I was an infant in 1984Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Lint: I don't think 1984 Optimus Prime is overrated. Take yourself back to 1984 and don't tell me you didn't think that was a DAMN awesome toy! He was absolutely the coolest toy of that line that every kid wanted (the most popular Decepticon was Soundwave). Back in those days, you either had an Optimus Prime, or you wanted an Optimus Prime!!
The great thing about Optimus Prime was that he wasn't just another Transformer action figure - he was also a playset - a mobile headquarters for all your other Autobots! And he was _huge_... he just towered over all the other Autobots of that year. The only Transformers that could match his size were Soundwave and Megatron. And the engineering of that toy was damn fine by the standards of the day.
But I still grew up with Transformers. Perhaps the hype had died over the Optimus Prime toy by 1990 but he was still available due to Classics reissues. The only awe I ever felt for this toy was:
A) Huge pricetag
B) Physical size compared to other Transformers
He turns into a frieght truck. When all the other Autobots transform into awesome sports cars who the heck would want a freight truck? Sure I wanted him but on my list of wanted G1 Autobots at the time he would have been behind all the dinobots, just about all the 'deluxe sized' Autobot cars, any autobot flier and any combiner gestalt.
As for playset value, I was more excited by the Turtle Van.
Micromaster bases and the likes of Metroplex and Fort Max are the only playsets done right in the TF universe.
Now Soundwave I wanted badly. He turned into a walkman, the most sophisticated portable music device of the era, and had awesome articulation and proportions. Whatmore he had an army of transformable cassettes he could store in his chest!
Alas I don't think he was reissued until the noughties?
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