“The powers are darkness are a more powerful weapon than all the toys your science can muster!” …Mindwipe! As a kid, I only got to know him from “The Rebirth,” but man did I love him. He talked like a Transylvanian Count, could mind control his adversaries, and he turned into a freaking robot bat. Sadly, I never owned the original G1 toy, but now after all these years, I’m finally getting a brand new version of him from Hasbro. Needless to say, I’m excited!

Let’s not waste a lot of time on the package, eh? He comes carded in his robot mode, but I’m going straight for the bat mode.

Meh… he’s OK. He is indeed a robo-bat, but I’m sorry to say not a terribly exciting one. There just isn’t a ton of play-ability to this mode, nor are there a lot of display options. He’s designed to pretty much stand there on his little bat feet with his wings spread. The wings are hinged in several places, thanks to the transformation, so you can fold them in towards his body, but that’s about it. The head is designed to look straight ahead, so getting him into a flying pose where he’s looking ahead of himself instead of down isn’t going to happen. There also aren’t any really exciting places to plug in his weapons in this mode, which is a first for this line.

There are, however, some rather impressive sculpted details on this figure. The wings have a lot going on with textures and patterns. The deco is quite attractive too, with a lot of those prime Decepticon colors, black and purple, and a little reddish-brown mixed in as well.

And that face! Awww, he’s so cute! The bat head sculpt is great, even though it’s cast in a soft plastic, and I adore the hinged lower jaw with the tiny silver teeth. I just really wish there was some articulation in the neck.

Vorath is your typical little head-changer robot. He’s got articulation in the knees and hips (even though his legs are fused together), as well as in the shoulders and neck. Looks like Hasbro isn’t painting these guys at all in this wave, and that’s a real bummer. I can barely tell which side of his head is supposed to be facing front.

Mindwipe’s cockpit is in the center of his chest with a translucent purple door that hinges down. I have to say, I really dig the way Vorath sits in him like he’s controlling a giant bat mech. And GOD-DAMMIT! His head is turned backwards in that picture. I didn’t even notice it until now. Thanks again, Hasbro for not painting faces on these anymore.

Fortunately, Mindwipe’s robot mode makes up for the somewhat lackluster bat mode. At least, it does as far as I’m concerned. The transformation features a few cool things, like the way the wings roll up to form his legs. The lower legs are a bit bulky for the rest of the bot, but I still really dig the overall look of this guy. Once again, the color palate is fantastic. Lots of purple and black, a little of that brownish-red, and his knees have some beautiful silver grills on them. As far as color schemes go, this is pure Decepticon goodness.

Sure, he has a bat head hanging off his back, but otherwise, he’s surprisingly free of bat-kibble. Even the stubby wings on his shoulders are faked out and just there for show. They also have a lot of cool details sculpted into them. The soft plastic wing tips don’t peg in too strongly to form the backs of his legs, but it doesn’t really seem to effect the stability of the figure.

And what Vorath lacks in paint apps on his robot mode, he makes up for by making a fantastic head for Mindwipe.

Mindwipe comes with two weapons. We’ve usually seen them by now, but since I don’t really like any of the places to plug them into his alt mode, I haven’t busted them out until now. The first one is a sort of claw-blade-shield-thing that plugs into his forearms. This is the piece that can also double as a gunner station for Vorath if you sit him in it and plug his other weapon in. There’s not much use for it on this figure, but you can plug it into one of the other guys if you’re into all that kinky robot part sharing, ya freaks!

The other weapon is a simple gun.  This thing is pretty cool. It’s compact and looks great in his hands.

Do I sound disappointed in Mindwipe? I dunno. Maybe I am a little bit. I wouldn’t rank him up there among the best in this line so far, but he’s certainly not among the worst either. I think I probably expected too much out of the bat mode, which is perfectly serviceable, but not nearly as fun as some of the other alt modes I’ve seen in this line. Still, I think the robot mode washes away all sins. Mindwipe looks great in his robot mode and he’s a decent homage to his G1 namesake. If I want something a little more substantial and sophisticated, I can always turn to my Sigma-L from Fansproject. In the meantime, this guy will look just fine on my expanding Titans Return shelf.

Here I go, busting into the second wave of Titans Return Deluxes and I decided to go with Chromedome first. This is an interesting wave for me as I happen to own the Fansproject unofficial versions of each of the figures in this assortment and I’m excited to see how Hasbro’s versions turned out. Still, I’m going to try avoid comparisons, because it’s only fair to evaluate these new bots on their own and not how they stand up to far more expensive third party figures.

I’m still not a huge fan of this card art and layout, but I sure was glad to see it on the pegs when I stopped in the local Wally World for some groceries. These Deluxes have been really tough to find in my area and forget about any of the larger boxed figures. I had to go online to get the first Deluxe wave, so stumbling across all of wave two in one shot at an actual brick-and-mortar store that is not known for having anything good ever was quite the pleasant surprise. Chromedome is packaged in his robot mode, but as always, we’re going to start with his alt mode.

In auto mode, Chromedome does a beautiful job recreating, and slightly tweaking, the look of the original G1 toy. I was never sure what they were going for with this design, but I’ve always experienced a weird retro-future-muscle vibe from it. Nonetheless, I liked the creativity in alt modes that spewed out of the waning years of G1 and this design still reflects that. This new version is a little better proportioned and lacks those awkward arm-pylons on the sides as well as making the hood near the windshield a little less bulky and awkward. The mold consists of some panel lines, but nothing too crazy. Overall, I think fans of the character will be pleased.

The toy retains that same distinctive brown, tan, and red deco that no one in their right mind would ever think to put on a car, and yet obviously somebody did. Most of the deco here is achieved through colored plastic, although the paint on the roof and side panels is a very nice high gloss shade of red and the headlamps are painted blue. You also get some silver and red tampos on the hood, which replicate the original toy’s stickers, and a bold Autobot emblem. The cockpit is hinged so that it can either open by swinging straight up or you can sort of lift it and hinge it backwards to give it a more stylish way of opening.

And speaking of stylish, meet Stylor, Chromedome’s little Headmaster buddy. His robot mode is pretty standard stuff with articulation in the shoulders, hips, knees, and neck. His deco matches that of his larger robot chum. Unfortunately, Hasbro didn’t spring for any paint apps on this one, which was one of the most impressive things to me about the first wave of figures. I liked the tiny painted faces. Also, the red plastic looks kind of cheap. Aesthetics aside, Stylor does sit comfortably in the driver compartment of the vehicle.

There are two weapons which can plug into the sides of the car mode in a few combinations. One is a standard gun, while the other becomes a sort of sidecar gun for one of the tiny bots to ride in. You can also plug the regular gun into it and there are tabs on the roof where it can plug in as well.

Transforming Chromedome feels really familiar and that’s because the figure borrows heavily from the Combiner Wars Stunticon engineering, particularly Dead End. The half-elbow hinges in the arms, the way the legs unpack, and the chest plate that folds down to cover a non-existent combiner link. In that sense, this figure feels like a throwback to a line that just ended, but does that make for a bad robot mode? Not exactly.

I actually like this robot mode quite a bit, but then I was overall rather fond of the CW Stunticons. Chomedome is a very solid update to the original figure. The hood packs away neatly on his back and the the canopy parts fold up on the backs of his legs. Chromey suffers from some hollow forearms, but the legs aren’t have panels to fill them out better than most of the wave one figures. I’m also happy to say the robot mode features some very nice red and silver paintwork, which feels like a big step up from the lack of coloring on some of the figures from the last assortment.

Stylor makes for a great looking portrait. Yeah, the red back kind of makes it feel like the face and “helmet” is tacked onto the head, but it works well enough for me. I like the coloring, particularly the blue visor and orange face plate, but my figure has a bit of mold flashing that needs to be cleaned up.

Of course, the guns can be wielded in robot mode and even combined if you want something bigger and kind of goofy looking.

Chromedome is a solid figure and I’m happy to have him, but after seeing the Stunticon style engineering so many times throughout the Combiner Wars run, it feels a little cheap and sleazy to get a retread of it again in Titans Return. Yes, I do respect and admire Hasbro’s ability to design molds that can be re-purposed, and while it definitely works here as Chromedome, it doesn’t feel terribly clever. Considering how popular this character has become from the near-perfect comic run of More Than Meets The Eye, I think this is a figure where the mileage may vary greatly and some collectors aren’t going to be nearly as forgiving as me.

It’s another Transformers Thursday here at FFZ and today I’m checking out the final figure in the first wave of Deluxe Class Titans Return figures, Skullsmasher and his little head-forming buddy, Grax. Yes, somewhere along the way Hasbro must have lost the Skullcruncher trademark, but it’s close enough. Let’s see if I can make it through the whole Feature without calling him Skullcruncher by force of habit! As for Grax, well, apparently they managed to hang on to the name of the original G1 Skullcruncher’s Nebulon, because it remains unchanged.

Here’s a quick look at the package before I tear it open and have to deal with those goddamn plastic wires. I got nothing new to say about the package itself, other than it keeps the figure minty fresh until it gets to me and I guess that’s really all I’m looking for here. Skullsmasher is packaged in his robot mode, but crikey, we’re gonna check out his croc mode first!

So, allow me to go on record, probably not for the first time, by saying how much I love whenever G1 did animal alt modes. They always had that appropriately cybernetic look to them like a machine approximation of an animal form, rather than the creepy and off-putting real animal forms of the Beast Wars era. In a lot of ways Skullsmasher here captures that beloved aesthetic, much like the G1 figure he’s based on. The croc mode is very angular, it’s covered in panel lines, and it features some great spikes and ridges all over. The deco relies almost entirely on colored plastic, from the pleasingly rich and slightly metallic green to the cheaper looking and almost neon red, and the the odd gray pieces. There are some painted panels on the sides and a Decepticon emblem on top of his head. It’s an uncharacteristically garish deco, but one that should satisfy the G1 purists. Overall it works just fine for me.

I really dig Skullsmasher’s croc head. The diamond shaped eyes are reminsicent of Dinobot eyes and I really dig the way some of his teeth mate with the opposite jaws when the mouth is closed. Open up the mouth and you get treated to a full display of teeth and a segmented tongue.

When Skullsmasher is just sitting there in croc mode, I think he’s great, but picking him up and playing around with him reveals a lot of problems. The plastic here feels super cheap to me. Like knock-off cheap. Especially the red stuff. The way the tail pegs onto the body is a tenuous connection. If I try to pose it to the left or right, it usually pulls out. The two halves of the croc’s hind quarters don’t like to stay tabbed together at the top either. The rest of the figure features some decent articulation. The hind legs are attached to the body with ball joints. The front legs swivel where they meet the body and again just below the hinged elbows. Unfortunately, if I swivel the lower part of the leg enough, it’ll pull right off. Finally, the head is ball jointed, and of course the jaws are hinged.

Grax is a pretty cool little dude with a black and green deco and some nice paint on his tiny face. These guys all have the same articulation, which includes hips, knees, shoulders, and head. He’s an expressive little guy and of course he has that ubiquitous exposed screw right in the middle of his chest.

Despite not being a conventional vehicle, Skullsmasher has a compartment inside him for Grax to ride in. The door is made of a weird rubbery plastic and blends into the croc’s back pretty well.

The instructions don’t really outline any other modes, but if you pull off his tail and flip it upside down it forms a little gunner station with a seat. This can be pegged back into the croc’s ass if you want to make Grax a… wait for it… tail gunner! There are also some tiny foot pegs on Scullsmasher’s front legs for the little guys to ride on rather awkwardly.

Transforming Skullsmasher holds few surprises and his robot mode even less… unless you count his legs constantly popping off at the hips a surprise. In keeping with the three figures that preceded him in this wave, he looks pretty damn good. He’s nicely proportioned and very reminiscent of the original G1 version. You even get the hatch on his chest that flipped down on the original figure to show the stats when you plugged in the Headmaster. I do like the way the croc legs on his lower legs serve as heel spurs to stabilize him. The deco doesn’t change much from the croc mode. You just get a little more gray showing and some paint details on his chest. The lack of Decepticon emblem on his chest, however, irks me to no end. I might have to go into my stash of stickers to give him one.

From the back, Skullsmasher includes the expected croc head kibble backpack, which really isn’t too bad. On the downside, the tail is just sort of an extra piece. You can actually peg it into his back, but than the bulk of the kibble becomes ridiculous.

He can hold it as a shield or sword or bludgeon, or whatever you want to call it to pretend it isn’t just a left over tail. Also, if you leave the gun in it, it can serve as an awkwardly large gun tail thing. None of these options are really ideal for me, so I just plan on putting it behind him when I display him. Thankfully, the gun comes out and can be used as a stand alone weapon.

Grax forms a fantastic head and holds his form quite well. Once again, you can plug any of the heads into him. Head swapping isn’t a gimmick I’m fond of and my other little head guys are buried in the other room so pardon me if I don’t actually show it this time.

Now, when I first started playing with him, I thought I was going to be able to make it out of this review without having to comment on my figure being all loosey-goosey like so many others seem to be. In truth everything on mine is actually pretty solid, except for those ball joints in the hips. They’re not completely useless, he can hold himself up, but if you give him too wide a stance, he’s likely to crumble. Also, the red plastic on this guy still feels rather cheap.

There’s no denying it. Skullsmasher is the only disappointing figure in this wave for me. I think it comes across in how brief this Feature is compared to the others. I didn’t have nearly as much fun shooting him as the other offerings of this wave. But, he’s not a terrible figure by any means. It’s just that when compared to the three shining examples that came before him, he’s just weakened from too many nagging little issues. I’m certainly not sorry I bought him, but I am glad I didn’t lose my patience and pay a premium for him, because he wouldn’t have been worth it. And even after ending this assortment on a slightly sour note, I’ll still say that this is one solid wave of figures and I’m really excited to get my hands on some more. Thanks to a nice score at the local Wally World, which typically has the most poorly stocked toy aisles I’ve ever seen, I was able to grab the entire second wave yesterday. So come on back next Thursday as I start digging into those with a look at Chromedome.

As promised last week, I’m pressing on with my look at the first wave of Deluxe Class Titans Return figures. I already checked out the two Autobots and now I’m going to start in on the Decepticons. I went with Scourge first, because I was always a big fan of this guy and his Sweeps. Also, the last time Hasbro took a crack at him (back in 2011 in the Generations line) he turned out pretty good, albeit with some big departures from his G1 roots. I’m anxious to see if this time they can bring it all the way back home.

Here’s the package. Again, it doesn’t stray too far from what we’ve been seeing from the Combiner Wars. As expected, Scourge is now a Headmaster and his little robot buddy is named after G1 Scourge’s Targetmaster, Fracas. Scourge is packaged in his robot mode and secured by one million of those damned plastic wires. Or maybe only five or six, I can’t remember. As you may have already guessed, I’m starting with his alt mode.

Straightaway, this is a much better homage to the G1 toy and Sunbow design than Generations Scourge. The close-but-no-cigar stealth bomber alt mode is gone and in its place we have a flying space boat that is very much like the old Scourge I know and love. There’s an adequate amount of sculpted detail here, including panel lines and vents, and the multiple shades of blue are right on point. I’m pretty sure the official configuration of the top of his tower is to have the elongated end point backward, but I prefer it to point forward, making it more gun like with the red bit at the other end serving as a thruster. You get a little silver paint here and there and a nice, bold Decepticon emblem printed right on top. Granted, there’s not a lot more to say about this mode, but it makes me a happy old TransFan.

Fracas is a tiny blue robot with an upside down face sculpted on his back… I wonder what that’s all about, eh? You get a little paint on his legs and some surprisingly good paint on his minuscule face. He has articulation in the neck, shoulders, hips, and knees and a giant screw in the middle of his chest.

Scourge’s cockpit is concealed under the gun tower toward the back of the boat, and yes to open it, I have to swivel my gun configuration around to the proper way. I guess there’s a reason it’s supposed to be pointed to the back, but I don’t care! The canopy hinges forward and allows for plenty of room for Fracas to sit while still being able to close and secure the canopy. There are also a couple of pegs toward the nose of the boat that allows for other Headmasters to stand. I pulled out the individually packed Apeface to demonstrate.

Scourge also comes with a double barreled weapon that can be pegged onto the alt mode in a few different places, allowing for a Headmaster to sit in it and operate the gun. There’s a socket for it right in front of the cockpit, which again requires me to spin my tower gun configuration to the back, dammit! You can plug it into the gun tower and make a triple-barreled gun emplacement, although at this point things are starting to look a little ridiculous!

You can also attach it to either side, but if you want to put a figure in it, you’ll have to un-tab the panel and flip it up. I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t a socket on the bottom of the boat. I think it would look great positioned just under the nose of the vehicle. So, as simple as it is, the vehicle has some fun play options. Let’s see how the robot mode turned out…

Hell and yes! Scourge transforms quickly and easily and the result is a magnificent homage to the G1 robot mode. He showcases those rounded aesthetics that were introduced in the 1986 movie designs and his proportions are perfect. His wings aren’t quite as shapely as his Sunbow appearance, but they get the job done, and if you want a cleaner look you can fold them in and out of the way. I actually think they look fine, particularly from the back. Also, from the back view you can see that Scourge has a second configuration of fully finished legs and feet pointing backwards. I wonder who those are going to be re-purposed for, hmm?

In terms of coloring, Scourge hits all the right points, but he shares the same notable lack of paint apps as Blurr did. You do get some detailed silver panels on his chest and lower legs, which simulate the stickers on the original toy, but apart from that his front is just a whole lot of blue with a the lighter blue showing on his wings and lower legs. From the back, however, he does show off a lot more color. All in all, I think the coloring here looks fine.

The head sculpt here is absolutely fantastic. Scourge features his iconic metal mustache and the silver paint on his face is very sharp. Fracas holds together perfectly and the fact that this noggin is a little Transformer all to itself isn’t really evident at all from a cursory glance. From this view you can also get a better look at his sculpted abs and some of the sculpted panel lining in the robot mode.

And yup, you can swap in any other Headmasters you want. Here I have him wearing Apeface. It’s not something I’ll ever do again, but I suppose it makes for a neat play pattern for the kids. Can I say now that it’s a shame we probably won’t get proper bodies for the single-packed Headmasters. A head as good as Apeface really deserves his own proper body. If only we had some third-parties out there to step in where Hasbro drops the ball.

The gun from the top of Scourge’s cockpit can be un-pegged from his back and used as a nifty little hand gun. You can also have him wield the double-barreled weapon or again convert it to a tri-barrel gun. For display, I’ll likely stick with the smaller weapon as a gun and keep the larger one pegged into his back or just put it off to the side.

Titans Return Scourge is an interesting study when compared to his namesake from five years back. I had lots of nice things to say about that figure when I got him, and he still has plenty of good points, but as far as a proper G1 update goes this new one blows him away. Transformers becoming outdated is a common issue with collecting these guys, and while Scourge will indeed be replacing Generations Scourge on my shelf, it doesn’t mean I’ll be dumping the old figure. It still has a place in my heart and now he has a place in a tote out in the storage. So, yeah, three figures into this wave and they’ve all been gems as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got just one more to look at before I take a quick pass through the the two assortments of individually packed heads and then moving on to some of the newer releases!

Ahhh, I can’t tell you how great it feels to have brand new content for Transformers Thursdays again! Today I’m continuing my look at the initial wave of Deluxe Class Titans Return figures with one of my all time favorite Headmasters from the G1 days, Hardhead. Hardhead was one of the handful of Headmasters that I managed to collect about 15 years back, before unloading them all for whatever my next big obsession was. I later replaced him with Toyworld’s unfortunately named homage, Hardbone. Now, I’ve come full circle back to Hasbro again.

I’ve been getting my Deluxes online and the cards have all been beat to hell. It’s no biggie, because I’m over this packaging design. You know what else I’m over? These damn plasting straps they use to secure these guys onto the bubbles. What was wrong with the white string? The white string was easy to deal with. These little things go everywhere and I hate them. I’d rather get the figure rattling around a little in the package than have to deal with these. Anyway, rant over. Hardhead comes packaged in his robot mode, but as usual, I’m starting off with his alt mode.

There’s no beating around the bush here, this is straight up G1 Hardhead. Oh, there are a few minor changes, like the cockpit being a bit further back, and that gray plate, which I assume is some kind of access hatch, being closer to the front, but he’s still a futuristic green quad tank with black treads and a big gray cannon. The coloring here is achieved mostly through the plastic, with not a lot of paint apps showing in the vehicle mode. Nonetheless, the deco is great and instantly invokes the original toy.

The only gripe that comes to mind is that I consider Hardhead too small to be a Deluxe Class figure. He’s a tank with a lot of firepower and I feel he should be bigger than someone like Blurr, who despite being a sportscar, is actually longer than Hardhead. The issue is by no means a deal-breaker, as there’s something appealing to me about having most of the characters scaled in one size class, but it’s certainly going to irk a number of collectors out there.

For some reason, Hardhead’s little head buddy has been renamed from Duros to Furos, otherwise he’s exactly what you might expect: A tiny green and gray robot. As we saw last time, his legs are fused together, but are hinged at the hips and knees, and he has articulation in both his shoulders and his neck. And yes, if you turn him around, there’s a giant face on his back. The only paint work on the front is his little face, which is surprisingly well done for such a tiny bot.

Furos can sit comfortably inside Hardhead’s cockpit and the canopy closes perfectly.

There’s some other points of interactivity between the little bots and Hardhead’s alt mode. The back part of the cannon opens up to reveal a chair, and if you peg Hardhead’s rifle into the top of the gun, you have an extra gunner station. There are also pegs on the front treads to place some more of the little buggers. I’ve called in the individually packed Headmasters, Clobber and Loudmouth to help illustrate. Like I said last time, I love these extra little play features that Hasbro is including in the designs here. Size notwithstanding, everything else about this alt mode gets high marks from me. Now, let’s check out that robot mode…

Hot damn, I’m loving these figures! There’s nothing terribly complex or amazing about the transformation here. Hardhead’s front treads become his arms, the back treads become the legs, and the body of the tank folds in two places at the middle to form the front and back of the torso. Flip the pelvis plate down and you’re good to go. The cannon can be removed, but it doesn’t have to be for the transformation. It lands behind his right shoulder pointing straight up, but you can angle it forward to make it more useful and I really like having that option.

Like Blurr, there’s a ton of great sculpted detail on this figure and he’s perfectly proportioned. Unlike Blurr, there’s actually a lot going on with the coloring here. The robot mode shows a lot more black and gray, and a little of the green, but you also get some very nice yellow and paint around his pelvic area and some tiny Autobot insignia on his shoulders and again just above his waist. I love that they have the gray chest plate, which in the G1 toy folded down to reveal his stats when the Headmaster was plugged in. And speaking of which, Furos forms an absolutely perfect head with a great sculpt and terrific paint.

Once again, all the heads are interchangeable. If you were with me last week, you know this isn’t a play mechanic I plan on using, because I have a lot of familiarity vested in these characters and swapping out the heads kind of ruins that. Nonetheless, here’s a shot of Hardhead’s body wearing Clobber as a head. Damn, I left one of the arms askew. Oh well, he’s a pretty shitty head anyway, what with all that unpainted off-white plastic. Be warned, Clobber, you will not fare well when I get to reviewing the individual head packs.

As we already saw, Hardhead comes with a big green rifle, but sadly only one. If I ever find him on the pegs and on sale, it’ll be real tempting to pick up a second so that I can give him his proper G1 twin gun armament. And again, other than size that’s really the only complaint I have about this guy. In robot mode, he still feels under-scaled for the character. He’s no taller than Blurr, but he does at least have a slightly bigger upper body build, which makes him look a tad bulkier.

I loved Blurr, and that goes double for Hardhead here. He’s a relatively simple figure, but I’m at the point in my Transformers collecting, where I can appreciate the more simplistic engineering. I don’t want them too simple, but I’m not a fan of the overly complex figures anymore. Hardhead is quick to transform and loads of fun to play with. The joints are a little looser than my Blurr’s, but not so bad that he can’t hold his own weight. But besides all that, he’s a near perfect homage to the original figure, and that is what I’m digging the most about Titans Return so far. And that wraps up the two Autobots of the first Deluxe Class wave. Next time, we’ll start in on the Decepticons.

It’s hard to believe Combiner Wars has come and gone already, eh? No, actually it’s not. While I enjoyed the line quite a bit, seeing those same molds over and over was beginning to wear out its welcome. Thankfully, we have a brand new line coming in, and like Combiner Wars, I’m happy to say that it is slavishly beholden to Generation 1. I hope you like Headmasters, because that is indeed the main gimmick of Titans Return. I know, these figures are old news to a lot of people, but they’re still hard to find in my area and I’m quite excited to be looking at my first one. So I’ll warn you ahead of time I’m going to talk about this figure a lot.

Alas, the packaging hasn’t changed all that much. It’s still mostly black with Transformers running vertically up the side. This overall design grew on me a little over the last year or so, but I was hoping for a change up. It still bears the Generations insignia in the upper right hand corner and the cards still feature character specific art at the top. Unfortunately, the art here is not really grabbing me. I appreciate that it’s emphasizing the Headmaster gimmick, but it just looks goofy to me. Also, the fact that I have to title these Features with the Headmaster’s name first like the actual figure is an afterthought is going to irk me every time. In the end, I’ve never even been tempted to keep carded Transformers packaging, so it’s not a big deal to me. Into the rubbish bin with you, foul packaging! OK, let’s start with the alt mode…

Hey, did I mention it’s Blurr? I love Blurr! Always have. He was one of my favorite characters from the movie and post-movie season of the Sunbow series. This is about as close to G1 Blurr as we’ve had in forever and it’s making me very happy. The vehicle is a beautiful homage to the G1 toy right down to the engine/exhaust/fin thing on the back and the gap behind the cockpit. It holds together tightly, rolls along fine, and the robot mode’s gun mounts under the nose of the car. As far as alt modes go, this one is simple, you can kind of see what’s going to happen with the transformation, and all that is just fine with me. I adore this.

The coloring is solid as well. The bulk of the car is cast in an ever so slightly metallic blue plastic. You get some gray, as well as a little minty blue all of which conspire to replicate those instantly recognizable colors from the G1 toy. The brilliant silver paint used for the gun is easily the stand out attraction here. An Autobot emblem on the hood and a translucent blue tinted cockpit helps seal the deal.

Blurr’s little chum is Hyperfire, which is a name that sounds more suited to a Targetmaster than even the name of G1 Blurr’s Targetmaster, Haywire. As a kid buying toys, I was already growing out of Transformers by the time the Headmasters hit. I enjoy the gimmick now, but I think I would have been confused by it back then. I didn’t want to worry about how that whole symbiosis worked and who’s personality was who’s. I just wanted robots that changed into stuff and fired lasers at each other. Anyway, my rambling should tell you that I don’t have a whole lot to say about this little guy. He’s cool for what he is: A very tiny robot that turns into a head and can also ride in Blurr’s alt mode. His legs are fused together, but they can bend together at the hips and knees. His shoulders are jointed, and since his little head is also the connection to the robot, it is also articulated. Hasbro made a valiant effort at painting this tiny guy, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s got a giant screw right in the middle of his chest.

Hyperfire can indeed sit comfortably in Blurr’s car mode and the cockpit closes perfectly. I would dare say that my favorite thing about the Headmaster gimmick is having these little guys to interact with the vehicles. Speaking of which, those pegs beside the cockpit are there so you can attach more Headmaster riders via the peg holes in their tiny feet. Oh yes, Blurr also has a second alt mode, and to show it off, I’m bringing in one of the individually packed Headmasters, Nightbeat.

You basically take the hood section, flip it upside down and peg it into the side to form an outrigger with a cannon. This is not the most clever of designs, but I have to say, I love this concept probably more than it deserves. Something about this just reminds me of the old Micronauts toys, where you could pull pieces off of them and remake them into different things. Blurr’s sidecar doesn’t quite measure up to that level of complexity, but I really appreciate what they did here in terms of added play value. Well, enough of the alt modes… can Blurr’s robot mode live up the same level of ungodly G1 goodness?

Yes it can. There isn’t a whole lot to transforming Blurr, but damn do I dig the results. Like the alt mode, this robot mode just pulls at all the right nostalgia strings for me. This figure is as Blurr a Blurr as we’ve had in the modern era and I am in love with him. A lot of early reports have scared me about how loose the joints on these figures feel, but I’m fortunate that my Blurr has no such issues. He’s perfectly proportioned and there is an impressive amount of sculpted detail on him. But as complex as some of the detail is the overall feel of this figure is positively elegant in his simplicity.

Unfortunately that simplicity follows through on his coloring, where it is less of a selling point. There’s precious little paint on this figure and in robot mode he shows a lot less variety than in his car mode. What’s here is good. I really like the way they painted the look of the original toy’s stickers above the feet. You also get a little of the lighter blue trim around the cockpit, but the bulk of that coloring winds up on his back and the backs of his forearms. Other than that, it’s just a whole lot of that metallic blue plastic. His deco (or lack there of) is not unattractive to me, but arguably on the bland side. It’s also worth noting that there is an obvious place on his lower chest intended for an Autobot insignia, but Hasbro didn’t bother printing it in there. That bugs me more than anything else, and I’ll likely wind up digging through my sheets of repro stickers to find one to put there.

Blurr has a hood-shield similar to his G1 counterpart. I was never a fan of that design and I’m delighted to say that the piece on this figure can store on his back to fill out the torso a little more. The result is no obvious car-part shield and no extra part lying around. The silver gun can be held in either hand and goes a long way to spruce up the otherwise sameness of the coloring here.

Like all Headmasters, Hyperfire just rolls up into a ball to form the head and it works just fine. The head sculpt is great. It’s undeniably the Blurr that I grew up with and the head stays together even when I manipulate it on the neck. For people who aren’t into the whole Headmaster thing, I don’t think the look of the head will be an issue, other than having to attach it after transformation.

And yes, all Headmasters will work on this guy. I pulled out Nightbeat once again to illustrate. The idea of swapping heads is a big one in Titans Return, but not one that really interests me a lot. Heaving a Headmaster for Nightbeat doesn’t make me want to put it on Blurr, it makes me want to have a proper body for Nightbeat. And if there were such a body and the head was called Nightbeat, than why isn’t Blurr’s head called Blurr? See… this is exactly the sort of shit that would have fried my child brain if I had these way back when. Granted, I seem to recall that in the original concept, the Nebulons were bonded to specific robots, so this perverse practice of head-swapping wasn’t possible. Nonetheless, I bet this is fun for the kids and I’ll admit to already own eight of the individually packaged Headmasters, four Autobots and four Decepticons. I will eventually do a very quick Feature on them when I run out of the regular figures to talk about.

You need only look at how long I droned on about a simple Deluxe Class figure, to know that I really love this toy. In fact, apart from the lack of paint apps in robot mode, I’d say he’s very nearly perfect to me and he’ll definitely be replacing that Blurr that was recycled from Drift a few years back. This is my new Classics/Generations Blurr and I find that he even scales fairly well with Classics Rodimus and most of the gang from the Generations line as well. He was a great choice for me to usher in this new line and I can already tell that I’m going to be into Titan Returns in a very deep way.