I’ve had a grueling week at work, but what better way to end it then with a new convertorobot. Yes, it’s nice to actually have some consistent Transformers content again because I really missed these guys. And with the Dinobots finally done, I am really anxious to start opening the rest of the Power of the Primes Terrorcons, but before that I thought I’d double back and hit some unfinished business with Titans Return. Let’s check out Overlord!

As with all the Titans Return Leader Class figures, Overlord comes in a big and chunky window box and packaged in his robot mode. My figure’s box got pretty beaten up, but I got a terrific deal on him, so I’m fine with that. I was a little late picking this one up because I was quick to buy Sky Shadow and so I was probably not as anxious to double-dip on a big Leader Class mold. Of course, Overlord is no mere repaint of Sky Shadow, there’s new stuff going on here, and while this figure does invoke a bit of a “been there, done that” feeling in me, there’s plenty new here to love. And since I’ve already reviewed Sky Shadow, you can expect a fair share of comparisons here. Overlord has two alt modes, so let’s start with the tank!

The tank mode is identical to Sky Shadow’s only with a fresh coat of paint… or to be more accurate newly colored plastic. I’ll confess the red and crimson deco looks a lot sharper to me than this white, blue, teal, and purple, but then I tend to find these colors to be more iconic, so it’s a bit of a toss-up as to which one is my favorite. Throw in the translucent yellow hatch and the twin Decepticon insignia straddling the gun and there’s no doubt who this tank is supposed to be! And it’s not that these colors don’t work for me. They’re certainly bright and easy on the eyes and really make the toy pop.

Beyond the deco, this little tank features some fantastic sculpted detail. You get panel lines and hatches, vents, compartments, and some molded treads with wheels on the bottom to help it roll into action. I also love that they sculpted the rifling inside the barrel of the cannon. The turret does not rotate nor does the gun elevate, but the hatch does open to give a place for Dreadnaut to sit. Moving on to the jet mode…

And here’s where the biggest changes in the alt modes come into play. Sky Shadow’s jet mode looked all super sci-fi and stealthy, whereas Overlords is clearly inspired by an SR-71 Blackbird. And I say inspired by, because this mold eschews the sexy curves and contours of the Blackbird for a more angular design, but the cylindrical pylons with pointed tips are unmistakable. Take away those, and I’m getting a strong Cobra Night Raven feel off the body, and that’s not a bad thing. And like the tank mode, the cockpit even opens to offer Dreadnaut a place to sit.

The deco here is still mostly black like Sky Shadow with the main departure being the white and purple on the pylons. The jet features some silver and teal panels on top to simulate stickers from the original G1 toy, but there are also some foil stickers here for the striping on the pylons, deco on the dorsal fins, and a panel at the back. Oh yeah, you can also take the cannon from Overlord’s tank mode and plug it into the back of the jet, so long as your happy having a cannon-less tank rolling around. Before we move on to the robot mode, let’s check out Overlord’s base mode!

I don’t expect much from these base modes, but this one isn’t too bad. I mean, yeah it looks like what it is: A jet standing on its end with the robot legs spread and a gun protruding where his junk should be. But hey, it’s got a tower with a little platform for a Titan Master to stand on and another little control area on the pylon and plenty of pegs to stand other Titan Masters. It’s not great, I’m never going to display it like this, but if I were a kid again playing with my toys, I’m sure I could get some fun out of this. Besides, the fact that it exists doesn’t hurt either of the other modes, so I can feel free to take it or leave it.

And that brings us to Overlord’s robot mode. As with Sky Shadow, the tank transforms into the legs and the jet into the upper half, and Oh boy, this sure is the Overlord I know and love. He’s big, he’s beautiful, and he’s got that great squared-off G1 design aesthetic. His iconic shoulder cones are right where they belong and the front half of his jet attaches to his arm to drive the homage home. Of course, if you prefer your robots more symmetrical and without giant jet kibble on their arm, you can always just leave it off or plug it into his back or even his front. Also, I absolutely love the ankles on this guy. They have such a great range of motion allowing his feet to be flat on the ground no matter what stance you put him in. Damn, he’s a fun figure to play around with!

Dreadnaut makes for a great head and fits into the larger helmet, while still allowing for full rotation at the neck. The silver paint on the face is gorgeous and the red eyes are sharp. The chest features all the right details, including the weapon systems in his lower torso, which in this case don’t actually deploy but rather are just there for show.

The chest hatches do, however, open, so you can power him up with extra Titan Masters. It’s a great nod back to the old Power Master gimmick in the original toy. It’s also cool that this gimmick carries over to the Power of the Primes Power Masters and even make a little more sense in that context. A word of caution, however, I found the Titan Masters are a bitch to get out once I put them in there.

As expected, the cannon for Overlord’s tank mode serves as a hand gun for his robot mode and he can hold it in either hand.

Certainly, having Sky Shadow first meant I wasn’t as anxious to pick up Overlord, but I’m sure glad that I eventually did. This mold is tons of fun to play with, and I was actually surprised at just how many changes Hasbro made to it, at least from the waist up. I’d even go so far as to say this is one of my favorite modern updates to an older figure I’ve seen, and that’s saying a lot because Hasbro has been killing it lately. It’s no secret that Titans Return has been one of my favorite modern Transformers lines of all time and Overlord is a perfect example of why. And since this is likely to be the last Titans Return review I ever publish, I’m glad to be going out on such a high point and with such a fantastic figure!

Woah, what’s this? A Transformers review? And the very week after I do away with Thursday content? Yeah, it just kind of worked out that way. While hunting the aisles for the new Power of the Primes figures and coming up empty, I actually stumbled upon Slugslinger, the [second to the] last Titans Return figure that I needed and I was pretty damn happy about it. Lets’ take a look!

And here’s the Titans Return Deluxe packaging once more for old time’s sake. Yeah, it hasn’t changed much for Power of the Primes, but not having to show the Titan Master head attaching to the body does give them a little more to work with when it comes to the character art. As usual, you get the Generations logo in the upper right corner and the Titan Master’s name takes priority over the main robot. I always thought that was a little weird. I really don’t have anything else to say about the packaging, so let me get him out and transformed and we’ll start with his vehicle mode.

Of course, Slugslinger is based on his G1 namesake, along with his Targetmaster, Caliburst, who has now been re-made into a Titan Master. Hasbro was really experimenting with some cool and original ideas at this point in the G1 timeline and Slugslinger’s distinctive twin-nose and cockpit configuration is a fine example of that. Everything about this jet is a wonderful recreation of the original G1 toy, just a little sleeker and more detailed. And if this jet mode looks more than a little familiar, that’s because the legs that form the engines are recycled from Misfire and Triggerhappy and hence the transformation is very similar as well. Keep in mind, I’m not complaining. If you’re going to borrow from other Deluxes, you might as well borrow from two of the best. I also dig the uniformity it gives these three and they look great flying in formation together.

The deco stays pretty close to the blue and gray plastics used for the original toy. The blue here is a little bit darker, but it looks great I’m not going to split hairs. You get tinted blue canopies over the cockpits and some tampos for detail on the tops of the engines and on the wings, including some crisp Decepticon insignia. If you’re not a fan of symmetry, the weapons can be attached under each wing, although I really wish they had made it so you could attach their combined mode to the top of the jet, like you could with Caliburst and the original toy. The sculpt is pretty solid, with lots of panel lines and other little details, and you get some tiny foot pegs in case you want to have some Titan Masters riding on his back.

As I mentioned earlier, Caliburst was G1 Slugslinger’s Targetmaster, but here he’s a Titan Master and he turns into Slugslinger’s noggin. He stands a league above most other Titan Masters as Hasbro actually spared some paint for his tiny face. He’s cast in the same blue and light gray plastic as Sluggo and he ranks pretty high among my favorite little head robots. So which of the two cockpits does he ride in? Neither, because those two are fake outs and there’s a third cockpit centered behind them. That’s the one that opens up to give Caliburst a place to sit. If you can’t tell, I really dig this alt mode, but let’s see how he fares in robot mode.

Hell, yeah! The robot mode not only looks fantastic, but also has just as many wonderful nods back to the G1 toy as the jet mode does. Most notable are the very distinctive four circular devices on each side of his chest. These give off a cool battlemech vibe to me and between those and the dual nosecones rising up behind his head, there’s no mistaking who this is supposed to be. The blue and gray plastic that makes up his deco looks just as good here as it did in his jet mode, and the tampos on his lower legs and shoulders do a fine job of recreating the look of the stickers on the original toy. This is the way to do it, Hasbro… tampos! Never stickers! I hope you learned your lesson with the Voyagers Class figures from this line.

The head sculpt is where this guy varies most from the old toy, as it’s more stylized here, particularly the eyes. The original toy had a visor, but here you get two very narrow and angled peepers that go well with his mischievous grin. The “helmet” is smoother and less detailed than the original Sluggo’s head, and it’s possible that older fans will take issue there, but I think it works fine.

From the back, Slugslinger still looks pretty good, so long as you’re like me and enjoy your robots having jets hanging off their backs. That’s not sarcasm… I really do enjoy jets on my robots’ backs! The dual cockpit assembly folds down a bit in the transformation so that they still creep up over his shoulders, but not too high. I think the wings would have looked better flipped forward, but what’s here is faithful to the G1 toy and who am I to argue with that? Slugsy does suffer from some hollow leg syndrome, but I’m not going to hold that against him.

Slugslinger wields two very distinct looking weapons. One is a blue double-barreled gun with squared off barrels, while the other is a gray, single barrel blaster. I think both are excellent looking weapons, and offer up a bit of variety to the usual guns from this line, which are often just two halves of a combined gun.

Of course, they can still be combined into one beefy gun, and I think I like this option the best. Instead of two halves going together, the gray one mounts on top of the blue one. I think G1 Caliburst would be proud.

I don’t know if it’s because he released pretty late in the line, but Slugslinger was a tough little bot for me to track down. He’s been available at some online stores for a while, but going for way above retail at my usual haunts. I was getting ready to pay premium for him, so imagine my delight when I happened to run into him on the pegs at Target, especially since this line has been gone from stores for a little bit now. He’s yet another variation on an absolutely fantastic base figure and when grouped up with Misfire and Triggerhappy. I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it once more, the Deluxe Class figures in this line were absolutely fantastic. Some of the best Transformers Hasbro has put out in years, and I’m still sad to have seen it end.

I’d say that’ll finally do me for Titans Return, but I still have a certain Leader Class figure to track down.

Hasbro has been rolling out their new Power of the Primes line at retailers this past week, and yes I have already picked up the first wave. But, I’m not ready to give up on Titans Returns just yet. Maybe next week I’ll start busting into some of those Deluxes. For now, I’m checking out Six Shot, a Leader Class figure that I would have probably skipped if I didn’t come across him at half price. I know, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but let’s see if this big bastard can surprise me.

Six Shot and I do not have a history together. His original toy was released pretty late in the game, when I was around 15 and just not into toys anymore. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but it would take me another 15 years and a healthy amount of disposable income, to come back around to buying toys again. But even if I wasn’t taking a toy-buying sabbatical back in 1987, I don’t know that I would have been interested. I’m just not all that into the law of diminishing returns that tends to apply to Transformers with more than two alt modes. And so with that context being laid out, let’s open this beast up. As a Leader Class, Six Shot comes in a nice big window box and packaged in his robot mode, and in this rare occasion I’m going to start there before working my way through his various alt modes.

And yes, I know I’m in store for some pretty iffy alt modes, but let’s first take this time to enjoy how great this robot mode looks, because I think it’s going to make up for a lot of those sins. I can feel the G1 styling coming off this guy in waves and I love it. He’s big and his design hails from a time when robots weren’t ashamed of their boxy bodies. It doesn’t look like Hasbro tried to reinvent him or ultra-modernize him. They just rebuilt him with better articulation, improved proportions, and better sculpted detail. For fans of the original, all the points are still there. He’s got wheels and treads mounted to his arms and beautiful wings rising up from behind his back, not to mention chest wings! There’s a decent amount of sculpted detail to the body, including some panel lining and details intended for his many alt modes. There’s also a delightful generic nature to his robot mode that doesn’t give away much about what he’s going to turn into. Wings? Wheels? Treads? Holy shit… is that the undercarriage of a wolf head hanging off his ass? We’re in for quite a ride!

The coloring is really tight too and a damn near perfect homage to the original toy. You get that distinctive green plastic for the torso and upper shoulder pylons, the white for his arms, the purple for his lower legs, and the rest all filled in with black. The wings on his back are painted with that gorgeous silver that Hasbro has been using lately, and also includes some green and purple paint hits. There are some foil stickers too, and unlike some of the other stickered figures in Titans Return, these aren’t placed in areas that are likely to cause problems down the road. Sure, all stickers eventually peel, but these look like they have a chance to go the distance.

Six Shot’s Titan Master is called Revolver, which is a perfect name for him. He’s a pretty typical little HeadBot and mimics Six Shots green and white color scheme. There’s no other paintwork on him and he features the typical robo-noggin articulation with a swivel in the neck, ball joints in the shoulders, and hinges in the hips and knees of the fused legs. Also like the bigger Bots in this series, Revolver’s head mode sits inside a larger helmet to help him scale out for the larger robots, but still make him workable on the Deluxe Class figures. As for his head mode, it’s all white with red eyes and a big mouth plate, and as cold and featureless as ever.

Six Shot comes with twin rifles, which can fit into each of his hands. It’s worth mentioning that these are a really tight fit. His articulation allows for some fun action poses, but since he lacks ankle articulation, or really ankles of any kind, he can look a little clunky in some of those poses. Yes, the chest wings do get in the way of his shoulder articulation, but you can hinge them out to move them out of the way. Likewise, his pelvic flaps are also hinged so as not to impede that hip articulation.

You can also combine his guns together for when you want to make a stronger statement. Dual wielding Six Shot is definitely a more iconic image for me, but I kind of dig the way this combined gun looks. OK, so we lingered long enough on what an awesome looking robot Six Shot is. Let’s move on to those alt modes.

First up is the truck and it’s not too bad. It has a clearly defined purple cab with silver windshields, a very boxy front and two angled pieces that look like a snow plow or maybe some kind of ramming scoop. It’s kind of weird how the drivers sit in the open cabin area, but at least I can tell what they were going for here and I don’t hate it. It hints at some Earth truck designs, but it works best as just a squat Cybertronian transport. It rolls pretty well on four wheels and there are a few different places you can put the guns.

When viewed from behind, it can get a little confusing as to which is the front and which is the back, because there’s a little driver cabin facing the back as well. Honestly, it looks just as good driving this way as it does the other. Indeed, if you point the guns to the back, you can practically make a new mode out of this. A big part of that is because the back of this truck mode is pretty close to the front of the tank mode, so let’s check that one out next.

I don’t know that the word tank really describes this thing. It’s more of a general attack vehicle. Like the truck, it’s not too bad. It would have been cool if they could have had the top pieces open up to reveal rocket packs or something. This vehicle kind of reminds me of a cross between some of the Transformers: Cybertron designs and Transformers: Animated Blitzwing’s tank mode.

The driver’s cabin can open and Revolver can sit inside. There are also some pegs scattered around so you can load it up with other Titan Masters before sending it into battle. In all fairness, I can’t say this thing is all that much worse than Broadside’s jet mode, and he was just a Triple-Changer not a Six-Changer. I’m going to give this one a pass too. The truck and tank modes take care of the land-based vehicles, next we take to the seas with the submarine mode.

Yes, this is the submarine mode.. I’m stating that clearly up front because there’s absolutely no reason that any sane person would come to that conclusion without being told first. This mode can also be termed a goddamn abstract leap of faith. Now, I’m willing to cut Hasbro a little slack on this, because it’s really just G1 Six Shot’s pistol mode turned upside down, but you can’t go around making robots turn into guns in this day and age. That would be crazy and irresponsible. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t Hasbro sell Nerf guns that look a lot more like real guns than this stupid thing. Guns that actually shoot projectiles and are called guns? Stop trying to apply logic to the situation. There’s definitely a double standard going on. Let’s just accept that and move on. Anyway, this mode is crap, but I’d probably be a lot cooler about it if it weren’t so blatantly obvious that the front is just the truck mode with guns stuck on the front, and if there were some way to reconfigure the clearly visible wheels on the back into some kind of propellers by just having them point to the rear. Next up, we take to the skies with the Space Cruiser mode.

The space cruiser mode is really solid, and definitely my favorite of all of them. This mode alone justifies Six Shot as a Transformer to me. I dig how the front portion looks like it could be a carrier deck for receiving fighters. There’s a tiny cockpit in the center, but the actual cockpit is behind that where Revolver can sit inside the translucent panel. Or, you can keep him as the head and just fold the helmet inside to get it off the back of the ship. There’s a single fold down landing gear to help this thing stand, and the guns tab into the ends of the wings to give it some added firepower. OK, that leaves us just one mode left, and I saved the best for last.

Just kidding, it’s the Winged Wolf mode! This mode is not only crap, but it makes me really angry, and I’ll tell you why. The other modes may have been so-so, but they more or less incorporated generic components into them to make them work. It’s almost like they’re just ancillary fan modes that the designers were able to come up with in order to make Six Shot a Six-Changer. In this case, they literally sculpted and added a wolf head just for this goddamn terrible mode, so there’s no excuses. What I’m trying to say is: THIS IS ARGUABLY THE MOST INTENTIONAL MODE SIX-SHOT HAS AND IT LOOKS AWFUL! Not only does it look bad from all angles, but from the side it just looks like the robot mode bending backward with a dick gun and a wolf head coming out of his chest. Yes, this mode triggers me. Sorry, but I can’t help it.

In the end, Six Shot does not change my feelings toward Six-Changers, but I don’t want to end this review on a sour note. There is undeniably a lot to love about this figure. In fact, I think Six Shot is arguably one of the most faithful G1 updates that Hasbro has ever done, and that alone is worthy of celebration. The robot mode looks great, has fun articulation, and while his alt modes are understandably a mixed bag, they follow those of the original toy almost perfectly. I have to imagine that anyone who has fond memories of Six Shot as a kid is going to absolutely adore this figure… even his goofy and f’ugly Winged Wolf mode! Granted, that’s not me, and I still think I would have ended up skipping this bot at full price, but at the $25 that Amazon was blowing him out for, I can’t say that I’m sorry to have picked him up. If nothing else, he’s another big bruiser to add to my Decepticon shelf, and he looks mighty fine towering over the Deluxe Class figures.

I honestly never buy stuff just for the sake of reviewing it here. A couple of decades ago, I was guilty of doing that with my old website when there was a KayBee Toys Outlet a couple towns over and it lead to boxes and boxes of figures and toys I really had little interest in. I just bought them because they were there and they were cheap and I could write about them. So, why bring that up now? Because I pretty much just bought Krok for the sake of having something new for Transformers Thursday. I’m not proud of myself right now.

Here’s the packaging and yes, this is a straight repaint of a figure that I wasn’t terribly impressed with when I reviewed him over a year ago. I found Krok while hitting up a Walgreens looking for Marvel Legends figures and coffee creamer. There were no new Legends, so rather than come home empty handed I grabbed Krok and a bottle of Dunkin Donuts Extra-Extra. Neither the brand nor the flavor of creamer is relevant here, but I think I’m going to need to pad out my word count on this one. OK, let’s take a look…

Gator mode! Everything I loved about the sculpt last time still holds true. And to my surprise, this one pegs together a lot better than my Skullsmasher does. I still love the G1 mecha-animal aesthetic, and this guy captures it beautifully. And imagine this, I think I even like the deco on this sucker better than Skullsmasher’s. No, I’m not digging those Mountain Dew claws, but the rest of the colors are black and purple and as Decepticon as you can get. I also really love the translucent yellow-green plate on the head and hatch in the body. The whole thing is very reminiscent of those lovely Insecticons. If only the claws were painted silver, this would have been a home-run, homage be damned!

For a bit, I thought Krok’s mouth didn’t open like Skullsmasher’s does, but it was just really stuck. I eventually got those jaws apart and to my delight the teeth and tongue are all cast in transparent yellow-green plastic, which I think looks really cool. Are you taking notes? opaque Mello Yello plastic is bad. Translucent Mello Yello plastic is good. I can’t rationalize it for you, I can only tell you how it is.

The unfortunately named Gatorface is exactly what I’ve come to expect from these little Titan Masters. For some reason, I actually don’t mind the obnoxious coloring here, but it is really hard to make out any of the sculpted detail in his head. Just like Grax, he can sit in the hatch and pilot the giant robot gator. Well, so far, I’m not too upset that I bought Krok. Let’s get him transformed and see how the other mode is…

Krok’s robot mode is still a decent mold, but the deco introduces a whole hell of a lot more Mello Yello plastic, and that’s a shame. If we got some silver instead, this would have been a repaint that I could get behind. I know, I’m missing the point of the homage to the G1 Action Master Krok, but whatever. I do, however, love what they did with his abs. The red down the middle and the silver on the sides really brings out the sculpting in there. It’s something I didn’t really notice in the Skullsmasher release. Beyond the coloring, my figure is also spoiled by the loosey-goosey hips. They were a little annoying on Skullsmasher, but here they’re just intolerable. Shooting pictures of this guy was an exercise in frustration, not only because the yellow-green plastic was befuddling my shitty camera’s sensor, but because the figure kept doing the splits.

And this head! Even with a better deco, this sculpt isn’t winning me over. I can’t figure out what’s going on with the mouth plate. It looks like he’s constantly surprised. The pink on his head crest, eyes, and in his chest panels is kind of a weird addition too. Nice Decepticon logo, though. I wish Skullsmasher had that on his chest.

You get the exact same weapons that came with Skullsmasher. Well, obviously, since one is his tail.

Krok is a veritable roller-coaster ride of highs and lows. The deco here is aimed very squarely at all those Action Master fans out there, and I’m not really one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I would actually love a modern day sub-line of 6-inch scale Sunbow designed G1 Transformers that focused on accessories and super articulation at the expense of transformation. But this fellow is too obscure even for my tastes. Toss in the fact that I’m going to have to treat his hips with some nail polish, and I’m pretty much regretting having picked him up. I think I’ll just leave him in gator mode and set him in the back of my display shelf.