Transformers: Prime (toyline): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:32, 16 December 2016

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, ToysЯUs 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

Wave 1.5

Cliffjumper

Wave 2

Voyager Class

Wave 1

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

A few Dark of the Moon items inexplicably shipped in some the same cases as the Prime Cyberverse Legions, on Prime-style cards but without the specific "Prime" logo. We won't list those here, check out the main Cyberverse page for that info.

Wave 1

Wave 2

Breakdown

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 come with the same episode.

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Vehicles

Wave 1

Energon Driller with Knock Out
Star Hammer with Wheeljack

Wave 2

Bumblebee Battle Suit with Bumblebee

Wave 3

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 Bumblebee Cliffjumper Soundwave Wheeljack		Wave 2 Arcee Autobot Ratchet		Wave 3 Hot Shot Knock Out Vehicon		Wave 4 Airachnid Shadow Strike Bumblebee Dead End		Vehicon
Wave 5 Sergeant Kup 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 Megatron Optimus Prime		Wave 2 Bulkhead Starscream		Wave 3 Dreadwing		Wave 4 Ultra Magnus Thundertron		Voyager Skyquake, who barely made it out at retail.
Wave 5 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, the only exclusives for the regular Prime line in the US were from BigBadToyStore, an online store. These "Dark Energon" figures are all redecos done in mainly translucent plastics.

All of the figures were available at general retail in Singapore and Malaysia, and the Voyager Class figures were also available at general retail in the Philippines.

Deluxe Class

Voyager Class

Asian-market exclusives

Optimus Prime & Gaia Unicron two-pack

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 nonexistant: 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!).