Here it is! The toy I was most anticipating in the entire Power of the Primes lineup. And I know it's the one I would most anticipate because Hasbro retailer presentation slides of the whole gaddang line were leaked months ago. At the time, we thought, whoops, the first half of the line got leaked! Ha ha, no, that was the actual whole thing. Power of the Primes is apparently pretty short, capping out at wave 4 instead of wave 6.
But, like, yeah, a sizeable Elita One has been on my wish list for years. I never thought we'd get one. Hasbro doesn't tend to make Transformer women larger than Deluxe. In 1999, we got a Mega (today's Voyager) Transmetal 2 Blackarachnia, and since then we've got... well, Victorion, the 6-member combiner team we voted on and made Hasbro produce. So my confidence in $25-$30 lady robot seemed like a pipe dream.
Because Elita One should be big and stompy. She's Elita One, dammit. Her name means the same thing that Optimus Prime's does. She should be his equal. Like, a big truck thing, and she should look like she could crush you.
But I will also allow "big jet thing."
Power of the Primes Elita-1 (why do they keep spelling it like that) is a massive retool of POTP Starscream. She's got an entirely different robot mode (well the biceps are the same), some new wingtips, and mostly the same jet mode. That's a lotta retooling. The toy otherwise operates and transforms exactly the same. Which is fine, because I really like POTP Starscream. The only thing I dislike about him are the...stickers.
Ugh, Elita One's stickers. Like Starscream, she has them covering the full surface of her wings. I will try to keep them, if only because they add more pink to her color scheme, and pink is very important. If Reprolabels comes up with replacement stickers that have equal or more amounts of pink, then that is what will happen.
or these will fray and peel from even minimal use like these stickers tend to and i'll have to yank 'em off regardless, who knows
Elita One is not quite the giant pink jet I was hoping for, if only 'cuz her color scheme skews towards red. It's an... almost pink dark red she has over most of her body, with a salmony color for accents. These plus the white and black result in a very striking color scheme, so it's not, like, terrible that she's not more pink. I prefer pink and also pink of the cartoon, but she still looks great.
Like Starscream, she forms the torso of a combiner robot. Unlike Starscream, we got the name for her combined form at Toy Fair. It's Elita Infin1te, with the 1. I don't know if I love or hate this. I may never know. It's an ongoing, mercurial process of acceptance and groaning.
