Optimus Prime returns yet again and surprise surprise its as yet another rare release. This time however it’s more of a recent release and one of the more many rarer versions of his G1 mould. The recently released Generation One CLEAR mould of this figure was limited to 500 pieces only! That means that already this figure has doubled in price within a matter of months since it’s now very hard to get a hold of this item. Since its limited to 500 pieces only you can expect this to be the new ‘Grand Maximus’ when it comes to rarity within about 20 or so years.

The first thing to note about this figure is that he is 99.9% transparent and almost 100% clear all over from all the pieces and parts. The only real part of this item that is not transparent aside from the packaging is the hose pipe that connects from the trailer/roller. Everything else on the item is 100% transparent from the wheel’s on Rollar all the way up to Primes Ion Blaster.

Optimus Prime is 99.9% transparent aside from his chrome thighs and the hub-caps on the wheels on the vehicle mode. The transformation is as easy as always but with this figure you almost feel scared at times to transform him considering how valuable he is and how much more valuable he will become over time. The figure does feel secure and holds together well and doesn’t feel like some cheap nasty knock-off that over recent Primes have felt like.

The body is ok for flexibility considering this mould is over 20 years old now yet still feels much better than some of the more recent toys released such as some of the Armada line figures. The arms on the toy have a lot of movement and can bend at the elbow sections and can rotate at the shoulder points. The knee area can bend but considering how the hip section can’t actually bend it really does limit the leg area of the toy.

Prime is transparent all over and really does look amazing when standing next to other clear figures such as Beast Wars Clear Optimus Primal/BotCon Clear Classic Mirage/E-Hobby Alternators Clear Mirage. It really is something to be impressed by the amount of detail that has gone into making Prime clear and see-threw all over. The gun holds in Primes hands but the mould has obviously been copied from the very first original mould of the figure as that toy came with a gun but it couldn’t actually be held in place correctly and the gun had to be positioned at a 90 degree angle or else the gun would simply just fall out of Primes hand every single time the figure was moved or even if a small breeze came along. If your very lucky you can get the gun to hold in place….for roughly 10 seconds IF your that lucky before gravity takes effect or when Prime just loses interest and drops the gun. Its odd because the recently reissued versions of the mould came with a slightly modified version of Primes Ion Blaster so that he could hold it in place correctly, its rather off why the older version of the gun was used rather than the updated version of the mould.

The cab section of Prime looks as good as always and also has a solid window on the front area of the cab, again this seems rather odd because your led to think this mould was used from the very first mould but slight modifications make you think this figure is almost a mix match of the several Prime moulds used. The front of the cab section opens up and as before you can place the Fist’s of Prime inside the cab section were there are also two small seats that were originally used for Diaclone drivers.

The Trailer for Prime looks as good as always but this time you can see thought the thing this time! You can see Rollar sitting in place and the twin blaster/repair bay section all in place without having to open the trailer. Once you do open the trailer however you get to see just how good it is but only this time in transparent form. The repair bay area is the same as always with 2 small missiles connected to the repair bay crane, there is also a small window area in the crane and also two seats on each side of the trailer. For those who didn’t know those sections in the trailer are for ‘Diaclone’ Drivers which were basically very small men who used to go inside the vehicles. These were never used in the Transformers line and were only used in the Pre-Transformers ‘Diaclone’ toy line.

Thankfully this recent reissue of Prime still has all the firing springs for all the missiles and also includes the long smoke stacks for Prime himself rather than the earlier cut-down version of Primes smoke stacks in case of fear of stupid children ramming Primes smoke stacks into there eyes. The missiles for the mould still fire at a very far distance but yet again considering how rare the item is you would probably feel like cutting your wrists if you fired one of the missies……..and then lost the thing never to be found again. Thanks to the springs still being present this also means that Rollar has his ‘shooting’ station back again, his was a small docking area inside of the vehicle mode which had to small holes which the back end of Rollar would park into. A button at the back of the Trailer would be pressed which would send Rollar speeding out of the trailer at a very fast pace….however you remember how rare the figure is and you kinda stop after a short while because fears of breaking the switch pop into your head as if anything broke on the toy itself it isn’t like you can just hop on Ebay and find a clear replacement part.

The Trailer has many uses and can be used to either store Rollar when in vehicle mode or you can remove Rollar and add another G1 Autobot vehicle such as Sideswipe or Brawn for example. Once the trailer has been opened up there are two places on each side of the trailer were vehicles can be placed. A figure can also be placed standing up next to the lauchers/repair area and can be made to look as if there using the crane, however its odd how in all this time neither Hasbro or Takara have added pegs to the under side of the crane so that figures can actually be holding the crane (Think Machine Wars Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode and you will understand what I am going on about) because it would have been so simple to do and would have improved the toy greatly.

Rollar is back again and he looks more amazing than ever before. As previously he is able to attach Optimus Primes Ion Blaster and the hose pump connector onto the top section of Rollar himself. There are also seats inside Rollar himself and these were also originally designed to be used for Diaclone Drivers. The amount of seats that are actually on Prime make you wonder in time why Hasbro or Takara never made any human characters for the Transformers line as it would have been so easy to have created a small human figure for the characters such as Sparkplug or Spike.

There are stickers for the toy but lets be honest here, you would have to be fucking crazy to actually put the stickers on this thing! An original Optimus Prime toy alone is worth a lot of cash these days and a rare version such as the ‘Gold’ millennium is worth even more. So taking into account once again that this toy is a 500 only piece then adding the stickers to this mould would probably decrease the value of the figure and also over time the stickers would peal and tare (hence why we have Reprolabels.com) which would damage the toy.

A feature missing on this item that would have been really good for this release would have been a clear G1 Matrix for Prime. The Millennium Gold release of Prime which had ‘Gold’ sections instead of chrome areas came with a Golden Matrix of leadership for Prime so it would have been nice if the clear release of Prime came with a Matrix or Energon Axe like the recent Box Reissue Takara recently released. Sadly this release comes with none of these added extra’s which is a real shame as it would have added serious points to this already fantastic figure.

The figure comes boxed in the original G1 design with a foam insert to help protect the toy. The back of the box has a G1 battle poster while the front has images of Prime in a kinda comic look design while the toy of the box shows images to the toy transforming. The images are of the original colored version of the toy and not the clear version. Inside the box are the stickers and a catalog showing other transformers available much like how Prime was first released.

Overall this is an amazing piece but really this is only for serious die-hard fans because this item will need serious looking after and especially if you wish to preserve the figure for the future. It’s an amazing piece of Transformers history to own but sadly it isn’t one that you can really get down and actually play with. The fact you can’t really apply the stickers is rather disappointing, well you can add the stickers but there is a chance that the figure can decrease in value over time if you do choose to apply the stickers. You certainly can not leave this item out in plain day light because the massive problem with ‘clear’ figures is that sun damage can effect these more than normal painted figures and since were once again drawn to just how rare and valuable this item is then we remember that this item is really more of a ‘show and tell’ thing rather than something to really get down and play with. An amazing piece but only one for serious collectors.