Megacon 2025 has been happening this weekend and Hasbro decided to reveal some exciting releases, including the next HasLab figure: Liokaiser from Transformers: Victory. While I won’t get that figure, I will be getting the two I’ll show below.
Despite its QC issues, I’ve always wanted to get my hands on Mastermind Creations’ Knight Morpher Commander, their take on the steam locomotive-inspired Optimus Prime from The Transformers: Evolutions – Hearts of Steel comic book mini-series. Being their first offering, it’s almost impossible to get a hold of that figure nowadays. But it looks like Hasbro has got me covered as they are doing some Hearts of Steel figures as part of the returning Transformers Timelines brand, more of that later.
As mentioned, Hearts of Steel Optimus Prime is based on a steam locomotive, since this version of the story has the Autobots and Deceptions reactivated much earlier during the industrial revolution. Now this is probably just me getting used to the colors of the Knight Morpher Commander, but I find the red and blue of this figure to be a little bright, like almost Fisher-Price bright. Regardless, I am getting one, though technically I am not getting just one figure when getting this figure.
That’s because this Hearts of Steel set is a two-pack, with Optimus Prime coming along with Starscream. He’s also another figure that got the Knight Morpher treatment from Mastermind Creations so this set is really has you covered. This also brings us to the reintroduction of the Transformers Timelines brand. To those unfamiliar, this was the brand given to figures exclusive to BotCon, most notable being their Shattered Glass recolors/retools.
The idea for these new Transformers Timelines figures is that it will feature different re-imaginings and reinterpretations of the same four characters: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Starscream. Unfortunately, that would mean those looking forward to a Hearts of Steel Shockwave might not want to hold their breath. But we’ll never know, especially if these become very popular. On that note, I do want to have a modern figure of War Within Optimus Prime since outside of some third-party releases, the only official release we got was part of the Titanium Series.
This two pack, and the Megatron-Bumblee one, will also come inside a steampunk themed book-style packaging, with a cardboard sleeve showing the solicitation photos and all the legalities. As for the size, they are supposedly all Deluxe-class, which some might find disappointing, but this is yet another good reason to keep my Deluxe-class Optimus Prime figures. Both two packs will be Hasbro Pulse exclusives and will be released this fall.
Then there’s Voyager-class “Rescue Bot” Heatwave as part of Transformers: Age of the Primes. He’s a retool, or pre-tool as some might argue, of Legacy Bulkhead and it does look the part. I don’t have any particular attachments to this character, but my interest stems from Heatwave being the leader of the Rescue Bots, and I sort of, kind of, want to collect him for that reason. Not really sure.
