ehobby d-22 black starscream

at last black starscream



released in 2001, hard to find these days


today i'm gonna blog about another rare & exclusive piece that i managed to acquire that will stay misb - the ehobby d-22 black starscream. this figure was released in 2001 together with ghost starscream, the transparent version of the figure. being a starscream figure as well as an ehobby exclusive made this item highly sought after by fans especially g1 fans. the downside is its high price and limited availability.
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robot mode & face closeup



f-15 fighter...nice


i was fortunate enough to get hold of one at half the current market price. because mine will stay put in its box i'll use photos taken from tfu info (click me to go to the site)
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parts that needs assembling - hands, launcher, rockets & null ray cannons



more parts - wings, vertical tailfins, landing gear & horizontal tailfins



there's not much difference between this figure and the normal figure other than the repaint. the colour scheme is loosely based on the 1997 machine wars starscream which was also black except for the addition of gold colour. articulations is still limited to the shoulders and you still need to piece together the parts aside from simple transformation to form the robot or the f-15 fighter. basically its a normal diaclone based g1 starscream in black and gold.
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i don't intend to get the clear version of this figure because i have something more interesting in mind...but that's another story

costco energon optimus prime

next misb - costco energon optimus prime with overload



rear view


enough of movie line & back to familiar territory. today i'm gonna write about another misb item & one of my favourite figure - costco energon optimus prime. i'm keeping this baby misb because its a store exclusive. store exclusive means that an item is only available at a specific store @ supermarket. in this case costco prime is only available at costco supermarket in the us. the loose figure photos taken from internet.
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left to right - armada prime, k-mart prime & powelinx prime


there are 2 other variant or armada prime beside armada (original) and this one - k-mart and powerlinx. k-mart is another store exclusive limited to k-mart supermarket. it comes with powerlinx jetfire and 6 minicons - longarm, comettor, sparkplug, dune runner, iceberg & ransack. it uses the same colour as armada except the cab is coloured gold.
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cab robot mode


matrix of leadership



left to right - corona sparkplug & sparkplug


powerlinx prime is a repaint of grey and red but mass release to the market. it comes only by itself but with corona sparkplug. i was undecided which repaint to pick so i asked by brother to decide. he chose costco because he said the colour scheme made prime looked like a samurai warrior. funny though because some reviews said that this prime looks like ronald mcdonald!.
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cab & trailer



combined with overload


costco prime is packed with costco overload and like most store exclusive both are repaints which means have different colour from the original figures. prime is in burgundy, black and yellow while overload is yellow & red. they are accompanied by rollout and corona sparkplug. this version of sparkplug is gold chromed as apposed to normal yellow plastic, another reason to get this figure. i still don't know why its under the energon line when it is a repaint of armada prime.
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base mode


combined with overload


because its an armada mold prime can combine with armada jetfire & overload (along with their repaints) to form megaweapon in robot, vehicle and base mode. eventhough its on par with leader class the transformation level is only 3. one reason is because of the automatic transformation gimmick of the trailer where it will automatically transform when you transform the cab...a very cool gimmick.
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superweapon mode


combined with overload


because i only have a deluxe version of armada prime i can't actually tell how the toy is. so i'll just summarize a review made by cliffbee (click me to read the review) :

cab
- new cab design
- plastic tires instead of rubber
- no minicon port
- simple transformation
- cab robot mouthplate is move-able
- limited articulation

trailer
- 4 minicon port on trailer
- simple design & transformation
- automatic trailer transformation (battery operated) when cad is transformed

base
- more than 7 minicon port in base mode
- LED light up & sound for console
- many move able parts etc seat, door


giant robot
- limited articulation
- right fist LED light up gimmick
- firing sound gimmick
- 1 minicon port on each shoulder
- blocky design