Tag Archives: transformers legacy

Jul 31 2024

Transformers Legacy United: Chop Shop, Barrage, and Malleus Minotaurus by Hasbro

If you hadn’t noticed, Hasbro Transformers reviews have been drying up here. This is only my second for this year, and there were only about half a dozen or so last year. I still love Transformers, I’m still waiting for Beachcomber and Swoop, but otherwise I’ve got most of what I wanted out of the official Hasbro stuff and I can’t think of much shown at SDCC that interested me. Still, every now and then something comes out that entices me, like this boxed set of updates to two of the four Deluxe Insecticons. These guys were originally rolled out in the 1985 catalog and I was both appalled and obsessed with them. On the one hand, they didn’t look anything like my beloved Insecticons, I think they were recycled Bandai toys, and they never appeared in the cartoon. On the other hand, they looked so unique that I couldn’t help but want them. Although, to be fair, I wanted every Transformers figure when I was a kid! Well, I don’t remember ever seeing them in any stores and so it was not meant to be.

The figures come in a fully enclosed box with a small Weapon Master type guy called Malleus Minotaurus… seriously, WTF Hasbro? I hate this box. The character art looks good, but it feels like the Transformers logo should be running down the opposite side. As it is, it makes the box look like it’s upside down when it’s not. Also, look at all the qualifiers… Transformers Legacy United Doom’N Destruction Collection. The Transformers branding has become a confusing mess to me and I honestly have no idea what line is what anymore. But enough of my old-man griping… Let’s start with Barrage and his bug mode first.

Like his G1 predecessor, Barrage’s alt mode is a rhino beetle. The figure is a repaint and remold of Legacy Bombshell, a figure that I have yet to find so I gave up and dropped a preorder. It’s a decent looking alt mode, but since most of the rework is done around the head, the Bombshell similarities stand out as pretty obvious. On the other hand, I do kind of like how this brings the character more into line with the original Insecticons, making them a little more cohesive when displayed together on the shelf. The head horn comes up from the bottom and I think it should be on top, but I’m no bugologist. And in fairness, I’m pretty sure the original toy did that too. I do like the coloring here. The green and yellow plastic looks great together, and there’s a bit of white and red thrown into for added pop. The sonic rifle can plug into either hole on his pack to give him some extra firepower in bug mode, and it’s a repaint of the weapon that came with Bombshell.

Transformation is very similar to what I’ve seen of Bombshell, but Barrage flips the chest to the back and uses the head horn to fill in the new chest, all while not jutting out as awkwardly far as the chest on the G1 Barrage. And all this sure goes a long way to make this robot mode look new and distinctive. The new bug legs can remain pegged into the arms, and I like to angle them back a bit to keep them out of the way. The coloring here remains pretty similar as the beetle, but now he’s showing more yellow. I dig the way the red bug eyes land just under his chest for an extra splash of color, and he has a Decepticon emblem square in the middle of his chest. The back fills out pretty well, but here’s where it’s really obvious that he’s a close cousin to Bombshell. Either way, this is an excellent homage to the original toy’s robot mode.

The head sculpt is pretty cool, borrowing the general beats of the G1 figure, but giving it a full makeover. The yellow face is angular with a dominant mouth plate, two big red eyes and a red panel on the forehead. That panel kind of looks like a third eye from a distance. He also has the green V-shaped antenna coming up from behind, but refined to be not as exaggerated as the original toy. I’d like to think that this is what the Sunbow design would have looked like if Barrage ever showed up in the cartoon.

As I noted earlier, the weapon is a recolor of Bombshell’s, but we’ll still go ahead and call it his sonic rifle. The side pieces can come off and you can customize it a little bit. It’s not really a good match for the G1 figure’s weapon, but I’m not upset over that. I do wish he had come with a sword, like the original did. Lets’ move on to Chop Shop!

Chop Shop’s bug mode is a stag beetle and while Barrage was a shake up of Legacy Bombshell, Chop Shop makes use of Shrapnel. And I gotta say, I think the homage works really well here. New additions include the extra pair of legs that plug into each side, newly sculpted pincers to match the original toy, and a new head, which can be seen in bug mode as two little antenna like appendages. Like Barrage, the reuse is really obvious here, but with the few changes and the brown and orange recolor, I think he looks great, even if he isn’t quite as striking as the original toy. Chop Shop comes with two guns, which is a recolor of one of the Shrapnel’s, and these can be plugged into his back for a super-bug assault mode!

While Barrage’s transformation changed a few things up over Bombshell, Chop Shop’s transformation is identical to Shrapnel and the resulting figure is a lot more similar too. There’s no clever swap of back for front on the torso, apart from the deco, the only changes here are the bug legs that are pegged into the arms, the pincers, and the head. Now, that’s not to say that this doesn’t look great, because I think it does, but the resulting robot looks a lot less like his G1 predecessor than Barrage does, and the Shrapnel chest is really obvious. The deco remains very close to the bug mode with a little more orange showing.

The new head is excellent, and a perfect update to the G1 toy. The rounded dome and angled red eyes give him a sinister visage. There’s some orange paint on his vocalizer box, as well as the twin antenna that sweep down to form open pipes on the sides of his cheeks.

In addition to the twin guns, which I already showed plugged into his bug mode, Chop Shop also comes with a recolor of Shrapnel’s gun. None of these are a great fit for the G1 toy’s weapon, but once again, I’m OK with that. He also doesn’t come with a sword. I would have been fine with Hasbro tossing in recolors of the same sword mold for either, especially compared to what I’m going to look at next.

It’s Malleus Minotaurus, and he feels like the design team was sitting around saying, “What else we got to throw in this box to get it to the right price point?” He’s a re-color of the Battle Master Smashdown, and that’s being generous because he’s just gray plastic with a little blue for his eyes and forehead emblem. As his name suggests, his robot mode is minotaur-themed with a bull-like head. He transforms into a hammer, hence the malleus part of his name. Hey, at least Hasbro is teaching kids The Latin! As a kid, I probably would have loved this concept, but as an adult collector, I don’t have much use for him and the idea of a robot transforming into something that robots hit other robots with is just a bit too goofy for me. He does come with two semi-translucent blue energy effect pieces to attach to the front and back of the hammer’s head.

Both Barrage and Chop Shop turned out great, although Barrage gets the nod for being the more reworked of the two. I love how they managed to flip the torso to give him a new chest, and it makes me wonder if that was planned from the start or just a really clever retrofit. And while Chop Shop doesn’t get any new engineering, I’m happy with how much they re-sculpted for this figure. In either case, I wouldn’t have guessed that the regular Insecticon molds could be tweaked to work this well as the Deluxes. Will we get a second set with Venom and Ransack? Well, I guess we did get a Kickback repaint as Ransack in one of those Buzzworthy sets, but I’d like to see Hasbro try again and give us Venom too. And wouldn’t you know it… My Bombshell arrived just in time to miss getting in the group picture, but I’ll probably get around to giving him a proper review in the near future and we’ll get them all together then!

May 15 2024

Transformers Legacy United: Gears by Hasbro

Hasbro continues to drift outside my area of interests with their current crop of Transformers, and as I’ve said before, I get it, and I’m fine with that. The kids who grew up on The Unicron Trilogy are the new nostalgia market with disposable income waiting to be farmed and it’s time to let them relive their childhoods as adults buying toys. Still, I’m thankful that we older fans are getting a bone thrown our way now and then to pick off those few G1 stragglers still waiting for an update. And to be honest, I don’t have a whole lot left on my list. But, Gears was certainly one of the old Mini-Bots waiting for an update, and while grumpy Gears would probably groan on about how it’s never going to happen… well, it finally happened.

Like many of the previous Minibot updates, Gears arrives as a Deluxe Class, which I think is the way to go with these guys, as I like them to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of The Datsuns and the other Autobot cars. I don’t recall owning Gears as a kid, I think he just never turned up on the pegs around my parts. But, I did enjoy the way the cartoon portrayed his character as kind of a polar opposite of Hound. Where Hound found beauty to appreciate on Earth, Gears hated the planet and longed to return to Cybertron. I also imagined Gears and Huffer just sitting in the back of Autobot briefings griping about how the mission was doomed to fail, and Ironhide leaning over and telling them to shut the hell up or he’d give them a nickle-plated knuckle sandwich. These guys must have been dangerous to morale whenever they got together. The Legacy packaging is similar to we saw last time when I checked out Pointblank and Needlenose. It’s colorful enough, but I’m not a big fan of the design. It’s too loud for my taste and doesn’t really convey the brand. Also, the toy is exposed in the box, so remember to check your figures for dry boogers and gum before you take it home! On a related note, Gears comes with his chest piece needing to be attached, which I assume is so that it doesn’t get pulled off through the hole in the box. Let’s start with the alt mode!

I was never sure exactly what Gears’ alt mode was supposed to be, but I’ve settled on a pickup truck with some kind of storage cap over the bed. This update is kind of rough with a lot of seams, pins, and obvious joints, particularly on the sides. It’s not something that really bothers me, partly because I don’t expect vehicle perfection from a mainline Deluxe, but mostly when I see this stuff I know it’s because Hasbro is making compromises for a really good robot mode. And while I do like me a solid alt mode, I’m always here for the robot mode first and foremost. And unlike some other releases, like Studio Series Brawn, this is an alt mode that locks together easily and perfectly, something that also makes me happy.

And that’s not to say that this alt mode is terrible. For starters, it really nails the colors perfectly. G1 Gears was such a colorful toy with it’s bright red and blue deco making him pop on the shelf, even when parked beside his Minibot chums. Here we get all of that pretty plastic, plus some snappy silver paint on the front grill, the back grill, the wheels, and there’s some yellow light his to the headlamps. Even the red paint on the front bumper is exceptionally nice. The windows are painted in a pale blue, which looks good and makes him display well beside the likes of Studio Series Brawn. On the other hand, it can look off next to some of the tinted translucent windows of past releases like Kingdom Huffer. They still display together fine, but the disparity is there. I’ll throw up some comparison pictures at the end.

There are several sockets on Gears’ alt mode to allow him to arm his gun while rolling out. I’m partial to mounting it on the roof or on either of the slots near his pickup bed. The front fenders are an option too. Tacking guns onto the alt modes is generally hit or miss with me, but I like it here a lot.

Transforming Gears is pretty intuitive and the engineering involves just the right level of involvement I look for in a Deluxe without being overly fiddly. And the resulting robot looks great! The design is full of boxy G1 goodness with a lot of detail in the sculpt. The red and blue deco transfers over from the vehicle mode with some added gray plastic and more of that silver paint showing. The proportions make him look like a compact clobbering machine with a lot of the truck kibble packed away in that backpack. I really dig how the wheels are concealed, but you can still see a hint of them folded in behind his chest. The articulation is superb, right down to the ankle rockers to keep his feet flat on the ground.

Gears always did have a strangely shaped head. A lot of the G1 Minibots did, and in this case it survived into the cartoon design and is well represented here. The face has more of that lovely silver paint and the eyes are painted blue. But in spite of having a slab of a head, he can still turn it from side to side and look up a bit. His expression is one of abject disappointment punctuated by a permanent bad humor, unless that is, someone pokes around under his hood and alters his circuitry.

Yeah, that very cartoon specific play feature is reproduced here, where you can open up his chest and give him the robot equivalent of an emotional lobotomy, like the Decepticons did in the episode Changing Gears. There is some sculpted detail in his chest cavity, but no additional paint. I’m tempted to have a go in there with a few different metallic Sharpie pens. Either way, this is a fun feature and I’m glad they put it in there.

As we’ve already seen, Gears comes with a short black rifle and it’s a great design with a magazine and both a peg for the grip and a side peg to help attach it to the truck mode.

And thanks to a couple of those peg holes on the alt mode, he can even store his rifle on his backpack, which is just the greatest thing ever! I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but bravo!

Gears has had precious little love from Hasbro since the G1 days, so to say this update is overdue would be quite the understatement. But this is a case where the wait paid off, because this figure came out great! Sure, the alt mode could have been more polished, but I’m willing to take the compromise when the result is a robot mode that looks this good, and a transformation that is quick and fun. There are still a few more Minibots that need some updated love, but the one I’m wondering about most is Beachcomber. I pre-ordered him over a year ago, and still nothing!

May 24 2023

Transformers Legacy Evolution: Scraphook by Hasbro

I have pulled waaay back on collecting Transformers, mainly because Hasbro has been drifting away from the G1 stuff in favor of other eras. And that’s fine! They’ve given me most of what I’ve wanted in terms of G1 remakes, and it’s time to spread some of that love to the collectors who are nostalgic for the Unicron Trilogy stuff. Plus, it saves me money so it’s a Win-Win. But, I do have a backlog of convertorobots that I have not checked out on FFZ, and I’m going to try to give them the spotlight here and there, even if some of them are pretty dated by now. I especially want to get to those Legacy Stunticons! But today I’m keeping it small and simple with a new Deluxe Class Junkion!

The Legacy packaging is kind of a mixed bag to me. It’s a lot more eye catching than some of the previous lines’ packaging, but it starts to melt my retinas if I look at it too long. I also have no idea what this Evolution stuff is all about. We’re still on the windowless packaging, and instead of a fully enclosed box part of the toy is open to the air so kids can put their sticky, disgusting fingers all over the toy before you buy it. I should note that Scraphook is an unusual figure in that he’s somewhat similar to the Weaponizers that we got during the Siege line. He does transform, but he’s also meant to be taken apart and mixed and matched with other toys. That’s probably fun for the kids, but it’s really not my bag. Anyway, let’s start with the alt mode.

Scraphook’s vehicle mode looks like a tow truck from a Mad Max film, and I am totally down with that! He’s got a delightfully drab deco of rust brown and dark gray, with a little orange to spice things up. The windows are all reinforced with armored vents, the front has some vicious looking ramming blades, the engine is exposed through the hood, there are some bitchin exhaust pipes on the back, and he’s got a spiked tire on the back, along with his big tow hook. Everything about this truck is just too cool!

Oddly enough, Scraphook’s alt mode struck me as being really small when I got him, but comparing it to some other Deluxes showed me that it really isn’t the case. I’ll do some comparisons at the end with another Deluxe Autobot tow truck, Hoist. Scraphook doesn’t actually come with any weapons to plug into his vehicle mode, but there are plenty of ports if you want to borrow some guns from another figure. All in all, this is just a great sculpt and a super fun vehicle that’s perfect for a Junkion.

Before transforming Scraphook, you have to strip him of some of his parts, and some more traditional Transformers fans may not be happy about that. But he’s not really a parts-former, because all of the stuff that comes off is just kind of extras. The parts include his two sets of exhaust pipes, his tow hook, his spiked tire, and his engine, which splits into two parts. You can omit all of these pieces and still transform Scraphook into his bot mode, but his robot mode is definitely enhanced by these extra bits.

And here he is all transformed and looking pretty damn good… and small! I may have been mistaken about thinking his alt mode was small, but his robot mode actually is pretty tiny for a Deluxe. Here, I’ve attached his exhaust pipes to his shoulders, put his spiked wheel on his left arm, attached his tow hook to the back, and we’ll get to the engine block pieces in a bit. Now, I really dig this robot mode a lot and just like his alt mode, it makes for a great looking Junkion. The robot mode casts off some of that rust brown and shows a lot more orange, which makes the figure pop a lot more in this mode. My only nitpick of the design is the long flat feet are kind of weird when viewed from the side or back. I do wish these folded up and tabbed into the backs of the lower legs. I think that would have looked a lot better. And keep in mind, there are sockets all over this guy, so what you do with those extra pieces is up to you. This is just my preferred look for him.

Scraphook has some pretty good poseability and thanks to some nice ankle rockers, he can keep those big slabs of feet flat on the ground in wide stances. My figure does have some issues with his elbows, which are simple friction hinges that love to pop off and are extremely loose. I can get his arms to stay bent for a while, but they will eventually flop down if given enough time. I’m not sure if this is a problem with my figure or the design in general, but at $25, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Hasbro went all out on the head sculpt for this guy. He’s got a rounded brown “helmet” with a pronounced mohawk-like crest in the middle I also dig that he’s got a plate bolted over his left eye. Scraphook also has some sculpted facial hair in the form of a mustache and goatee, which became all the rage after Transformers: The Movie. I’ve never been a huge fan of that, but it kind of fits with the Junkions, I guess. The face paint is dark gray instead of the silver we’re used to seeing, which is also pretty fitting for a Junkion. All in all, this portrait has a ton of personality and I love it!

The two pieces of his engine become handguns, which is pretty cool. Or you can socket these on his body in various places. Not bad!

And as I mentioned earlier, Scraphook is designed to come apart at the shoulders and knees. You can use this to mix and match with other compatible figures in either robot or vehicle modes. Like I said, this gimmick isn’t really my bag, but it’s probably fun for the kiddos. The connections stay put pretty well when fiddling with him in alt mode, but they did separate a few times while I was transforming him.

I like Scraphook, but I fall just short of loving him. He gets major points for great looking alt and robot modes, but his robot mode is way too small for a $25 Deluxe. Add to that the issues with the shoulders, and he just feels grossly overpriced. It’s also a shame that he doesn’t display well with the Studio Series Junkions, but having a tow truck about half the size of a motorcycle is a bummer. Yeah, I know. Transformers scaling has always been wonky, and that’s true. These are also from two completely different lines, so there’s no reason they should be able to cohabitate on the shelves, but with a design this cool it would have been nice to see him in that larger scale. Maybe I will pick up Crashbar to at least have another Junkion that scales well with him as a bot. This guy is also being remolded and repainted into what I believe will be the first Decepticon Junkion, so that may be worth a look too!

Mar 31 2023

Transformers: Legacy Evolution Shrapnel by Hasbro

Last year, Hasbro gave us Kickback and the promise of getting the Insecticon band back together with new versions. I absolutely adore the Insecticons, and so this made me happy. Then Kickback came out and I absolutely loved him, and that made me happy. But as the old saying goes, fool me once! Because the last time Hasbro did the Insecticons, they started strong and we ended up with a team that didn’t really look like they belonged together. I was worried the same thing would happen here, and so I waited with baited breath for the second release, and here he is. Let’s check out Shrapnel.

We’ve seen the Legacy packaging before, and while I admit it’s rather eye catching in all it’s crazy colors, it doesn’t really scream Transformers to me. All I need in my Transformers packaging is a grid pattern, and either some purple or red to denote faction. Also, what’s this Evolution business? I still don’t know. Hasbro is still refusing to put plastic windows on the boxes, because of saving the planet or whatever, but I get my Transformers online, so there aren’t any kids to put their sticky fingers on my toy or wipe boogers on them. Now the Amazon employees do that. I am pleased to see that somehow Hasbro secured Shrapnel’s name again, as last time I think he was called Skrapnel. Also, the packaged shot showcases the thing about this figure that triggers me the most. Can you guess what it is?

Here’s Shrapnel’s beetle mode and it’s pretty good! But let’s get that one thing that triggers me out of the way first. Somewhere along the way, Hasbro decided to not paint the antenna-slash-pincers silver like it is in the solicitation photos. Instead they left them bare gray and it looks positively awful. I understand that if you read the fine print on the package it actually states that final production appearance may vary, but it still pisses me off, particularly when you look at the price hikes on these little Deluxes. I will give Hasbro credit on two points: First, it’s not a fully enclosed box so at least you can see what you’re getting if you buy him in the store. Secondly, they actually reflect the change in the official package shot online. Of course, I pre-ordered, so the first whiff I got of the change was when I took him out of the shipping box and looked at him.

Other than all of that bitching, I think the alt-mode here is fine. It locks together well and I like how the pincers will open and close without revealing the robot head. The translucent yellow chest plate with the silver plastic behind it and the Decepticon logo stamped on top looks fantastic. Plus, you get that most regal of all Decepticon colors: Black and purple. I also appreciate the use of gloss black paint on the body, as it resembles the diecast of the original toy. There’s some nice silver, red, and blue trim here and there and if it weren’t for that gray plastic, this little bug bot would be a total home run.

Shrapnel comes with two weapons, and you can peg them into his back to weaponize the beetle mode. And look, the G1-inspired gun is actually painted silver, making the ugly gray pincers stand out even more. Yeah, I know. I should get over it. Let’s get him transformed into his robot mode.

Hasbro didn’t muck up the rather simple transformation design from the original figures. Sure, it’s a bit more complex, but it’s still in the spirit of the original toy and it’s still quick, easy, and comfy. Like the beetle mode, Shrapnel’s robot form is a pitch perfect homage to the G1 toy only with better proportions and more articulation. Hey, did I mention how bad the pincers look without silver paint? Oh yeah. I did. Everything else here is just superbly done. You get most of the same beautiful colors on display in his bug mode, and that wonderful yellow chest plate is front and center. I could complain that the upper legs aren’t painted silver too, but that really doesn’t bother me at all. Just the pincers. See… I’m reasonable! From the back, he’s pretty well filled out, except for the hollow upper legs and backs of the pincers.

The head sculpt is also spot on perfect from his big red visor to his silver painted face. You had the silver paint out, Hasbro. It was on the table. You just had to use some more of it on those pincers, dammit!

The two guns are pretty cool, but I’ll mainly just be displaying him with the G1-inspired silver weapon. The purple one can be combined with it a couple of different ways, which is fun, but I don’t like how either of them look enough to go with it.

So, I was really pissed when I opened this figure and saw the pincers, but you probably get that from having read the same complaint over and over again. What I did not expect to happen was to get past it, but get past it I eventually did. At some point the rest of the figure’s merits won me over and I was willing to let it go. And since, Hasbro did something different with Kickback’s wings instead of painting them silver, the two figures do pair up pretty well and look great together. So all that’s left is to see what Hasbro is going to do with Bombshell. If they paint his head cannon silver it’ll make Shrapnel look worse, so I guess the only thing to do is to embrace the gray plastic. We’ll see. But for now, I’m actually really happy with these two, although I won’t be retiring my third party bug bots by Bad Cube any time soon.

Sep 2 2022

Transformers Legacy: Knock-Out by Hasbro

Today I’m checking out another Transformer from the current Legacy line, and one that I actually bought entirely by mistake. This guy went up for pre-order along with some of the Legacy Stunticons, and I guess I just went Decpti-Car mad and slapped that pre-order button one too many times. But that’s OK, because ever since the Stunticons were first introduced, I’ve always had a thing for Decepticon cars and I’m always happy to add another to the collection.

So, it looks like Legacy is just drawing characters from all over the Transformers Universe? Or was that already widely known and I’m just now figuring it out? Either way, Knock-Out here is a reimagining of a character that was introduced in Transformers: Prime. I liked the show well enough, and I collected the toys, but the designs always struck me as being sort of like a weird cross between Animated and Bayformer. Oh yeah, and the package even states “Prime Universe” so my dumb ass has no excuses for buying him by mistake. Let’s open him up and start with the alt mode!

I’ll get to some comparison shots in a bit, but other than being a red car, this alt-mode doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the original toy. But that’s fine because I’m prepared to treat this figure as its own thing for now. This car is a little boxier and less streamlined, but it looks really nice. You get some clear windows, silver decos on the doors, and some gold bling on the wheels. The rather aggressive looking front bumper is a nice mix of dark gray and silver, the headlamps are blacked out, and the hood has some stylish grills sculpted into them. You also get a understated Decepticon emblem front and center. This car holds together well and rolls perfectly.

Alas, there’s one big QC issue on mine, and that’s this mess on the rear driver-side quarter panel. Yeesh! What the hell is this? It doesn’t come off, and it almost looks like spilled adhesive that has melted into the plastic surface. I’d like to blame the lack of a window on the box for this, but I’m pretty sure whatever this is happened at the factory and should have been caught. Yeah, there’s also some gold paint spray on the tire below it. Not cool, Hasbro! I’ll also throw out here that the plastic in general has a grain to it, almost like you get with 3D printing, but not nearly as bad. Very odd!

Knock-Out comes with a two-piece weapon, which can be plugged into the vehicle on the various ports. I went with what the package suggested and it’s not bad. It basically gives the car a long cannon on the hood and a smaller gun-blade-thingy on the side. I do enjoy weaponizing my Decepti-Cars, so I like it! OK, so how about them comparison shots?

Yup, Legacy Knock-Out is bigger and beefier, and I’d say even a bit more aggressive in his design. He looks like he’d be more at home trading paint with Autobots on the highway than his somewhat fragile looking predecessor. The silver deco on the doors pays homage to the original toy’s design, but I wish Hasbro had included the darker maroon coloring on the Legacy version, as I find it pretty distinctive, and it would have helped to drive home the homage a bit more. I didn’t think original Knock-Out had gold rims, and when I dug him out I saw that I remembered correctly. They do look nice, though! On to the robot mode!

Getting Legacy Knock-Out into and out of his robot mode sure is a lot easier than it is with his fidgety predecessor. Indeed, the robot mode here conforms pretty close to the tried and true designs of the Autobot Datsuns, Hound, or Jazz, with the hood making up the chest, the back of the car making up the feet, and the top of the car worn as a backpack. If you’re looking for anything clever or fresh here in terms of engineering or design, you won’t find it. But, if you like this design trope as much as I do, you’ll be happy to see it’s done quite well here. I especially love how the aggressive front bumper makes for a powerful and intimidating chest, and the way the front wheels are concealed inside the shoulders. The deco keeps a lot of the red from the auto mode and throws a lot of black and gray into the mix. You also get some nice, sharp looking silver on his abs. It’s a great looking robot mode!

The head sculpt definitely draws from Prime Knock-Out, and while it’s certainly a good sculpt, it does lose a lot of the personality of the Prime figure. The helmet is toned down a lot with the central comb not nearly as stylized. He’s got a nose now, which is worth noting because TF: Prime Transformers didn’t seem to ever have noses. It’s pretty obvious, this portrait is made to conform to the G1 style and sensibilities and I can dig that. I do wish they let him keep his smirk, though.

When assembled together, Knock-Out’s weapon is meant to pay respects to the original toy’s trident. To be honest, I was never a big fan of that weapon in the first place, and this one doesn’t do much for me either. It looks good, but the way he’s meant to hold it doesn’t make any sense. And the peg at the base of the shaft is too small for him to grasp tightly. You can split it up into two weapons, and that works better for me. I particularly like the rifle. The blade-thing works as a pistol, I guess, but I wish he could hold it like a dagger. I just don’t think a lot of thought went into this thing.

In the end, Knock-Out is an interesting figure, that is at best only inspired by the Knock-Out of Transformers: Prime. His design allegiances clearly lie with the G1 aesthetic, and I actually dig that very much. But fans that were hoping for something a lot more faithful to the source material may very well be disappointed with this guy. Now at the risk of pissing some people off, I’ll say that I was pretty shocked when I dug up Prime Knock-Out for this review and transformed him. I have very fond memories of these toys, but this is one that has not aged well, and I fear that may be the case with the rest of my Prime figures, most of which I haven’t laid hands on in a while. He’s kind of ugly and not very stable, and while Legacy Knock-Out is a lot more homogenized, and maybe even a little generic, I’d still say he looks better on the shelf and he’s a much more fun toy to play around with. I dig him!

Aug 12 2022

Transformers Legacy: Kickback by Hasbro

Well, it looks like a Hasbro trifecta this week, as I’ve gone from Marvel Legends to GI JOE Classified, and now to Transformers Legacy. But hey, I do collect an awful lot of Hasbro properties, so that’s bound to happen from time to time. Today I’m dipping back into Hasbro’s new(ish) line called Legacy, which has been keeping a lot of the G1 love rolling, and this time it’s with a brand new version of an old favorite Insecticon of mine!

Here he is in the rather colorful Legacy packaging…. We last saw Kickback released in the Titan Returns line as a Legends Class in about five years ago. HOLY CRAP, THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO!?! He was the final release in that Insecticon trio, and while I liked that figure a lot, Hasbro took too long to release all three and by the time we got to Kickback, they all had annoying differences in their colors and aesthetics. When I finally got to put them on the shelf together and they just didn’t feel like a cohesive team. Later that same year, I picked up Bad Cube’s unofficial Insecticon Trinity, known as the Evil Bug Corps. Soon thereafter Hasbro’s little bugs went into a tote and I haven’t seen them since. But I absolutely adore the Insecticons ever since they made their first appearance in the old cartoon, and I’m ready to see Hasbro take another crack at these bug bots, so let’s start with Kickback and his cyber-locust mode.

Just from handling this guy, you don’t have to see the robot mode, to tell that Hasbro remained VERY faithful to the design and engineering of the original toy. That could be good or bad, depending on your opinion of overly simple transformations. For me, one of the reasons I Loved the G1 Kickback figure so much was that he looked exactly like his Sunbow animated counterpart, he actually had decent articulation and felt like a real action figure, and he was quick to get from robot to bug and back, which made playing with him a lot of fun. And all that certainly applies here! Sure, the way his legs work has been tweaked, but in spirit everything here is the same as the original. The deco is simple and gorgeous, and black and purple one-two punch to the eyeballs is to die for, and the added yellow brings it to new heights. And while his yellow chest plate is perfectly visible on his back here, I’ll wait to talk about it until we get him transformed.

The only thing I am torn on here are those wings. Oh, they look really nice with their intricate sculpted patterns set upon clear plastic canvases. But, I really miss the silver, because it’s just such an iconic part of the original toy. The chrome present on the original toy is very noticeably absent here. I’ve decided that it’s not a deal breaker for me, and that’s probably just because these do look so nice. The gun storage, on the other hand, is such a wonderful bonus on this update. It plugs right up into his undercarriage and adds some nice firepower to locust mode. If you’re a fan of asymmetry, you can also mount it on either leg.

Kickback also comes with two energy sword-gun-things, which are designed to tab into his wings in the locust mode. These are cast in translucent purple plastic and they’re OK. I’ll never complain about some nice bonus accessories, but I’m never going to display him with them, so they’re pretty much lost on me. Actually, I’ll probably loan them out to other figures. Maybe two of the Legacy Stunticons. But, yeah I wish Hasbro had saved the plastic to give us two sets of wings and the ability to swap them out for two different display options. That would have been really cool. Let’s move on to his robot mode…

Awww, yeah! It takes only a few seconds to get him into robot mode, and what a killer mode it is! Kickback is a tad on the stout side, but apart from that this is just a beautiful homage to his original G1 toy. He has actual fists now, instead of claws cobbled from his insect legs, and while I didn’t realize it in time for most of these pictures, he actually has ankle tilts hidden up in them feets. But what I absolutely have to uncontrollably gush over is that yellow chest plate. It’s yellow-tinted clear plastic over what I assume is a silver painted plate under it, and it creates a gorgeous radiant glow, like he’s practically pulsating with energon. Holy shit, it’s just gorgeous, and I can’t wait to see Bombshell and Shrapnel get the same treatment. I imagine the only people who could gripe about the execution here is that it doesn’t open up as an homage to the diaclone pilot compartment from the original toy. The Decepticon insignia on his upper chest looks great, and I dig the addition of some red panels and yellow striping on his lower legs. Kickback even looks all closed up and polished from the back! What an amazing robot mode!

And the head sculpt is pure money! Hasbro went with the Sunbow style face, as opposed to that of the G1 toy, and I’m always happier when they go this route! He’s got some beautiful silver paint on his face and forehead, and his black “helmet” is flanked by his glorious yellow bug antenna. Yes, there’s a little silver overspray at the top of his bright red visor, but thanks to his pronounced brow, you have to get down low to really notice it. Thankfully, the rest of the paint is fine, but sometimes I worry about these silver faces exposed to the elements with no window to protect them in the packaging. I’ve been lucky so far, but I do buy most of these online and sight unseen, so it’s always a gamble now.

Kickback comes with a wonderful update to his original Electrothermic Blast Tube weapon, which is mostly silver, but also has some metallic purple on the muzzle and on the drum-style magazine. It’s a great looking gun and a very distinctive design!

And the sword-gun-thingies that we saw attached to his locust mode, can also be wielded as weapons in his robot mode. You can attach these to his arms as guns, or he can wield them like energon swords. Again, these are cool bonus accessories, but I don’t plan on using them. I would have much preferred Hasbro include some Energon Cubes instead of these.

Here are some comparison shots of Legacy Kickback with the Commemorative Collection G1 Reissue figure, and boy do I think he represents well! He’s a little bit bigger in locust mode and A LOT bigger in robot mode. Sure, the legacy version is missing a little of the pop from the stickers on the G1 toy, but still an absolutely great representation of one of my favorite G1 figures.

A few petty nitpicks aside, I am absolutely thrilled with how great Legacy Kickback came out. This is just another example of me retiring an older Transformers figure in favor of a newer update. He’s so much fun to zip in and out of locust mode, and to just play around with on my downtime. He’ll likely be on my desk for a while, before finding a home on the display shelves. Yeah, I may buy a second Kickback and have a go at coloring those wings, but we’ll see if the clear set grows on me. My only hope now is that Hasbro doesn’t wait a a couple years to finish the trio off, and that Bombshell and Shrapnel both show up with the same style chests, and an overall cohesive look for the team!

May 18 2022

Transformers Legacy: Dragstrip by Hasbro

Lately collecting Transformers for me has become a cycle of conflict. It goes something like this. Oh no, they’re doing him again. We just got him and I don’t need to buy another. Oh, but look at how much better he looks than the last one. Oh, and it’s actually been five to ten years since we last got him. Huh, seems like it was more recent. Oh, what the hell, I’ll buy him anyway because he really is a big improvement. Transformers is the only line I collect, where it feels like I’m constantly upgrading to a better version of an existing character, and yet I’m a sucker for convertorobots, so I usually do it.

And here we go again, because it’s Dragstrip! A character that last saw release in aptly named Combiner Wars back around 2015. And while it feels like that was just yesterday, it really was quite a while ago. As with Hasbro’s last crack at the Stunticons, Dragstrip and the other limbs are Deluxes, but this time it looks like Motormaster will be a Commander Class, which I think is the new Leader Class. That classification makes sense, since those figures have been getting smaller, but coming with more stuff. And, unlike the Combiner Wars version, this Motormaster will have a trailer. Anyway, we’ve seen the Legacy packaging before. I dig the deco, but I’ll continue to complain about the toy being exposed to the elements, not to mention the disgusting booger-mining fingers of children. Just put them in closed boxes, Hasbro. Let’s start with the alt-mode…

Nice! One of my many issues with CW Dragstrip was that the mold was obviously intended to double as Mirage. And so, while we did get an F-1 racer, it wasn’t really the Dragstrip I knew from the G1 toy or the Sunbow cartoon. This version fixes that very well, most notably giving him his distinctive double wheels on the front and the exposed engine on the back. The vehicle is very compact and boxy, and I absolutely love it. I particularly dig what they did with the front scoop, giving him what looks a bit like a cow-catcher on a locomotive, perfect for ramming Autobots off the road!

The colors here are also spectacular! Hasbro took the basic yellow and red stripes from the original toy, but added in some of the brownish-gold from the Sunbow animated model. Toss in the beautiful silver paint on the engine, and the black wheels, and you’ve got a striking color scheme, that manages to pay respects to both G1 versions that I love so much! The large Decepticon insignia on the front is a great touch as well!

Dragstrip comes with a pair of guns, which can be pegged into the holes on the top sides of the vehicle if you like to weaponize your racecars!

Transforming Dragstrip is just complex enough to be satisfying, but not annoying. The result is an absolutely stellar looking robot mode, which again pays respects to the character’s roots. Gone is the f’ugly combiner port chest, and in its place is the open cockpit with the silver exposed engine block, just like the toy and Sunbow versions. Other great call-outs are the spoilers making up the feet, and the position of the wheels, with the backs landing on his lower legs, and the double fronts on his shoulders. Here, Hasbro went with the Sunbow look of having the shoulder wheels line up front to back, rather than on top of each other like the toy. He even has the shoulder ridges, which remind me of the ridges armor sometimes had to prevent decapitation in battle. Even from the back, he’s pretty damn clean and tight.

The head sculpt is a welcome departure from whatever the hell it was that we got with the Combiner Wars figure. While, I eventually warmed up to that figure, I never stopped hating the portrait. Here, we get a very Sunbow looking head sculpt, featuring the bold red visor, red plates on the sides of the “helmet” as well as the little “ears” jutting out the sides.

The color scheme in robot mode is pretty much identical to the alt mode. It’s dominated by thes ame bright yellow and brown-gold accents. I do like how the red stripes land on his arms. Really, the only thing missing here is a little Decepticon insignia near his left shoulder. Indeed, there’s no faction symbol in this mode at all, but I suppose that can be easily fixed with a repro-sticker.

As we saw while looking at the alt-mode, Dragstrip comes with a pair of pistols, which can be combined into one gun, as well as wielded separately. It definitely references the Sunbow gun over the original toy’s, particularly with the inclusion of the scope. The guns look OK when combined, but it does give them two sets of grips, which is a bit weird. I will likely display him with just one pistol and set the other aside, or peg it into his back for storage. The black and purple deco on the guns is excellent!

Almost everything about CW Dragstrip felt like a compromise, whereas the Legacy version is 100% its own thing, and I absolutely love that! Hasbro executed this figure with style and precision, and apart from the bot mode missing a faction symbol, I can’t find anything bad to say about him! Indeed, it’s especially interesting how there’s virtually nothing about him that advertises the figure as doubling as a Combiner limb. No obvious ports or connectors, no extra parts, nothing! Only a tiny graphic on the box suggests he’s part of a Combiner team, and I suspect that’s because all the Combiner stuff will be found in Motormaster.

Apr 13 2022

Transformers Legacy: Blaster & Eject by Hasbro

The hot newness around the Transformers world is the Legacy series, but it really just seems to be a continuation of the previous lines, with a heavy lean in to the old favorite Generation 1 designs and a smattering of Beast Wars here and there. And in keeping with their sometimes irritating habit of recent redos, Hasbro is taking another crack at everyone’s favorite Autobot boombox, Blaster!

I say recent redos, but to be fair we last saw Blaster about five years ago in the Titans Return line, and it was about four years before that when he was released in Generations. Now, I wouldn’t call three Blasters in the course of about a decade overkill, but there are still other characters who are overdue for their time in the spotlight. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I see this figure released in Kingdom packaging as well? To be honest, it’s getting hard for me to keep track of some of Hasbro’s releases these days. Anywho, Blaster comes in the colorful new packaging we last saw with Skids, and there’s still a big open window so kids can stick their disgusting little peanut butter fingers all over my toy. Also billed in this package is Eject, which is thankfully a cassette tape and not a Headmaster head, like we got with Twin Cast. Let’s check out the alt modes…

For a long while, Hasbro seemed to be ashamed of the old tape player modes. That was especially the case with Soundwave, but Hasbro seems to have gotten over it, as the last Blaster we got was a boombox, and so is this one. And because we aren’t dealing with any third base mode, this one looks pretty damn good. You get the red body with gray side speakers, a yellow tape door, and a carry bar up top. There are some non-working knobs, and a row of buttons, which can be pressed to open the tape door. There’s not much happening on the flipside, although as you can see, I have a few pieces that aren’t aligned perfectly, which just goes to show this is a fairly forgiving transformation. Colors aside, this looks a lot like the Emerson boombox I used to record songs off the radio with when I was a kid!

The tape deck is pretty small, but I still think it scales pretty well with the Netflix War For Cyberton Soundwave release. A figure, which I never got around to reviewing, but here’s a comparison, nonetheless. Personally, I think they look good together.

As I mentioned earlier, the tape door is spring loaded, and pops open when you press the row of buttons under it. At which point you can pull out Eject in his cassette mode. Eject is mostly cast in this beautiful blue transparent plastic, with some gray parts and gold trim. They didn’t really go overboard with any cassette tape markings, but you can clearly see the two tape reels as part of the sculpt. I wan’t a big fan of the days when Hasbro was turning the cassettes into bombs or data pads, or data discs. It’s nice to see them as cassettes again. The flipside isn’t very polished, and if you’re a goofball like i am and don’t turn the head around, you can see Eject peeking back at you. Let’s check out his robot mode, before getting back to Blaster.

Eject is a pretty cool little guy, and while some may have issue with the use of translucent plastic, I actually like it a lot. It looks gorgeous with the gold paint, and Eject’s proportions aren’t too bad for a little cassette bot. And thanks to some ball joints and rotating hinges, he’s got plenty of articulation too.

Blaster’s transformation is a bit more complex than his old G1 toy, but the principle is pretty much the same. The robot mode is clean and well-proportioned and looks great. You still get the tape door on his chest, the speakers on his lower legs, and I dig the way the carry bar splits and locks into the outside of his legs. Those hollow forearms are a shame, but nothing that’s going to ruin the toy for me, and he even looks surprisingly polished from the back, and includes a whole slew of ports back there so he can store his gun and a bunch of other stuff. They even hit a homerun with the head sculpt here.

Hasbro sculpted Blaster’s right hand so that he has a pointing index finger to allow him to push his own buttons and eject a tape while in robot mode. Seriously, can these guys not just activate eject internally? Why they gotta push their own buttons? Either way, it’s worth mentioning that Blaster has some serious ankle tilts, to keep them feets flat on the floor even in dynamic wide stances, and I sure do appreciate that!

Blaster comes with his very distinctive sniper-rifle style gun. There are plenty of Transformers out there who could get away with any old weapon design, but you can’t mess with this design. It just wouldn’t be Blaster without it!

And if you were playing with Transformers back in the 80’s, you know what a triumph it is to have a Blaster and a Soundwave that actually scale well together. Blaster is just a tad taller than that Netflix Soundwave. Just enough to keep with tradition, but not enough to make it awkward when you want to have them fight. And boy do they look fantastic together!

What’s one of the things that bug me the most about Transformers in the last ten years or so? Hasbro puts out a figure and I really like it. Then four or five years later, they put out a new version and it makes the previous figure, the one I was perfectly happy with, look like poop. That’s probably why my Transformers toys are the only aspect of my collection that I purge with some regularity. There are some older favorites that I keep, but even though the Titans Return Blaster is a distinctive figure with its own charms, now that this new Blaster has come along, I really have no need to keep him in the collection anymore.

Apr 1 2022

Transformers Legacy: Skids by Hasbro

What’s this? A new main line of Transformers? Well, at least that’s my assumption, that Legacy will be replacing the Trilogy of Siege, Earthrise, and Kingdom as the new Generations line, and what better character to launch this Legacy series than… Oh, it’s Skids. Ok, then…

Well, I do like the art design! Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, I like it better than what we’ve been getting. The character art has been phenomenal, but some derivation of the boring black package with generic font Transformers running up the side has been with us for a while. This is colorful and trippy and while the Legacy logo doesn’t really scream Transformers brand to me, I can get behind this. Unfortunately, like the packaging we saw in my Buzzworthy Bumblebee review, Hasbro has stopped using plastic windows to save the planet and now leaves the toy exposed to the elements, as well as the sticky fingers of children. I would much rather they just use a completely enclosed box, but whatever. Let’s start with Skids alt mode.

Ah, the Honda City Turbo. It’s a car I never heard of before meeting Skids, and one that I haven’t heard of since. I should go on record here by saying that I’ve never been a fan of Skids. He was kind of a non-entity in the Sunbow cartoon. Indeed, off-hand I can only remember him being in two episodes: Quest for Survival and Triple Takeover. Both are great episodes, but certainly not because Skids happened to be in them. His toy was released too late to be part of the original Class of 84 Autobots, but too early to be included with the hot newness of the 1985 roster. I do distinctly remember finding him in Sears and my Dad saying, “oh, a new Transformer?” You want him? And I said nah, and wound up getting something else instead. At the time, there was just nothing about him that made him desirable to me and he was one of the only Autobots in the 1984-85 line up that I never owned.

Skids is a box on wheels, and certainly doesn’t share the stylish contours of the vintage Datsuns or sexy Lamborghinis. But with that being said, this is a fantastic new version of the original car form. Hasbro didn’t go too far off the page with this one, keeping the same midnight blue body and the same red and white striping on the sides. The front grill is gray with yellow headlamps, and there’s an Autobot emblem on the hood. The windshield and front windows are tinted blue, and you get lots of nice sculpted detail, including quad exhaust, a gas cap, and the screen on the front and back bumpers. The back is a little bland, but all in all, this is a nice alt mode for what it is.

Skids comes with a few weapons, and these can be attached using any of the three ports (one up top, and two on the sides), if you want to weaponize this mode.

Transforming Skids is pretty intuitive and the resulting robot looks surprisingly nice. The front bumper chest and door-wings has always been my favorite look for an Autobot, and Skids wears them quite well. Yeah, the chest is sharply squared off, and reminds me a bit of Armada Red Alert, but I ain’t hating it. The rest of the figure is nicely proportioned, and adds some more red to the deco, both down on his feet, and smack dab in the middle of his robot cod piece. And when viewed from behind, he’s all closed up and polished to a shine.

The head sculpt is very close to what I remember the original toy looking like, although I’m remembering him with yellow eyes instead of blue. The silver face paint looks sharp, and he wears a slight expression of disapproval on his lips, like he just saw that Spike’s report card and he got a C- in Algebra.

For an Autobot who’s primary function is a theoretician, Skids does come with a lot of weapons. You get two silver blasters, one is a stout single barrel pistol, and the other is a dual barreled gun, which can combine together to form a pretty formidable looking piece of hardware.

You also get what I think is supposed to be some kind of Energon Ax, which can also combine with the guns in a number of ways to make, well… I don’t know what. The ax replaces the rocket launcher that came with the original toy, and I’m cool with that!

The only reason I picked up Skids was because he was a new figure in a new line, and I was excited. But in reality, Legacy appears to just be an extension of what we’ve been getting in the War For Cybertron stuff, which is pretty much what I’m looking for in my Transformers anyway. Change the packaging all you want, Hasbro, but you’ve been batting a thousand with your Generations Transformers lately, and I don’t want to see that change. As for the figure itself, Skids if great! I’m legitimately surprised at how happy I am with this pick up, and he’s going to look fantastic on my Autobot shelf!