Jan 15 2012

Star Wars: Vintage Collection: Princess Leia (Slave Outfit) by Hasbro

I had every intention of keeping my promise and stopping back today with a look at 6-inch Artemis from Mattel’s Young Justice line, but unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries and I was too drunk off my ass busy to run out and get fresh ones, so I’m going to go with a quickie that I’ve been holding on to since a little before Christmas. Holy shit, it’s Star Wars!

Yeah, not much Star Wars around here. In fact, every time I buy a new Star Wars figure, I consider it an epic fail of willpower on my part. Usually I can keep it in check until Hasbro decides to release some awesome huge new version of a classic vehicle or a figure that I really want for some reason or another. That having been said, I’ll freely admit that it is difficult to resist just about any of these Vintage Collection carded figures. And by that I mean the ones from the Original Trilogy, not the prequel figures on the crappy ret-conned cards.

So, Princess Leia in Slave Outfit. I really wanted to pick her up when she was released last year to go with my then new Jabba the Hutt figure and dias. Unfortunately, I never did see her in the stores, and I was not willing to pay the highway robbery of the online prices. Amazingly enough, I was in a Target about a week before Christmas and happened to be scooping up some new Marvel Universe figures when I spotted her hanging on the pegs. There were only like four or five Vintage Collection figures there and bafflingly enough she was one of them. I threw her on the pile and went off to check out. The register didn’t recognize her barcode so the cashier needed to come up with a price. I’m thinking, well you just rang up five Marvel Universe figures at $6.99 a piece, so that’s what she’ll call it and I’d be fine. Instead she says, “How’s three bucks sound?” Yeah, it sounded just fine.

Anyway, it wasn’t until I got this figure home that I realized she didn’t include the second set of legs that the last release did. The ones that allowed her to sit in a reclining position. I’m sure I could probably still get her to recline by my Jabba figure, but insteady I just opted to slap her in a Starcase and leave her carded. Yes, that means you just read all of this for nothing, because I’m not really going to review her. It also means for some bizarre reason I had a spare Star Wars Starcase lying around. Weird. Suffice it to say, the sculpt looks fine, the softgoods loin cloth is good, but maybe a little too full, and she comes with a pole arm and a… a drinking glass? Um ok.

I may get around to opening her sooner or later, especially since Hasbro slapped that ugly Boba Fett Mail Away sticker right on top of her photo, but for now, she’s staying carded. I will admit I found it surprising that her first appearance in this outfit wasn’t until the 1995 Power of the Force 2 line. Even more surprising… I actually still own that figure carded. Once again, weird.

By the way, Hasbro, can you please get the friggin Gamorrean Guard back on the pegs, please?

Jan 13 2012

Marvel Universe: Falcon by Hasbro

I’m almost caught up on my backlog of Marvel Universe figures, as I’ve got just a few more new acquisitions to feature here. Today we’re going to check out Falcon. I’m actually kind of surprised they didn’t save Falcon for the “Comic Series” of Captain America’s movie line, but the timing of his release was still fairly on point. Honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of the character, but I certainly don’t mind him when he makes an appearance in whatever I happen to be reading. He was definitely a challenging figure for Hasbro to tackle what with the heavy reuse in the line. Did they pull it off? Let’s see…

Standard Marvel Universe packaging. The character artwork is quite nice. A bit more gritty than some, but you get a nice shot of him flying out of the card with Redwing in tow. Falcon certainly has no trouble filling out his bubble as his wings are spread behind him, and actually detatched from the figure, along with his personalized figure stand and his little Redwing accessory. It definitely feels like you’re getting more than your average amount of plastic on this card.

Despite being a relatively newer release, Falcon’s sculpt and articulation feels dated for the line. The paint job and the wash on the figure itself also makes him feel more like one of the somewhat lesser quality comic pack figures that we were getting back in the Secret Wars series. I don’t want to rag on him too badly, though, because in overall design and appearance, I think he makes up for those vibes. Hasbro nailed the look of the character quite nicely, particularly the head sculpt, and while I do find the wash over the white parts a little cheesy, the rest of the figure’s paintwork is quite nice, particularly the deco on his chest.

I’m still pretty undecided on the wings. They’re sculpted in translucent red plastic, which makes for a very nice effect, but the way they clip into the slots on the back of his biceps is a bit questionable. When he’s just standing there, I think they look pretty good, and you can get some pretty nice poses out of him if you’re focusing on the positioning of the wings. On the other hand, putting Falcon into some pretty standard action poses makes the wings look kind of wonky and awkward. I’ll confess, I’m not sure I could have designed a better solution, though, so I’ll defer to Hasbro on this one. All in all it works, most of the time.

Redwing is a nice little sculpted piece with a clip on the bottom so that you can attach him to Falcon’s arm. The bird itself looks great, but I would have preferred the clip be turned 90 degrees. Not only would I prefer that for clipping him to Falcon’s arm, but I think it would have looked more like Redwing’s legs and feet, rather than just a giant ring clip underneath him. I’m nitpicking, I know it. For a little 3 3/4″ scale bird, he’s pretty good.

When all is said and done, I’m quite pleased with the way this figure turned out, but it does still feel like one of the earlier MU figures, rather than one of the more recent waves. Maybe Hasbro had to save some money on the body to cost out the extra plastic for the wings. Either way, it’s not a deal breaker for me. I think he’s well worth picking up as I still consider him to be a fairly iconic character and he looks damn fine on my shelf.

Jan 12 2012

Captain America: Captain Britain (Comic Series) by Hasbro

I’ve surprised myself with how many of the Captain America movie figures I actually wound up buying. I was nowhere a completist, but I went in expecting to just buy a couple and I came out with more like six or seven. It’s a fantastic line that, despite being littered with the usual “hero in different climate battlegear” nonsense managed to add some excellent additions to the 3 3/4″ ranks of the Marvel universe. Today I’m going to check out Captain Britain. He was on my list of figures to buy from the Marvel Univese line, but when I saw this version from Cap’s movie line, I opted to get it instead. Why? Because he’s purdy.

Speaking of purdy, the Captain America packaging sure is nice. Too bad I won’t be seeing it much more, since I’m just about done with cherry picking this line. You’ll note on the package that this figure is from the “Comic Series” so no, you didn’t fall asleep during the part of the movie that Captain Britain turned up in. It’s worth noting that nearly all the figures I bought from Cap’s movie line were part of the “Comic Series.” Anyway, Captain Britain is mounted in the bubble standing beside his accessories, one of which is awesome and the other was thrown out the moment I was done taking pictures. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s check out the figure.

Yep, Captain Britain has one sexy paintjob. The white is done in a regular matte finish, but the blue and the red are the same style of lush reflective car lacquer that Hasbro likes to use for the Iron Man armors. Damn, he’s shiny. Now, I do have to note that the paintjob on my figure does have its share of issues, particularly where the white tends to bleed into the other colors, but its mostly in out of the way spots and unless you look really close it doesn’t hurt the figure’s aesthetics all that much.

Articulation? If you have any of the Cap movie figures, you’ve got a good idea what to expect. The head is ball jointed, although you really don’t get a lot of movement apart from side to side. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and elbows, and have swivels at the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the ankles and knees, and have swivels in the upper thighs. You also get the ball jointed ab.

How about those accessories? You get the awesome Excalibur sword. Getting Excalibur in a 3 3/4″ scale sculpt practically pays for the figure right there. It really looks great and isn’t all bendy and warped like you might expect. The other accessory is a horribly shitty firing missile that I’m pretty sure is just a repainted Iron Man missile. It’s crap, but at least you can throw it away and forget about it.

Captain Britain is one of those figures that just looked so snazzy, I was sold on him as soon as I saw him hanging on the peg. Does it mean I’m going to pass on the Marvel Universe one? Probably not, but having him definitely pushed that figure down the chain quite a bit for me. I just love the way this guy turned out on pretty much every level. Now I just need to finally pick up Super Combat Cap and I’ll be able to put this line of figures to bed.

Jan 10 2012

Marvel Universe: Doc Sampson by Hasbro

I got pretty long winded with the last couple Doctor Who features, and I thought I should try to catch my breath before diving into the Doctor Who pool again tomorrow with the first of two new Classic figure sets. So, let’s collectively take a day off from The Good Doctor while at the same time giving me a quick and easy figure to look at today. Doc Sampson should have been really easy to find, but oddly enough I didn’t come across him until I was scooping a bunch of Marvel Universe figures from one of the more recent assortments from off the pegs.

As expected, Doc comes on a standard MU card. The artwork is pretty nice, and I like the green striping used around his name on the bubble. Speaking of bubbles, Doc fills his out pretty nicely as he’s packaged in a nice wide stance with arms out. He also comes with the ubiquitous personalized figure stand.

You might expect Doc Sampson to be one of those really simple MU figures that can get by with a standard buck and some paintwork. Well, you’d be a hundred percent right. Besides his head, belt, and his boots, Doc Sampson uses a generic sculpt with black painted trousers, with red stripes, and a red painted shirt, albeit with his lightning emblem emblazoned across his chest. Keep in mind, I’m not complaining as the figure looks great and the paintwork on mine is nice and clean. The head sculpt is solid if unremarkable apart from his long sculpted green hair.

Doc Sampson also gets by with the somewhat older articulation. You get a ball jointed neck. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The legs feature ball jointed hips, double hinged knees and hinged ankles. He’s also got the usual ball joint in his ab. Conspicuously missing is the swivel cut in the thighs, which I happen to miss a lot when it isn’t included.

And there ya go. It’s a quick in and out kind of day today. I like Doc Sampson a lot. He’s a great 3 3/4″ representation of a character that I was anxious to get into my collection. Is he going to blow anyway away? Probably not, but I doubt anyone was really expecting him to.

Jan 3 2012

Marvel Universe: X-23 by Hasbro

It’s sad but true, every now and then a figure you really hotly anticipated turns out to be a disappointment. As is the case with my latest acquisition from Marvel Universe. There’s no doubt that I was really anxious to get X-23 into my collection. Besides just wanting the figure of the character, I was excited to see the much hyped brand new female body for the MU. Now that I have her in my hand, I’m content, but not enthralled, with the final product. Let’s see what happened…

Typical Marvel Universe card, but the character art is just weird. Its kind of a similar artsy-fartsy direction Hasbro took with Doctor Strange, but I don’t think it works as well here. As for the rest of the presentation, little X-23 doesn’t fill up the bubble all that well, even with her arms and claws held outward. She does, however, come with the standard personalized MU figure stand.

On to the figure itself. Now, to be fair, there’s some solid sculpting here. In fact, it starts out pretty great at the top and gets worse the further down you get. But before I get to the sculpt, I want to point out how disappointed I am with the plastic used on this figure. It feels soft and rubbery and a lot more like the subpar materials used for some of the Secret Wars comic pack figures. This is particularly the case with her legs, which required some gentle heating in order to get them straight.

So, from the waist up, I’m pretty happy. The head sculpt is simple but well done. It’s attractive, which is something that tends to be hit-or-miss with Hasbro and their 3 3/4″ ladies. The straight sculpted hair looks great and the paintwork on the mask, red eyes and lips is all expertly applied. I like the way her ab joint separates her painted top and her exposed mid-riff and the way the shoulders of her top are painted on works well. Her arm bracer belts are actually separately sculpted pieces, which is cool and her claws are understandably sculpted in bendy soft plastic so that kids don’t claw their eyes out with them. Ok, so far so good.

Besides the soft plastic, the legs just have preportional issues, and the fault lies in her huge boots. Here’s what happened: Instead of sculpting new legs, Hasbro sculpted a pair of faux, rubbery leg warmers for her made to look like boots and fitted them around her lower legs. The effect just doesn’t work for me and it really interferes with X-23’s otherwise lovely womanly form. Even though her upper legs are matched pretty well with her torso, taking in the whole figure creates the illusion that her top half is way too small for her bottom half. There is some slop in the silver paintwork on her legs, but its nothing worse than we’ve seen on past MU figures, so I’m not going to make a huge issue of it here.

Now in terms of poseability, there’s some great articulation on this figure. You get a ball jointed neck, arms with ball joints in the shoulders and elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs feature ball joints at the hips, double hinged knees, swivel cuts in both the thighs and above the boots, and ball joints in the ankles. The torso is lacking the usual waist swivel, but you do get the ab ball joint, which suits me pretty well.

I do not hate this figure. I don’t even dislike her. In fact, the more I fiddle about with her the more I’m digging her. She’s grown on me enough that I even considered going back and rewriting this whole feature in a more positive light. But in the end, the gripes I had when I tore the package open are still there. The proportions combined with the rubbery plastic was a shock when I got her out of the package and the fact that she was pretty highly hyped among collectors didn’t help to soften the blow. She’s without a doubt a decent pick up and a great addition to my Marvel Universe collection, but I’m very glad I didn’t wind up paying a premium for her.

Dec 27 2011

Marvel Universe: Doctor Strange by Hasbro

Its tough to wrap my mind around some of Hasbro’s choices for their Marvel Universe figures, but it seems to me that at least a couple of times in each Wave they hit a real sweet spot and produce one of the “must have” character on my list. This time around that one is Doctor Strange. I honestly didn’t expect to see him for a while, but the moment I heard he was being released, I knew I had to have him in my collection. I’ve always loved the mixing of magic and technology in both the Marvel and DC Universes. Its probably best fleshed out in the bickering between Tony Stark and Thor, but toss Stephen Strange into the mix, and you’ve got some great stuff.

Doctor Strange comes on your standard MU style card. I was pretty blown away by the character artwork Hasbro went with for this card. It has a grainy, vintage style to it that’s really at odds with the crisp and bright artwork used on just about every other MU card. The lighting effect is really cool and it makes Strange look both mysterious and even just a tad sinister. With his flowing cape, Strange fills out the bubble nicely. There’s no Secret Documents envelope anymore, but you do get the standard issue, personalized figure stand.

I am extremely happy with Hasbro’s sculpt on this figure. The head is just about perfect and the detail paintwork is just as impressive. His goatee, mustache, eyebrows, the grey in his hair, it all looks crisp and expertly applied. I’ve had my share of crummy paint apps on my MU figures, but Hasbro has been gradually improving and Strange’s head is a perfect example of that.

Strange’s body sculpt features a simple blue tunic and black pants. Both of his hands are Spider-Man webslinging hands. Now, granted the configuration kind of works to make it look like he’s casting magic, but its pretty obvious that they are what they are, recycled Spidey hands. The gold sash is sculpted to be blowing away from his body. The best part of the sculpt, is without a doubt the ornate decor on his cloak, which includes the Eye of Agamotto. The detail of the sculpt and the nice gold paintwork really make it stand out nicely.

How about that articulation? Well, Strange’s articulation is plenty solid for a 3 3/4″ figure, but Hasbro is still waffling between the new articulation stylings and the old. That’s what happens when you save money by kitbashing figures. Here’s the breakdown: You get a ball jointed neck; The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The legs feature universal movement at the hips, which is inhibited a bit by the tunic, hinges at the knees, swivel cuts at the top of his boots, and ball joints in the ankles. The torso includes that universal joint below the chest. All in all, not bad. His cape flows a bit away from him, so it doesn’t inhibit movement all that much, but you can easily remove it if you want to get him to maneuver a bit better.

I’ll go ahead and say that Doctor Strange is one of my favorite MU figures to be released in a little while. Sure, it helps that I love the character, but in the end its the way that Hasbro managed to capture him so perfectly that tops him out on my list. He’s colorful, brilliantly sculpted, and if you can’t get past the hands, he feels completely fresh and original. Oh yeah, if you’re a variant hunter, there is a translucent version out there, similar to what Hasbro did with Vision. I’m not a fan of the translucent ones, but if you are… happy hunting!

Dec 24 2011

Marvel Universe: Scarlet Spider by Hasbro

Stopping by with a quickie today thanks to a pile of Marvel Universe figures that I found on the pegs while doing some last minute Christmas shopping at a somewhat distant Super Target. I’m going to kick off a look at this quartet of new(ish) figures with Scarlet Spider. Now, don’t get me started on the Clone Saga. Love it, hate it… like a dead rat in the middle of your living room, its tough to ignore it. I’m firmly entrenched in the “not loving it” camp. And yet, I can’t seem to dislike the outfit in all its cheesy glory. Scarlet Spider may have his origins in the 70s, but this outfit is a jumbled cliche of everything that was wrong with comic character designs of the 90s. And yet somehow it always worked for me.

So, the thinking here was let’s take Spider-Man’s traditional outfit and make it all red. Fair enough. But wait, there’s more. Top it off with a blue sleeveless hoodie (!) with a spider emblazoned on the front and back (!!). Oh yeah. Wait, you can’t have a superhero without superfluous pouches, so let’s put a couple on Scarlet Spidey’s feet, thus inventing the Ankle Pouch(!!!). Toss in a utility belt and we’ll turn his webshooters into heavy silver bracelets. It’s a symphony of ridiculousness, and again for whatever reason I really dig it. It scratches that nostalgic itch in me from when I was going to college in the early 90s and desparately trying to hold onto my youth by reading the comics du jour.

Scarlet Spidey comes on a standard Marvel Universe card. He’s carded upside down similar to the way some previous Spider-Man variants have been packaged. Unfortunately, gone are the days of the Secret Documents envelope. You do at least get a figure stand. The character art is nothing special, but it gets the job done.

Say what you will about Scarlet Spider’s design, Hasbro executes it fairly well here in figure form. All the extras on the costume (the hoodie, the pouches, the webshooters, and the belt) are separate sculpted pieces. I’m guessing this is more about being able to reuse a standard buck, but the new tooling definitely makes the figure look more unique. The sculpted hoodie does lead to one other little problem, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Scarlet Spider features some crazy articulation for a 3 3/4″ figure, but a little less than we usually expect from the MU line. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. Hinges in the elbows and double-hinges in the knees, Swivels in the biceps and thighs. And the torso, well, that hoodie keeps the torso from having any articulation. He can’t even swivel at the waist. I’ll note here that coming out the package, SS’s leg popped off at the hip. Sure, it’s a ball joint and it pops right back on, but I haven’t had that problem with an MU figure before.

When you come down to it, I think Scarlet Spider is going to be one of those love him or hate him figures. I wouldn’t say that MU figures are pegwarming anywhere around my parts, but based on the online prices for him, I’m thinking a lot of fans are choosing to leave him out of their collections, along with Namor. I can’t argue that there are plenty of Marvel characters who should have been included in the line way before SS here, but I’m still glad Hasbro made him, and I think they executed him really well.

Oct 24 2011

Transformers Reveal The Shield: Optimus Prime by Hasbro

We’ve come to the end of my Reveal The Shield haul, and I saved the worst for last. Ironically, I was really looking forward to picking up this G2 inspired version of Optimus Prime. Early photos made me a little suspicious of his truck mode, but I thought his robot mode would carry the day. Plus, I still wasn’t convinced Hasbro would release a finished product that looked as bad as this Prime’s truck mode did. In the end I was wrong and what we have here is overall a pretty shitty toy. Let’s take a look…

Prime is a Deluxe Class figure, so we’re back to the carded style of package. He comes carded in his truck form, which is pretty ballsy and honest of Hasbro to show you the worst of the two modes outright. Still, it may cool the jets on some Bayformer haters to learn that the modern movies weren’t the first time Prime appeared as an extended cab. Y’all can blame G2 for that. Prime also comes packaged with his energon sword beside him, although as we’ll see it actually serves a purpose in the truck mode.

And there it is, released from the bubble and exposed in all it’s wretched glory. It’s a hideous looking truck with a bizarre patchwork look to it, particularly around the doors. The orange paint on the windows looks awful, the doors themselves angle inward awkwardly, and the arms hanging off the bottom of the doors is just plain unsightly. Let’s not forget the dubious decision to go with a orange tinted clear plastic for the front grill. Even the paint job is miss-matched with the front being black and the rest blue making the toy look like an unfinished prototype. Ugh. I can’t believe any designer at Hasbro held aloft this mess and was pleased enough to release it. I guess it’s all about the robot mode, eh?

Blah. Not so much. Don’t get me wrong, Prime’s robot mode is infinitely better than his truck mode, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly good. If you own the G2 “Laser Rods” Prime or perhaps the more recent Robots in Disguise Scourge, you can see that Hasbro really tried to replicate that design into this Deluxe Class figure. The problem is those two toys are great, this one just isn’t. What’s really strange is the attention paid to some of the little details. The wheels on his legs do this complex little flip up and seat into his legs to get them out of the way. It isn’t at all necessary and you can opt not to do it if you so desire. But why take the time to put that kind of engineering on a toy design that’s so broken everywhere else? Just like his truck mode, Prime’s robot mode looks as if it were patched together from various other Primes.

The head sculpt here is also really weird. It’s sort of like a mix up of Prime from the Bay films with some extra animated stylization thrown in. I don’t know that I completely dislike it, but it feels really out of place on this figure.

About the only thing here that I really do like is Prime’s energon sword. In truck mode it forms the cab hitch and cleverly transforms itself into this neat little sword with a crossguard. I suppose I can give it to one of my other Deluxe Primes or some other figure. It’s a sad statement, because I think Hasbro had some good intentions with this figure, but really dropped the ball on the execution. If you can find this guy at one of the cloesout stores he just might be worth your time, particularly if you are any kind of Optimus Prime completist, but he sure isn’t worth the premium some of the Reveal The Shield toys are commanding online.

Oct 22 2011

Transformers Reveal The Shield: Solar Storm Grappel by Hasbro

I’m almost through the Deluxe Class figures I picked up from this series, but rather than finish them off, I thought I’d jump over to the one big guy. He’s one of the Voyager Class toys in this series and he’s none other than Solar Storm Grappel.

Whaaa? Yeah, just like Turbo Tracks, Hasbro seems to have mislaid the copyright to the name Grapple. Fair enough, but where the hell they came up with Solar Storm Grappel is beyond me. Again, it’s just a name on a box so I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. It’s enough to know that he’s a repaint/remold of Generation Inferno, just like the G1 Grapple toy was a repaint/remold of G1 Inferno. I’m not terribly keen on the decision to go with making Inferno/Grapple as Voyager toys because I think they turned out a little too big to fit in comfortably with the other Classics, although as Deluxes I think they would have been too small. Too bad there wasn’t something inbetween. As with all the Voyagers in this line, the figure comes boxed in his robot mode, but I’m going to start with his vehicle mode.

As expected, Grappel is a yellow boom crane with some hazard stripes painted on the sides. He looks really good as Hasbro did a great job designing this vehicle form to work well as both crane and fire truck. The crane is fully articulated and even extends. There are still a few slight issues with locking all the panels together. I realize this could just be my own sucky transforming skills, but truth is I can rarely ever get either toy to completely line up and lock together perfectly. It’s not a big deal, but still worth mentioning. With the exception of the boom crane replacing Inferno’s water cannon, none of the other changes to the mold are evident in Grappel’s vehicle mode. Lots of crazy detail and the use of clear plastic really makes this vehicle stand out on the shelf!

Transforming Grappel is identical to changing Inferno. It’s fairly simple for a larger toy, but there are some clever things at work here. The way the side panels for the cabin all fold away neatly behind his shoulders is particularly nifty. There is definitely some very clever engineering at work here.

In robot mode we can now see some of the tinkering Hasbro did with the Inferno mold. Grappel’s forearms are rounded instead of squared off and he obviously has a brand new head sculpt, which is faithful to the original G1 character. These changes are all great, but it’s the crane hanging off the side of his arm that bugs me about Grappel. There’s so many other things Hasbro could have done to make this right without having to effect the mold hardly at all. Most easily, have it removable so you can peg it onto his back or something. Either way, this is a really lazy design that we’ve seen with crane Transformers in the past. The crane is intended to come protrude down his arm like a weapon. I find it a little less cumbersome to fold it back so it’s pointing away from his hand. Either way, it’s a giant albatross on what is otherwise a great looking figure.

I’m still really digging on this toy, warts and all. He’s a solid homage to the G1 character and a logical reuse of the Inferno mold. I still think the large size makes these guys feel a little out of place amongst the other Classics, particularly when displayed with a figure like Classics Optimus Prime, but maybe I just need to get used to it. If it weren’t for the crane arm, I could love Grappel a lot more, but as things stand Inferno remains my favorite of the pair.

Oct 21 2011

Transformers Reveal The Shield: Turbo Tracks by Hasbro

The second installment of this week’s Reveal The Shield Quartet is everyone’s favorite posh and pretentious Autobot, Tracks. Forget fighting Decepticons, Tracks was happy enough making friends with good-hearted inner-city Hispanic gang members and helping them bust out stolen car rings. Tracks was also every bit as protective of his paint job as Sunstreaker and he talked like Thurston Howell the Third. Oddly enough I wasn’t jonesing to own this figure, probably because he was given another fairly good upgrade in the now defunct Alternators line. Alas, I sold off my Alternators collection quite a while ago, so it is nice to have a solid update to Tracks in my collection once again.

Once again, there’s the RTS packaging. You’ll note he’s called Turbo Tracks on the package. It’s another instance of Hasbro losing the copyright to a name and doing a slight alteration in order to allow them to still pay homage to the character without getting their butts’ sued off. Why not just go with Autobot Tracks? Who knows. In the end, it’s just a name printed on the packaging.

Originally a blue Chevy Corvette, Hasbro went the generic sportscar route for the RTS version of Tracks and it honestly works very well. Not only did it allow them to avoid those pesky licensing fees, but don’t forget this mold was designed to double as Wheeljack so the car had to work for both figures… and shockingly enough, it really does. The blue paintjob is pretty close to the original and while the hood decals are quite a bit different, they still invoke a familiar sentiment. Just like the original, Turbo Tracks still retains the ability to convert into a flying car by unfolding the wings from under the doors. It was delightfully cheesy back then and it still is.

Transforming Tracks is pretty similar to what I remember from the old days. There’s no terribly clever tricks or anything here, which is in no way a bad thing. Hasbro could have easily over complicated this guy’s transformation to accomodate for the Wheeljack variant, but I’m happy to report that wasn’t the case.

In robot mode, Tracks is easily one of the best homages to a G1 figure. Everything about the original toy’s design is lovingly recreated here and given an updated kick in the pants. The way the wheels position on his shoulders and his wings angle up above them, this is definitely a Classics style figure that doesn’t stray far from home. Tracks has also got a great head sculpt and includes the distinctive red and white color combo that’s always made him stand out in the Autobot ranks. He has two missile launchers that clip onto his backpack and a handgun.

Like Wreck-Gar, Turbo Tracks is another amazing figure in the RTS lineup that made it doubly criminal that this wave was so hard to find. I’m certainly not complaining about getting him for seven bucks, but I would have been just as happy paying a premium for him and eventually I probably would have. I’m sure I said this when I featured Wheeljack, but I’ll say it again: The fact that this mold was designed to work so well for two pretty distinctly different Autobots makes it all the more impressive.

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