Last review, I mentioned that two Legacy figures in Wave 1 were NOT purchased for specific reasons. Firstly, with Arcee, it was because I didn't like the design as Arcee and preferred it to be used on different characters. And now for Laser Prime, it was because I already got Earthrise Optimus Prime as the default G1 Optimus Prime, but more importantly, Scourge was a figure I always wanted in my collection. He wears the Laser mold much better and is one of the best parts of RID 2001. In fact, I wanted to diversify the collection with a figure like him, so RID 2001 got more attention than G2 in this instance. I'm pretty sure I'll have a hard time finding the original toy, and I always wanted to get the RTS Deluxe mold back then, but now, I can have a version of Scourge that is worth owning. So much like Thew going for MP-10B Black Convoy, I chose the black repaint of the toy and we'll be covering it today!
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Here is Scourge in his vehicle mode. It's the same truck style he had back in 2001 (and by extension, 1995 with Laser Optimus Prime). The details are more refined for this guy than they normally are on the old toy, and the color layout is mostly the same as we've seen back in the early 2000s. It's a pretty good intermediate state between G1 Optimus Prime's truck mode and the designs associated with the Movie and Prime incarnations of the character. The pink of the figure is actually from the Takara version of the original Black Convoy, though it will be a bit of an issue as we'll get to in the robot mode. Amusingly, you can see a little bit of the pink seeping through on the 5mm port behind the bumper. The teal on the windows looks pretty good, though the decals are a little different than what we've seen before. Tell you the truth, it's a little inaccurate, but it does work well with the design of the toy. I'd rather it have that than reuse the flames of Laser Prime for the sake of being more Scourge and less Optimus.
The overall design itself is not too shabby, though like with Earthrise Optimus Prime (from which the hips, thighs, the front of his lower legs (except for the shin vents), and feet are borrowed from), the legs aren't as stable as with Siege Optimus due to a lack of pegs that keep it straight. Thankfully, there are tabs on the doors to mitigate that, but the thighs being exposed next to the gas tanks don't do much. It was ugly on Earthrise Prime, and it's ugly here. Also much like Laser Prime, his tires are hollowed out, but at least they're new compared to the reused Studio Series tires.
And then there is the tanker trailer. This thing isn't as shiny chrome as it was before, but it still looks great considering this could have been bare gray plastic instead of something presentable. There's a great level of sculpt work all throughout it, and it puts the ghastly G1 trailer of Earthrise Prime and even the Studio Series DOTM trailer. There is a stand that keeps it stable whenever Scourge isn't using it, and it's also much better than what G1 Prime had without the stabilizers.
The overall complete truck looks great, especially with the trailer's presentability being much better than on other Leader counterparts. The turn radius is also solid compared to what Earthrise Prime had to go with, though the arms do get in the way somewhat.
There is weapon storage within not just the trailer but also on the truck itself. The shield can fold its handle away so it can peg onto the legs...
...while the sword itself goes underneath the truck. Isn't anything too imaginative, but it reminds me of how they handled the weapon storage for practically every Western Star take of Optimus Prime in AOE and TLK.
For a truck mode comparison, here he is with Optimus Prime from the Earthrise line. While I don't have Netflixis Prime nor RID 2001 Prime yet, these two make great toys all around considering how much they were able to capture what fans would want at a Leader Class price point while being Voyagers with benefits in vehicle mode at least. It's also nice to have a completely different character take up the Legacy mold since much like Thew, I already got a main G1 Prime in my collection, but I did wait for a Scourge repaint and we'll see how much it delivers on that note for the deco.
Transformation is another take on the Laser Prime design traits we've seen in the past. While the legs no longer extend and the arms are now separate from the shoulder pads (more on that), we end up with a pretty elaborate effort on making this guy feel more complex while still maintaining the spirit of the original toy. And as for the robot mode, it continues to show how altered the deco is from the original design. As it turns out, this guy is more Nemesis Prime than Scourge due to the deco artist not being too familiar with the character (for some reason) and the sprue tree not being consistent with the proper colors for Scourge & Laser Prime. That's why the color scheme is inaccurate, especially with the windows (though they are reminiscent of Reveal the Shield toy). The deco could probably benefit from having some paint applied onto the shoulder parts at least, but the rest of the deco is fairly decent even if it's inaccurate. The solid black crotch is stupid since it was already grey on the original Laser Prime. Beyond that, the design of the figure is mostly good, but we'll talk about the arms in a bit. The kibble being the truck windows is the same as always. Oh, and don't forget a panel to cover the back.
Head sculpt looks great, being much more aggressive and evil in the case of Scourge for the latter category. The pink glowing eyes are much more prominent thanks to the stronger vibrance they possess, and the teal compliments the silver nicely. It puts Earthrise and Legacy Prime to shame for not making the eyes easier to find. As for the articulation, it's mostly the same as with Earthrise Prime in the form of the head, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. The wrists are ball-jointed this time, and the biceps are higher up compared to them being the forearms like on any normal G1 Prime. The shoulders, though, are not part of the now-stationary truck nose halves. Likely because the shoulders would require being in a Hasbro budget for the current decade, we cannot have the truck halves move in unison with the rest of the arms. It sucks because the range feels limited because of it, and the measly flaps at the front don't do much.
One thing that is nice is that the shoulders now have missile pods that haven't been done before, and similar to the Reveal the Shield mold, this guy gets himself a Matrix of Leadership taken from Laser Optimus Prime and carried over to this mold. It's mostly pink like the rest of the parts, and it opens differently compared to the standard methods G1 Primes have.
And now we have the trailer, which functions similarly to the original toy but without any of the spring-loaded features. It's not as impressive as the original one, but to its credit, it has less missing than on G1 Prime's trailer in the Earthrise line. You do have a tower turret, a claw, and storage for the sword and axe, at least. The tower can be removed from the 5mm post if you want.
And the weapons themselves are as pink as Patrick Star! The sword itself may seem a little gaudy, though it being entirely one color is accurate to the show. The axe is weird since it looks more like a paddle than a proper axe. Both weapons can be combined into a superweapon, and the turret tower can wield its dual-barrel gun if you so choose, though the former is pretty unwieldy. Both weapons require you have the tab facing away from the palm because there is a gap between the index finger and thumb. Even the Matrix stays on there, making it reminiscent of the concept art for the Aligned Star Saber (before we got the final lightsaber-esque design for Transformers Prime).
For a comparison to Scourges of the past, we have the original, the TFCC repaint of the Reveal the Shield mold, and Takara's Legends exclusive repaint of Titans Return Optimus Prime. The original was an already good toy with a simple yet effective transformation, great amount of articulation that holds up pretty well to this day, and not having to deal with any reused parts, resulting in a level of synergy that makes it work given how it was made from the ground up; it was simply the recoloring that it had to change, and this deco is stronger all around, be it Hasbro or Takara's. The Reveal the Shield version was hard to obtain considering how convention-exclusive and collector-friendly repaints were much harder to obtain compared to the more accessible and better thought out Generations Selects repaints. While the figure was cool to have for a new take on the design, and the more aggressive look made it fit Scourge better, the proportions and Deluxe size didn't really do it justice, resulting in it feeling a bit clunky and impractical compared to the original figure. The Legends figure gives fans a better-scaled figure that looks worlds better than Optimus Prime wished he did, be it G1 or Laser deco, but the mold itself was kind of annoying to contend with given how small the truck mode is, the jet mode sucking ass, and the articulation feeling hindered thanks to the Octane design elements as this toy was practically a pretool of him. The original and Legends figures also have better decos than the current Scourge given how accurate they are to the show, while the RtS one is a little inaccurate because he has those red windows given how this was the only Laser Prime to use the proper truck windows. I'll say that it looks wrong on him.
Let's go over the other version of the mold that we got: Laser Optimus Prime was the version of the mold that I chose to skip like with Prime Arcee, but while Prime Arcee just felt like a flatter, less interesting version of her proper design, Laser Optimus Prime looks fine but I have a preference for Scourge in general with this design. I like the Movie-esque flames, though I can't deny that it is unfortunate how Optimus has a more accurate deco to his Laser toys than Scourge does with his own repaints.
For another store-exclusive reuse, this is Toxitron, leader of his own Walmart-exclusive subline. He is based on the canceled Universe repaint that fans later got to see in future toys like the Combiner Wars version and an Animated repaint in-between them. The green combined with the purple and the leaking slime from the trailer gives this guy a radioactive look oozing with personality in contrast to the traditional Optimus or the premiumish Scourge.
And here we have him next to Earthrise Optimus Prime, it's pretty cool to see these two having different designs all around since it's been pretty common to have a black repaint for an Optimus Prime. While some parts are reused from one another for the most part, I'm happy to see the torso and arms look different from each other, especially since Laser Optimus Prime's design is more than just the G1 design with new truck nose shoulders. But overall, Scourge is a mixed-to-positive experience. Some of the weapons are kind of weak, and I'm not a fan of the way the arms work for this mold, but the rest of it is pretty cool in terms of the engineering and the truck mode. The deco is something else I'm not a fan of, because it's not bad yet it is disappointing how Hasbro's deco designers are likely going to be super faithful to other toys but fuck up on Scourge's deco; the sprue kit thing I can get behind, but the lack of familiarity by one of the designers makes no sense, but that's what happens when you have Hasbro toy designers do too much G1 and forget about other incarnations! Let's hope Reprolabels can fix this. At the very least, the truck mode looks good, and some parts of the robot mode work well. I'd recommend this guy if you don't care about Laser Prime.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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