With the summer release of the Transformers Legacy Evolution War Dawn 2-Pack with Dion & Erial (Ariel), we can reunite A Hero Is Born Orion Pax with his young friends, before the war.
I would never have imagined Hasbro would make toys for characters that appeared in just one episode, but here they are, and they turned out great. I think the Studio Series 1986 Kup mold use for both Dion and Orion, works quite well for capturing the cartoon likeness.
While I don't like Orion and Dion sharing a mold, Dion looks really good. Better than Orion for that matter since there's more retooling that's gone into it. Had Orion had new arms as well then I'd like it more. But as these in hand images show, using PotP Orion won't work either. While it looks better in robot mode and is a different mold than Dion, it's too big and well, the vehicle mode is that of Optimus, not Orion. If only TR Orion was retooled to better resemble Orion like SS86 Kup was. And T30 Orion doesn't look like G1 Orion so that's not really an option either even if that mold still holds up. Dion looks better overall though since SS86 Kup's design works better for Dion's character model than it does for Orion's.
Ariel looks okayish I guess. I mean the robot mode of Legacy Prime Arcee looks somewhat like G1 Ariel but that's about it. It's just a passing resemblance at most. This is more "shoehorning" it to work more than anything. While not as bad as Tow-Line, it's still pretty bad. What doesn't help is that the mold in general isn't that great. I don't hate it but having three versions already is more than enough, even if there's still others I'd want from this as well and Ariel was never one of them. It wouldn't make sense to use the Elita-1/Minerva mold since we know Ariel and Elita have different bodies entirely and the mold would need quite a bit of retooling to make it work. So there's the real problem, there aren't any other mold to really use at that point. Siege Chromia or SS86 Arcee wouldn't work and Blackarachnia and Airazor really wouldn't work. Possibly Siege Arcee? More "shoehorning" though but at least it's a more solid robot mode and is easy to mod. It's not like Elita-1 is using that mold anymore either lol. Going from a retooled Arcee car to the Elita/Minerva car would seem like an upgrade too and work better than a motorcycle being upgraded into a car. Maybe be just need Hasbro to stop being scared and do Elita as a voyager again but as her own mold and not based on around another character like Minerva or Starscream. PotP Elita is okay but she's too tall now with the new scale since Siege. She towers over Optimus.
I'm still going to get the set though. I'm just typing down my thoughts.