Just got mine today and I'm extremely disappointed that Hasbro failed to go on their word that the Afterlife stuff would be removable. I can't stand the hideous sight of those mangled copper wires sprouting around the Clippard module. I promptly pulled them off, only to experience a ridiculous amount of resistance. Those suckers are not only glued, but molded into a recessed mold in the circle itself. This was beyond frustrating and took me the better part of an hour just to get out. I seriously used needle nose pliers for this and it was just ripping it in pieces. I had to resort to using an awl just to get under the rubber and try to extract it. It looks like crap, but less crap than with the actually wires on. Getting the nylon yellow loom off the rubber wire wasn't a problem, and the ribbon cable is close enough for now for me, though I wonder if there is any chemical "reversing" that could be done and kind of bleach it back to brighter white again? I'm no customizer, so aside from putting all the 84 decals on and removing the copper Afterlife wires, I don't have too much savvy for anything else. I even opened the motherboard up and looked inside to see if I could get at the rubber from the backside to no avail.
I bought this for the sole reason that it could convert to an 84 pack. It astounds me how vehemently Hasbro stuck to "Spengler Afterlife Pack" when they knew darn well half the people buying this just wanted an 84 replica. All they had to do was simply make the wires like an overlay - maybe with ONE plug that could easily be removed but wouldn't fall off when walking around. The wires themselves could have been molding around the circular area as to grip it when overlaid around the Clippard. If you don't want it, you simply unplug it in ONE area and take it off. That would have saved everyone the hassle. It makes ZERO sense to me that they go all the way to including the clean 84 decals AND the 84 lights cycle and sounds, yet you can't remove the Afterlife mods?
I'm going to have to fill all those holes with some sort of plastic filler or putty that hardens and do my best to paint it a matching color. Again - I'm not a customizer, so this sucks. I paid $400 to get the pack that was convertible, knowing full well that Hasbro could never release this pack again or lose the license to GB in the near future. I also hate the paintjob - why did they go so gray? It's a plain as day BLACK Proton Pack, even in Afterlife. I thought I was leaving the gray of the Spirit pack behind with this one being accurate. They could have easily painted the ends of a few wires brass too, but they cheaped out there. I saw Adam Savage do this in his Pack mod video, but outside of these qualms, it looks the part and I think the stickers at least bring it back to stock for the most part. I also wish the red wires were a brighter red, but again, I'll take what I got otherwise. The stand is phenomenal and a great inclusion - really thankful and grateful we hit that stretch goal.