Sunday, June 19, 2016

Spark Toys Alpha Pack - Optimus Prime

I don't know anything about the War Within series of Transformers. I've never read the comics. The preview renderings of Alpha Pakc were enough to get me excited about this figure though.

Vehicle mode is a descent size. It scales well with the Masterpiece Autobot cars. The windshield is blue transparent plastic. The headlights are yellow transparent plastic.  The exhausts are made of chrome. The wheels are plastic. The rear wheels roll fine, but the front wheels don't. There is plenty of line work and painted detail. The metallic red and blue looks really good. The cab isn't meant to open from the front. It opens from the back to reveal painted and sculpted detail. I couldn't get it to tab in completely in the front; I'm not even sure it's supposed to. I wish the screw holes on the smoke stacks face the other way.

Transformation is not complicated at all. There are lot of obvious pegs and tabs. Most of them are pretty secure, but the chest tab on mine is rather loose. When collapsing the legs, there are buttons on the back of the legs to facilitate that collapsing mechanism so don't just force the upper and lower legs together.

This is a very buff Optimus Prime. He has an extremely large chest, with bulky arms and legs. The tires at his shoulders further enhance his upper body silhouette. He also sports an eight pack. All the red, blue, gold, and silver metallic paint really looks impressive in robot mode. Some of the paint gets a little messy in a couple of places, but is otherwise applied pretty well. His head sculpt looks really good with its blue painted eyes and silver mouth plate.

Mine has a tendency to lean forward because of the ankle rockers. I'll see if I can get in there with a little floor polish.

His head seems to be on a ball joint. His shoulders are on hinges and ratcheted swivels. He swivels at the biceps, forearms, wrists, waist, and knees. His thumbs are fixed and his fingers are single pinned, but the pointing fingers articulate at all three knuckles. He has single jointed elbows and knees, with soft ratchets in the knees. His thighs are on ratcheted universal joints. He has ankle rockers and feet and toe tilts.

His accessories include a rifle, a battle axe, and a Matrix. The rifle is a pretty faithful rendition of the iconic Ion blaster. The line work is descent. Red transparent plastic provides some highlights. It can store in vehicle mode via a flip-out tab. Unfortunately, that tab and its hinge are made of transparent plastic. The battle axe is rather stylized and is highlighted with some line work and silver metallic paint. The handle is hinged at two points. I'm not sure where or if it stores in vehicle mode. Both weapons use Masterpiece style tabs that are not as secure as I would like. The Matrix is rather comically small. It is painted in silver, gold, and blue. It stores in his chest / front grill.

I suppose I will be starting a new shelf for this guy and the upcoming Megatron, plus whoever else doesn't really fit in my CHUG and Masterpiece displays. I'm actually kinda of loathe to put TFC Ironwill and Detective with Alpha Pack. They are quite the opposite in terms of engineering and aesthetic quality. Now that Spark Toys has announced their version of Grimlock, I will have to find another place for the Fans Toys Dinobots. Ah choices - such a problem to have. It's absolutely wonderful to find another company worth purchasing from. I will definitely be keeping an eye out to see what else Spark Toys does with this line.







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