(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Autobot Alliance deluxe Optimus Prime. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Autobot Alliance deluxe Optimus Prime here.)

    The deluxe "G2" Autobot Alliance Optimus finally gets his inevitable Scourge redeco as a part of the initial offering of the Transformers Club's "Subscription Service". The club clearly went out of their way to get this toy as accurate to the original toy's deco as possible-- the black is pitch black, the gray has a little bit of glitter mixed in with it, and the teal outlines on the truck and robot mode are perfectly done and very smooth. The silver and red helps to round out the color scheme of the 'con who led to innumerable "Nemesis Prime" repaints in later Transformers series, and it all ends up looking quite nice. The teal lines and silver smokestacks and red windows all make sure that no large portion of Scourge is simply black, but always has a nice contrast color nearby. His head is particularly intricately detailed to the point of being quite impressive. What's surprising is that Scourge has the upside-down G2 Autobot symbols that the Decepticons had in the Japanese "Car Robots" cartoon, whereas stateside they were simply released with normal Decepticon logos. Personally, I would've included both just to cover all your bases, but it's still a nice little touch regardless.
    No mold changes have been made to Scourge, beyond the shortening of one of the shoulder connector tabs that's been done to all but the initial mass release of this mold, which allows for better shoulder movement.
    Scourge is a wonderfully done and well-painted homage to the original RiD character, but honestly-- I'm not so sure why this toy seems to be the runaway hit of the 2013 Subscription Service. Yes, it's as well-done as you could get (well, minus the lack of the silver-black paint patters on Scourge's shoulders, likely taken away because there's too much molded-in detail there), but it's a small deluxe toy that's a bit bothersome to transform. If it was mass-release and available for retail, I could easily see the reason for its popularity. However, it's already a high-end toy due to its exclusive nature, and a cursory search on eBay as of this writing (5/14) shows that the original will probably cost you just about the same-- if not less-- than this one, and the original was a fantastic toy that was much larger and came with an entire weapons base. If you want a RiD Scourge, as good as this redeco is I'd try to get the original toy first before looking for this one.

Review by Beastbot

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