Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
The source of the Combaticon photos is a Vietnamese hobby shop, so these are likely to have been poached from the factory... or Hasbro are releasing toys early in Vietnam as soon as they are manufactured.
Heh, wasn't the avoidance of factory poaching one of the reasons why HasTak relocated manufacturing from China to Vietnam (as well as cost)? Although I guess it's not surprising that security at a factory in an even cheaper labour market wouldn't be much improved.
Quote Originally Posted by TAAUBlaster View Post
Wow, not even remolding Blast Off's head is really lazy on Hasbro's part. Not to mention that I'm not a fan of using a jet in the first place.

Don't know if its just the photo, but Bruticus' arms look way to long and spindly compared to his chunkier torso and legs. Brawl and Swindle are looking mighty fine though!
I can understand not remoulding, as it is costly; and these don't seem to be the gang-moulded redecos that we get with toys like Dead End/Streetwise etc. And I personally approve of the choice of having Blast Off as a fighter jet rather than a space shuttle, since it actually makes more logical sense in a team of combat vehicles (which a shuttle isn't). Besides, Blast Off was already a jet in Fall of Cybertron. Having said that, I think that a better solution would've been to simply repaint Firefly. Same alt mode, but the head looks more similar to Blast Off's IMHO.