As a child, Ultra Magnus was one of my favorite Transformers. I had him before I ever owned an Optimus Prime, so I would often pretend that he was Prime and that he was just upgraded to a cool power suit. At the time, I didn't know how close to the truth I was. He was later replace by Hot Rod / Rodimus Prime as my favorite, but he still holds a special place in my heart. I don't currently own a Magnus, the original was long ago lost, but this new Masterpiece Edition has me tempted.
Bumblebee is as character I have less of a connection to although I do currently own some movie figures of him and an animated version, but I never had one as a kid. Honestly, I've always like his orginal G1 cartoon look. I think it's that fact that he was a VW Beetle, maybe it's the horns. Either way, the look of the Masterpiece figure is pretty much my ideal version. The Spike is cool too.
Generation 1 cartoon accurate Transformers always make me want to collect them more often. The problem is that they usually tend to be the really expensive toys. A few weeks back we posted pictures of the prototypes for the Masterpiece Ultra Magnus and Bumblebee. Now on Amazon Japan you can see the listings with the official pictures. (MP-21 Bumblebee and MP-22 Ultra Magnus) These figures look incredibly cool and very accurate to the old show. I love when the vehicle modes are in scale to one another and you end up with robots that are very different in size. It just always bugger me to have a truck, a sports car, and a helicopter that were all the same size.
