Cyclonus?

So I won this auction for Cyclonus. Normally I'd be ecstatic over this. He is on my list, after all. That coupled with the fact that the auction was for a blue eared version and it was only $50 piqued my curiosity.  Could this be too good to be true?  I've seen regular versions going for over $75 recently and I just didn't believe that my luck would be continuing after the awesome Repugnus figure I had just received.

I bombarded the seller with questions.  How are the joints?  What about sticker condition?  Is this a knock off?  The seller patiently answered every question and rather quickly.  I did all of the research I possibly could on my iPhone while at work.  I looked at Heroic Decepticon's Cyclonus post to compare what he had to what the seller was showing me.  Trying to decide on authenticity by viewing pictures on an iPhone is difficult.  For the life of me, I couldn't tell the difference between the regular and blue eared versions.  Was I color blind? 

I only had three hours to make up my mind.  The auction was ending quickly, and Cyclonus was still sitting there without a bid.  That made me even more nervous.  Why would a variant figure at that price still be sitting there without a bid?  Tick tock, tick tock.  I really need a Cyclonus...  For some reason, I decided to take the risk and place my bid.  I won!  And I won it for the starting price of $50! 

Cyclonus!

 

So he arrived and I opened him to compare him to the pictures that I found on the web and I must say, I think I may have found a winner, but I'm not sure.  I still have a question about his feet.  Is the blue eared Cyclonus supposed to have metal or plastic feet?  Mine has plastic.  Any help with identifying if this is a real deal or not would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I still don't know.

Anyway, on to Cyclonus.  I was never that big a fan of the Season 3 figures.  Actually, I never liked the Floro Dery designed ones.  I've never been sure why.  The animated versions were always good, but the toys were always lacking to me, even as a kid.  This intensified as I got older.  Because of this, I was really worried about getting Cyclonus.  Judging by the pictures I've seen of him, he just looked very awkward.  He has big hands, an odd shaped head, and just looks gangly.  I had never seen a Cyclonus in person because I could never find one as a kid.  Then again, I never really looked that hard. 

Man, was I wrong.  This guy is actually a pretty neat figure!  I love the fact that he's tall, keeping him in line with the Seekers.  His space ship mode is good as well.  All in all, even if this isn't a blue eared version, I'm glad I got him.  I need more Decepticons, after all.  Now I just need to decide if I want to drop the coin for his Targetmaster version, which is ridiculously priced, if you ask me.  Now that I have Cyclonus, I can take a few weeks off from purchases to focus on a few other projects, like finishing the restoration of my Starscream, cleaning my old TFs, and a custom Seeker that I've been planning.  That is, unless another deal falls into my lap.