Transformers: Prime (toyline): Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 05:33, 15 April 2026

Prime

The Transformers: Prime toyline hit shelves in November 2011. Originally, Hasbro played coy with the series receiving a toyline at all, emphasizing that it was a television series first and foremost. There were initial plans to release a small assortment of three Deluxe figures (Bumblebee, Arcee, and Starscream) in the Generations line before they were moved into the expanded "First Edition" launch line.

Hasbro Prime toyline

First Edition (2011)

The first assortment of Prime toys are more collector-aimed, with more intricate transformation schemes than later iterations.

The First Edition toys had a spotty, messy release in the U.S. Only the first wave of Deluxes made it to some stores at first, with fans having to turn to Canada and Asian markets for later releases. Eventually, in late 2012, Toys"R"Us picked up the whole "First Edition" line as part of a huge block of U.S. market exclusives for the holiday season.

Deluxes

Wave 1

001 Bumblebee
002 Arcee
003 Starscream

Wave 1.5

004 Cliffjumper

Wave 2

005 Terrorcon Cliffjumper
006 Vehicon

Voyager Class

Wave 1

001 Optimus Prime
002 Bulkhead

Entertainment Pack

Optimus Prime vs Megatron: A Rivalry Reborn
- Includes Jack Darby, Miko Nakadai, and Raf Esquivel

Exclusives

San Diego Comic-Con 2011

Matrix of Leadership Optimus Prime

New York Comic-Con 2011

Bumblebee / Arcee, Includes Raf Esquivel and Jack Darby

Robots in Disguise (2012)

Finally releasing well after the Prime cartoon had premiered and run through several episodes, the "real" Prime toyline was bent a little more towards kids, with simpler transformations than the First Edition toys (including "false" vehicle mode parts sculpted into purely robot-mode bits) and a handful of smaller play gimmicks.

Cyberverse

Legion Class

Three Cyberverse Legion Class figures that represent characters from the Dark of the Moon line shipped in the same case as wave 2 of the Prime Cyberverse Legion Class. In the United States, those figures were sold on Prime-style cards but lacking the the specific "Prime" moniker. On multilingual European packaging, however, they did retain the Prime title, hence we do list them here, marked in italics.

Wave 1

Wave 2

006 Breakdown
007 Soundwave
008 Mirage
009 Evac

Wave 3

Wave 4

Commander Class

Commander Class figures all come with translucent weaponry, and feature some amount of translucent plastic in their bodies (blue for Autobots, but a variety of colors for Decepticons), a feature designed around interacting with the line's vehicles (see below). Each vehicle is equipped with an "Energon Booster", a light-up accessory that can plug into the Commanders' weapons or into the posts and ports on the figures' backs to illuminate them with "glowing energon power".

The Wave 1 figures also came in a "DVD Edition" case: the only difference is the slightly different packaging and the inclusion of a mini-DVD that contains the Transformers: Prime episode "Masters & Students". Yes, all four of them came with the same episode.

Wave 1

Wave 2

005 Dreadwing
006 Ironhide

Wave 3

007 Ultra Magnus
008 Nightwatch Optimus Prime

Wave 4

009 Battle Tactics Bulkhead
010 Skyquake

Vehicles

Wave 1

001 Star Hammer with Wheeljack
002 Energon Driller with Knock Out

Wave 2

003 Bumblebee Battle Suit with Bumblebee

Other

Optimus Maximus

"Standard" line

Deluxe Class

Deluxe class figures feature a dynamic "head reveal" gimmick: the robot-mode heads pop out during transformation via spring-loaded or gear-operated gimmickry, or occasionally by simple manually-operated panel-flipping. Internally, these figures were referred to by Hasbro as "Revealers".

Wave 1 001 Bumblebee 002 Cliffjumper 003 Wheeljack 004 Soundwave (w/ Laserbeak)		Wave 2 005 Arcee 006 Autobot Ratchet		Wave 3 007 Knock Out 008 Vehicon 009 Hot Shot		Wave 4 010 Dead End 011 Shadow Strike Bumblebee 012 Airachnid		Vehicon
Wave 5 013 Sergeant Kup 014 Rumble								Vehicon

Voyager Class

Voyager figures all feature a spring-loaded MechTech-style transforming weapon, partially constructed from translucent plastic, which lights up via LED when the weapon is deployed. The figures themselves also feature translucent plastic, so the moving LED creates the image of energon power "flowing" from the character's bodies into their weapons. This worked better in theory than in practice. Internally, these figures were referred to by Hasbro as "Powerizers".

Wave 1 001 Optimus Prime 002 Megatron		Wave 2 003 Starscream 004 Bulkhead		Wave 3 005 Dreadwing		Wave 4 006 Ultra Magnus 007 Thundertron		Voyager Skyquake, who barely made it out at retail.
Wave 5 008 Skyquake								Voyager Skyquake, who barely made it out at retail.

Weaponizers

A new size class, Weaponizer Class figures are similar in size to Leader Class toys of previous lines, but with simpler transformations. They feature light-up parts and spinning mini-guns that can deploy in either mode.

Wave 1

Optimus Prime

Bumblebee

Entertainment Pack

Bumblebee vs. Starscream: Ultimate Opponents
(w/ Silas and MECH soldier)

Exclusives

In a rare move, there were no brick and mortar store exclusives in Western markets for the regular Prime line. The "Rust in Peace" special edition of Terrorcon Cliffjumper was available at San Diego Comic-Con and Hasbro Toy Shop, while the "Dark Energon" series of translucent redecos was sold by online retailer BigBadToyStore. All of the "Dark Energon" toys were available at general retail in Singapore and Malaysia, and the Voyager Class figures were also available at general retail in the Philippines.

The Asian market additionally received a special two-pack of Voyager Optimus Prime and Gaia Unicron, complete with their Microns from TakaraTomy's Arms Micron line.

San Diego Comic-Con 2012

Rust in Peace Cliffjumper

Dark Energon Deluxe Class

Dark Energon Voyager Class

001 Megatron
002 Optimus Prime

Asian Market

Optimus Prime + Gaia Unicron

Beast Hunters (2013)

In 2013, Prime shifted to the Beast Hunters subline imprint, a branding that also extended into the Kre-O line.

This series introduced the dangerous Predacon faction, robotic dragons and mythical creatures that posed a threat to Autobot and Decepticon alike. In response, the 'Bots and 'Cons don new armor (the Autobots in spiky, over-weaponized armor reminiscent of Mad Max, while the Decepticons take on more beastly traits) and are armed with new gimmick-laden launching/spinning weapons. On-package bios were reduced in length to just a sentence or two, and the instruction sheets instead feature facts about one of the figure's main weapons, as well as a chapter of the Tales of the Beast Hunters prose story.

The final waves of this line, released in early 2014, really pushed towards younger kids, with incredibly simplified designs based on the characters' Cyberverse releases, which actually allowed the toys to be larger than most others in their size class. Unfortunately, as they were tail-enders, their US releases were nearly nonexistent: only the Voyagers made it out at US retail, and only through discount chains like Ross and TJ Maxx. The rest ended up released only overseas (not even Canada got them!).