Universe Nemesis Prime

A lot of personal stuff has changed since my last review, but I'm back.

Hi.


It seems fitting to restart this blog with a review of one of my recently acquired, long-time Holy Grails:

Universe Nemesis Prime.


Ever since I first found out about this guy he has fascinated me.

First off: let it be known that I don't like Optimus Prime's basic character.
I don't like invulnerable, incorruptible forces of good (or evil for that matter).
I don't like characters whose word is always right and whose intentions are always for the betterment of everything.

I'm generally more attracted to the anti-hero, tragic villain and the corrupted or doubting good guys.


So in that respect Nemesis Prime fits the bill to a tee.
Originally meant as an experimental dark twin to Optimus Prime, his creator, Straxus, spent a long time collecting data from a wide variety of sources to best approach Optimus Prime's abilities, save of course his unflappable morality.

A long time in Transformers-proportions usually entails several millions of years, what with Transformers technically being immortal and all.

In the end, Nemesis Prime was built, imbued with many millennia (told ya) worth of combat-algorithms and thus powerful enough to go servo to servo with Optimus Prime.
But there was a complication.
Straxus was assassinated before Nemesis Prime could be implemented with the mental framework to focus his abilities.

Deserted, powerful and utterly psychotic he wanders the wastes of Cybertron to this day, ravaging anything and everything unlucky enough to be caught in his path with only the echoes of his confused screams to keep him company.




Now, on to the figure.


Disregarding repaints I feel the downside of a "dark twin" of basically anything is that they'll never have their own mold.
It will, usually, be referred to as "that repaint of..." instead of the intended character.

I said "usually" because I don't think Nemesis Prime suffers a lot from that problem, despite being a direct repaint of Universe Optimus Prime.


It may or may not be because his colorscheme of black, grey and sexy metallic teal is so different from Optimus's patriotic red and blue combined with no facial features, but he looks dark, brooding and awesome.
His eyes are painted red, but it's done in such a fashion the purplish blue light-piping isn't obscured making for an interesting result.

He transforms into a modern flatnosed truck and before you ask: No, he didn't come with a trailer and simply lacks the option of pulling one.
I'm okay with that because to date the trailers that come with whatever Prime feel like an afterthought.


As if they went:

"There, the bot's all done. Just look at this piece of moneymaking art!"
-"But Carl, we still need to do something with the trailer."
"Aw crap, Steve, you're right. The trailer..."
-"Why don't we just make it another weapons platform, Carl?"
"Good one, Steve, Geewunners love weapons platforms."


Gheheheheh, oh, I crack me up.


Okay, I'm done.

*snicker*

No, really.

*grin*



Okidoki, moving on.

He's quite well armed in that both his windvane and dual smokestacks transform into his weapons, respectively the "Disruptor Cannon" and "Stellar Converter Cannon".

Both weapons' transformations are nifty enough, but where the smokestacks/Stellar Cannon-thingy changes into a really awesome rifle, the windvane's Disruptor Cannon-mode ends up looking like a... well, it looks like a watergun.
Needless to say, I usually keep the windvane stored on his back, where it would end up post-transformation anyway.
There's also a way of attaching the smokestacks to the back-mounted windvane to end with "shouldercannons".
Something I don't care for, really.


Although I don't understand some choices, his transformation is satisfying and not too complex.

First and foremost I don't know why the truckmode's sidepanels end up so awkwardly on his arms.
Also, the truck's grill ends up on his back and he has a fake grill on his abdomen. This is something colloquially known as CHEATING!



All in all, he is freaking awesome.
Pleasantly poseable, a little small for his classification as a Voyager, but still bulky, impressive and has enough attitude.