Top 5 favorite Hasbro Transformers figures of 2022
2022 was a big year for Hasbro's Transformers line! Studio Series had several welcome additions to the growing live action movie line, and the multiversal theme that began with Beast Wars' introduction in the Kingdom line to mainline Generations exploded with Legacy which brought together nearly every corner of the Transformers franchise from G1 to Armada to Prime and just about everything in between! 2023 looks to be continuing on that promise of appealing to fans of every corner of the brand, not to mention a new live action film hitting soon! With 2022 in the rearview, these are the top 5 Transformers figures that I was most happy with.
5. Brawn (Bumblebee movie)
2022 really was a year where Studio Series let loose and gave us all those designs from the Bumblebee movie that fans had been asking for since they first saw the trailers for the film revealing the Cybertron designs! My personal favorite out of this bunch is Brawn, and how he perfectly manages to replicate the oval design seen from the movie! While his Cybertronian drill mode is a bit abstract, I think that fits the overall Cybertronian design aesthetic and I was excited to add this egg-boy to my shelf!
4. Sideways
As short as his time on screen was, I always thought that Sideways from Revenge of the Fallen was very cool for his opening chase scene and of course his barreling dive through a building! I was always unsure whether he was just a re-use of the Barricade CGI model, but Studio Series gave us a fully new sculpt for the character that both dismays those notions and gives us one of the best Studio Series figures of the year! I love the way his car hood squishes together for the uneven look from the movie, the flared door wings, and the half faux wheels on the hands to replicate the spikes that emerge from the tires in bot mode! In a year where Studio Series was dominated by the Bumblebee movie designs and the 1986 G1 figures Sideways was a very welcome addition to the Bayverse display.
3. The Fallen
Speaking of Bayverse, the line also gave us one of the biggest villains from the live action franchise: The Fallen! Just as with Shockwave, the design team were able to truly make the bot mode as accurate as possible as there was no on screen alternate mode to try and hide kibble for. So while his Cybertronian aircraft mode isn't anything to brag about, The Fallen's bot mode is absolutely perfect and demolishes his previous 2009 figure which itself I thought was pretty good. Not only does he include his iconic staff, but the screen accurate appendages attaching his forearms to his torso are present and barely limit articulation; however, the biggest highlight by far has to be the removable face revealing the ugly skull beneath when Optimus ripped his face off in the film!
2. Starscream (Armada universe)
Armada was the Transformers television show I had when I was growing up. The figures based on those characters were what I always got for my birthday, and I would constantly watch clips of the show in my free time. It wasn't until I was older and rewatched the show in full where I truly came to appreciate Starscream's ark, and the full weight of his decisions and ultimate death hit me. So getting a voyager scale, updated Armada Starscream in Legacy as our first Transformers Armada figure was extremely exciting. The figure itself is a perfect representation of the on screen character; a near 1:1 match to the animation model complete with flip out shoulder cannons and articulation for days! The only two hitches is that the Star Saber itself is slightly on the small side, though cool that the figure includes it at all and admittedly the size did shift from scene to scene with the show's animation. I also wish that Swindle was included; however, Hasbro has already stated that they are working on how to get the Mini-Cons out to fans, so that absence may be rectified soon!
1. Motormaster
Coming in at number one it is a figure that I've seen a lot of people also using as their number 1 Transformers figure of 2022: Motormaster! Last year's Commander Class figure and also the main core of the newest combiner to be updated since Siege restarted Generations work on the G1 characters. Motormaster himself is awesome, pulling off a stellar truck mode while achieving a bot mode that looks near perfect to the animation model. There are some clever transformation tricks to recreate the mass shifting that turns the entire cab of his truck into simply his feet, and this is all not even to mention the included trailer and how he becomes a very solid skeletal base for Menasor! While the other Stunticons were hit or miss, Motormaster himself is incredible and helps pull them all together for the best mainline Menasor figure we've ever seen. Hopefully Hasbro goes back to start updating some of the other combiners soon too like Bruticus and Defensor!
Comments
Post a Comment