Mar 29 2011

Transformers Armada: Jetfire with Comettor by Hasbro

Moving on to another one of my high points in the Armada line is Jetfire. The first time I caught glimpse of Armada Jetfire I was pretty torn. I wasn’t so sure about his robot mode, but I was in love with his vehicle mode from the very start. I was also happy to see that the name Jetfire went to a suitably worthy design. Once I finally found him and brought him home I couldn’t put him down and the uniqueness of his robot mode really grew on me. Let’s check him out…

The shuttle mode is gorgeous. A little toyish looking? Maybe. But I really dig the overall design of this shuttle. He’s more of a battle shuttle with missiles mounted under each wing and a pair of guns as well. There is a ridiculous amount of sculpted detail on this thing, from the panel lines to the little grills and intakes and if you open his payload doors there’s even a bunch of shematics etched on the inside of one of the doors. I think I owned this toy for months before finally taking notice of that stuff, but it just goes to show you how much love went into even the smallest details of this guy. Unfortunately, I think it was pure hate that went into his electronics, as Jetfire has one of the most annoying electronic gimmicks I’ve seen in a while. Push his back tail fin down and the thruster cone lights up and he starts this long-winded countdown, followed by sensors beeping. It’s an infuriatingly long sound clip and it has a hair trigger.

Jetfire also has what I believe to be the best Minicon connectivity of almost any toy in the Armada line. He has three live Minicon ports: One on the top, which activates his spring loaded tail fins, and he has one on each wing that drops each missile. But the coolest thing isn’t really a port at all, its the way Comettor transforms into Jetfire’s front landing gear and plugs in under his nose cone.

Transforming Jetfire is pure craziness. Stuff flops all over the place and for a while, he’s just a hollow mess. But he’s surprisingly easy to convert and the process is really clever. I’m not all that much a fan of Jetfire’s head sculpt, but it doesn’t go so far as to ruin the figure for me at all. I just wish they would have gone with something that looked a little more Transformer-y. Two of his thruster cones retract into his feet, which is really cool as it would aid in his ability to fly. The third thruster assembly becomes a rather unweildly, but serviceable weapon. You can position his wings in a variety of ways. I believe the official position is angled up over his shoulders, but I like to put them down, coming off his back. Jetfire has a good amount of articulation and he’s chock full of strong ratchet joints. His arms feature universal movement in the shoulders and hinged elbows. His legs rotate at the hips and his knees bend.

Jetfire’s Minicon is Comettor and as already hinted at he’s something of a triple changer. In addition to his landing gear mode, he also has a little moon buggy alt mode and can take on a cool wheeled robot mode. Afterall, how many Transformers have wheels instead of feet? At least outside of Beast Machines. Granted, his colors are a bit bland, but he’s definitely one of the more unique Minicons out there and his connectivity with his big bot buddy is fantastic.

Like most of the Armada molds, Jetfire was repainted and re-released as Powerlinx Jetfire. I really wanted to include some shots of the repaint, but the batteries in my camera had other plans. If I’m motivated enough, I may edit today’s entry with some additional photos, but chances are I’ll just save all the Armada repaints for a Powerlinx Week sometime in the future when I’m hard up for material. He’s also capable of joining with Armada Optimus Prime, but there just wasn’t enough alcohol time to make me attempt that for today’s entry. Either way, Jetfire here is a really fun an innovative toy, and certainly one of my favorites in the toyline.

Mar 28 2011

Transformers Armada: Wheeljack with Wind Sheer by Hasbro

I’m back from the weekend, hung over refreshed and ready to go, so welcome to Transformers Armada week. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, but new acquisitions kept forcing me to put it off, but now I have the time to take a week and look at some of my favorites and least favorites of this line. It was technically Robots in Disguise in 2000, which brought me back to Transformers collecting, but that was a strange hodgepodge collection of toys that lacked any real kind of unity. Armada came a few years later and really struck a cord in me. There seemed to be a lot more G1 influence and I instantly fell in love with the whole concept of the Minicons. So, let’s press on and take a look at the first figure for the week: Wheeljack and his Minicon Wind Sheer.

A lot of Transformers continuity has come and gone, but man was it strange back in 2003 to get a brand new Transformer named Wheeljack and have him be an Autobot turncoat to boot. Like most of the figures featured this week, I don’t have a packaged shot, but Wheeljack came in his vehicle mode on a horizontal card and included a rolled up instruction sheet, a collectible card, and his Minicon buddy Wind Sheer. I actually had a MOC example of this figure for quite a while, but after searching through a bunch of totes to no avail, I later found that I sold it off on Ebay a few years back while doing some Spring cleaning.

The first thing to notice about Wheeljack is that while there is defintely an homage at work here, it sure as heck ain’t based off his G1namesake Wheeljack. Nope, with his Lamborguini style auto mode, this guy defintely looks more like G1 Sideswipe than anything else, and even more so when we get to the transformation. The next thing I tend to notice is the fact that his Autobot insignia has been violently scarred off of his hood and replaced with a smaller Decepticon logo. I could go on about how this played out in the cartoon, but the cartoon was crap, so, let’s focus on the figure. It looks pretty bad ass on the figure.

I’m not usually a big fan of painted windows on my Transformers cars. I like the use of transparent plastic, but Armada was big on painted windows and honestly, it sort of works with this figure. As with all Armada figures, Wheeljack has Minicon ports, and in this case three of them. Two of these are the dead ones on the spoiler, that don’t activate anything but still let you pile Minicons on board. Unfortunately, these ports are too close together to be much use with a lot of the Minicons. The live port on his roof activates his attack mode, which raises his gullwing doors and exposes his concealed missile launchers.

Wheeljack’s transformation is very simple, and very reminiscent of that G1 Sideswipe homage I mentioned earlier. He wears his hood as his chest, which places the scarred Autobot symbol in another position of prominance, and his trunk folds out to become his legs. Even his head sculpt is pretty similar to G1 Sideswipe, complete with the little horns too, although he does have an uncharacteristic gold face. [Certainly no surprises why he was repainted as Shattered Glass Sideswipe for Botcon 2008. -FF] He’s a pretty well proportioned figure, although he’s got some major hollow legs going on down there, and he’s pretty back heavy. We’ve also come to expect a lot more articulation in our Transformers since ball joints have become commonplace. Actually, I guess they were pretty commonplace in Beast Wars and Robots in Disguise, so in a lot of ways Armada was a step backwards in that respect, and Wheeljack here certainly proves it. The only really useful points of articulation are in his shoulders and elbows. He can also hold his missiles as swords or clubs.

Wind Sheer is a cool little stealth bomber that mounts nicely on top of Wheeljack’s car mode and thanks to the matching color scheme looks pretty good there. I really dig his transformation, partly because bits don’t fall off of him as with some other Minicons, and because he really does have a pretty solid robot mode.

There’s no doubt that Wheeljack here is a throwback to G1 in terms of sculpt, transformation and articulation. But then I make no bones about the fact that that’s why I like him. He’s a simple, sturdy toy with a nice classical look to him and his Minicon and gimmick are well designed and don’t do anything to ruin the aesthetics of the toy, unless you count making him backheavy. Granted, when it comes to defending my fondness of this figure, I usually find myself up against some overwhelming odds, so there’s a good bet your mileage may vary.

Mar 25 2011

GI JOE SpyTroops: Patriot Grizzly Tank by Hasbro

Rounding out this impulsive little GI JOE week, I thought I’d throw in at least one of the Joe’s vehicles. It’s also one that I didn’t have to dig into a tote to get because a) it’s too big for my totes and b) I love it so much that I keep it displayed on a shelf. Yeah, it’s another one of those shining moments of the SpyTroops Dark Ages, the Patriot Grizzly Tank. Considering a tank is such a commonplace military vehicle it always struck me as odd that the Joes didn’t have more of them. Sure, there was the Mauler, but it was a poor substitue for a real tank… something like this one.

No packaged shot, but like the Ringneck, the Patriot Grizzly came in a big window box minus the window. It’s a terrible design for a toy that actually had bits that could come off of it. I can remember seeing a bunch of these at KB Toys with all sorts of damage, missing bits, or other problems. Oddly enough, despite it’s size, the Grizzly required practically no assembly. As a result, it’s really sturdy hunk of plastic, so you can rough house with it all you want. Even the barrel is removable so if you snap it off, you can just pop it right back on. And did I mention it’s big? Big enough that I couldn’t shoot it in my usual staging area.

The Patriot Grizzly features a beautifully detailed sculpt, complete with panel lines, vents, equipment, and other compartments. The treads are simulated and molded in plastic, but the tank rolls along on concealed wheels. The vehicle is finished in a desert camo motif and pre-applied stickers include the GI JOE logos on the sides and an array of Cobra emblems to catalog confirmed kills. The tank has a radar dish, a whip antenna, a minigun on the front, and two small swiveling gun emplacments. The machine gun pegs into one of the hatches, or you can remove it if you want to button up. The tank is designed to hold figures in three stations: One in the driving slot, one in the front gunner placement, and one in the machine gun hatch on the top. Of course, the tank is littered with pegs all over, so you can really load this baby up with figures. The only problem is that the pegs designed for the SpyTroops era of figures don’t work with the modern Joes.

One of the coolest things about the Patriot Grizzly is its electronics. There’s a handle concealed in the back tha folds out like a joystick. Using this control you can rotate the turret left and right, move the tank forward and backwards, and rapid fire the huge stock of missiles that are fed into the main gun from the hatch on the main turret. Just about every movement the tank makes is accompanied by nice sound effects. The engine rumbles, the treads squeal, and the machine gun fires off bursts. It’s lots of fun to take this baby for a spin and it usually sends my cat running for cover.

The Patriot Grizzly remains one of my favorite Joe vehicles. It has a great sense of realism to its design, it’s sturdy enough to survive storage and rugged play, and the electronic gimmicks actually enhance the toy without crapping all over its design or aesthetics. I still long for the day when Hasbro might build a Joe tank with a removable top so that you can actually have access to the interior, but the until then this one will have a place of honor in my collection.

Mar 24 2011

GI JOE Valor Vs Venom: Cobra Sting Raider by Hasbro

The impromtu GI JOE week rolls onward with another Cobra vehicle from deep within my totes. Will this be a Cobra only week? I don’t know, maybe. Right now I’m just making it up as I go along and going with whatever strikes my fancy. Today we dip beneath the waves to look at the cool little one man Cobra submarine called the Sting Raider. Of course, not to be confused with the more recent Sting Raider, which was a repaint of the vintage Cobra Water Mocassin. [Look back far enough, as I’m sure I featured it here on FigureFan. -FF] Just a heads up, the pack-in figure with this vehicle was the Electric Eel. He sucked and is no longer part of my collection. I have since paired this sub with the very awesome 25th Anniversary Collection Cobra Diver, released in 2008.

No packaged shot, but suffice it to say this baby was released in 2004 as part of the dubious Valor Vs Venom line. Let’s just get right to the toy. The Sting Raider is a little attack sub that holds one figure under a glass domed cockpit. I love this thing so much because with it’s stingray inspired design it really looks like something that could have shown up in the Sunbow cartoon. Since the Cobra Diver was released, I’ve grown even fonder of this little toy because the color scheme matches the Cobra Diver so well, that it’s like they were made for each other. The Sting Raider is sculpted with lots of detailed panel lines and has Cobra emblems printed right on the wings. Mine have started to scratch off a bit from being bounced around in a tote for four years, but I think it gives it a nice whethered look. There are some pre-applied stickers too, which have held up pretty well.

For a small toy, this thing is loaded with little gimmicks. It sits on three tiny wheels, so if you aren’t going to float it in a fishtank, it’ll still sit nice and level on the display shelf. [Although, if you have a spare DCUC Flight Stand from Mattel handy, that works well too! -FF] The canopy lifts up to reveal the roomy cockpit. The Diver can actually fit inside with his oxygen pack on and you can dump all the rest of his gear in there too. The steering column is hinged so you can flip it back when he’s inside and clutch the sticks in his hands. The front of the sub has a big red capture claw, which is spring loaded and slams closed at the press of a button. The wings are hinged at the tips and can be pulled out to expose a pair of firing missiles. The engine fans rotate on the back independently of each other for controlling the pitch and yaw of the sub. There’s even a little swiveling aft gun under the tail.

The Cobra Diver is a great figure, although I think he tends to get overshadowed by the equally awesome (ok, possibly more awesome) Cobra Eel that was released as part of the 25th Anni. Collection in the same year. Yep, remember, this figure came out about four years after the Sting Raider and it’s crappy pack-in figure. Sure, he’s basically just a repaint of Torpedo, but this is one repaint that works really well. The paint apps are nice and clean and he comes with a ton of accessories. You get a removable facemask with a hose that connects to his removable oxygen pack. He has a pistol and a knife that fit in the holster and scabbard, and he gets an assault rifle, although I think Torpedo’s harpoon gun would have been a better fit. He’s also got a pair of pegged flippers for his feet.

I could spill a lot of electronic ink over whether or not Valor Vs Venom totally sucked or not. I tend to think it gets treated a little more harshly than it deserves, but then I’ve long since purged most of the VvV figures from my collection. Maybe someday I’ll commit myself to better analysis of the line, but for now I’ll just point out that at the very least it spawned an occasionally decent vehicle, as evidenced by this awesome little Sting Raider. I’m guessing I paid around ten bucks for it, which is not bad at all for what you get. I’m sure you can pick it up nowadays for next to nothing, or you could opt for the more recent repaint.

Mar 23 2011

GI JOE SpyTroops: Cobra Ringneck Armored Transport by Hasbro

What the hey. Since we kicked off the week with a couple of GI JOE vehicles, and I promised to go Lego-Free for the rest of the week, let’s just stamp a GI JOE theme on the week and be done with it. I’ve dragged a couple of totes out from the bowels of my closet to see what we can come up with. Today we’re going to look at another of my favorites in the Cobra arsenal: The Ringneck.

No packaged shot, as I’ve had this thing for quite a while. It was released as part of the SpyTroops line way back in 2003, and it’s one of the shining moments of what was largely kind of a dark time for GI JOE, at least in terms of my interest in the line. If you’re curious, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a shot of the box via the InterWebs, but it’s worth noting that like most vehicles in this series, it was released in what was basically a window box without the window. Yep, it exposed the toy to the elements, which often increased the chances of it getting broken, having kids stick gum to it, or just have the shit beaten out of it right there on the store shelf. I bought mine new and it was full of dust right out of the package. Fun!

The Ringneck is an armored transport and the main reason I love it is because it looks like something right out of World War II. It doesn’t really look like a Cobra vehicle, because it’s grounded too much in reality and it’s missing some of the Rube Goldbergesque stuff that Cobra engineers seemed to love. Yeah, there are a few odd gimmicks, which I’ll get to in a minute, but overall, it looks more like something you’d get in the Forces of Valor line than GI JOE.

The Ringneck rolls along on six heavy wheels and it features a main cannon attached to a great looking armored dome. The viewing slits and heavy riveting really give it that vintage vibe. There are also two smaller gun emplacements on each side. Pull the lever in the back and you can make the two gun emplacements swivel in unison while sound effects are activated. The main turret rotates and the cannon does fire a missile, but I removed mine a while back because I liked the exposed borehole of the barrel better, and now I can’t find it. As for the sound effects, I can’t remember what they are. The batteries in mine must have died a long while ago and frankly I’m afraid to open the compartment because the batteries in there have probably fused into one piece from corrosion. You can remove the two gun pods and set them up as gun emplacements, which seems like a really lame tacked on gimmick that I try to forget even exists.

By design, the Ringneck holds four figures, with one riding in the main turret and one in each of the smaller gun emplacements. The fourth, which may be the river has the unlucky job of riding directly under the main cannon, while being the most exposed against enemy fire, and all he gets is this little pea shooter that must be hard to work with while driving. There aren’t any peg holes for other figures, but there’s plenty of room for troops to sit on the back and ride along.

The Ringneck came with a Neo Viper figure, which I’m sure I don’t have any more. At least I’m sure enough that I didn’t want to invest in a fruitless search through half a dozen totes of GI JOE figures. But that’s cool, because as far as I’m concerned, this thing belongs to my Battle Armor Cobra Commander.

I don’t know that the Ringneck is high on most fans’ lists of favorite Cobra fighting machines, but I really dig it. It’s a pretty simple toy and what gimmicks it does have don’t really wreck it in anyway. It’s also a really solid toy. You could probably roll this thing crashing off your front porch and it would come away more or less unscathed. As I mentioned earlier, SpyTroops wasn’t a stellar time for GI JOE figures in my book, but there were a handful of really good vehicles turned out around this time for both sides.

Mar 22 2011

GI JOE The Pursuit of Cobra: Cobra HISS with Driver by Hasbro

Somewhere on FigureFan, I’m pretty sure I did a commentary on what was shown at Toy Fair last year. I’m also pretty sure I spent some time there pontificating at how much I hated the Pursuit of Cobra HISS toy. The thing that really stuck in my craw about it was how Hasbro incorporated the elevation feature last seen in that terrible HISS TYPE IV design. I eventually warmed up to it a little bit as I saw better pictures, but I was still in no rush to get one. Unlike the Fury from yesterday’s feature, I probably would have never picked up this vehicle if I hadn’t found such a good deal at it at Ross. Let’s see if it managed to win me over.

Yep, love that Pursuit of Cobra packaging. It’s a simple box with fantastic artwork on the front and a nice picture of the toy on the back, detailing its many features. Unlike the Fury, the box for the HISS is really thick and even bowed out a little on the sides. There’s a window showing off the HISS Driver figure and his filecard is printed on one of the side panels. Open up the box and pull out the tray and you can instantly see that you’re going to have some assembling to do. It’s nothing too complex, but I think it’s pretty cool to be getting vehicles that actually need to be put together again. I was also happy to note that I scored a black one and not the crappy brown colored version that shipped first. There’s also a ton of stickers to apply, but I skipped a number of them, either because they don’t show up well against the dark plastic or they’re in spots that I’d never notice.

Once I got this baby together I was suitably impressed by its size. Granted, a lot of it is because the chassis rides so high on the suspension, even when it isn’t in the elevated position. Still, it’s fair to say that it dwarfs the original HISS. It’s an extremely formidable looking vehicle, easily capable of greasing its wheels with the guts of GI JOE fools. It still has the iconic triangular treads that every HISS vehicle has had since Cobra rolled the first one off the assembly line way back when, but the rest of it has been completely overhauled. The first of my favorite updates is the discontinued use of the clear cockpit in favor of a completely armored one. It’s essentially what Pursuit of Cobra did for the Tiger Ghost Hawk. It makes more sense and it looks better. Second, gone is the rear gunner position for the poor Cobra who might as well have held up a sign that said, “Look at me, I’m a target!!!” Instead, there’s a drop down hatch under the back for a gunner to sit, fully encased in the HISS’ armored bowels. Oh, did I mention it has real rubber treads? Major points for that.

The new armaments consist of a double chin gun right under the cockpit, a belt fed machine gun and a shooting missile launcher. The later two can be positioned in any of four hardpoints, with two located on the top and one on each broadside. I’d love to get a second one of these just to load all the weapons on one of them. And then there’s that elevation feature. It’s not nearly as ridiculous as it was in the TYPE IV HISS, but it still seems pretty useless. Unlike the MARK IV, however, you don’t need to elevate it to get into the cockpit, so you can conceivably forget that feature exists at all. I know I will!

The HISS comes with a Driver figure, which is extremely faithful to the original design and the one seen again in the 25th Anniversary Collection. In fact, the head is practically identical. New touches include a strap on breastplate and backpack. He comes with a revolver and a Cobra standard that can be plugged into one of the holes on the HISS.

If ever there was a fine example of why it’s bad to prejudge toys based on some quick photos from a convention, the Pursuit of Cobra HISS is definitely it. I hated this thing the first time I saw it. Yeah, when I saw some better photos, it started to grow on me a little, but I still wasn’t excited about adding it to my collection. Now that I actually have one in hand, I’m completely in love with it. The size, the design, the modular weapons, the rubber treads… it all really clicks. It’s one of the coolest Cobra vehicles I’ve seen in a while and easily a worthy successor to the mainstay of the Cobra land fleet. Simply awesome.

Mar 21 2011

GI JOE The Pursuit of Cobra: Cobra Fury with Alley Viper Officer by Hasbro

Holy crap, it’s GI JOE on FigureFan! Seems like it’s been a long time, but between poor distribution in my area and too many other things contending for my money, I haven’t been buying a lot of GI JOE stuff lately. As luck would have it, though, I was out shopping this weekend and decided to duck into Ross when I found both the Cobra Fury and the Cobra HISS sitting on the shelf, all by themselves and just one of each, and there was no way I was going to turn them down. I’ve been looking forward to getting the Fury since I saw the first pictures at Toy Fair last year, and this is actually the first time I’ve seen it at any retail store in my area. Let’s see if it turned out as good as I expected.

The Pursuit of Cobra packaging is beautiful and it definitely makes me want to buy the toys when I see them. The packages are all themed to some specific mission, and the Cobra Fury is part of the Urban Strike Mission. The front has an exciting piece of artwork showing the vehicle in action and the back shows off a nice photo of the toy itself, while detailing many of its features. There’s a cut-out window on the front of the package to show you the figure you get and his filecard is printed on one of the side panels. The Fury’s box is remarkably thin, and when you pull out the tray inside you can see why. The vehicle comes in several pieces and the chassis is really flat. You also get an instruction sheet, a sticker sheet, and a catalog/poster. Everything is really packed in there like sardines.

As a vehicle, I have no idea what you’d call this thing, or even if it has anything close to a real world counterpart. In the world of GI JOE, it’s an urban assault vehicle. Obviously, it’s main armament is the huge dual cannon mounted on the top and it also has a number of missile and rocket hardpoints, plus a minigun mounted dead center in the front. There’s room for two drivers in the front cabin and a gunner up top on the turret. It’s pretty well sculpted with a lot of detail and there’s a ton of stickers to apply. I had fun applying a lot of the stickers, but a number of them are pointless since the black lettering doesn’t show up against the dark plastic.

The Fury’s main gimmick is the elevating turret. It pops up, which allows a secondary cannon to swivel around from the back and face forward. This also reveals a mine dispenser on the back. Give it a pull and it starts dropping land mines. There’s also a flip out weapon on one side and an opening panel on the other that can offer engine access or just be used for storing the extra missiles. I like the Fury’s design and the way it packs a lot of weaponry and gimmicks without getting too outlandish or crazy. I also like the fact that the running boards are equipped with pegs so you can load this thing up with troops.

Unfortunately, there are some disappointing things on this vehicle as well. The pop up gimmick on the main turret feels really wobbly. When it’s extended it sits at an angle and really doesn’t look convincing at all. It also tends to knock the firing missile launcher off the hardpoint when you extend it. And while the chassis itself is nice and sturdy, the plastic on some of the additonal parts, like the side hatch and the driver seat doors, feels kind of soft and cheap. I don’t think it’s in danger of easy breakage, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see stress marks turning up before long. It sure doesn’t feel like the quality of plastic we were getting on the 25th Anniversary vehicles or even a lot of the Rise of Cobrastuff for that matter.

The Fury comes with the Alley Viper Officer figure and I’ve got absolutely no complaints about this guy. He looks fantastic and he’s a welcome addition to my collection since the carded PoC Alley Viper has been really tough to find in stores and rather pricey online. He doesn’t come with any guns (ok, I guess that’s one complaint), but he does come with two combat knives, both of which fit into scabbards molded onto the figure. There’s a ton of sculpted detail all over this figure showing off all his pouches and gear. His helmet is removable and has a visor that can be raised and lowered too.

When they first showed the Pursuit of Cobra vehicles at Toy Fair last year, I really wanted the Fury and I was kind of cool on the HISS. Now that I have this thing in hand, I can’t help but be a little disappointed. It’s still a cool vehicle, but I guess my imagination really ran away from me when I saw the pictures, and in person it just doesn’t live up to the anticipation. I’d still recommend getting it if you find it, especially if you can grab it at Ross for $11.99 like I did. Hell the figure alone is practically worth that. Overall, an ok vehicle, better if you ignore the elevating turret gimmick, but there are just a few little nagging things about it that keep it from ranking up there among the great Cobra attack vehicles.

Mar 6 2011

Transformers Generations: Scourge by Hasbro

The new upper eschelon of Decepticon leadership was easily my favorite thing to come out of the original Transformers movie. I can’t exactly put my finger on why, but I absolutely loved Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge from the moment I laid eyes on them. They were all so sleek and new and nothing like the Decepticons that had come before them. Scourge got a little love not all that long ago as part of Hasbro’s short lived Titanium line, and now he gets the proper mainstream overhaul in Generations. Purists may be a bit bummed out about his new alt mode, but I think most will find a lot to love in his new robot form. Let’s check him out!

Ahhh, yep. That’s the Generations packaging. We just saw it a few days ago when I looked at Kup, so I’m not going to say a lot more about it. Scourge comes packaged in his alt mode and he fills the bubble out pretty nicely. His weapon is mounted alongside him.

Scourge’s new alt form is a flying-wing style bomber, and I really thought I was going to have a huge problem accepting it. In fairness to Hasbro, it’s a pretty good homage, considering they decided to go with a real world aircraft and not the sci-fi interstellar hovercraft thingy that the original G1 Scourge used as an alt form. Why they decided to make the change is another matter. The G1 inspired colors translate very well and there are a lot of other similarities at play here. Scourge can even poke his head out of his alt mode like he sometimes did in the G1 cartoon. Some sculpted panel lines add detail and there are two sets of folding landing gear that are a nice touch but really don’t support the aircraft. All in all, this alt mode comes close, and as much as I would have preferred a sci-fi alt mode, this bomber mode ultimately gets the job done.

Transforming Scourge is fidgity and not a whole lot of fun. Some of the parts shifting is stubborn and the hinges on his wings are prone to pop off at least once during the transformation process. I also tend to think that Hasbro over complicated his arm designs just to beef up the complexity of the toy. Nonetheless, once he’s in robot form, I’m willing to forgive an awful lot of this toy’s shortcomings.

Yep, that’s Scourge all right. There are obvious differences to be found, particularly in his legs and feet and the configuration of his wings, but when you look at where it really counts, this Scourge is close enough to the animated original to make me a very happy Transfan. The configuration of the chest is particularly nice as is the way he wears his offset Decepticon insignia. The head sculpt, though, that’s where this figure is a real homerun. The paint apps on my Scourge’s face aren’t quite as neat as I would have liked, but they aren’t bad enough to ruin the figure. And speaking of paint apps, they even painted the tips of his claws, just like the animated version. Sweet. You can split his wings to come up with something a little more like the original toy, but I’m content to leave them in the bomber configuration, as they don’t get in the way as much.

Scouge comes with a beefy gun that is a big tease because simply by looking at it, it seems like it could be a Targetmaster. But don’t get your hopes up, as this is not Fracas. The gun simply splits apart and folds up so that it can be stored inside his wings. It’s a cool gimmick, but with the tooling that went into making the gun do that, Hasbro could have just as easily given us a proper Targetmaster like they did with Universe 2.0’s Cyclonus figure. Boo!

In the end, Scourge is far from a perfect figure, but he does hit enough points to make him a big win in my book. Granted, a lot has to do with the fact that I love the character, so I may be willing to forgive a few more sins than the average collector. The new alt mode is something that I’m gradually getting used to, mainly because it undoubtedly captures the color and personality of the original toy. And in bot mode, Scourge needs to make no apologies at all. It’s only the troublesome transformation that blemishes this figure a bit for me. If you’re really a G1 purist, you may still want to consider the Titanium version, as it did a remarkable job capturing the spirit of the original toy, diecast and all. But believe me when I say, this Generations version is still an excellent update.

Mar 2 2011

Transformers Generations: Sergeant Kup by Hasbro

Oh yeah, new Transformers! Woo Hoo! It’s been a looong time since I’ve found any new Transformers hanging on the pegs. The lack of TF’s featured here certainly doesn’t mean I’m losing my adoration for this beloved line, but the new Generations figures just haven’t been showing up in my area until now. I’m still trying to find Tracks and Jazz, but when I was picking up groceries at Wally World this morning I found Kup and Scourge buried on peg. Today we’ll kick off my look at this pair with everybody’s favorite Autobot war vet curmudgeon, Kup.

It may have been a while, but the packaging for Generations hasn’t changed a bit. In fact the only real difference I notice is that the bubble is no longer cluttered up with stickers advertising The Hub network or whatever else Hasbro is schilling. Kup comes carded in his vehicle mode with his “musket” mounted next to him and there’s the ubiquitous bio blurb on the back. I really don’t have anything else to say about the packaging. It looks ok, and it’s easy to tear into. That’s really all I’m looking for here. I’m guessing Hasbro lost the trademark to Kup somewhere along the way, only instead of just slapping the word “Autobot” in front of his name, they went with “Sergeant.” I’m cool with that.

Of course, long time Transfans will remember that the original G1 Kup was a futuristic pickup truck and the Generations version springboards off of that concept pretty nicely. This version is certainly rooted in a more realistic design with a touch of retro thrown in, but I think the homage is still pretty well defined. This Kup has a more functional truck bed and rolls along nicely on his wheels. He also pegs together really well in his vehicle mode and allows for his rifle to be stored underneith, where the barrel peeks out the back to become one of his exhaust pipes. The toy is cast in a color very similar to the original Kup, and features very little else in the way of paint apps. All in all, it’s an attractive alt mode, perhaps blemished just a bit by the seaming along the doors and the curious fact that you can see where some of the parts of the toy were removed from the mold trees.

Kup’s robot mode is a homerun, which made me somewhat surprised about how easy his transformation is. With the exception of fiddling with his arms to get them just right, and the fact that his shoulders don’t really peg in to anything, he’s remarkably simple to get from truck to bot and back again. While Kup’s lower half may be at odds with the original character, not to mention sporting some enormous feet, from the waist up, it’s pretty amazing just how Hasbro’s designers were able to nail this toy’s faithful look. I’m particularly fond of how the head sculpt turned out, as it’s remarkably close to his animated G1 predecessor. Yes, the arms are a little fidgity, particularly with the way the wheels on his shoulders just seem to float, but they’re serviceable and they can hold his weapon just fine.

The Generations line has yet to really disappoint me, and that record holds strong with Kup here. He’s a fantastic looking figure that manages to take the original character design, tweak it here and there and create a marvelous update to a character I really loved as a kid and still do. I was never satisfied with the original Kup toy (but then the original G1 movie-based toys were never my favorites) and Kup really hasn’t head any loving since, so this updated figure was long overdue.

Mar 1 2011

Marvel Universe: Constrictor by Hasbro

I’m still working on catching up on all the Marvel Universe figures that I’ve added to my collection this past couple of weeks. Today, I thought we’d check out Frank Payne, aka. Constrictor. While I think Constrictor was a great character for Hasbro to add to the MU lineup, there’s really one main reason I wanted this figure as badly as I did and that’s because he spent some time as Deadpool’s roommate,[Somewhere back in the #40’s of Deadpool, Vol. 1 -FF] along with Absorbing Man’s wife, Titania, who actually turned out to be Copycat in disguise. Yeah, great stuff.

Constrictor comes on the almost standard MU card. He was actually a Runner-Up for the Fan’s Choice Figure, so there’s a little band saying so in the upper left hand corner and the border along the left side of the bubble is foil, making the package stand out a little from the other ones on the pegs. He was released among the waves stylized after The Dark Reign story arc, so the package has the HAMMER logo instead of SHIELD. Constrictor is nicely displayed in the bubble in a fairly passive stance with his tendrils hanging down at his sides. I really like the character art used here. It’s actually a lot more exciting than some of the images used on the cards of far more mainstream characters.

No doubt, Constrictor is a pretty distinctive looking character, and the figure certainly does his design justice. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot of sculpted detail on the body, as it mostly relies a generic body sculpt and paint apps. The paintwork is overall very good, except for one major flaw. There’s a big blue dot right on his belly, which is pretty unsightly. The head sculpt, however is really fantastic, especially the grimace on the exposed lower half of the face.

Apart from his figure stand and cache of documents, Constrictor doesn’t come with any accessories, but he does have his two Vibranium tendrils that are permanently attached to his wrists. They’re made of soft flexible plastic and honestly look like gummi worms. I don’t really mean that as a criticism, because they really do look great and while they aren’t poseable, they work fine in pretty much any pose you put him in.

Articulation is what we’ve come to expect from the MU male figures. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips, hinges in the elbows and double hinged knees, swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists, both swivels and hinges in the ankles, and that universal type joint in the torso.

I’m not sure whether this character was all that high on a lot of collector’s lists. Yeah, he was a Fan’s Choice runner-up, but I tend to find these selections rather dubious. He does have a sufficiently deep background to make him warrant a figure, but as I’ve already said, the the main reason I wanted him is because he was Deadpool’s roommate in a particularly entertaining story arc. As a figure, he doesn’t break any major ground in terms of sculpt, but he’s a solid representation of the character and well worth hunting down for the fans out there.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

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