Yes, this was an impulse buy. But no buyer’s remorse. I’m a fan of Primitive, P-rod, and skate culture in general, so it’s cool to see these two worlds collide. After all, so many subcultures share the same fanbase, history, and timeline.

And then there’s this silly excuse for a “base”.

OK now that we’ve done shredding for a bit at the Cybertron X-games, let’s get to the main event.

This guy is beefy. Looks like Optimus took ‘roids and became a linebacker. The gold accents make me think of a football team outfit based on Roman Centurions. It’s of course a take on Powermaster Prime, where he’s all powered up in armor, and it has the same chunky, blocky style but much more “bruh” than the other incarnations.

Woah! So this is where the football references really shine. Prime’s face, with the facemask and pointy antennae we’ve grown to love is now a football helmet, with Orion Pax’s head inside! It’s like a freaky reveal, with some very meta-ish implications for Prime origin stories. Is Optimus really a little Transformer inside a powered suit, and then Prime gets his own powered suit to become Powermaster Prime, like some weird robotic Matroshka doll? Like Actionmasters? We’ll never know what they were thinking here… but it’s creepy cool!

All in all, I don’t really ever have any regretful purchases when it comes to Transformers. Even the simplest little blocky bot brings me some amount of joy. That said, I don’t need to accumulate any more plastic that isn’t a “keeper”. While this one isn’t the kind of quality build of a Masterpiece or even a G1 figure, it’s still a slice of pop culture history that I wouldn’t mind keeping on a shelf and transforming every once in a while. The skater gimmicks are pretty nifty and I think it’s a cool crossover. But I wouldn’t shed a tear if I had to part with it either. Any Optimus is better than no Optimus, in the end.