Allegiances: Autobot
Size: Voyager
Difficulty of Transformation to Truck: Hard
Difficulty of Transformation to Jet: Medium
Color Scheme: Dark blue, moderately light pale red, light milky brownish gray, silver, and some pale metallic gold, black, transparent greenish yellow, dark metallic blue, and some moderately light sky blue
Rating: 8.2

    "Diac", Optimus Prime's Titan Master, has his general look based off of the pilots from the "Diaclone" series, which was a Japanese series that eventually spawned many of the early Transformers toys (minus the pilots). In robot mode, Diac looks quite a lot like a human in armor, with fists molded on the inside of the arm pieces, angular details on the chest, and rectangular details on the legs and feet. The head is molded to look like a human with a helmet on over the "core head", though the mold detailing is small enough where it's a bit ambiguous whether it's an actual human or a robot who just has a human-like face, so of course that decision's up to you. Unforutnately in this mode most of Diac's plastic is a fairly ugly milky light brownish gray which just does not look great, especially as a main color. Fortunately there's at least a bit of paint, with some dark blue on the lower legs and silver on the head (the latter of which is kind of odd, actually, and I worry slightly about it scraping off over time). It's still a pretty boring scheme overall, though. Like all Titan Master figures, Diac can move back-and-forth at the hips and knees (as one, each leg is bolted together), as well as limited ball movement at the neck and shoulders. In head mode, Diac is pretty predictable-- I mean, it's an Optimus Prime head. You're quite familiar with it, I'm sure. The only difference from the usual is that some of the side antennae are milky gray because of the color breakup, but the larger toy itself helps take care of this by partially covering up those gray antennae with further-out blue antennae. Otherwise, this is a spot-on Prime sculpt with dark blue plastic, silver on the forehead vent and faceplate, and blue eyes.

    One Titans Return Optimus Prime is not enough, says Hasbro! So here's another. Optimus Prime's first mode is a truck-- not just his usual truck cab, but rather a tanker truck. This mode is a bit of a nod to his G2 "Laser Prime" version, which had a similar alt mode. This mode is remarkably solid-looking for the most part, with the only really oddity being the gap in the back bumper and a gray rectangular bit sticking up out of the cab roof, both of which are used for the transformation to other modes. The proportions for this mode also seem SLIGHTLY off, with the truck cab being a bit too wide and the tanker section seeming just a tad short. However, these are minor issues, and not glaring at all. As you'd expect for an Optimus Prime toy, the cab is red-- a fairly pale shade of red, actually, and the back half is dark blue... well, at least on the top and on the bottom sides, behind the wheels. Because this is a tanker truck, most of the "tanker" section itself is actually painted silver (along with the front grill) or covered with a blue-and-silver foil sticker stripe that goes down the length of the tanker, and like most stickers used on modern TFs, looks kinda cheap and tacky and just should have been paint apps. For some reason, however, the first third of the tanker portion is NOT painted silver, but is actually a light milky brownish gray plastic, which really kinda jumps out against the silver paint and foil stickers in an unflattering manner. The dark blue plastic on the top "stripe section" and bottom portions of the tanker, and metallic dark blue paint on the windows, looks aces, though--they're both just really good shades. Of course, the tires are black, along with a double-barreled gun, which can hold a Titan Master in its seat. There's also some transparent greenish yellow used both for the top window covering up a little seat where Diac can sit inside the front portion of the tanker, and for a transparent sword weapon. I'm not too fond of this color, mostly because of the greenish tint of it. Just a more "pure" transparent yellow would have fit more with the color scheme, methinks. Because of the way the pegs and peg holes are situated, neither of Optimus' weapons can plug in discreetly in this mode-- they both kind of hang off the sides of the tanker rather obviously. The mold detailing is moderately well-done in this mode, being quite detailed in certain parts (such as along the sides and the front of the cab, as well as on the sword weapon and top of the cockpit window), while some sections, like the tanker, are quite smooth except for some "bolt" divots here and there. The smokestack details on the sides are begging for some silver paint, as are the wheel hubs, but otherwise Optimus has a decent amount of paint in this mode.
    Because Optimus is a voyager in the Titans Return line, he has another alt mode-- this one a jet. Optimus' jet mode calls back to... well... nothing Optimus, it just makes it obvious that this is a "pre-mold" for Octane, who has the same two alt modes. Anyways, to get to this mode you turn the truck mode around, fold out airplane cockpit halves and rotate the wheels back so they're not readily visible, rotate the truck cab sections to the sides, unfold the rear tailfin piece, and then-- in a rather ingenious manner-- unfold the wings from in the middle of the tanker truck mode. It's quite impressive, how those wings are able to slot in the middle of the tanker truck mode without being obvious at all in that form. Unfortunately, this mode isn't nearly as well done. The wings are too small, and the rear tailfins are DEFINITELY too small-- comically small, in fact. The truck cab halves also really are afterthoughts as far as this mode goes, not even attempting to look like anything else and relying on the wings over them to "hide" them a bit. They also don't even peg into anything, though thankfully the joints holding them are sturdy enough where this isn't really an issue. The "meat" of the tanker section of the tanker truck mode is still visible, but now serves as a long body for the jet mode. The FRONT of this mode is actually quite good, with some nice dark metallic blue and silver paint on the top of the nosecone/cockpit section and some red on the bottom and on the intake vents. There's some foil stickers used for the windows, but given that they're shiny and so is the glass, I don't mind them at all here. Once you get a bit down the jet sure there's some undercarriage junk, as there is on nearly all jet TFs, but it's not overwhelmingly bad or anything, just a minor downside. I do really wish those wings pegged in somewhere securely, though, instead of just resting on top of the truck halves-- the red paint on them is pretty good, but all the light brownish gray on them and the back section of this mode in general does not look great. The small tailfin pieces have some nice aerodynamic mold detailing on them, but like the wings don't peg into anything and seem to haphazardly just stick out the otherwise rectangular back end without really settling into any secure place. The same cockpit is used for Diac in this mode, just in the opposite direction, and the weapons store in the same places here as in the truck mode.
    Like Optimus' truck mode, his robot mode is also an homage to his G2 "Laser" toy, with the shoulder details (the circles and size of the shoulders in particular), the angular detailing on the knees, the faux truck window detailing on his chest, and the head hearkening back to that design (though the head of course has some modifications, given that it's its own little toy). The mold detailing of faux headlights and a grill on the main body, as well as the circular and angular details on the shoulders and lower legs definitely makes this the most intricately sculpted mode of the three. The color scheme is also broken up the best here, with quite a few paint apps to help spice things up-- the dark metallic blue and pale gold on the chest, the silver on the waist, the pale gold and pale blue on the lower legs... it really helps vary things up, though unfortunately that ugly light milky brownish gray plastic is also much more apparent in this mode, which is unfortunate. To get to this mode from the jet mode, you basically fold up and collapse the front section into the legs, while the truck halves become the arms and you fold all the wings back. Unfortunately, the wings just kinda hang back there behind Optimus' back-- the main wings can fold in a bit, and the tailfins can fold in half to go up straight against the back, but it's still all rather unsightly and definitely the weak point of this mode, having all that "jet junk" back there. The lower arms are also a bit weak, having obvious tires hanging off a fairly unsightly section on the inside of the arms. Otherwise the arms look pretty decent, and the main body section is quite solidly proportioned, with that extra chest flap helping to "bulk up" Optimus a bit. (Pressing in on the gray grill piece in the middle of the stomach pops up the antennae on the side of the head, in case you're wondering.) The legs are very solid, with everything folded up quite well and out of the way, and the feet-- though small-- keep him stable, with all that mass in his lower legs. An unexpected but appreciated step is that the hips slide forward so that they're not too far back in this mode, making him look more "normal" in that respect. For articulation in this mode, Optimus can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points; four if you want to count the swiveling of those block sections above the shoulders), elbows, inwards slightly at the wrists, and at the hips (at three points), knees, and slightly downwards at the ankles. Because of all the junk on his back and his thick lower arms, his articulation is limited slightly more than you'd think up there, but otherwise he's pretty poseable.
    Titans Return voyager Optimus Prime, like Titans Return Megatron, is largely an unneeded toy. Optimus already had a "Titans Return" toy, and with the exception of some sections of the robot mode that hearken back to Optimus' G2 "Laser" form, this is too obviously a premold for Octane. Still, that aside, this is a pretty decent mold. The jet mode is definitely the weakest of the modes with obvious truck kibble and some odd proportions, and the wings do hang off the robot mode rather unceremoniously, but the proportions and articulation of the robot mode are pretty good and the truck mode is ROCK solid. Mildly recommended if you're a Prime fan-- otherwise, get the Octane version of this mold instead.

Review by Beastbot

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