Perhaps we should start calling this feature Bootleg Transformers Tuesday, eh? Anyway, as noted, this is another gem from the line that spawned the Gigatron and Heinrad figures we saw in previous weeks. Up until about two years ago, it was available at Big Lots for a whopping $5. And what did the parent or toy enthusiast tempted by the oversized card with its dusty plastic bubble get for that Lincoln, you ask?

A big yellow LION! Or, to be more precise, a bootleg of Lio Convoy -- here seen in his beast mode. As with most of the Beast-Tech Fighters, it's actually a pretty good representation of the original. Of course, there are differences: whereas the original Lio Convoy was largely white (though a black repaint followed), this one is mostly yellow with a silver face... and the solid gold mane has been replaced by sparkly, translucent gold plastic. It's an odd color scheme, but there's something kinda purty about it.

This one also lacks the various gimmicks integrated into the toy's head, as the original featured a spring-loaded jaw, firing missile launchers that flip out from the top and sides of the mane, and flip-out attack blades (take that, Shredder). That said, the bootleg does have a couple of these features sans the springs. The blades are present, though they fold out rather than flip out, and the (removable) missile launchers that fold out from the top of the mane are also here. They even fire, though the springs kinda suck. They're just rattling around inside the launchers, so, depending upon how you place the missiles, you get missiles that fire weakly when you press the button firmly... or hair-trigger missiles that fire with enough force to rupture corneas. Suffice it to say that most of the time I leave the bloody missiles unloaded.

The transformation itself is kinda finicky -- that's probably a holdover from the original toy, though I doubt that the original required a screwdriver or some other tool to prise the robot head out of its hiding place -- but once you figure it out or locate the instructions online (hurray for bootlegs and their high expectations!) you end up with this. Again, the colors are way off, and they're much less attractive here. See, while yellow lion doesn't seem all that bad (and admittedly a grey robot is equally realistic), losing the reds and blues of the legitimate Lio Convoy really hurts the look of the toy. That said, it's fairly similar to the appearance of Flash Lio Convoy (the Super Saiyan upgraded version of Lio Convoy), so it kinda works.

The excessive kibble isn't very attractive either, but we can't fault the bootleg for that. Really, aside from the duller colors and cost-cutting measures -- like the lack of neck articulation or the chamber that opens to reveal the Matrix of Leadership -- this is a pretty decent bootleg. Well, except for typical flaws like loose joints and the uneven way that the halves of some pieces fit together. Due to the latter flaws, it's impossible to move the thigh swivels in one direction from the default position; to get the joints angled in that direction you'll have to take the long way around... or remove the offending pieces and sand them down so that they're completely flush across the seams. Oh, and KO Lio Convoy technically came misassembled (not that anyone not looking directly at the photos of the original would have noticed), so I had to break out the screwdriver and swap the legs at the thighs to "fix" it. I did say it was a bootleg, didn't I?

The original Lio Convoy figure was largely a Japan-only release, though it was available in 2000 via the Hasbro Collectors website. In any case, it was pretty expensive on the secondary market by the time I got into Transformers in 2007 -- so I can see how someone without a swimming pool of gold coins would prefer the $5 bootleg version (in lieu of the legitimate figure, OAFE even gave the bootleg a formal review). Also, did I mention how huge these things are? It's not like folks were paying $5 for a knockoff deluxe class figure -- they paid $5 for a knockoff ultra class Transformer. An ultra missing most of its gimmicks, mind you, but it's still large enough to look imposing in a display. Besides, even with its bootleg flaws, KO Lio Convoy is still neater than those crap Leobreaker repaints Hasbro keeps releasing in the character's name.

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Want to see even more bootleg toys? Find past and future editions of Bootleg Tuesday right here.