Don’t get me wrong; I like a lot of Taka Tomy’s Transformers figures. The recent TF: The Movie line managed to capture both the robot and vehicle modes of many classic characters well, but the cartoon has some icons that the company rarely gets right.
One of those is Starscream, the G1 version. If you’ve owned any of his previous Masterpiece incarnations, you know what I’m talking about. The expensive but intricate figures of the sniveling Decepticon often sacrifice form for functionality. Watch some of JobbytheHong‘s videos to see exactly what we Starscream fans have to deal with.
If you’re gonna pay a premium price, a premium product should be delivered. That’s where Newage comes in. The company’s line of “TOTALLY NOT TRANSFORMERS” managed to capture the well-known look of several characters but retain the robot and vehicle mode sleekness … all at under 4″ tall.
Yup. There’s the rub. These things are tiny. They’re not Masterpiece or Leadership sized, but more along the lines of Super7’s ReAction figures or the recent Core figures.
Regardless, at 3.77″ tall, this NA H13C Lucifer (not Starscream at all) packs a bunch of detail in. Well, that kind of craftsmanship should be expected when this little guy will cost you $84.99! I spotted him while randomly browsing the Big Bad Toy Store. “Lucifer” is just the latest in the line, though. Newage has tackled several familiar NOT Autobots and Decepticons already.

This isn’t to say the others in this line don’t look great; they do. However, given this character hasn’t had the best toys in recent years, I was just taken aback by how refreshing this off-brand robot looked. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case with many unofficial Transformers toys. These companies manage to do what Hasbro and Takar Tomy can’t for whatever reason.

What do you think of this? Great unofficial innovation or bad comedy? Let us know in the comments section.
[Source: Big Bad Toy Store]