this is the look that Thundercracker and the other seekers had back in the first IDW comics, so this is probably one of the few times Hasbro based their design on an IDW one, instead of the other way around (unless the toy design was shelved for almost a decade). Brainstorm *might* have been another, but basically all the Thrilling 30 deluxes were toy first designs, regardless of what online commenters have said