Power of the Primes is a subline imprint of the Generations toyline, and the third and final portion of the Prime Wars Trilogy.
First revealed in mid-2017 at San Diego Comic-Con and subsequently debuting at the end of the year, Power of the Primes, in keeping with the previous two toylines, features a line-wide gimmick: "Prime Masters", small Titan Master-type figures that represent the sparks of the Primes. Unlike Titan Masters, Prime Masters are available only in their own pricepoint, where they are packaged with Pretender-style decoy armor, but can interact in some way with all larger assortments.
Legends Class figures retain the ability to seat a small figure in alt-mode, whilst the Deluxe and Voyager Class pricepoints see the return of Combiner Wars-style Combiners. The combination joints remain unchanged, whilst the hand/foot system is tweaked: all Deluxes now include a hand, and all Voyagers a pair of feet. These accessories (dubbed Prime Armor) also facilitate the Prime Master integration for those size classes: Deluxes can use their hand as chest armor, into which a Prime Master spark mode can slot, and Voyagers can use their feet as forearm bucklers, which similarly fit a Prime Master. All Voyager Class figures also include an Enigma of Combination, shaped like a Prime Master spark mode, that can fit onto their combined mode chest. With the exception of Inferno, none of the voyagers can grant their respective combined modes a sizable weapon.
Finally, Leader Class figures feature an "Evolution" gimmick, wherein each toy includes a Deluxe-sized character who can "evolve" into a Prime by combining with additional armor. Each Leader includes a uniquely-colored Matrix of Leadership, the central crystal of which can be removed and replaced with a Prime Master.
Similarly to Combiner Wars (except for US-released Deluxe Class figures) and Titans Return, all figures from Legends Class upwards continued to include character cards, except this time there were twelve different variants of every character's card, each containing a combination with one of the twelve Prime Masters.
Before the line's release, a fan vote took place to determine a character who would become a new Prime in both the toyline and accompanying stories, with Optimus Primal claiming victory, and a place in the Leader Class assortment.[1]
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Choose your Prime!
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| —Official tagline for the Power of the Primes line
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Toys
General retail
Prime Masters
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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 Prime Master Micronus plus Cloudburst decoy armor |
Legends Class
Deluxe Class
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Voyager Class
Leader Class
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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 Leader Class Rodimus Prime |
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Titan Class
Exclusives
In early 2019, Hasbro further extended the range of exclusive figures with Generations Selects: figures of fan-beloved decoes that could not make it to mainline retail, sold through multiple online retailers in the U.S. market.[2] The first two toys under this banner had previously been hinted at by Elita-1's packaging artwork, and regular Swoop's preliminary CG stock render.
| Amazon
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Generations Selects (multiple outlets)
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San Diego Comic-Con 2018
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Walgreens
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 Throne of the Primes exclusive Leader Class Optimal Optimus |
Power of the Primes (TakaraTomy)
Unlike its predecessors in the Prime Wars Trilogy, Power of the Primes was not rolled into Legends or Adventure in Japan. Instead, Takara's Power of the Primes (パワーオブザプライム Pawā obu za Puraimu) line forgoes the usual cartoon-accurate redecos or retools that typified Takara's take on other portions of Generations and features toys that are identical to their Hasbro versions down to the last factory-applied sticker.
Notes
What, were you expecting accurate naming?
- Just like Titans Return had the early working name of "Titan Wars", it appears Power of the Primes was initially going to be called "Prime Wars" before that name was promoted to the overall title of the entire trilogy. Inevitably, several online retailers and distributors still list the figures under that name.[3][4][5][6][7]
- Along the same lines, the working name for the Prime Masters was "Power Masters", which again still appears in online listings.[6][8]
- In July 2017, photos of a computer screen taken during an internal Hasbro presentation were leaked to the public that revealed, among other things, the entirety of the general retail Power of the Primes line-up (not counting exclusives), featuring plenty of concept art and character models as placeholder images. During New York Toy Fair 2018, Hasbro confirmed that there were indeed no further general retail waves planned, although the figures from the final waves of the Legends and Voyager Class assortments wouldn't be revealed until the Australian Toy Fair that took place two weeks later.
- Power of the Primes toys made their global retail debut at _target stores in the United States on November 11, 2017, roughly a full month before they were expected to be sighted anywhere worldwide. Given that Transformers toys, going for several years, had been consistently sighted first in Hasbro's Asian markets, this came as a big surprise for the fandom. This remained the case for several of the later waves.
- Even though wave 2 of the Legends Class saw an early release in Singapore just a few days before New Year's Eve of 2017, followed by a release at retail in the United Kingdom a few weeks later, Hasbro didn't so much as officially acknowledge the existence of these figures until New York Toy Fair in February 2018, by which point they had already been spotted at brick and mortar retail in the United States. Elita-1 from wave 2 of the Voyager Class was also officially "revealed" by Hasbro at the same Toy Fair, even though her wave had already been found at US retail at the same time as the wave 2 Legends. (Elita's wave-mate Hun-Gurrr had previously been officially revealed at New York Comic-Con in October 2017 along with the wave 3 Deluxe Class figures.)
- Unlike the previous two lines, the Power of the Primes toyline was significantly cut down, only releasing 3 waves as opposed to 6.
- Notable differences between the Hasbro releases versus the TakaraTomy versions is that the latter figures don't have their product code numbers embossed, and have stickers in Japanese language covering parts of the packaging.
References
