Masterpiece Exhaust

As those of you who follow my Facebook page know, I've had some issues getting my Masterpiece Exhaust.  Then again, no one follows my Facebook page.  At any rate, let me relate the long saga of Exhaust.  I pre-ordered him from BBTS as soon as the listing went up, only to discover later that they would not be able to carry him thanks to the fine people at Marlboro Cigarettes.  Everyone, it seemed, was dropping their listings due to the threat of legal action from the weasels at Phillip Morris.  Luckily, Colbey from Random Toy Reviews had a secret supplier that I will not name that he uses to get a lot of his foreign figures from.  He was nice enough to let me know who he uses and I was able to order from them and I was a very happy man.  That is until he was actually released.  I received an email stating that they weren't sure how many they were going to get, or when they'd be able to receive them.  Pins and needles, man, pins and needles.  Luckily, a couple of days before Easter, I was invoiced for shipping, which meant I was getting my Exhaust!  This was good, as I noticed that he was going for way too much on the secondary market.  No way would I pay those kind of prices.  Had I realized what a frenzy would be going on over this figure, I may have ordered a couple of extras.  Good way to pay for more acquisitions...

Photo from TFWiki.net

As with most Japanese figures, I was introduced to Exhaust through the Dreamwave comics and message boards.  I had no knowledge of Marlboor or his history in the line.  I don't think I would ever own an actual Marlboor Diaclone figurem but I am glad to get the Masterpiece figure.

Here's Exhaust right out of the box.  We're not going to go into a lot of detail here because this is really just a repaint of Wheeljack.  The deco for Exhaust isn't spot on to Marlboor Wheeljack, but we all knew that going in.  Changes were made to satisfy the fine tobacco purveyors at Phillip Morris, but they still weren't enough.

Here's an overhead shot showing off the deco.  The chevron on the hood has been altered, and the ones on the green boxes have been eliminated altogether.

As nice as the paint job is on the car, I really love robot mode.  The red really jumps out at you.  Those purple wings are to die for.  And look at those twin mounted missile launchers!  The real star of the show, however, is the head sculpt.

That visor is impossibly cool.  The stoic shape of the mouth, the points on the head, all of that just adds up to awesome.  The head is dead on to the original Marlboor sculpt.  I'm assuming, since I haven't actually seen Marlboor.  Still, it's damn cool.

It's amazing what some different colors can do for a figure.  Yes, Masterpiece Wheeljack was already cool and incredible, but Exhaust just seems to jump right out at you.  Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that there hasn't been a Decepticon release in something like two years!  Come on, Takara, get us more Decepticons already.

Exhaust comes with an Immobilizer as an accessory.  He can hold it in his hand, as well.  It's neat, I suppose.  Certainly G1 accurate.

If you can, find Exhaust.  I wouldn't recommend paying the insane prices he's going for on eBay, but hopefully there are some that can be had at reasonable prices.