the three yellow hashmarks on the sides of his chest.

Oh, and his knees now snap into place in robot mode, which is new.  And very nice.

Hey, folks, I'm gonna be at New England Webcomics Weekend again this November. Me and like fifteen million other webcartoonists who rock.  I'm serious, it is the best weekend of the year, mitts down.  You want to witness Awesomeness In A Cup? Tickets go on sale Thursday.

Hey, remember the BotFail! dudes?  The ones who got all pissy because BotCon wouldn't host their terrible Transformers panel?  The ones who couldn't TELL us why Beast Wars sucks because this very potent information was the heart and soul of their really super awesome panel which was the basis of their entire e-penis?

This is it, on YouTube.

The last of two scheduled Transformers Animated toys are hitting Toys "R" Uses now.  (In the states, anyway.)  There are a few others that Hasbro let us know might happen, but we don't know anything about their release, so these might as well be the last two.

One of them is the awesome Rodimus Prime.  (Well, Rodimus Minor, if you go by his packaging.  Hasbro thought there were too many Primes in the toyline, and he's definitely Rodimus Prime in the fiction.)  I wasn't super-anticipating his toy versus the others.  I mean, he looked awesome, but I was looking forward more to the upgrades of existing characters because I am a retarded doofus like that.  I like characters, and Rodimus didn't do very much.  What he did was mostly awesome, but it was within the span of a few minutes.  The most noteworthy thing is that he's voiced by Judd Nelson again, the voice of Hot Rod/Rodimus from the 1986 movie.  (Nelson was too rich for the third season's blood, and they got the talented Dick Gautier to replace him.)

But, let me tell you, this toy is pretty damn neat.  And, after riding the crest of my recent Hot Rod character model nerdgasm over-analyzation, it was good mental timing.  Remember how I was going on about how Hot Rod is pink?  Well, this toy still isn't pink (though the Japanese release is metallic purple), but it's definitely more purple than Hot Rod or Rodimus toys usually are.  The photos show him next to the Challenge at Cybertron Rodimus I recently got, which is a very vibrant watermelon red, which does make Rodimus look purpler.  I also compared him to the darker red of the original Classics Rodimus, just to see if he was indeed purpler, and he is.  Not quite as much to be as accurate as I was pining for previously, but definitely an improvent.

Animated Rodimus also transforms differently from every other Hot Rod toy.  His arms are formed from the back of the vehicle rather than tucking under either side of the hood.  This frees up his legs to be relatively kibbleless, and those tuck up underneath the car.  It's a welcome diversion from the usual approach.

The only annoying part of the transformation is entirely my own fault -- I always forget to flip the hot rod engine panel over to the Autobot symbol side during transformation, and I never realize my mistake until I get to the point where I have to take everything apart again to give it room to rotate.

I guess another annoying part is how rough it is to get the crossbow plugged into the top of the roof of the vehicle.  There's not much clearance for the back ends of the missiles, and since the connection is pretty shallow, you're more often than not likely to shoot missiles everywhere rather than attach anything.

That said, he's pretty, dynamic, and fun to play with.  If you spot him, I'd recommend picking him up.  He shows what wonders Hasbro and Takara were able to do in translating the Animated aesthetic into plastic form, especially after much practice.

I am eagerly anticipating Arctic Destro.