In the same box from BigBadToyStore as Artfire was Prime Starquake and Dark Energon Wheeljack.  I keep internally calling it my Super Expensive Box of Entirely Redecoes, but I think that title's taken by BotCon each year.   Skyquake I had on preorder 'cuz, well, he's a tailender, so no guarantee he'll hit stores in great numbers.  Beast Hunters stuff is already coming out, so his time on the shelf is limited.  And I had Dark Energon Wheeljack on preorder 'cuz he's friggin' Slicer.  In fact, he had Decepticon faction symbol Reprolabels stickers on him in about thirty seconds, once I looked up on Transformers Wiki to see whether he had photos taken of him yet.

Because Skyquake has been dead in fiction for years (seriously, he showed up to die in the first episode of Transformers Prime's proper first season), I started to come up with a backstory for him.  He doesn't really have a present- or a future-story, so that's all he gets.  And, hey, look, he came in a box from BBTS with another guy based on a Europe-only release from the early Nineties.  That's right, he and Slicer are now super badass partners-in-evil.  In the past.  Before Skyquake got locked in a closet in a mountain on Earth.  Where Slicer is these days, I dunno.

I have wanted this exact toy for the past six years.

Back when Transformers ended in North America in 1990ish, Europe still kept cranking out robots.  One of them was a redeco of Action Master Wheeljack as a new Decepticon named Slicer.  I didn't learn about this guy until about a decade later, after immersion in the Internets, but once I did I needed on.  Not the toy itself, really, but I really really wanted a transformable Wheeljack toy in Slicer's colors.  It seemed easy enough!  Well, sort of, since Generation 1 stuff was pretty dead at the time.

My desire gathered steam when Energon Downshift, Wheeljack's doppelganger, showed up in 2004.  Well, hell yes!  They could easily redeco that sucker into Slicer!  Easy buck for Hasbro, super love for me.  But it didn't happen for some reason probably related to nobody knowing/caring about Slicer.  (Also, whoops, there's an Autobot symbol molded onto his collarbone.)  But when Fun Publications got the convention/fan club  license in 2005, I had new people to pester for Slicer.  I photoshopped up a "fake convention set" with an Action Master theme which included Slicer from Energon Downshift.  I must have put Slicer-from-Energon-Downshift on my BotCon feedback form every year for five years.

Some time in 2008, when the Shattered Glass text stories were in full swing, Shattered Glass Wheeljack made an appearance, and, woo, he was Energon Downshift in Slicer colors!  So close!  So close I could taste it!  But I worried that we might get a Shattered Glass Wheeljack toy instead of a Slicer one.  The name on the profile card is a technicality, but a technicality that my brain would always register in the back of my cranium, even on pleasant days.  On the other hand, this deco-sharing might be the most practical way to get what I wanted in spirit, if not the letter?  Hmm.

And sweet hot damnation, 2010 is Hallelujah Time.  And "Decepticon Slice" is just as glorious as I have dreamed.  As I mentioned, he does have that Autobot logo sculpted into his collarbone, but it's painted purple like the Shattered Glass Autobot logo so you can use your Slicer toy as a Shattered Wheeljack if you wanted.  But he's nominally Slicer, which was my initial preference.

Over the course of BotCon weekend, I kept telling folks "Slicer was made just for me!"   To which they reminded me that if any of this year's set was "just for me," it was Shattered Ravage.  Well, fuck it, both are.  Also, most of the rest of the set.  They're all for me.  But Slicer is especially for me, because Slicer is my pipe dream come to life.  His vibrant blue and warm gray and copper warm up all the right neurons.  I do kind of think his translucents should have been orange to "match" his copper, but dark red will do.  It's what color  his windows are supposed to be, so I understand.  I love Slicer so much that I carried him around with me most of the weekend.  He rarely left my side.

On the other hand, they had to go and make him French.  Which means I've been pronouncing his name wrong all these years.  Hmm.

If there's anything unfortunate about him, it's that he was the Attendee Exclusive.  If you bought the full Primus box set and showed up at the convention, you got one.  To get a second one, you have to get another Primus box set.  So if you want both a Slicer and a Shattered Wheeljack, you're looking at eBay!  And since he's given one per person, no extras, he's gonna be an expensive find.

Ah well.  After he's done his rounds on my BotCon shelf, I'm gonna sit him next to his other Action Masters-who-got-transformable-toys brethren.  Hello, Axer!  Hello, Banzai-Tron and Gutcruncher!  Hello, this year's Double Punch!

(I have decided, incidentally, that the running boards kibble along Slicer's forearms are actually blades, like the ones on movie Sideswipe.  See, that's why they call him Slicer!)