Solus Prime

The hammer is her p-- wait, no, that doesn't work this time. Solus Prime is the creator Prime with the ability to forge almost any device. The fourth Transformer Primus created, Solus is also the first girl. The Covenant of Primus book goes to great lengths to explain that while Transformers don't have "genders" the way biological species do, 1/13 (7.69%) [seven-point-nice --ed.] of the Cybertronian population has a neurological architecture that's different from the rest and so when they use pronouns they use she/her instead of he/him, which, to paraphrase Rick and Morty, just sounds like "gender" with extra steps. "Oh, it's not gender, it's just the way their brain works and so how they think about and interact with the world." Bitch what do you think gender is? Solus does have a very "Prime" head (as in Prime the rank, not Prime the cartoon): antennae over the ears, a winged crest on the forehead, etc. If she had a mouthpkate instead of big, luscious robo-lips, she'd practically be Optimus already! A lot of her in-fiction appearances had long hair (or wires or whatever a robot would have), but the toy doesn't bother with that. She's just got her helmet. This is a Deluxe Class figure, so she's smaller than Prima. But judging by other bots we've seen interacting with her weapons, she (and all the Thirteen) are meant to be huge - like, Prime Bulkhead might not even come up to her waist. She's designed with robo-boobs, but they're absolutely understated next to the giant shoulder pads sticking out horizontally from the body. Her coloration makes it look like she's got a bare midriff, and she's wearing a skirt... or rather, an apron. Remember, she's the blacksmith of the Primes, so her design calls to mind the kind of protection a metalworker would wear. Neat touch! The fact her toes curl up like elf shoes is just weird, though. Overall, this is a pretty cool robot mode. Her artifact is called "the Forge of Solus Prime," despite the fact it's not a forge. It's a hammer. It's just called a forge because it can create anything from nothing, and has a miniature neutron star in its center. It was first seen in toy form when TF Prime Ultra Magnus came with a hammer accessory that was inspired by Animated, but the box identified it. This one doesn't have the same shape, because the final version hadn't been designed yet. Speaking of not being designed correctly, the only way to put the hammer in Solus' hands is to disassemble it slightly: you have to take the head off. The other end can also be removed, to be held as a grenade or something. She moves at the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, thighs, knees, and ankles. The way her conversion is designed means her shoulders function like pectoral hinges, which really ups her poseability. Two-handed hammer-swings! Two-handed hammer-swings for everyone! Solus has a decently complex conversion for her size, but some of the steps really could have used a little more testing. Like, you start by opening her back so the front end of the altmode can fold out, and the head can fold away; but the clearance to do that is only large enough in one precise position, so if you've got it even a little off, it's not going to work. Tabs on her ankles are supposed to fit into slots on the back of her thighs, but getting the legs folded just right is difficult, and the tabs don't really fit securely. The way the shoulder armor is supposed to swing up and over for the altmode doesn't work smoothly, and there are small panels on the shoulders and forearms that want to pop off easily. It's a lot of minor frustrations that add up to a minorly "our reach exceeeds our grasp" Transformer. Solus' altmode is a Cybertronian truck of some sort. We'd call it a pickup, but the flares on the back mean there's no carrying space - it's very angular, with front fenders that stick out farther than the rest of the chassis, and a grille that slopes backwards so the top is more forward than the bottom. Unusual! The truck retains her nice purple colorscheme, and rather than having to suffer from translucent windows that rarely ever look good, here they're gold to match the other highlights. In a neat feature, the Hammer has a little flip-out section in the center that becomes a 5mm peg; the instructions suggest you need to use that to attach the weapon to the vehicle mode, but you don't; well, you can, using the same hole that allows it to store on the robot's back, but that's not the intention; instead, a flat tab on the hammer's head fits into a slot above the rear wheels. I'm not really sure how I feel about Solus Prime as a toy. She has a nice sculpt and an okkay design in both modes, but needing to disassemble her weapon in order for her to hold it feels awkward, and the conversion isn't as smooth as I'd like. She's in the "keep" column, but just barely: great in concept, and I want to like her, but... I don't know, something just isn't coming together all the way. -- 04/29/25 Do you know the difference between a hammer and a forge? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.