Back in August, I wrote about Super7’s first “Fallen Leader” Optimus Prime ReAction figure — That toy adult collectable was just a Target-exclusive redeco of their initial OP offering. But since 2021 is the 35th anniversary of 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie, I guess someone at Super7 decided it was time to update the figure of the dead Autobot leader.
The new offering is the same figure except for one pretty obvious change: Optimus’ chest is opened to display the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, just like when Prime was laying on his death bed.
Side-by-side, the two figures are basically indistinguishable from each other, except for the open chest cavity. The Matrix isn’t removeable, by the way. It’s sculpted in place and painted with metallic silver, gold, and blue paint.
You can’t REALLY tell from this photo, but the only differences in the two from behind are 1) the copyright date stamp on the back of Prime’s right thigh, and 2) the black block over his butt doesn’t have the sides fully painted on the newer version. But from a straight-on shot like this one, it’s really hard to tell the difference between the two.
Still, I’m glad Super7 found a way to give us a new ReAction figure of Optimus Prime. They’re currently up to five — The original release, the Target-exclusive Fallen Leader and CyberChrome (pictured above) repaints, the Movie Fallen Leader, and the preorders-are-sold-out Golden Lagoon Optimus Prime, which is, again, just the original ReAction offering, but this time painted in all gold to have OP match that one scene in the 1985 episode, The Golden Lagoon.
Despite what people who’ve been reading my site for the last year-and-change might be led to believe, honestly, Optimus Prime is not my personal favorite Transformers character. However, he’s certainly the most iconic. It definitely makes the most sense to release the same character in as many different variations as possible, because someone’s gonna buy all of them.
Optimus Prime, Transformers, and all releated characters are owned by Hasbro.