Day two of JUST PRIMAL week takes a look at the many faces of Optimus Primal. While everyone recalls the original Transformers Beast Wars Optimus Primal "Black Jack" design in black and basic red, white, and blue colors. It turns out Hasbro and Takara changed things up quite a bit in the figure's colors, robot head, beast mask, robot chest, and ape face expression. I have purposely mistransformed these figures with the ape face out so we can see the changes on each figure as follows, left to right:
Beast Wars Optimus Primal (Black Jack) - Hasbro 1997
The original design with no mouth, and probably the most basic deco.
Beast Wars C-1 Convoy Special Grey Type - Takara 1998
Takara was the first to give it more of a show look with a grey body and metallic blue head.
10th Anniversary Optimus Primal - Hasbro 2007
Hasbro and Takara co-released a made-over figure with a new head that featured a mouth, dual antennas, no mask, a show-accurate robot chest, somber ape face, dark grey metallic body, and silver feet.
Legends LG02 Convoy - Takara 2014
The reissue was a recolor of the 10th Anniversary Optimus Prime with a plain dark brown tinted body and dark grey face,
Telemocha TM-SP DX Convoy - Takara 2007
My favorite of them all, the DX (Deluxe) edition uses the original mouth-less head and growling ape face mold. Takara did him up with a super detailed paint deco using a dark gray body, metallic blue head, and silver paint in place of the white for the most refined look, IMO.
| Series: | Beast Wars |
| Category: | Daily Prime |
| Author: | BaCon |
| Date: | March 16, 2021 |
