Made a bee-line for the pallets of new mod freight this morning, as I knew a case of Deluxe-class Velocitron toys had arrived at work last night. I was one of the poor saps who missed out on pre-ordering Cosmos (as well as Clampdown), as both Walmart and Hasbro Pulse sold out within like ten minutes after going live. I'm hopeful that both these toys eventually hit market saturation, but I worry that it will be another situation like Earthrise Thrust or Netflix Bumblebee where the toy just ends up being exceedingly rare. Time will tell, no doubt.

The current Deluxe assortment in a case of eight is Road Rocket (x2), Burnout (x2), IDW Blurr (x2), Cosmos (x1), and Clampdown (x1). Note that the retail price has been bumped up a bit—the Deluxe toys are now $24.97.
Which is insane.

Incidentally, I had the opportunity to get Black Convoy (or is it Scourge?) today as well as Road Hauler and Override (who I don't want), but I was able to pre-order some of the toys, and honestly I've been spending an uncomfortable amount of money lately, so I figured I'd better just leave them on the shelf and wait for my pre-orders to go through.

The full name of the sub-line is the Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection, intended to evoke the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, etc. The toys are packaged in vehicle mode, meant to evoke the G1 days when pretty much all the early toys were packaged this way. And everybody knows at this point to look for the tissue paper taped to the bottom inner tray for the weapons, right? I shouldn't have to keep pointing this out?

CLAMPDOWN

I really wonder if Hasbro's plan all along was to create artificial scarcity with this guy, thus ensuring that people would gobble him up if they saw him? There's nothing inherently better about him than Road Rocket or Burnout, but I left those guys on the shelf and snatched this guy up like he was made of gold.

Anyway, the toy's full name is Diaclone Universe Clampdown, as this is a character who didn't exist during G1 but was potentially available for inclusion as one of the handful of Diaclone-era Takara toys that Hasbro did not select for inclusions as part of the Transformers toy line. The first version of Clampdown was produced in 2003 as part of the reissue Encore line, and he also got a Masterpiece toy in 2015. This is the first domestic version of the character actually sold by Hasbro.

The original Diaclone toy bore a strong similarity to Red Alert, only the car mode had police markings instead of fire chief markings. Aside from that, though, both toys shared the same color scheme in robot mode—white body with a black helmet and fists and lower legs, and a red midsection and upper legs and missile. A strict reading of that release would have resulted in a toy that looked too much like Red Alert to even bother selling.

So, Hasbro took some creative liberties. Had Clampdown appeared in the G1 cartoon, they would have certainly played with his colors to some degree. It wasn't at all uncommon to change the colors around to help differentiate characters on-screen (during G1, Red Alert had a black helmet identical to Sideswipe, and the red helmet was created for animation). So, a cartoon Clampdown probably would have had different colors than his Diaclone-era toy..

Anyway, what they did was eliminate most of the red in favor of a white-black-grey look that more strongly evokes Prowl's color mapping than anything else. It's honestly great. There's a touch of red paint on the mid-section and the shoulder launcher missile, but it's downplayed and understated. He's got some other color choices I wouldn't have expected for a Sideswipe-style robot—white fists, black unpainted toes, black painted headlights, and a touch of sky blue on the kneecaps, the same color used for his eyes.

This is the Earth mode Sideswipe mold, by the way, but they used the Red Alert head design for him. He comes with four accessories! When they first started rolling out this mold, it always seems like they were omitting something for cost reasons, but this version has it all—the handheld rifle (black), the shoulder launcher (black) and missile (white plastic painted red; it's the version of the missile without a grip on the side), plus the police car light bar. The police lights fit rather loosely in the roof on my copy, but this is a mold that's seen a lot of wear and tear, and many production runs over the course of its life, if you count both the Siege and Earthrise variations.

As I've said before, I won't collect Masterpiece toys of non-media characters, but twenty-five bucks isn't a lot to add a new character to my collection. They're really leaning hard into the Diaclone characters lately, so now Clampdown can hang out with all his pals like Tigertrack and Deep Cover and Lift-Ticket and all those other imaginary characters. Are we so obsessed with Transformers that we need to start collecting characters that don't exist? Apparently so.

COSMOS

I can't think of the last time I've ever wanted a toy so desperately. I was so worried I'd never own this guy, which would have sucked since Cosmos is a favorite character of mine.

Well, this is definitely the biggest official Cosmos toy yet. As a flying saucer, he's about 3.5" in diameter at the case, and around 2.25" in height.. (Somebody on Twitter made a joke about how at the rate he keeps growing, he'll envelop the Sun in about two billion years.) His coloring is based directly on the Sunbow animation, with different values of light green and dark green (not unlike Legacy Drag Strip), and the silver spot on his vehicle "hood" which was where the heat-sensitive rub symbol was on the 1985 toy (the packaging shows an Autobot symbol here; the final toy doesn't have it).

He's basically a hemisphere with a cylinder stuck to the top. The cylinder looks too tall, especially if you're accustomed to the G1 toy, but he's one of the characters who magically changes shape when he transforms, with the cylinder stretching and growing to accommodate his robot-mode proportions.. So, they cheated the vehicle mode a bit, but it's not bad.

Cosmos was one of the simplest and easiest G1 toys to manipulate. Yeah, he's not that any longer. There's some complexity here. I don't even fully understand it well enough to describe it yet. In broad strokes, some parts are the same (the sides of the flying saucer are the arms; the front section is the feet; the cylidrical top section forms the upper body) but he goes through a hell of a lot of gymnastics to get there. The head transformation is fun and unexpected.

Robot mode stands 4.5" tall. The scale of the Mini Autobots was kind of weird in season two—Beachcomber was still short, but other guys like Powerglide and Warpath were nearly the height of normal Autobots like Smokescreen. I honestly love the short Delxue format for the Mini Autobots and I want to see it continue with Brawn, Gears, Powerglide, and the rest.

Cosmos isn't quite the big chungus that he was often depicted as on the show. He's still oddly-proportioned, to be sure, but he's not quite as short and fat as third-party versions of the character like Klaatu by X-Transbots or Newage H6 Max. But, they gave him all the vital design elements—the large, yellow hip plates, the triple guns mounted to each hand, and the almost goofy-looking cylindrical bucket helmet.

His articulation is surprisingly good. He's got waist rotation! He's got ankle tilts! He's got arms that are actually attached at the shoulder, and not the center of his arms like the G1 toy! They still managed to make the little guy C.O.M.B.A.T.-compatible, too, with the proper five-millimeter peg-holes in his forearms and legs and feet and back.

Cosmos is the race announcer for the Velocitron 500, so he comes with a checkered flag. Mark Maher explained in the Hasbro livestream how it can double as a white flag if Cosmos wants to surrender to the Decepticons. The flag part pops off and it just becomes a plain old laser gun, which is awesome.

If he has any flaws, it's that the back of the saucer doesn't really tuck away in a clean or satisfying manner. Rather than just poking out as a badonkadonk shelf, like on the G1 toy, it folds into a backpack, but it's a little ungainly. I guess we'll have to wait for Takara's version of Masterpiece Cosmos before this piece disappears completely.

I love this design philosophy, though. It's what they should have been doing all along. Instead of just addressing characters every few years and doing versions of them with varying degrees of accuracy, it's just a solid toy, played close to the vest, looking very much like his cartoon self. I'm so happy with this release.

Zob (and to think he was almost an Origin Bumblebee with a different head.... *shudder*)

On Monday, August 1, 2022 at 6:41:31 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> Made a bee-line for the pallets of new mod freight this morning, as I knew a case of Deluxe-class Velocitron toys had arrived at work last night. I was one of the poor saps who missed out on pre-ordering Cosmos (as well as Clampdown), as both Walmart and Hasbro Pulse sold out within like ten minutes after going live. I'm hopeful that both these toys eventually hit market saturation, but I worry that it will be another situation like Earthrise Thrust or Netflix Bumblebee where the toy just ends up being exceedingly rare. Time will tell, no doubt.
>
> The current Deluxe assortment in a case of eight is Road Rocket (x2), Burnout (x2), IDW Blurr (x2), Cosmos (x1), and Clampdown (x1). Note that the retail price has been bumped up a bit—the Deluxe toys are now $24.97..
> Which is insane.
>
> Incidentally, I had the opportunity to get Black Convoy (or is it Scourge?) today as well as Road Hauler and Override (who I don't want), but I was able to pre-order some of the toys, and honestly I've been spending an uncomfortable amount of money lately, so I figured I'd better just leave them on the shelf and wait for my pre-orders to go through.
>
> The full name of the sub-line is the Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection, intended to evoke the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, etc. The toys are packaged in vehicle mode, meant to evoke the G1 days when pretty much all the early toys were packaged this way. And everybody knows at this point to look for the tissue paper taped to the bottom inner tray for the weapons, right? I shouldn't have to keep pointing this out?
>
> CLAMPDOWN
>
> I really wonder if Hasbro's plan all along was to create artificial scarcity with this guy, thus ensuring that people would gobble him up if they saw him? There's nothing inherently better about him than Road Rocket or Burnout, but I left those guys on the shelf and snatched this guy up like he was made of gold.
>
> Anyway, the toy's full name is Diaclone Universe Clampdown, as this is a character who didn't exist during G1 but was potentially available for inclusion as one of the handful of Diaclone-era Takara toys that Hasbro did not select for inclusions as part of the Transformers toy line. The first version of Clampdown was produced in 2003 as part of the reissue Encore line, and he also got a Masterpiece toy in 2015. This is the first domestic version of the character actually sold by Hasbro.
>
> The original Diaclone toy bore a strong similarity to Red Alert, only the car mode had police markings instead of fire chief markings. Aside from that, though, both toys shared the same color scheme in robot mode—white body with a black helmet and fists and lower legs, and a red midsection and upper legs and missile. A strict reading of that release would have resulted in a toy that looked too much like Red Alert to even bother selling.
>
> So, Hasbro took some creative liberties. Had Clampdown appeared in the G1 cartoon, they would have certainly played with his colors to some degree. It wasn't at all uncommon to change the colors around to help differentiate characters on-screen (during G1, Red Alert had a black helmet identical to Sideswipe, and the red helmet was created for animation). So, a cartoon Clampdown probably would have had different colors than his Diaclone-era toy.
>
> Anyway, what they did was eliminate most of the red in favor of a white-black-grey look that more strongly evokes Prowl's color mapping than anything else. It's honestly great. There's a touch of red paint on the mid-section and the shoulder launcher missile, but it's downplayed and understated. He's got some other color choices I wouldn't have expected for a Sideswipe-style robot—white fists, black unpainted toes, black painted headlights, and a touch of sky blue on the kneecaps, the same color used for his eyes.
>
> This is the Earth mode Sideswipe mold, by the way, but they used the Red Alert head design for him. He comes with four accessories! When they first started rolling out this mold, it always seems like they were omitting something for cost reasons, but this version has it all—the handheld rifle (black), the shoulder launcher (black) and missile (white plastic painted red; it's the version of the missile without a grip on the side), plus the police car light bar. The police lights fit rather loosely in the roof on my copy, but this is a mold that's seen a lot of wear and tear, and many production runs over the course of its life, if you count both the Siege and Earthrise variations.
>
> As I've said before, I won't collect Masterpiece toys of non-media characters, but twenty-five bucks isn't a lot to add a new character to my collection. They're really leaning hard into the Diaclone characters lately, so now Clampdown can hang out with all his pals like Tigertrack and Deep Cover and Lift-Ticket and all those other imaginary characters. Are we so obsessed with Transformers that we need to start collecting characters that don't exist? Apparently so.
>

I like that we're getting Diaclone characters as semi-G1 characters that could exist within the universe. I might get him for the Earth Sideswipe mold, since I forgot to get Sideswipe on sale and never actually saw Red Alert.

> COSMOS
>
> I can't think of the last time I've ever wanted a toy so desperately. I was so worried I'd never own this guy, which would have sucked since Cosmos is a favorite character of mine.
>
> Well, this is definitely the biggest official Cosmos toy yet. As a flying saucer, he's about 3.5" in diameter at the case, and around 2.25" in height. (Somebody on Twitter made a joke about how at the rate he keeps growing, he'll envelop the Sun in about two billion years.) His coloring is based directly on the Sunbow animation, with different values of light green and dark green (not unlike Legacy Drag Strip), and the silver spot on his vehicle "hood" which was where the heat-sensitive rub symbol was on the 1985 toy (the packaging shows an Autobot symbol here; the final toy doesn't have it)..
>

I'll be OK with a Titan class Cosmos that can take all of the Core Class bots around. Just need a Core Class Seaspray, Ironhide, Ratchet, Powerglide, maybe some core class combiners.....

> He's basically a hemisphere with a cylinder stuck to the top. The cylinder looks too tall, especially if you're accustomed to the G1 toy, but he's one of the characters who magically changes shape when he transforms, with the cylinder stretching and growing to accommodate his robot-mode proportions. So, they cheated the vehicle mode a bit, but it's not bad.
>
> Cosmos was one of the simplest and easiest G1 toys to manipulate. Yeah, he's not that any longer. There's some complexity here. I don't even fully understand it well enough to describe it yet. In broad strokes, some parts are the same (the sides of the flying saucer are the arms; the front section is the feet; the cylidrical top section forms the upper body) but he goes through a hell of a lot of gymnastics to get there. The head transformation is fun and unexpected.
>
> Robot mode stands 4.5" tall. The scale of the Mini Autobots was kind of weird in season two—Beachcomber was still short, but other guys like Powerglide and Warpath were nearly the height of normal Autobots like Smokescreen. I honestly love the short Delxue format for the Mini Autobots and I want to see it continue with Brawn, Gears, Powerglide, and the rest.
>
> Cosmos isn't quite the big chungus that he was often depicted as on the show. He's still oddly-proportioned, to be sure, but he's not quite as short and fat as third-party versions of the character like Klaatu by X-Transbots or Newage H6 Max. But, they gave him all the vital design elements—the large, yellow hip plates, the triple guns mounted to each hand, and the almost goofy-looking cylindrical bucket helmet.
>
> His articulation is surprisingly good. He's got waist rotation! He's got ankle tilts! He's got arms that are actually attached at the shoulder, and not the center of his arms like the G1 toy! They still managed to make the little guy C.O.M.B.A.T.-compatible, too, with the proper five-millimeter peg-holes in his forearms and legs and feet and back.
>
> Cosmos is the race announcer for the Velocitron 500, so he comes with a checkered flag. Mark Maher explained in the Hasbro livestream how it can double as a white flag if Cosmos wants to surrender to the Decepticons. The flag part pops off and it just becomes a plain old laser gun, which is awesome.
>
> If he has any flaws, it's that the back of the saucer doesn't really tuck away in a clean or satisfying manner. Rather than just poking out as a badonkadonk shelf, like on the G1 toy, it folds into a backpack, but it's a little ungainly. I guess we'll have to wait for Takara's version of Masterpiece Cosmos before this piece disappears completely.
>

Or it'll be terrible like the new Wheelie.

> I love this design philosophy, though. It's what they should have been doing all along. Instead of just addressing characters every few years and doing versions of them with varying degrees of accuracy, it's just a solid toy, played close to the vest, looking very much like his cartoon self. I'm so happy with this release.
>
>
> Zob (and to think he was almost an Origin Bumblebee with a different head.... *shudder*)

On Monday, August 1, 2022 at 7:41:31 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> Made a bee-line for the pallets of new mod freight this morning, as I knew a case of Deluxe-class Velocitron toys had arrived at work last night. I was one of the poor saps who missed out on pre-ordering Cosmos (as well as Clampdown), as both Walmart and Hasbro Pulse sold out within like ten minutes after going live. I'm hopeful that both these toys eventually hit market saturation, but I worry that it will be another situation like Earthrise Thrust or Netflix Bumblebee where the toy just ends up being exceedingly rare. Time will tell, no doubt.

You have my envy. I'm glad for you, but still, you have my envy.

My hunt for Clampdown is currently going poorly - the good news is that my area Wal-Marts are getting these guys, but the bad news was that I missed out on Clampdown at the one I visited yesterday. Hoping for better luck today.