Hybrid Style THS-02 Convoy

This probably should have been posted a little closer to the 40th Anniversary date, or at least to my write-up of Earthrise Optimus Prime - the most recent G1-style Prime toy in my collection to be packaged with a trailer... Then again, I should probably have got to this oddity - and its two mass-released contemporaries - far sooner than I have, since I bought it eighteen years ago. 

Hybrid Style was a very short-lived, utterly Convoy-centric line which aimed to be 'Miniature Masterpiece', but ultimately failed to find much favour among fans. Only two molds were created - a remake of Galaxy Convoy (because Galaxy Force was in full swing at the time) and this G1 version, because there always has to be a G1 version. Subsequent to this 'vanilla' version, two black repaints were released, one of which was only made available in China.

Given that I own G1 Optimus Prime, Takara's MP01 (and, later, the Hasbro version of MP10), it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I'd acquire the Hybrid Style version of the original Autobot leader... Though I confess that I had some reservations from the start, due to its small size and some rather tepid reviews online at the time.

Sixteenth Anniversary

As we mark another year of this blog's continued existence, the sense of ennui is strong. Hasbro have singularly failed to produce anything I was willing to pay full price for, even in those very few cases where I actually bought official merchandise. Meanwhile the Third Parties continue to pack in far more bang for your buck. Broadly speaking, what you get from Third Parties is a smaller range of better-engineered products at almost any scale... But the Masterpiece analogues is where they're really starting to shine. While Hasbro only recently finished off its 2007 Masterpiece Movie series with the last Decepticon, Brawl, several different companies have now released their interpretations of Dark of the Moon Megatron and Age of Extinction/The Last Knight Optimus Prime, Unique Toys released their take on DotM Mirage/Dino and revealed Revenge of the Fallen Skids and Mudflap, while amazing-looking figures of RotF Sideways and AoE Stinger magically appeared earlier this year.

As paid work (and my birthday) permitted, I made only a handful of purchases, fewer even than last year. My two Hasbro purchases both left me feeling a little ripped off, even having acquired both at a discount (a Legacy 2-pack for less than the cost of a single Deluxe, and a Core class figure for about £2-3 less than RRP). The new comic book series has been gaining a lot of praise in the fandom but, to me, it looks like an even worse version of the 1980s Marvel comics, and much of the narrative that some are describing as 'peak fiction' just seems like over-the-top nonsense to me. There have been no further rumblings about a live-action follow-up to Rise of the Beasts, but the first trailer for the CGI animated movie TransFormers One seemed to pitch it as a comedy road movie (which, I gather, is more a fault of the trailer than the movie it's advertising). There really doesn't seem to be much to get excited about... But I can't say I'm unhappy about not finding myself in accordance with the vast majority of blinkered, hardcore GeeWunners and those who think 'Bayhem' applied to a comic book story is a good thing...

So, again, we're celebrating an anniversary with a pretty negative vibe and, as always, we'll begin with the Dishonourable Mentions:

Galaxy Force Backgild

There were very few Galaxy Force toys that I didn't bother buying - even fewer that I didn't eventually buy the Cybertron version of - but the underachieving Scout class half-track vehicle, Backpack (aka Scattorshot) was one of them. This original form was a nice idea, and even followed the G1/Diaclone pattern of being a robot with his vehicle mode's front end as his chest, but the toy was too small and its robot mode wasn't very well articulated.

But when the TV show called for three of the Autobots to get upgraded forms, he was one of the lucky few, becoming Backgild (or Cybertron Defence Scattorshot), a Voyager class toy which, while broadly in the same Military vein, was a huge improvement in just about every way.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2016 Combiner Wars Terrorsaur

The fact that the last handful of releases from the Fun Publications era of the TransFormers Collectors' Club and BotCon were branded as Combiner Wars toys, rather than coming under the Club's own brand, Timelines, was an early sign that changes were afoot.

Hasbro had pushed Combiner Wars hard - one might even say beyond its limits - and, while a custom gestalt made the ideal basis for an exclusive boxed set, they had produced so many retools of their own that, by 2016, there just weren't any surprises to be had with the format. Hasbro themselves had already moved on to Titans Return and, while FunPub's use of an older toyline was essentially par for the course, there just wasn't enough mileage left in Combiner Wars, even with a set related to (or perhaps retconning) Dawn of Futures Past - one of their very best BotCon sets.

Their take on Tripredacus was deeply uninspired, utilising some of the least highly-regarded molds, which were nevertheless among the most frequently retooled. The only real highlights of that year's show were a retooling of the RID2001 Megatron mold as TransMetals Megatron, and 2015's TransFormers Legends Slipstream mold (itself a retool of  the very first Windblade toy) as Airazor.

So... why did I also acquire Terrorsaur? Let's see if I can figure that out, shall we?

BingoToys BT-06 Spider Lady

(Femme-Bot Friday #86)

It's a curious thing that, as a long-time arachnophobe, I've enjoyed the character of Beast Wars' Blackarachnia and, more recently, Airachnid from TransFormers Prime. The obvious answer is that both characters are very much in the tradition of the Femme Fatale, whose allure would tend to outweigh any sense of danger or unease that might come from the 'spider' aspect.

And, of course, they're not crawling about on my bathroom ceiling... but that's neither here nor there, right?

BingoToys weren't particularly on my radar until BT-06. Their previous output - including a Bumblebee movie Shockwave with an alternate mode every bit as dubious as his robot mode, and a Windblade analogue that didn't tick enough of the right boxes for me - hadn't inspired me, both because the aesthetics were unappealing and the transformations were lacklustre. That all changed with Spider Lady, who is a stylised take on Blackarachnia in much the same way as Big Firebird's Nicee was to have been a stylised take on Arcee.

Is this going to be a case where the temptation of a Femme-Bot Fatale outweighs my typical preference for a halfway decent transformation and a suitably robotic robot mode? Saddle up, folks, 'cos there's only one way to find out!

Real Gear Robots Night Beat 7

Real Gear Robots was a bit of an odd moment for me, as a Collector. Cunningly pitched as movie toys, but originally planned as being tangential to the Cybertron/Galaxy Force toyline, it was precisely the sort of thing I'd aim to avoid these days.

I surely can't imagine a similar toyline being popular now, especially given how simplistic and awkward most of them were... but, for whatever reason, I found the first wave or so quite compelling.