The funny thing about a franchise is how something can be an integral part of it while not having part of its original run. Nemesis Prime with Spinister brings back the tradition of black Optimus Prime repaints, something that wasn't de rigueur until about 2000. At least not in the USA - around that time Hasbro brought out a few versions of Scourge, a black Optimus Prime clone of sorts - and fell in love with the idea. Between Hasbro and Takara, nearly every line has had some sort of black and teal Optimus Prime repaint with virtually every mold being subjected to it as a rite of passage.
This particular Nemesis Prime is a servant to Unicron, so says the cardback. The toy is a repaint of a 2013 Optimus Prime that shipped nonstop for close to a year - odds are your local Big Lots! still has him for ten bucks. The figure is about 4-inches tall and has a wonderful paint job - and in most spots, it works. The Decepticon symbol is hidden in the shadows, and the grey area around his neck doesn't quite mesh with the head and chest - but hey, that's what you get sometimes. What I found particularly neat was the decision to change the face plate to the teal color rather than silver - we don't see that much. Articulation is the same as before, and while the sickly grey/green doesn't do it for me on the core parts I really love the silver paint and teal highlights all over his body. What's more, Spinister as a "Targetmaster" gun really works well here - it pops nicely, and is the perfect weapon for this figure. It really stands out as a change, plus Nemesis can carry the helicopter blades as a secondary weapon. The original Ion Blaster is packed with Suppressor in the Cliffjumper set, so you'll need to snag that if you want it.
Transformation is still quite simple. The head, chest, and arms al fold in while you rotate the body around the torso, and presto - you're a truck! The truck itself is a nice but small size, with a 5mm port on top. You can put Spinister in there in gun mode, or the chopper blades, or another weapon.
The wheels roll nicely and there are some nice silver stripes here - it's nothing overly special, but it looks pretty solid. There are no visible sigils in vehicle mode, which makes it a pretty good disguise. Well, if you ignore the robot feet hanging off the back, anyway.
Spinister is pretty cool - if you liked Blazemaster from last year, it's the same basic mold with a different color layout. Red dots on the chest and head make him look a little more menacing, while more plastic has been turned to purple. He's a tiny bit more involved than some of the other mini guys, but the important thing is that he looks cool in all modes. We really need more purple like this - and the hands have 3mm pegs if you have any such accessories handy for his use. For $10, getting him as an accessory is a really nice touch and his bretheren, these mini sidekicks, will be missed when they're gone.
While you've seen these molds before, the new faceplate makes Nemesis Prime look a little more fresh and Spinister is an excellent variant on the mold. For ten bucks I feel that it's a pretty solid deal, even if the characters have no real history together. Decepticons in this line are a little less frequent than I would prefer, but such is life. I'll take what I can get, and I'm glad I could get this.
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