Transformers Power of the Primes Rodimus Unicronus review

As we continue revisiting Power of the Primes toys while waiting for more Age of the Primes figures, one thing that I always appreciated was the creativity of taking Rodimus Prime and making him not just an evil repaint but also homaging Shattered Glass at the same time. In the Machinima series, the dude was corrupted and had his darker nature unfold into a fully twisted image of himself, though he was questionably named Rodimus Cron. I guess the Cron was meant to be sort of a play on both the Prime name and the way some characters end with -tron (Megatron, Galvatron, etc). As Rodimus Unicronus, he was sort of comparable to Majin Vegeta, in that they both lost any morality or insecurities and straight up went batshit. Now, it's time to take a look back at the old times of Leader Class figures being tall and cheaper to buy for this review.

Before we begin, I need to mention that my copy has been Reprolabeled very differently from the official release. Originally, it was meant to further resemble the Shattered Glass motif with a tribal goth flame design more jagged than regular Rodimus, with a Hot Rod face that has no facial hair in the normal mode. The version of the figure I have better matches Dark Hot Rod likely because my friend Ernie wanted to match some synergy between a good and evil Hot Rod both part of the same universe. While we're at it, the mold history can be easily summed up with this section as we naturally got regular Rodimus Prime first. His shades of red do not match, and it clearly shows given the core bot has Hot Rod Red while the trailer has a darker Rodimus shade, clearly showing the two-in-one approach isn't all that ideal. Also, his Matrix is yellow with a silver core. Why?

Here we have Rodimus Unicronus in his vehicle mode. We already know what a Winnebago looks like, and this does about just what it needs to. While the fists are still visible from the front and the prominent black at least hides most of the issues. The way the pipes try to connect each other between the trailer and the car itself, however, looks less than convincing. Being a 2018 toy, he has no painted rims and partially uses snap-on wheels. Despite that, the vehicle mode at least looks the part in general and looks wicked with either the stock stickers (provided they aren't peeling) or the custom ones you see here.

While the black blends the robot kibble better, the feet sticking out does give it the effect of making this look like a trash can, but at least the weapons can peg on top as the closest we're going to get for a battle platform without making a fan mode. On the bright side, not as noticeable in this color scheme, and I always liked the flame decals looking as if they were spewed from the pipes.

For a size comparison with the Kingdom version, here we have it literally on top of the trailer and being as close to the length of it as humanly possible. It almost reminds me of the scale difference between SS86 Optimus and his Earthrise counterpart, mostly from how you can plop the previous toy on the more recent version's trailer and it will just about fit on like some weird Russian Doll display. Honestly, with how big the Kingdom toy felt, it made sense for Optimus to eventually get the Kingdom treatment in spite of how I feel towards G1 oversaturation. Makes me wonder if Earthrise Prime was meant to scale with POTP Rodimus before we got the Commander toy.

As for the regular vehicle mode by itself, I think it still has that sweet and sleek look that made the old toy, honestly, a bit better than the rounded car mode we got in the cartoon. I love the red windshield that almost has that piercing, bloodthirsty aggression. Sadly, the lack of paint for the rims and the literal half-assed exhaust pipes distract from what could have been a fun altmode on its own.

Here it is sandwiched between SS86 and Kingdom. Being a Voyager-scale figure, he's close to the size of the SS86 Hot Rod, though you can tell the difference in how rounded SS86 is versus the sharper edges on the POTP figure. Kingdom, of course, is a different story given how beefy it is. That being said, POTP has a smaller engine that is inset within the hood more than on SS86.

Transformation is a little simpler than I expected, mostly due to the figure sharing part of the budget with his trailer. We have the standard philosophy of shifting the shoulders down, extending the arms, and rotating the entire top of the altmode around so the spoiler can face up. It's similar to how the old toy works, except without the arm transformation. As for the robot mode, I want to first mention that the name of this figure is "Nemesis Hot Rod". Was Dark Hot Rod not good enough, even ignoring the stickers we have on my copy specifically? Thew at least came up with names like Not Rod and Rot Rod, and I'd choose Rot Rod if we can't have a Toxitron Rodimus homage! At least with Nemesis Prime, the name rolls off the tongue well, like the classic Optimus name; Nemesis Hot Rod sounds comparable to "Hot Rodimus Convoy Black Ver." with how clunky it is. Speaking of clunky, while the lean proportions on him are there, especially with a torso that's more proportioned than on the second Masterpiece version made 2 years prior, we still have the front wheels facing forward on the shoulders while the rear wheels stick out; this isn't too bothersome given that's how the toy normally works, but the arms havign the pipes sticking past the hands with the rest of the black plastic that forms part of the alt mode sides results almost looking like when someone tries working on a cosplay. Something that many wish was engineered better would be the placement of the windshield; while it is toy accurate I know many would rather have a cleaner silhouette. Thankfully, he isn't as blocky as the Titans Return version, and he also is closer to what many would theoretically want for a Hot Rod figure (at least in the regular colors and before SS86 came out), so he doesn't look too clumsily designed as we saw with the backpack on Orion Pax.

Head sculpt normally doesn't have the decals for the mustache and goatee, but it is a fairly decent take on the character in terms of overall shape and proportions, though on regular Hot Rod, it looked a little too stern for his personality. I prefer the more neutral look we got from SS86 and the Masterpiece versions. The metallic purple is a nice touch at least. His articulation consists of ball joints at the neck, shoulders, and elbows (with an additional joint mostly for transformation being optional), universal hips, and hinged knees. He comes with two guns that are meant to be the separate ones he normally wields, but they end up looking more like two halves of the proper rifle Rodimus normally uses. One thing I remember Peaugh mentioning was that the windshield can be slid off the mushroom joint's sliding system so that you can fold it in half and keep the backpack still tabbed in place to clean up the silhouette slightly from the front, but this is merely optional and it makes the back a little unsightly with that joint.

For a robot mode size comparison, he is once again sandwiched between SS86 and Kingdom for height, which Hasbro said made him a Deluxe scale yet he was still comparable to a Voyager before they began telling us that Leader Class figures are going to basically be Voyagers with Benefits. Honestly, if it weren't for the later 2 figures, I would have considered making the regular POTP Hot Rod as my Rodimus Prime while Titans Return gets to be my regular Hot Rod. I have TR Roddy somewhere in storage, but he's been demoted ever since I got the 2021 duo.

As for turning "Nemesis Hot Rod" into Rodimus Unicronus, the combination between core robot (corebot?) and trailer is weirdly similar to Armada Optimus's super mode. Hot Rod transforms vaguely similar to Armada Prime with the legs extending and the arms shifting downwards to make them more level with the robot mode's body, but the front of the altmode becoming the torso for the larger robot mode, combined with the legs becoming the arms (albeit with partsforming needed on Rodimus) comes off as pretty comparable. Even the trailer has a vague silhouette comparison when it comes to the proportions and there being back kibble, though the transformation could be closer to the Legacy Evolution version. Fully complete, Rodimus Unicronus looks more like a super mode than a proper standard version of the character, almost like a "what if Rodimus Prime could combine with his trailer like Optimus sometimes did" approach. Unlike regular G1 Prime (specifically the non-Powermaster design), there always was potential for the Mobile Defense Bay to merge with the standard robot and become Rodimus proper; we saw that with the FansProject Protector set which partially disassembled so Classics Rodimus could combine with those pieces and form his Prime mode in a scale and aesthetics compatible with early CHUG figures. Then we have Titanium Rodimus Prime and DX-9 Carry being single unit transformations almost like Motormaster, but those are not as common as simply having Rodimus form part of the complete altmode. Here, this is less "regular Rodimus Prime design" and more "Rodimus Prime if he was in the Unicron Trilogy". Though I guess Unicronus makes more sense given the repaint. While he suffers from having the thighs become the shoulder joints, his regular robot arms still being visible in some angles behind the torso, having a hollow backpack, and a vague attempt at making a larger spoiler, I will at least praise Hasbro for not making him two-toned like with the regular Rodimus Prime. Meanwhile, the pipes on the forearms look much better than what the smaller form had, and to.give credit to the Reprolabel set, they took the garbage truck comparisons on the trailer and added stickers meant for labeling disposal units for Titan Master s and humans! THEY EVEN ADDED BLOOD ON ONE OF THE DECALS HOLY SHITLOAD OF FUCK!!!!

Head sculpt is the best part of this mode, look at the Gurren Lagann visor almost comparable to Animated Prowl, and the handlebar mustache that adds even more personality from the Shattered Glass "bad boy" incarnation rather than the standard insecure Rodimus from G1. Articulation is similar to regular NHR, but the neck is on a swivel, the shoulders move front and back around what were the knee joints, in and out movement courtesy of what were the hips (which results in an awkward range similar to what Studio Series ROTB Optimus suffers from), bicep swivels, elbow bends, wrist articulation, light ratchets moving front and back as well as swivel hips in and out, thigh rotation, hinged knees, and ankles that move up and down as well as pivot. Thankfully, you can tighten the screws if you got weak ankles (or wankles, a word Thew refused to say and probably for good reason this time). His two guns can peg into a proper rifle meant for this mode, but it now looks like a gun made up of two guns. 

All Leader Class figures in the line came with a Matrix of their own, this one labeled as the Matrix of Chaos. I love the purple core and the red light piping, and they can be swapped with either Prime Masters or any Enigma of Combination included with Voyagers. However, both the Enigmas and Matrix cores lack neck joints found on Prime and Titan Masters, and they also don't unfold into tiny robots. One big fail with the POTP Leaders, at least with Optimus and Rodimus, is that neither of them include finger articulation to hold the Matrix and light our darkest hour. 

Here we have Rodimus Unicronus next to Optimus Prime from the same line. Yes, even after owning Siege, Earthrise, SS86, and MP-10, I still own this figure mostly from how decent it was and for the memories I got from my first ever TFCon. While neither figure is going to be ideally perfect, I always found Optimus to be the better of the two due to his Prime mode being more like a Masterpiece stand in that looked fine with Combiner Wars Megatron, and the transformation from OP to OP gave off Powermaster vibes. Regular Rodimus Prime kind of has issues, but I find Unicronus at least makes the figure slightly better, and whether he has stock stickers or Reprolabels, he still manages to be better than I anticipated. I don't know if Hasbro is willing to make a Shattered Glass Rodimus Prime out of the Kingdom version, but if not, then why not go this route so we can make him a little more unique from regular good guy Rodrick? Sure, Power of the Primes held up about as well as any current day comic book movie made since halfway through 2021 where it's either hyped for cameos or because it's not like what came before it, but while I would tell you to not bother with Jazz, the fembots, or Optimus (mainly because he has a ton more options), figures like Rodimus Unicronus and Battletrap are ones I think you should get given what they offer. While RU isn't 100% perfect, I think this darker color scheme makes him easier to stomach than the mismatching the Autobot version had. And hey, why not distinguish this from your positive-universe display?

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐