It’s Transformers Thursday again and as promised last week I’m back with a look at the Commander of my Sharkticons, Mirage. If you missed last week’s TFT, I gassed on about how I army built Energon Sharkticon and gave them to this guy as his own private armada. Basically, the Energon Sharkticons are the Sweeps to Mirage’s Scourge! But wait… Mirage? Mirage??? I’m usually fine with Hasbro recycling names of Transformers for the various series, but this instance just bugs me. To me, Mirage will forever be an Autobot Formula-1 racecar and taking that name for a Decepticon attack ship is something that I just can’t wrap my G1 head around. It’s too much of a leap. He was repainted later on as Dreadwing and that’s the name I tend to use for him. Anyway, let’s jump right in and check out his alt mode.

Mirage is a vicious looking warship. I don’t know what you’d classify him as, but he strikes me as a swift moving hit-and-run attack craft. Amidst the countless numbers of cars and jets, there aren’t a hell of a lot of seafaring Transformers so I’m always nice to get a new one. Mirage features an enclosed cockpit area and blade-like fins coming off the front and back of his hull. The front fins each hold two bombs (or maybe torpedoes?), which can detach. For additional firepower, he has two missile launchers mounted toward the back and two more on the front deck. The back launchers can fold out on wings and the front ones can pop up on a clear spring-loaded framework. I like to think that the folding rear wings make Mirage pretty suitable for use as a space faring ship as well as a sea craft.

The deco here is all over the place. There’s dark blue, light blue, orange, gold, grey, it’s just a crazy mix of colors that compliments the equally crazy colored Sharkticons fairly well. In terms of overall aesthetics, Dreadwing has a much better and more uniform paint job, but as the commander of my Sharkticon army, Mirage’s deco works just fine.

Mirage’s transformation can be a bit of a pill. It’s fairly complex and there are a lot of moving plates on ball jointed arms that have to be positioned just right. Things tend to flop around all over the place and if you don’t know what you’re doing it can be a disaster. The two halves of his hull also tend to get in the way and a lot of times I’ll just pop them out of the ball joints and set them aside until I’m done. If I haven’t picked this figure up in a while, it’s not uncommon for me to become frustrated with nothing but a half-transformed mess in my hands. It takes some fiddling, but eventually I get there.

Mirage’s robot mode is 100% Cybertron-Grade-A bad ass. The cockpit area of the ship forms a broad, boxy chest with a socket for an Energon chip dead center. It contrasts nicely with the sculpted organic contours of his legs. It’s a hybrid style aesthetic that reminds me a lot of the original G1 Transformers movie and I really dig it. The proportions are excellent, so much so that even his sizeable backpack doesn’t feel out of place or weigh him down. The side panels that make up his alt mode’s hull are left on double ball jointed arms so there’s a lot you can do with them to customize their look. I have seen some collectors that like to display him with these panels up, but I prefer to sweep them back like wings. That keeps them fairly out of the way and it also stabilizes him really well when standing.

Mirage’s head sculpt is mighty distinctive and definitely not very humanoid. I do get a vague nautical vibe off of it and while the helmet is completely different, he still reminds me a bit of Beast Wars Depth Charge. In retrospect, that would have made a better name for him than Mirage. Either way, this guy’s portrait ranks up there as one of my favorite Energon head sculpts. It also features some very effective light piping too!

The only real issues I have with this guy are the large panels that make up his arm launchers. From certain angles they look just fine, but it’s still hard to ignore the major kibble hanging off his arms. I think what frustrates me the most about these is that they could have probably been fixed with the addition of one extra hinge on each plate. It almost looks like that was the original design plan but it didn’t cost out at the end. Ah well, it’s not a deal breaker for me and I suppose he can use them as shields. The deck launchers that now reside on Mirage’s backpack can still be deployed by the push of a button and they angle straight over his head and shoulders. It’s cool that the design enables them to be used in robot mode, but they don’t rest evenly so they don’t look all that great. The one on his left is rather droopy.

I think Mirage’s deco improves a lot in his robot mode. The blue and orange parts are mostly confined to his back giving him a more cohesive black, purple and gold motif with the grey bits landing mostly on his limbs. Again, I think it makes for a pretty nice match with the Sharkticons.  Also, that sculpted Decepticon emblem on his chest is pure money. I was going to dig out Dreadwing and take a look at his deco, but sadly I ran out of time, so I’ll have to save him for another Thursday.

Mirage and Dreadwing represent many of the things that I loved about the Energon line. The mold has an imaginative and unusual alt mode and an absolutely bitchin’ robot mode. Above all, it’s a well-designed toy that only stumbles a bit in the floppy and confusing nature of the transformation along with some shell-former shenanigans. Nonetheless, this is a figure that represents Hasbro designers willing to think outside the box and the result is a truly unique figure that stands out as something very cool and very different. I still hate the name, but he’ll always have a place on my Transformers display shelves.

Next Thursday I’ll keep the nautical Decepticon theme rolling for one more week with a look at Cybertron Thunderblast!

It’s Transformers Thursday and today I’m turning the dial back to 2004 with a look at one of my favorite Deluxe figures from the Energon line. He’s Sharkticon, and while he was a single character on the show, the show’s fiction never meant much to me and I used this guy as an army builder. It seemed logical to me since the Sharkticons were Quintesson foot soldiers in the G1 continuity, but I actually paired these guys up with Energon Mirage to serve as his equivalent of The Sweeps. It may sound convoluted, but as a collector of the Unicron Trilogy toys that didn’t watch the shows, I was always looking to fill in the backstory for the new figures I got. I don’t have a packaged shot of this guy, but he was available in both the regular Energon card as well as the red Powerlinx packaging. Let’s start with his alt mode.

Sharkticon is a battle ship with some shark influences in his design. While I believe the intent was that he’s an ocean-going craft, I imagined these guys would be just as happy as a space-faring armada. I love so much about this toy’s design it’s hard to know where to begin. I think the elements of traditional battleship design are what appeals to me the most, particularly the rotating gun stations on top. He also has a bridge tower and two rotating gun turrets on the sides. The shark elements aren’t overdone and I think the fins on the back make him more credible to me as an air or space ship. Either way, it’s exactly this kind of wild imagination and creativity that makes me love so much of the Energon line.

The deco is quite striking. The hull is mostly black with silver paint apps used to accentuate some of the intricate sculpted detail. The purple accents work for me as does the giant Decepticon insignia plastered on the bow of the ship. I freaking love that! On the other hand, I could have probably done without the orange, it’s distinctive, but feels out of place. I also would have left the bridge tower black instead of the odd choice of white. But even a few questionable color choices can’t wreck this toy for me!

Ah, but just when you thought we’d seen it all and it was time to move on to the robot mode, Sharkticon has two little surprises. You can pull out the side panels on his hull to reveal a pair of hidden missile launchers. Cool!

The transformation here is nothing too complex and yet fairly clever for a Deluxe. The back of the ship unfolds into his arms, the legs are obviously part of the undercarriage and the bulk of the battleship folds onto his back. Everything locks together wonderfully making him a fun figure to play about with. Sharkticon’s robot mode is pretty slick looking. There’s a nice blend of boxy design with a little bit of curvy organic feel thrown in. It’s the kind of aesthetic that I associate a lot with the G1 movie and I love it. The torso is brimming with sculpted detail and he has an Energon port right in the center of his chest so you can give him an Energon chip. He maintains a lot of his shark motif in robot mode with fins coming of his arms and legs and even the head sculpt is a bit evocative of the underwater predator. Even Sharkticon’s balance is well engineered. He’s wearing half the battleship on his back and yet he’s still easy to stand.

The deco in this mode shows off less black and more orange and purple, plus there are silver and red accents. For the love of God, just look at how many paint apps are on this guy! And he’s a Deluxe! Nowadays you wouldn’t find this many paint operations on a Voyager. Surprisingly the orange doesn’t bother me as much in robot mode even though there’s more of it. He’s just gorgeous!

The best compliment I can pay this figure is that I just kept buying him whenever I saw him on the pegs. At one point I had six or seven loose and even a couple carded. But after some trades and sell-offs I’ve paired that down to a simple squad of three now. There aren’t a lot of figures in the Transformers Universe that lend themselves to army building, so this was a case where I just invented my own opportunity. Of course, Energon also gave us the Terrorcons, and I don’t even want to tell you how many of those I have laying around. Next Thursday I’ll be checking out Mirage, the Decepticon who commands these guys in my own crazy homebrew Transformers fiction.

The last bunch of Transformer Thursday features have targeted specific figures that I wanted to look at. Today I’m trying to get back to a little more of the randomness that I originally envisioned for Thursdays. And so, this morning I reached my dirty robot-grabbing mitts into a drawer and pulled out the Deluxe Autobot Tow-Line from the Energon series. As usual, there’s no packaging to talk about, so let’s dig right in to his alt mode.

Tow-Line is a cool and compact little van. The sculpt is fairly basic, especially compared to some of the Deluxes that came in the subsequent Cyberton line and beyond. He does have ladders sculpted into the sides, weapon ports on the sides and top, and there’s not a whole lot else going on with him. Still, the van mode holds together quite well and rolls along on his wheels rather nicely.The deco is two-tone blue with red and gold striping on the sides and a white front with a nice crisp Autobot emblem stamped above the grill. The windows are translucent red plastic. Paint apps weren’t usually used sparingly back in the Energon days, but Tow-Line looks like he could have used a few more, particularly the back windows and tail lights.

I seem to recall Tow-Line’s alt mode being referred to as an electronic surveillance van and the red Energon piece that snaps onto his roof would certainly support that. It has two ball jointed pieces, one is a radar dish and the other is a screen. If you see a van that looks like this patrolling your neighborhood, chances are good that Big Brother is listening.

Transforming Tow-Line is pretty unorthodox and doing so reveals a surprising homage to a certain other pair of Autobot vans from the G1 days. You fold down the sides of the van and remove only the top portion. That’s going to be your robot, whereas the bottom part becomes a weapons platform. It’s a very similar concept to the oddball G1 toys of Ratchet and Ironhide. Unlike G1 Ratchet and Ironhide, however, Tow-Line’s robot mode doesn’t totally suck.

Nope, he’s actually a pretty clean and well proportioned little bot. Because Tow-Line’s robot mode is comprised of only half his vehicle’s bulk, he turns out to be a bit smaller and simpler than your average Deluxe. In traditional Autobot fashion, the front of the van makes up his chest and I really dig the way his doors fold up to make shoulder armor. I also love this little guy’s head sculpt. It’s pretty grim, but it looks great.

The surveillance kit from the roof of the van can transform into a pretty impressive looking rifle, which Tow-Line can wield in either hand. I absolutely love this gun. It looks like something out of early Star Trek and it’s big enough that Voyager figures can equip it rather comfortably. It’s a little big for Tow-Line, but that’s OK, because you can also save it for his mobile weapons platform.

That’s right! The weapons platform is made by pulling out a set of treads for the front and raising the wheels in the back. We’re getting a little into M.A.S.K. territory here and the results aren’t exactly inspiring. There are some sculpted guns on the inside of the shell, which would be a lot more impressive if they could pop up. You can, however, attach the energon weapon to it and now Tow-Line has something to ride into battle or a remote drone that can do his fighting for him while he sits back and has a cool, frosty mug of energon. Work smart, not hard! That’s Tow-Line’s motto! And if you’re wondering, yes Tow-Line can combine with other Energon Deluxe Autobots, and no I’m not going to dig any out to show you because I hate the whole gimmick. I will, however, point out that he can combine with his own weapons platform to become a horrible, twisted, rolling tank-bot.

The craziest thing about Tow-Line is that, as far as I’m aware, he was never repainted into Ironhide or Ratchet. It’s a puzzling oversight, considering Hasbro’s love of repaints and the fact that the mold seems like it was practically created for this very purpose. I’ve seen some pretty good custom jobs and they look fantastic. I think a two-pack would have been a great idea and certainly better than the Ironhide and Ratchet that we got in the Classics line, albeit a little undersized. Other than that, this is a cool, but not exceptional, little figure that mainly deserves notoriety because Hasbro tried something different with him. It might have been an interesting idea for a sub-group of Transformers, but whatever the case, Tow-Line’s curious design seemed to be a one-shot experiment.

Welcome to the first official Transformers Thursday. This will be the ongoing day of the week where I roll up my sleeve, dig deep into a random tote of Transformers and pull out something to feature. As promised during last Friday’s Ironhide feature, I’m back to look at Energon Cliffjumper, if for no other reason, so I can actually try out this combining gimmick. You see, kids, when two Voyager Class Energon Transformers love each other, they… well, let’s just say that one of them wears the other one as pants. There’s no package shot, so let’s jump right to Cliffjumper’s alt mode.

Ugh. I can usually find a lot of love in my heart for Transformers, but I seriously hate this alt mode. It’s like a completely unnecessary cross between a Dune Buggy and a Formula-1 racer. If I squint hard enough, I can kind of see a little Road Warrior battle-wagon thing going on, but it’s not enough to save my disdain for this vehicle. Funny enough, I think what really bothers me the most about it is it’s just so obnoxiously big. It’s like the designers were so proud of this monstrosity that they had to super-size it. Ironhide is a friggin truck and Cliffjumper practically dwarfs him. If this were a Deluxe figure, I might have been more accepting, but suffice it to say this is one Transformer that I would never display in his alt mode.

Unwarranted size aside, Cliffjumper looks like he’s a patchwork vehicle. The canopy doesn’t look like it belongs on the chassis, the spoiler hanging off the back looks out of place, and there’s that big gap between the back wheels and the side panels where the designers just gave up and left it open. The f’ugly deco doesn’t help matters either. What color is that canopy… ochre? With red windows? Toss in the brown and green chassis and some gold and grey highlights and the color palette used here is an absolute mess. Clearly this vehicle was designed with a hatred for life and little kids. Yes, the mold was recolored more sensibly as Beachcomber, but we’ll have to save him for another time.

Transforming Cliffjumper has a few original ideas working for it, and fortunately when you get him into robot mode things improve a little. I do recommend caution with his missile launchers. They have hair triggers and almost always go off when I’m transforming him. I’m amazed I still have both the missiles. Anyway, like Ironhide, Cliffjumper has two configurations for his legs. The configuration shown above is what he’s supposed to look like, but I hate the stubby legs and the huge disfigured knees. Fortunately, you can extend his legs out to the combined configuration…

Yup, I think that looks much better. Truth be told, I dig Cliffjumper’s robot mode. The spoiler may look odd on his alt mode, but it makes for a cool angled chest panel. I like the way his shoulders angle upward and the way his front wheels fold onto the front of his legs. The official mode has his back wheels angled to the front, but I prefer to tuck them behind his shoulders for a cleaner look. I’m not a huge fan of Cliffjumper’s head sculpt. The visor looks kind of goofy and the rest of the face is pretty non-descript. Still, all in all, this is a pretty solid and imposing looking robot. He can even wield his missile launchers in both hands.

And then there’s the combining gimmick. Each Energon Autobot could combine with another Autobot in their same size class, which basically amounts to one becoming the top half and one becoming the bottom. If that’s not enough for you, each toy could do either half. It was certainly an ambitious gimmick, but sadly it rarely worked well and sometimes intruded on the engineering of the toys as stand-alone figures. I’m going to give it a go here, and it should be interesting since I don’t have the instructions anymore and I can’t remember the last time I ever attempted this. I’m mating him with Powerlinx Ironhide because the color scheme on the two is fairly agreeable. Let’s try it first with Cliffjumper on top. Ok, that sounded wrong.

Oh boy. First off, this took me forever. I finally resorted to some pictures of the combined mode and even then it took me a while to figure it out. The Jameson probably didn’t help. It’s clearly not worth the effort either. Cliffjumper’s torso mode doesn’t look too bad, but his arms are just riddled with awkward kibble. And what you can’t see is the back half of poor Ironhide hanging off the ass of this abomination begging for the release of sweet death. I’m not sure how this gimmick got green lit, but let’s try it the other way around and see if it’s any better.

Ok, I would say that’s better, but given the alternative, that’s not saying a lot. There’s less kibble for the arms at least. On the other hand, the top half of Cliffjumper is still hanging off the back of the figure in a crumpled mess. I still don’t like it.

So, Cliffjumper’s crappy alt mode is just about redeemed by a rather cool robot mode. When I do have my Energon Transformers on display, I’m usually happy to have Cliff standing in the background towering over the Deluxes. He looks cool, so long as I never transform him and certainly never combine him with anyone else. In fact, I’ll likely be covering plenty of other Energon figures on Transformers Thursday, but I’m probably going to ignore the combined gimmick in most cases. It’s just not worth the effort to me, at least not with the Voyagers.

With Marvel Monday going into hiatus for a little while (Spoilers! Next Monday will be the last), I decided to introduce another theme day for the week, and that’s going to be Transformers Thursday (TFT). I know, today is Friday, but the whole Doctor Who trifecta bumped this one day. Planning, kids! It’s not just for breakfast anymore! Next week TFT will launch on time and feature a different Transformer figure plucked fresh out of one of the many totes in the Toy Closet. Today we’re starting with Energon’s Ironhide. Why? Because, why not? While I started getting back into collecting Transformers with Robots in Disguise, Armada was the first series since the G1 days that I was into collecting big time. When news came that it was ending and was to be replaced with a new line, I was sad and somewhat apprehensive about what would replace it. It’s hard to remember what I was so worried about…

Oh yeah, now I remember! As I recall Ironhide was one of the first of the new Energon toys to be shown. It caused quite a stir and it’s easy to see why. Nonetheless, I was a shameful Transformers whore and I made many a midnight run to Walmarts everywhere until I came home triumphant. The packaging is long gone, so let’s jump right into Ironhide’s alt mode.

For starters, I should point out that while I’ll stick to his stock name for this feature, I never call this guy Ironhide. I always call him Gears. Yes, it’s mostly because of the red and blue color scheme and the fact that he’s a truck, but partly because it amuses me to think of the little minibot becoming a big guy like this. Ironhide took a lot of people by surprise with his preschool-ish vehicle design, the ridiculous apparatus on top, and the fact that the designers did very little to hide the his head, which is stuck right on top of his roof. At least they made it so you could push down his helmet to hide his face. On the other hand, this is kind of like Ironhide thinking that if he can’t see you, you can’t see him. We’ll just play along.

I still have no idea what the hell that mess on top of him is supposed to be. I presume it’s some kind of array of lights or sensor equipment? I like to think it’s a giant three lens death ray. I call it the Tri-raticator! Why else would a robot want something that stupid and ungainly mounted on top of them? It’s also the speaker system for some SFX. I’ve long forgotten what they sound like, and I’m sure as hell not about to invest in some new batteries to find out. The array turns and it also has a firing missile launcher. You can easily pop this whole assembly off the top of the vehicle, but it does leave a gaping hole, and considering that his head comes off with it, doing so feels like a cheat.

The rest of the truck has some decent detail, despite looking very much like a Tonka Toy. The shock absorbers are actually sculpted in the wheel wells, the treads are sculpted on the tires and he has gas tanks sculpted on each side towards the back. The white paint on the running boards and fenders give the toy’s deco a little pop, but I really hate the use of the tan colored plastic. It doesn’t fit the rest of the deco well at all. Also, it’s well known I don’t care for painted windows on my Transformer vehicles, and the gold windshield and side windows aren’t helping Ironhide any.

Transforming Ironhide is pretty simple, and the engineering is somewhat original. At this point I should note that as part of his gimmick (more on that later) Ironhide’s legs can be configured in two different ways. Pictured above is the official transformation, which gives him stocky legs with some ridiculously huge knees. I prefer to extend the legs out like this…

Ah, much better! Not only does this mode give him more poseability in the legs, I just think it makes him look better proportioned and have better looking legs. As tepid as I am on Ironhide’s vehicle mode, I really do enjoy this robot mode a lot. It does still have a little of that preschool toy vibe to it, but there’s just something about it that I dig. The apparatus behind his head doesn’t look nearly so bad, although poor Ironhide has absolutely no peripheral vision, because he has a giant gun and missile launcher mounted right next to each of his ears. The chest design is pretty cool with a nice satisfying Autobot emblem sculpted right in, and I love the way the side panels of the cars open up like gullwing doors and form his shoulder armor. Great stuff!

Ironhide sports a solid amount of articulation and some super satisfying ratchet joints to boot! The entire weapon assembly turns his head. His shoulders will rotate and have lateral movement and his elbows are ball jointed. His legs feature full rotation and lateral movement at the hips and have both swivels and hinges in the knees. The combining gimmick unfortunately robs him of any articulation in the torso, but he’s still loads of fun to play with.

Combining gimmick, you say? All the Voyager and Deluxe Class Autobots could combine with another figure in their size class. It’s not a gimmick that I was overly fond of, as it often had very mixed results and sometimes intruded on the design of the figure. I’ve gone long enough, so I’m going to swing back next Thursday with a look at Energon Cliffjumper and we’ll see how this whole combining thing works out.

But before calling it quits for today, I should point out that Ironhide was repainted and re-released as “Powerlinx Ironhide.” Just like I call regular Ironhide Gears, I always call Powerlinx Ironhide Hound and consider him another character. It’s pretty obvious that this repaint was intended to be Hound and I think the homage works quite well with this toy. I’ll even go so far as to say I like this figure better because the tan plastic fits better with the military style deco.

I like both of these figures a lot more than I probably should. The Tonka Toy vibe of their alt modes make them stand out like sore thumbs on my display shelves. On the other hand, I find a lot to love about their distinctive robot modes and they are undeniably fun to play with. It’s true the design on these guys doesn’t mesh well with a lot of other Transformers in my collection, but taken on their own, or at least with most of their Energon peers, they certainly have their merits.

Opening the first tote of Transformers for the first time in about a year, I wanted to first tackle the ones I was most excited about seeing again. Apparently 2004 was a great year for Transformers, because so far the first two figures that jumped out at me were both released that year. Last time we checked out the Autobot, Landmine, so let’s be fair and look at a Decepticon today. It’s Scorponok, and he is in a word: Awesome. Scorponok is a much simpler figure than Landmine, and I no longer own the inevitably released repaint, so this one shouldn’t be nearly as long winded as yesterday’s entry. Let’s check him out…

Behold, Scorponok’s primary alt mode. It’s like a construction vehicle had sex with a robot scorpion. At the core of this awesome monstrosity is a truck cab with two laser cannons, an extended hood and retro-looking grill sitting atop two triangular tank treads. The “tail” bends up over the cabin with a hook. Attach a Minicon and you can deploy a pair of laser cannons. He’s got a pair of giant claws jutting out from the front and the claws can retract to reveal hidden missile launchers. The amount of detail on this sculpt is so crazy, I don’t even know where to begin. There are panel lines everywhere, hinged moving parts, sculpted guns, swiveling guns, vents and grills, its all a lot for the eye to take in. The coloring is just as wild with green camo, orange, brown and loads of cool looking yellow translucent bits. The orange scoops on the front claws even have a nice paintwash, which is something you just don’t see Hasbro doing with a lot of Transformers. There’s a lot of love in this mold.

The toy does feature electronic sounds, but this thing had a hair trigger, so I took the batteries out a long time ago and quite frankly I can’t remember what noises it makes.

Scorponok is technically a Triple Changer, as he does have an official jet mode. Overall, its a fun extra mode, but as is often the case with these secondary modes, its a little funky. The engines that hang off the top of the back don’t really lock into anything and are just flapping in the breeze. Still, I’ve seen worse.

Going to robot mode, Scorponok is one big tower of Decepticon love. Actually, he’s a little too stocky to be a tower of anything, but he’s still a formidable looking robot. The transformation isn’t terribly surprising. His treads become his legs, his scorpion claws become his arms, and the cab becomes his chest, complete with sculpted Decepticon logo. Scorponok doesn’t really have hands, but the claws can still open up to reveal missile launchers and he has cool little energon blades on his forearms.

The tail just hangs off the back and there are a number of things you can do with it from trying to keep it out of the way to putting it over his head to utilize the laser cannons. Normally tail kibble like this would be a problem, but Scorponok is a sturdy enough figure to be able to handle it without toppling backwards. Every last bit of amazing detail from the vehicle mode carries forward to his hyper-detailed robot mode. The head is a great sculpt with a flip up visor that creates a nice nod back to G1 Headmaster Zarak.

Scorponok’s deco remains pretty much the same in robot mode as it does in his vehicle modes. The paintwash on his hands looks great and he even has some silver scuffing on his toes that looks like the paint was worn off from him walking. Once again, I really dig the yellow translucent pieces.

Scorponok represents everything that I loved about the Energon figures. He’s a crazy and imaginative toy packed with so much sculpted detail that its hard to believe he’s in a line that is a continuation of Armada. His extra mode is not great, but its kind of fun and most importantly it doesn’t ruin the toy, even if it does overcomplicate it a bit. Whether sitting in his crazy Scorpion Death Machine mode or standing in his robot mode, this guy is definitely one of my favorite Transformers on the shelf.