After realizing how many of my favourite toys hail from the distant past of 2010 (a great year for Transformers toys!), I realized that I couldn't call them "the best X of the last decade!" anymore! That got me wondering what my favourite toys from the decade that just ended (2011 to 2020) were, and since it's New Year's Eve (or maybe New Year's Day, depending on
how much wine I drink how long I take to write this), today felt like a great day to actually sit down and figure it out! I had a lot of fun doing this, and I'd love to hear about everyone else's faves from recent years as well.
25th Anniversary Unicron (2011):
Yes, the first toy I'm talking about is a retool of a figure from 2003. It's my list, shut up. As a university student in 2003 I was far too poor to afford an Armada or Energon Unicron, so this was my first experience with the toy. I think it's safe to say that the original must have been one of the best of its decade as well, because even in 2021 it's a lot of fun. He's packed with gimmicks, with room for...well, more Minicons than I've ever owned, that's for sure! What he's not is "spherical", but my son certainly doesn't care about that when we have him eat whatever other toys are lying around, and it doesn't bother me either. And the robot mode, in spite of the planet half kibble on the back, is way more poseable than it has any right to be. I can understand the appeal of the super big Haslab one, if only because Unicron
deserves the "biggest Transformer toy ever" label, but I have a hard time imagining the new one will be anywhere near as much fun as this thing.
Prime First Edition Starscream (2011):
TF:Prime can't possibly be this old, can it? Oh, you say that the TV show premiered in 2010 and the finale was in 2013? Where did all that time go? Well, it doesn't matter how old this sly bastard is, because it's still the best toy any version of Starscream has ever gotten. And I was as surprised as anyone, because when I first saw the designs on TV I thought there was no way they'd be able to even make a passable toy of it. But this figure has great articulation, and it's SUPER expressive. It looks delicate but it's not fragile, which is actually a pretty good metaphor for the character as well. Its only real flaw is that the teeny, tiny feet can make it a bit difficult to actually get the guy to stand!
Generations Thrilling Thirty Sandstorm (2013):
Easily the best triple-changing figure Hasbro have ever made. And -- this is going to be a recurring theme as this post runs along -- Springer is just as much of a winner as Sandstorm is. I figured there wasn't much point in taking pictures of all the different variations of a mold, so where applicable I just grabbed the best and/or whichever one was easier to get off of the shelf. Both of them are great on their own merits but I think my favourite thing about both of them is how different they manage to feel. There's a ton of retooled parts between them, to the point where neither of the alt-modes even look like the same toy. Sandstorm winds up being the one I pull out to play with more often mostly because he won the QC lottery -- my Springer takes a bit of fiddling to get into either alt-mode and some parts don't fit great, where my Sandstorm transforms as smoothly as anything. A toy that's fun in all three modes and even more fun to switch between them.
Masterpiece Ratbat (2014):
So, spoiler alert, no version of Soundwave made the cut for this post. It turns out that if you're going to turn into a featureless box, being tiny and cute is the special sauce you need to become one of the neatest Transformers ever. Or maybe it's being a picture perfect representation of the coolest Decepticon leader ever? Ratbat here does literally nothing but transform, but it doesn't matter because he's adorable and transforming him is a ton of fun. He's also -- and this goes a long way towards explaining the lack of Soundwave on this list -- the only one of the MP cassettes that I can cycle through my MP Soundwave without something jamming. Which is hilarious, because he's actually a $8 bootleg that some dude mailed from China in a bubble envelope.
(On a serious note, I love both MP Soundwave and Siege Soundwave as action figures, but I haven't transformed either of them into their alt-modes more than five times and every time I do, I wonder why I bothered. Still lots of fun, but that's a high hurdle to clear when we're talking about my favourite
Transformer...)
Masterpiece Blue Bluestreak (2015):
The Datsun mold is easily the nicest of the MP cars -- a gorgeous car, a slick transformation and a very handsome, poseable robot, and nothing like the panel-forming, undetailed messes that modern MP cars have become. If they hadn't made this figure, then this spot on the list would have belonged to Prowl. But I think anyone who had the 1984 toy catalogue as a kid, or ever saw Bluestreak's box art anywhere in the 80s, can understand why I fell in love with these colours. The original blue Datsun Diaclone figure was gorgeous. Those same colours on a Masterpiece figure are
exquisite. And the alt-mode is amazing too.
(I love this car and this deco so much that I came very close to buying a 1982 (I think?) Datsun in these colours when one came up for sale locally a couple winters ago. Sadly, I had nowhere to store it though the long Manitoba winters.
)
Masterpiece Optimus Primal (2016):
Most Masterpieces are very much "the best toy we can make of the cartoon robot mode", with accurate real-life alt-modes where applicable. Primal feels like something else, though. Because his show model was literally just the toy with some surface changes, this MP feels more like the 90s toy remade with modern engineering. So it's no surprise at all that it's so, so much more fun to play with than the average Masterpiece figure. Most of them look great but become frustrating when you handle them. But in spite of a transformation that has a fair few wrinkles added on top of the 90s template, Optimus Primal is more fun than a barrel of munkys. I own the original mold and the Robot Masters version of the design. All three of them are among the best toys of their respective decades. But this one is the best of the bunch.
(I'm making a point of not ranking these 1 through 10 because I don't want to start picking at them looking for flaws, but Primal would almost certainly wind up as #1 if I did rank them.)
The Last Knight Scorn (2017):
I was surprised to find that only one Movie toy makes the cut here, because I'll always say that I have a bunch of movie toys that I love and I have a hard time conceptualizing that it's been 13 years since the first movie line. But it turns out that almost all the movie toys I love were all mode from 2008 to 2010, and I've only bought a whopping
nine movie figures in the last decade. Four of them were terrible. One broke. One got kitbashed into a G1 character. One of them is a redecoed Beast Wars toy that I don't even think of as a Movie figure most of the time. One of them was a smaller, overall less impressive version of Scorn. And the last one is this guy, who is absolutely fucking amazing. My wife and son gave him to me as a Christmas gift four years ago and he hasn't left the living room since. Both modes look great and he's got good poseability in both modes, but what gets him on this list is the same thing that got Prime Starscream here: the toy just has
presence. It's expressive and has a ton of personality in both modes. This figure is moviespikes to the nth degree, probably the Bayest of all the Bay figures I own, but the fact that they went all-out to make it so "Bay" is why it's such a standout.
Titans Return Misfire (2017):
I've probably said it a gazillion times, but G1 Misfire was the first Transformer I chose for myself and bought with my own money. My mother was DEEPLY CONCERNED at my choice, possibly because he was a bad guy or possibly because he was super bright pink, but I never regretted it. He was one of my favourites right up until his legs and cockpit fell off because I played with him too much (at which point I turned his broken torso upside down and pretended he was Ratbat...) All of which is to say that I'd have adored a new Misfire for existing no matter how the actual toy turned out. But it turned out great! Titans Return was my favourite line of the 2010s and Misfire was absolutely the best Titans Return toy.
(Triggerhappy, who uses the same lower body, is firmly #2. Their retool buddy Slugslinger is a bit farther down the list because he's a kibblemonster, but he's also a solid figure in his own right.)
Power of the Primes Outback (2018):
From the ROTF line in 2008 until 2010/early 2011, the Scouts were the bread and butter of Transformers. Then Cyberverse (the first incarnation) killed them, but when they came back under the Legends name for Thrilling 30 they immediately became a highlight again (until Hasbro axed them AGAIN and replaced them with Micromasters in late 2018). These guys were too small to ever be "10/10 best toy ever", but they were very, very consistently fun little basic figures even when the bigger price points suffered from obvious budget issues that sapped their quality for long stretches (Deluxes in the FoC and Thrilling 30 era, and Voyagers during the Prime Wars line). It didn't feel right to do a "best of" without at least one of them, and Outback here wins out as my favourite. I've got a pile of Scouts and Legends that I really enjoy, and any of POTP Beachcomber, CW Viper, CW Bombshell, CW Chop Shop, TR Brawn, TR Rewind, T30 Cosmos, Human Alliance Basic Sandstorm (who I need to replace, mine broke a few years ago), CW Skywarp or CW Blackjack would have been a fitting representative for a really good size class. But Outback here has always had a special place in my heart. I'm assuming it's the colours...tan and reddish-brown are a real unique combination when it comes to Transformers. But either way he's a great little pocket toy.
Siege Spinister (2019):
Obviously. Who did you think was writing this?
Even with the truly shameless second cockpit, though, Spinister has a really sleek copter mode. And his robot mode is one of the most dynamic of any figure I own. Add the gorgeous colours and one of the best implementations of the hilariously-named "C.O.M.B.A.T. System" to the mix, and you've got a really fun toy. Add to
that the fact that he's the sort of character that I never, ever thought would get a dedicated mold (after Titans Return came and went without them bothering to make any of the 1988 Headmasters) and you've got the recipe for one of my favourite figures of all time.
Honourable mentions:
Reveal the Shield Jazz (2011?) and downsized bootleg
MP10-VB Nemesis Prime (2017/18ish?)
Even the Wiki seems unsure about exactly when Jazz came out, which makes me think he was one of those "January 1st but he showed up earlier in some markets" releases that Hasbro seems oddly fond of. The specific Jazz in this picture, I definitely bought in 2011 -- it's the "white plastic forearms" one that I got at a clearance outlet that summer for $8 (the "black forearms painted white" Jazz that I bought at some point in winter 2010/2011 eventually became Skram). That's not what pushes him out of the top 10, though. What pushes him out is that he's one of my favourites
now...after I've put a lot of work into it and done a fair bit of painting. The stock toy, I tend to forget, was a lot plainer, though the Takara version is great right out of the box.
Nemesis is a bootleg, but (as Ratbat will attest!) that's not enough to drop him out of the running on its own either. It's a fun figure, but there are quality issues...all the screws are rusting after a couple years spent mostly in a glass case in a climate-controlled room, one of the hand joints have cracked (the risk you run with a downsized figure, alas), the hip joints have gotten disappointingly loose, and what little paint he has is a bit sloppy. I feel like the actual MP-10 would make a lot of people's lists. But for me, I honestly don't think I'd be anywhere near as impressed with the thing at full size.