pretty well the entire transformers fandom declared cyberverse optimus maximus to be worthless garbage for babies, but i think a lot of that was that hasbro didn’t bother letting anyone know about his totally rad micromaster base mode.

(i mean, also, the most outspoken element of the transformers fandom is the focal point of a venn diagram overlapping ‘white nerdy dudes with a persecution complex’, ‘totally adult mature 14 year olds’, and ‘the kind of people who write scathing one-star reviews of a $90 android netbook complaining that it’s not a macbook air’.)

so there was whinging about how maximus is just a big playset for the little cyberverse dudes and not a revoltech powermaster optimus trailer in scale with voyager prime prime, and i won’t lie, that would have been totally awesome, but as it is he is a $30 optimus prime shaped e-frame that holds nine cyberverse dudes, and either you are into that kind of thing or you aren’t.

then there was the whinging about how he’s hollow and lightweight instead of having die-cast metal legs or huge masses of plastic, which is a wierd complaint because he is basically a mid-90s gijoe vehicle with a ton of places where dudes can ride in or on him, covered in ports for cyberverse weapons, and loaded with turrets, lights and sounds, and firing missiles.  he’s hollow and lightweight so he can have all those features at this size and not cost $100, and i don’t even know how internet dudes thought a $30 playset was going to be masterpiece optimus with paint washes and super-articulation and die-cast metal and shit when //six inch deluxe figures// cost $17 now.

also there was all the whinging about how he only has 90s kenner articulation, which is mostly true, but again, this is a playset first and that he can move at all is impressive, that his elbow joints are limited in range but strong enough for his raised arms to still hold dudes in them is kind of the point.  

but then i actually i got this dude and nobody bothered to mention that he has ball-jointed hips!  dude can high-kick it up, and that felt ridiculous given that his shoulders don’t move at all and the entirety of his official transformation is to sit down.  and i also noticed he has these weird extra ankle joints where his feet swing down to the sides which don’t do anything useful in robot or ‘roller’ mode.  so i tried swinging his legs out to the sides like powermaster prime’s microbase mode and they ratcheted almost into a locked position, meshing neatly with his arm platforms, with his feet now flat on the ground extending the base mode laterally on both sides.  swing the calf panels forward for extra stability and give this to me in 1990 because HELL OF YES.

near as i can guess based on how well this mode comes together is that he was originally designed as a triple changer, but someone decided that was too much complexity for the target audience of five year olds so hasbro never told anyone about this part. but they left in the engineering for the ankle hinges, so i got a $30 autobot city for $20 at marshalls.