When Mastermind Creations started producing the Hearts of Steel Seekers, under their Cyber Engine Knight Morpher banner, they wasted no time in producing the three G1 Seekers, and tracking down all three on the secondary market, thankfully, didn't take me too long, back in 2015.
So let's take a look at the next on the list... the super-sinister black repaint...
Packaging:
Much like Screecher, Warper's box is fairly simple - MMC's boxes tend not to be overly showy, but this early example of their packaging really isn't that exciting. Looking at the more colourful side (it's tricky to decide which was intended to be the front), the background is a different crop of the same reddish 'wormhole in space'-type image as the one on Screecher, and it's designed so that, if one were to line up all three boxes in order - Screecher first, Warper last - the result is effectively one continuous image.
Like the Starscream analogue, the box also contains plugs to cover some of his screw holes though, like Screecher's they're in his secondary colour, purple, so they stand out even more than the holes themselves. Unlike the original, he also comes with alternative hands - cast in grey plastic - a new, open-mouthed head sculpt... and a short section of train track, to enable one of the more unusual features of this mold - the ability to link the three jet modes together, to trail behind one of the Knight Morpher locomotives.
The instructions and comic included are exactly the same as those included with Screecher... which is a real shame as I was rather hoping for another chapter in the story.
Vehicle Mode:
While I'm fairly certain that a steam-powered aircraft, built like this, could never get off the ground, and would more likely simply crumple under its own weight (unless, obviously, it was built of alien alloys forged specifically to be able to adopt all kinds of shapes), Guido Guidi's design is nevertheless very striking, stylish and very fitting of the steampunk aesthetic. There are no variations on the base mold between Screecher and Warper, it's just a change of colours, with red, white-ish and blue replaced by purple, black and silver/grey. The colourscheme works very well, making an already sinister aircraft look even more imposing... though swap the purple out for yellow and I suspect you'd have a steampunk Batwing.
The colour matching between the few purple plastic parts and the paint used for the purple highlights is very good though, while sharply applied, the purple paint on the wings does seem a little thin in places. The silver paint is dense enough that there's no show-through to the plastic beneath, and neat enough that there's no bleeding or feathering at the edges and, with the texture of the plastic underneath, these parts almost look die-cast from a distance. The cockpit windows are painted the same orange as Screecher, but the framework is painted silver and, with most of the engine area on the central fuselage painted silver, he immediately looks more extravagantly painted than Screecher.
The only difference in this version of the mold is that Warper has unique weapons, specifically a pair of double-barrelled cannons. Due to the restrictions imposed by the presence of the midsection winglets, the barrels are designed to rotate, allowing them to sit flush with the upper surface of the wings.
Like Screecher, some parts - particularly the wings - feel rather delicate as the plastic is so thin. This also leads to some very sharp points on the wingtips and propellers. The plastic quality seems good, though, and none of it - except perhaps the propellers - actually feels brittle.
Robot Mode:
If vehicle mode looks almost like a steampunk Batwing, then robot mode looks like the mecha it would transform into, if steampunk Batman built a transforming Batwing... which he probably would, because he's Batman.
Again, it's a very striking silhouette - and, being mostly black apart from his silver torso, he basically does look like a silhouette - with long, slender legs, a tiny waist, a broad chest and shoulders... and then the massive span of this very sinister-looking wings. To be honest, next to Warper, Screecher starts to look if not like a knockoff, then certainly unfinished. While his red and white plastics are good quality, and the gold highlights are nice, they're nowhere near as impressive as this version - the silver paint on his front looks phenomenal. Most of the joints are cast in a pale grey plastic which, while obviously dull compared to the silver painted sections, is just the right shade to pass as silver at a distance. The same plastic is also used for the 'Mech Alive'-style gears and barrels in the outsides of the legs and the locomotive wheels on the insides, while silver paint is applied on either side of the knee and ankle joints, and on the vents on his calves.
While his arm-mounted weapons can be left in their vehicle mode position, I prefer to rotate them so that the twin barrels align with the outside of his arms, mainly because it looks a bit sleeker that way. Of course, since they can rotate, they can be set at all kinds of jaunty angles, but the design of the mounting is such that they only really look 'right' if lined up with it - or perpendicular to - the box they protrude from. Just like Screamer, his wing/skirts can be detached from his hips to become viciously curved mêlée weapons, or combine into something like a Klingon bat'leth. The enormous wings can also be detached and combined with these swords into the huge, propeller-driven ninja star of doom.
Warper comes with two head sculpts - a neutral face suited to any of the Knight Morpher Seekers, and a 'shouty' face, in which his wide open (and strangely square) mouth is light-piped along with his eyes, which makes for a very intense effect - as if flames from the furnace powering him are leaping up his throat. Both have the fold-out 'bat wing' crests on the sides of the head and, perhaps just because of his main body colour, they seem to work better on this model. As well as the additional head, he comes with two pairs of hands - the grey ones featured in my photos, and black versions. Personally, I'd have preferred purple as an alternative colour, but the grey at least matches the colour used for his upper arms.
Having owned all three of the Knight Morpher Seekers for a while now, I'm still not sure which is my favourite, but I know it's a toss-up between Warper and Stormer - Screecher looks pretty cheap by comparison, while the mold seems ideally suited to Warper's darker colourscheme... but, then, Stormer's metallic blue finish looks awesome. All three are fantastically designed and feel sturdy despite the thin plastic used for the wings, and the differences in heads and weapons make each one seem as unique as they really need to be considering the common body type.
These don't often turn up on the secondary market anymore, but Warper was the cheapest of the three when I picked them up a couple of years ago. I think it's a real shame Mastermind Creations' Knight Morpher line came to an end with only these three (plus the 'blank'), Shockwave and Optimus/Nemesis Prime, as Hearts of Steel offered a load of other amazing designs, some of which never actually used in the comics. It would have been awesome to see Scourge as a steampunk blimp, or a whole set of Autobots that transformed and combined into a set of carriages to be pulled by Optimus Prime... and the idea of a triple-changing steampunk Astrotrain really deserved at least an attempt at modelling in plastic. I seem to remember the Insecticons were hinted at by MMC, as a set that would combine into a single, multi-purpose carriage, but I'd have been happy enough with an interpretation of Guidi's Ravage. Of what's available, the Seekers are easily my favourite and, while I'd love to own Cyclops one of these days (finances and space permitting), I'm happy enough just having this set.
No comments:
Post a Comment