The progenitor.

The Studio Series mold and many bootlegs owe their existence to this version of Lord Starscream. This version of Lord Starscream was released in 2011 which quite soon after the 2010 HFTD Leader. This meant that almost nobody was too bothered to hunt him down since the HFTD Leader was and still is one of the best Bayformers ever.

Still, that doesn’t mean that this fun-sized version of Lord Starscream isn’t worth a second glance. We’re gonna dive deep and take a look at him right now!

Vehicle mode

Lord Starscream is a jet like usual but this time he’s compact and it’s not just because he’s a Deluxe figure. This jet feels compressed and it’s a bit unsettling.

It’s like the took all the molding and paint from a Voyager figure then squashed it into a regular-sized Deluxe figure. Seriously, Lord Starscream looks great in jet mode which is a bit odd since DOTM was notorious for cutting down on paint apps. Definitely not a bad thing though.

Also, clear and detailed cockpit, I love those.

There’s quite a bit of play value here for a Deluxe sized jet. There’s deploying three-piece landing gear and a bunch of MechTech ports for you to make a seriously armed jet.

Transformation

This is the first of many versions of Lord Starscream to use this transformation scheme. It’s impressive that it really works at every scale as long as you tweak it a bit and a bit nuts that it started with a Deluxe figure.

Robot mode

Lord Starscream looks great in robot mode… but also is very smol. While he’s actually decently sized for a Deluxe figure, his proportions make him seem tiny. Or maybe it’s just me being used to him being Voyager sized?

While Lord Starscream had great paint and detailing in jet mode, his robot mode is lacking a bit. There’s a bunch of unpainted detail that’s either plain grey… or brown. The molding itself is great and even with the lacking paint, Lord Starcream still looks great!

For posability, Lord Starscream goes hard for a 2011 figure.

• His head can rotate.
• His arms rotate as well as go in and out at the shoulders.
• He has bicep swivels.
• He has double-jointed elbows and the lower joint is a ball-joint.
• His hands can go in towards his forearm.
• His hips are ball-jointed.
• He has two knee joints to give him his iconic chicken legs.
• He can rotate at his lower leg, above his second knee.
• His toes can move backwards.

Gimmicks

Lord Starscream comes with a unique MechTech weapon. It’s separated into two parts and combines into a massive knife thing.

When they’re not transformed, they’re two separate cannons that can be plugged into either of his forearms to kinda look like null rays… just massively oversized. When you plug the two together, the bigger part transforms and brings out a big knife. Now you got a two sided knife thing!

It’s a really fun weapon that transforms in a really interesting way… but it’s weird they gave it to Lord Starscream. It’s much better than Sideswipe’s though!

Toy or collectible?

At this point, I’d say Lord Starscream is better suited to be a toy. Which is odd for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, this is a DOTM Deluxe which means he’s over a decade old at this point. The second thing is that he did get significantly more expensive over the years. An MISB copy of this version of Lord Starscream usually goes for double his old retail price.

But what that means is that he’s the same price as a regular retail Deluxe figure now. You can get him MISB for about RM120 ($30) and even cheaper used.

Closing

On one hand, this version of Lord Starscream is probably the best of the DOTM Deluxe figures and one of the best figures to come out of DOTM overall. On the other, the Studio Series mold is this figure but bigger and with significant improvements.

Do it like me and just get both versions of Lord Starscream. This space friendly version of Lord Starscream is great and gets 6/5 stars easily!