23. Cybertron Optimus Prime (Burger King) (2005): If you said, “Hey, that looks like a McDonalds toy!â€?, you’d be wrong. McDonalds toys are higher quality. This is one of the lamest Prime toys ever made. The wheels don’t even roll. As a sort of consolation, I painted some of the details on the head and chest to make it look slightly less awful. This one keeps falling off the shelf, like maybe Energon Prime behind him keeps pushing him. Or maybe he’s suicidal; Primus knows anyone would be if stuck in a body like that. The gimpy arms, beer gut, and uni-leg just scream, “Someone please put me out of my misery!”
24. Robot Heroes Optimus Prime (2007): Robot Heroes is the Transformer equivalent of the Star Wars Galactic Heroes line, with characters redone as cute little PVC figures. This sort-of-chibi Optimus Prime is one of the better ones. His right hand holds his usual rifle, while his left arm is out in a pointing pose. This works very well with his shoulder and head joints, since he can be doing anything from telling other Autobots to “take that hill!� to “We’re number one!� to pointing to the mess Hot Rod left on the floor to a sort of “Staying Alive� disco action.
25. Movie Optimus Prime (Legends of Cybertron) (2007): Yeah. It’s another version of Prime from the movie, only tiny and looking nothing like the movie’s robot mode. Not much else to say.
26. Robot Masters Beast Convoy (2004): Robot Masters was one of Takara’s filler lines, consisting of a bunch of recolors of older toys with a few new molds thrown in. In this case, the new molds were of classic characters from various eras, redone to be smaller and more poseable. Beast Convoy here, is of course Optimus Primal from Beast Wars (given the “Beastâ€? prefix because the line also had the original Generation 1 Convoy/Optimus Prime), only smaller and looking more like the animated version.
27. Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime (Spychanger) (2002): Remember back to that long-winded explanation of who the heck Fire Convoy was? When Hasbro decided to import Car Robots over here, they made a few new molds to flesh things out. This is one of them, a scaled-down version of Prime as a fire truck. Unlike the larger one, it doesn’t split in half and can’t form the “regularâ€? robot mode. Neither can he stand up without his ladder being used as a prop.
28. Heroes of Cybertron Apex Armor Powermaster Optimus Prime: A small semi-poseable PVC figure of Apex Armor Prime (otherwise known as God Ginrai). Not much else to say about it, except that it pops apart into a bajillion pieces if you look at it funny. And he’s blocking the view of bat Primal.
29. Cybertron Optimus Prime (Legends of Cybertron): Like the movie one, this is a smaller version of the Cybertron character, minus the super mode. Unlike the movie one, this is surprisingly good, if unposeable. Think of the Legends size as being the replacement for Spychangers.
30. Robot Heroes Optimus Prime (with Matrix): Surprisingly, the second Robot Heroes version of Prime isn’t just the original with new arms. It’s an entirely new mold of Prime opening the Matrix, complete with translucent blue energy flare. It looks really nice, which makes up for it being essentially unable to move – the head can turn, but it’s pointless for it to do so. I’m not even going to get started on my geeky objections to this one because it didn’t “really” happen like this in the comics or cartoon. It’s still a very cool little figure.
31. Heroes of Cybertron Optimus Prime (with Energy Axe): This one is notable mainly because in Japan this PVC (part of a blind-packed assortment) was a very rare chase figure. However, the U.S. version (which is the one I have) was a regular release and actually slightly easier to find than the normal Prime. Nothing else to say, except that it doesn’t fall apart like the HoC Apex Armor Prime.
32. Robot Heroes Movie Optimus Prime: In general, the movie designs don’t translate well to the cutesy Robot Heroes style, but this version of Prime isn’t too bad. He’s also fairly poseable for a PVC-style figure. Too bad the Blackout that came with him is terrible.
33. Robot Replicas Optimus Prime: The Robot Replicas line is a series of non-transforming figures with the gimmick of being (supposedly) accurate to the movie designs. Sadly, they use Revoltech-style joints that tend to pop apart easily. With Prime, this problem is mostly in his arms, which come off. The sculpting is also less accurate than advertised.
34. Robot Heroes Movie Optimus Prime (with Sword): Less poseable and generally less impressive than the first version. His left arm is in a goofy position, and he has the lips instead of a closed mask.
There we are. Everything on the shelf covered in some level of detail. And while we’re at it…
The Chef was born 856 years ago on a small planet orbiting a star in the Argolis cluster. It was prophesied that the arrival of a child with a birthmark shaped like a tentacle would herald the planet's destruction. When the future Chef was born with just such a birthmark, panic ensued (this would not be the last time the Chef inspired such emotion). The child, tentacle and all, was loaded into a rocket-powered garbage scow and launched into space. Unfortunately, the rocket's exhaust ignited one of the spectators' flatulence, resulting in a massive explosion that detonated the planet's core, destroying the world and killing everyone on it.
When the would-be Chef awoke from his torpor, he looked around at the new world he found himself on. His first words were, “Hey, this place sucks." Disguising himself as one of the planet's dominant species of semi-domesticated ape, the being who would become known as the Chef wandered the Earth until he ended up in its most disreputable slum - Paris, France.
Taking a job as a can-can dancer, the young Chef made a living that way until one day one of the cooks at a local bistro fell ill with food poisoning (oh, bitter irony). In a desperate move, the bistro's owner rushed into one of the local dance halls, searching for a replacement. He grabbed the ugliest can-can dancer he could find, and found himself instead with an enterprising (if strange) young man who now decided, based on this random encounter, to only answer to the name “Chef".
His success as a French chef was immediate (but considering that this is a country where frogs and snails are considered delicacies, this may or may not be a significant achievement). Not only was the Chef's food delicious, it also kept down the local homeless population. He rose to the heights of stardom in French cuisine, and started a holy war against the United Kingdom to end the reign of terror British food had inflicted on its citizens.
When the Crimean War broke out around France, the Chef assisted Nikola Tesla and Galileo in perfecting the scanning electron microscope, which was crucial in driving back the oncoming Communist hordes. It would later be said that without the Chef, the war would have been lost. He was personally awarded a Purple Heart by the King of France.
After that, the Chef traveled to America, home of such dubious culinary delights as McDonald's Quarter Pounder With Cheese. He immediately adopted the Third World nation as his new home, seeing it as his job to protect and enlighten it. When the Vietnam War began, he immediately volunteered and served in the Army of the Potomac under Robert E. Lee and General Patton. During the war, the Chef killed dozens of Nazis, most of them with his bare hands.
Marching home from war across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, stark-naked and freezing, the Chef wound up on the shores of Mexico. He spent several years there, drinking tequila with Pancho Villa and James Dean. He put his culinary skills to the test when he invented the 5,000-calorie Breakfast Chili Burrito With Orange Sauce (which is today still a favorite in some parts of Sonora).
Eventually, the Chef returned to his adopted home of America, where he met a slimy, well-coiffed weasel who was starting up a new kind of buffet - one dedicated to providing the highest-quality unmentionable appetizers to the online community. The Chef dedicated himself to spreading the word of his famous Lard Sandwich (two large patties of fried lard, in between two slices of toasted buttered lard, with bacon and cheese), as well as occasionally writing about his opinions on less-important topics than food.
Every word of this is true, if only in the sense that every word of this exists in the English language.
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