Monthly Archives: December 2010

Dec 3 2010

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: Grindor by Hasbro

It’s been a fun little ride this week looking at some of the whirlybird bots in my collection. There were a few more I wanted to get to, but I’m ready to move on to other things, as the toys are piling up. So, I thought we’d look at just one more tonight with Revenge of the Fallen’sGrindor. Grindor is a repaint of the Voyager Class Blackout figure that was released in the first movie lineup. I didn’t buy a lot of toys from the first movie, so I missed out on Blackout and wound up settling for his grey cousin, who bewilderingly showed up in the second movie just long enough to pick up Sam’s car and deliver it to Megatron. Yeah.


As a helicopter, Grindor is ok. The right side panel on mine doesn’t peg in like it’s supposed to, which is a constant irritant. There’s also the Scorponok cage, but more on that in a minute. He doesn’t feature a lot of exciting colors or paint apps, but his grey and black motif are pretty good for a military vehicle. There’s a black button on the back of the tail boom that spins the rotors when pumped. Grindor carries a flip down cage under his tail boom that can hold the little Scorponok figure. Theoretically, you can press a button to deploy him, but the catch is weak and Scorponok usually just deploys whenever he damn well feels like it. There’s not much to say about Scorponok. He’s a little PVC figure with a spring loaded tail. If you’re looking for realism, then next to Tomahawk, Grindor is certainly the most realistic helicopter, but you could argue that also makes him a tad boring.

It says a lot about Grindor’s transformation that you can literally just take the entire top and back of the helicopter off and still have the robot figure intact. In fact, he’s a lot better without all the alt mode chopper kibble. Of course, I find removing a quarter of the alt mode an unacceptable prospect in good Transformer design. It also doesn’t help that some of his bits fall off when I transform him.

At his core, Grindor’s robot mode is pretty good and bears a decent resemblance to Blackout’s movie design, albeit a bit chunkier and simpler. I like the way the nose of the chopper splits apart to reveal the head and chest, while keeping his sensor globe and cannon in useable positions. His shoulders also get some missiles and the chevrons on his shoulder armor look nice. Ah, but unfortunately, he still has a quarter of a helicopter hanging off his back and while some Transformers can pull that off, Grindor’s backpack is just too bulky and obtrusive and the tail drags on the ground behind him.

Grindor’s articulation is pretty good. His head turns, his shoulders have universal movement plus swivels and his elbows and wrists are hinged. His legs have universal movement in the hips and hinged knees. Keep in mind, though, if you leave all the chopper kibble on his back, you won’t get much use out of his leg joints. Blah!

Despite all his flaws, I really don’t hate Grindor. He’s an ok looking figure and I’m probably giving him a bit of a pass because he is a helicopter, afterall. Still, if you’re one of those collectors that tend to be down on the movie figures, Grindor here isn’t going to win you over.

And that wraps it up for Transformers Helicopter Week. I thought I would get a third entry in tonight, looking at Revenge of the Fallen’sBlazemaster, but then I didn’t want to end the week on a down note by looking at such a shitty figure, so maybe I’ll save him for a future Shitty Transformers Week when I’m feeling in a particularly black mood. Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow with business as usual, meaning I’ll try to slip something else in over the weekend before I get back to looking at more Transformers.

Dec 3 2010

Transformers Energon: Bulkhead and Quickstrike by Hasbro

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week already, and yet it’s Friday and I’ve still got a few more transformable choppers that I wanted to get to. Today we’re looking at a few more Autobots, this time from the Energon line. Bulkhead and his repaint Quickstrike. I can’t remember what size class Bulkhead came in, but I’m thinking he was probably an Ultra because he does have electronics and when you combine him with his booster pack, he’s pretty friggin huge. Don’t ask me what the electronics do, though, because it’s been ages since I’ve had working batteries in this thing. It is noteworthy, though, that all of his electronics are in the booster, so Hasbro could, theoretically, pack the figure alone in a future Voyager Class re-release and they’d be doing new fans a favor.

Let’s start out with Bulkhead in his super-duper alt mode. It’s an attack helicopter sitting on top of a huge set of booster rockets. Yeah, as the first part of his name suggests, this guy has a lot of bulk to him. Granted, strapping a helicopter to that jet-propelled weapons platform kind of defeats the purpose of being a helicopter in the first place, but it’s formidable looking to say the least.

Releaving Bulkhead of his booster platform, we can get a better idea of how awesome his chopper mode is. He’s got two retractable landing gear, and a third on the tail that spins the rotors when you pull it like a trigger. He’s got a nice, embossed Autobot insignia behind his cockpit, and no less than four firing missile launchers mounted on his wings. [Take out the missiles before transforming him, lest you want to spend ten minutes fishing them out from behind the sofa like I had to! -FF] It’s a very solid helicopter, and the colors are no doubt an homage to G1 Springer. I guess my only complaint here is that his arms above his wings don’t actually peg into anything, but the ratchet joints give you a good idea of how they’re supposed to sit, and they certainly don’t flop around or anything.

Before getting to Bulkhead’s robot mode, it’s worth noting that his booster platform can transform into a two-legged weapons drone. I guess this thing could stomp around and blast Decepticon fools on its own, or Bulkhead could operate it like a cannon. Either way it’s a pretty cool bonus, and almost as big as the Bulkhead figure itself.

Transforming Bulkhead isn’t terribly difficult, although there’s a lot of fidgity bits to get right, like flipping his legs around, flipping up his missile launchers, etc. But when you’re done, you are rewarded with one seriously awesome looking Autobot. I really love everything about this guy. His proportions are great, the way his missile launchers hang off his hips is cool and you can even flip his fists so that he has cannons for hands. The tail boom that hangs off his back doesn’t get in the way at all, and you can even remove his rotor blade assembly and he can hold it in his hand like a weapon. Oh yeah, Bulkhead also has a huge handlebar mustache! Remember in the 1986 movie when all of the sudden Transformers started showing up with sculpted facial hair? Well, Bulkhead is obviously hip to that style.

Of course, Bulkhead can also make use of his booster pack by wearing it like a backpack. There are all sorts of permutations to do with it, you can even turn the thrusters into giant claws, but my favorite just has it positioned like a jetpack with the two laser cannons pointing forward. Yeah, he’s very backheavy in this mode, but he can actually stand up and support it if you try hard enough.

Bulkhead has excellent articulation. His head rotates, his arms have universal movement in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and hinges in the elbows. His legs have universal movement in the hips and hinged knees. His ankles have lateral hinges so that his feet can stay flat even in a wide stance.

Hasbro waisted no time in repainted Bulkhead in Energon as Quickstrike. At the time, I wasn’t really a completist anymore, not like I was with Armada, but clearly I liked this mold and the repaint enough to drop some money on Quickstrike too. It’s a really nice and very high quality repaint. I really like the black and silver and the way it compliments the red in his helicopter mode and the white looks nice on the tailboom too, although I’m not a big fan of the Chinese lettering. But in robot mode, this new color scheme is just unbelievably great looking. The red and black looks striking and the silver on his legs, cockpit and face really makes the figure come together. It’s a little tougher to make out Quickstrike’s mustache, though, since it isn’t painted a different coller than his face.

I really recommend owning this mold if you don’t already. It’s a great Transformer and a really fun toy, with lots of different play options and features. If you only have it in you to buy one, I’d actually recommend Quickstrike over Bulkhead, just because the paint deco looks so nice and the quality of the paint job is really far superior to what I’m used to finding on these toys. On the other hand, if you are a big Springer fan, than Bulkhead might scratch your itch better than Quickstrike. Either way, you should definitely try to hunt down one of them for your collection.

Dec 2 2010

Transformers Cybertron: Evac by Hasbro

Ugh, It’s been a long day and I am bone tired, folks. All I want to do tonight is veg out in front of the TV and get caught up on my Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes cartoons. But I didn’t want to miss a day of TF Helicopter Week, so I’m going to make this one quick and dirty. Yeah, Evac probably deserves better, but I don’t have anything else written up yet, so I’ll have to be a little more long winded tomorrow to make up for it. A few days ago when I looked at Tomahawk, I said he didn’t look much like an Autobot to me, because he was a viscious looking black attack chopper.  Well, Evac here is more what I think an Autobot helicopter should look like. Evac isn’t loaded to the gills with armaments. Instead, he’s a rescue chopper. He may not be as useful in a fight as Tomahawk, but I think he better fits in with the spirit of the Autobots.


Evac’s alt mode is a search and rescue helicopter, and as a Voyager Class, he’s a pretty nice sized toy. He’s mostly bright yellow with some white and blue trim, and he has clear windshields. There’s also a nice big Autobot insignia on his grapple winch and the word, RESCUE, stamped on the other side. The broadsides of the helicopter are a bit fugly, but overall the design is awesome as he has the beaked nose under the windshields that gives him such a distinct profile. Evac’s chopper mode also comes with some pretty cool play features. He has folding landing gear, a red button that spins his rotors when you pump it, and a grapple hook that can be automatically retracted when you press the button. As a Cybertron figure, Evac also makes use of a Cyberkey to deploy his missile launchers, so he can at least defend himself while engaging in rescue missions.


Evac has a surprisingly simple transformation, but he still makes for a great looking and very distinctive robot. The design makes good use of many of his helicopter bits. His tail boom splits in half to become wings for his jetpack. His grappling hook can still be used as it ends up on his right forearm. His rotor blades wind up on his left forearm and can be used as a weapon, or you can just pop them off if you want. The chest and head sculpts are especially nicely done. Evac’s head is nicely reminiscent of the 1986 Movie designs.

Evac’s articulation is pretty solid. His head turns; His arms rotate and have lateral movement in the shoulders, and hinges and swivels in the elbows. His legs rotate and have lateral movement in the hips, and have swivels and hinges in the knees.

Evac’s been repainted a couple of times, but sadly I don’t own any of the other versions. I can live without the red, Blades, repaint, but one of these days I plan on hunting down the Springer style Target Exclusive, because it looks downright awesome. It was also clearanced to hell in my neck of the woods, which makes me feel all the more foolish for not having picked it up when I had the chance. Either way, if you don’t have this mold in your collection, I definitely recommend it in one form or another. All of the decos released look great and he’s a really fun toy.

Dec 1 2010

Transformers Universe: Whirl by Hasbro

Back before Universe became the new Classics, which has since become Generations, the Universe brand was a sub-line of mostly horrible repaints of a lot of Transformers molds that we could probably have done without seeing again so soon. Don’t get me wrong, every now and then a gem from yesteryear showed up in one of these boxes, but for every one of those there were at least a couple of RiD orBeast Machines toys that should have stayed buried a little while longer. Some of the more interesting Universe toys, at least to me, stretched all the way back to the Machine Wars figures, and that’s where we get today’s Transformer chopper, Whirl.


The Whirl mold was originally released as Machine Wars Sandstorm. This new Universe version was one of the few examples where theUniverse paintjob was not worse than the original. He’s generally got a blue camo motif with some nice looking yellow translucent parts for the cockpit and the blades. His alt mode is rather distinctive, as he has twin tail booms, landing skids and some pretty good sized missile launchers on his broadsides, which can deploy outwards. There really aren’t any play features on the chopper mode, although the missile launchers have hair triggers and they really fly pretty far. There’s not a lot of clearance between the rotors and the tail fin and the rotors on my toy have already started to droop so that they don’t clear the fin anymore.

The Machine Wars toys have a lot more in common with late G1 figures than anything else. That’s a good thing if you’re after some nostalgia, but if you’re used to the complexity and high level of articulation in today’s Transformers, than Whirl is going to seem pretty prehistoric to you. His transformation is simple yet satisfying. His robot mode is pretty decent looking and his missile launchers come off to become his hand guns. The only thing about Whirl’s bot mode that really bothers me is the opening in front of his head that leads into his cockpit.

Pretty much all of Whirl’s articulation comes from his transformation process. His shoulders have lateral movement, but cannot even rotate, although he does have hinged elbows. His legs rotate front and back at the hips and his knees bend forward and back. That’s it, folks, his head doesn’t even turn!

The Machine Wars toys were my favorite part of the Universe line up. They were new to me because I was on a Transformers hiatus while these toys were originally on the shelves and the Universe repaints gave me a chance to rediscover them. They’re not for everyone, and Whirl really isn’t the most fun Transformer out there, but if you have an open mind and want a nice piece of Transformers history to display on your shelf, you could do worse than hunting him down.