Optimus Prime [Legacy United/Voyager Class]

Returning to Legacy's updates of Transformers Animated characters is Optimus Prime! The leader of the Autobots had a slightly different role in Animated, being in charge of a crew of misfits in a setting where Prime was a rank without a magic device granting extra abilities. Animated has been in regular rotation on the Transformers channel, so I'm sure the renewed interest is helping sell these cool new toys. Optimus is a solid update to the original toy. Like the other Animated Legacy toys, he can fit in next to your traditional Transformers just fine... but still retains that Animated aesthetic. Unlike the original toy, there isn't a flip up 'battle mask' mouth plate. Instead you have an open faced Optimus, which is how he normally appears onscreen in Animated when not in a fight.

Optimus has his rocket powered battle axe, that can be extended for a two handed weapon. It can also be stored in vehicle mode, which looks totally natural. Transformation from robot to truck isn't very hard. There is a few odd spots where arranging the robot mode arms into truck bits felt odd to me initially until it just suddenly worked. Which probably means I was doing something wrong. There is a spot where you must rotate his hips and it just did not work on mine. Come to find out, many have been poorly trimmed from the mold sprues at the factory. Most folks are dissembling theirs to file down the spot... but somehow my giant hands wore it down after a few twisting attempts.

Once transformed, Optimus looks like he should. It's the 'cab' portion of a firetruck, the rest is not included nor was it with many of the toys during Animated run. Ultimately, it just looks like a standard Optimus Prime cab with a light bar. I liked this toy a lot. It's a good update of a great design. There's plenty of articulation and despite an easily fixable factory error, there's nothing to complain about. Animated homages Mighty Orbots in a few different ways, but it wasn't until this particular figure of Optimus that I noticed his design was pretty similar to Tor. I'm not sure if that was completely intentional or just a coincidence, but I'm not complaining.