(Femme-Bot Friday #45)
While Hasbro were historically reluctant to properly acknowledge Femme-Bots in the toyline over the earlier years, of the franchise the fans - and the Collectors' Clubs - seem to have been keen to embrace them, with early (pre-FunPub) BotCons offering exclusive Femme-Bots in both 2002 and 2003. While Shadow Striker and Roulette had the dubious benefit of having slender - if not convincingly 'feminine' - robot modes to complement their larger, better-proportioned vehicle modes, BotCon 2002 started things off small and simple with a couple of G1 Mini Autobot repaints and no remolded parts (albeit the keyring version of each, rather than the Hasbro mass release).I picked up Tap Out a good few years ago as he seemed to be fairly commonly available, even now... Glyph took a little bit more time, but I eventually tracked her down at a decent price... and bought her along with BotCon Europe 2002's Rook... So let's take a look at this Femme-Bot repaint of G1 Bumblebee.
Vehicle Mode:
Like Cliffjumper/Tap Out, Bumblebee/Glyph is a Choro-Q/Penny Racer style Volkswagen Beetle, but now with blue as the primary colour and grey as the secondary. Curiously, while the grey is just a light, flat grey - not an attempt to imply silver, as far as I can tell - the blue plastic has a gorgeous metallic flake/pearlescent quality befitting of an exclusive. The combination works well, though a car with pale grey windows looks just a little odd. Like the original G1 toy, Glyph features chromed hubcaps (possibly not necessary given the size of the pins holding the wheels in place) and rubber tyres, though the latter are no longer branded 'Dunlop'. The only paintwork is the grey rear bumper, and the only other decoration is an Autobot insignia sticker on the roof and G1 Bumblebee's weird fan-like detail sticker on the rear chrome panel. Seems strange that Tap-Out got a second Autobot insignia on his chrome panel rather than Cliffjumper's tech detailing, but perhaps the artwork had been lost?
Given the age of the mold, and the fact that toys were mass produced not only for G1 but for the many re-releases of the keyring version, it all looks nice and clean, sharply detailed and - colour aside - just as good as my original G1 Bumblebee. In fact, with the change in plastic colours, the details are more apparent on this one, since the original's yellow plastic tends to swallow detail.
Robot Mode:
Just for a change, and since I haven't got to G1 Bumblebee yet, I'm going to write about the head sculpt first... because I absolutely love the original 'battlemask' version used by both Bumblebee and Glyph, and absolutely loathe the 'cartoon accurate' remake created for Takara's 2004 TransFormers Collection Minibot Team set. This head sculpt is stylish and - appropriately enough - is perfectly gender-neutral, so it works just as well for the ostensibly 'male' Bumblebee and the Collectors' Club exclusive Femme-Bot. I get that the TV show wanted Bumblebee to be more 'relateable', but the animation model was sloppy, so every toy that tried to duplicate that look ended up looking ugly and ill-proportioned, and the 'horns' tended more toward the Viking look than the stubby antenna of the original. Glyph ends up looking even better than the original Bumblebee thanks to the detail-enhancing metallic blue plastic and a coating of lightly pearlised sunshine-yellow paint which (perhaps unintentionally) seems lighter over her visor, giving it the appearance of a slightly different colour.
As with Tap-Out, the simplicity of this G1 Mini Autobot mold means that no new colour is revealed in robot mode - the arms and legs are the same grey as the front bumper and windows - but that sort of thing doesn't seem necessary on such a small, simple and iconic toy.
Glyph features the same no-nonsense transformation as the Cliffjumper/Tap-Out mold, and has much tighter joints than my G1 Bumblebee, though I'm not entirely convinced that the legs extend to the same length, as she always seems to tilt to her right.
Similarly, her articulation is limited to shoulder rotation, so no dramatic posing options for Glyph.
Her bio card describes her as an archaeometrist - an archaeological scientist, basically - with seemingly manic enthusiasm for her work and an incredible eye for detail. It's interesting to compare the bios of the earliest BotCon exclusives with those of Fub Publications' output, simply because the latter never really seemed to understand the purpose of a bio card, as defined by Bob Budiansky (except, arguably, at the very end of their license), tending to use them simply to fill in the gaps in - or provide a backstory for - a character's presentation in their fiction, while Glyph's (and Tap-Out's) does a good job of setting up a personality and abilities. Whether it's because she's a Femme-Bot, or because she shares the G1 spy's form, she's described as "neither particularly strong nor durable", so at least they managed to fit in that Femme-Bot cliché...
Despite its odd proportions, Bumblebee became one of my favourite G1 Mini Autobot toys because it's so recognisably a Volkswagen Beetle. What's really cute about it is that the distorted proportions of the vehicle mode make for an almost perfect, albeit simplistic humanoid robot, and its simplicity complements the idea that a Femme-Bot needn't look overtly feminine. Let's face it, it wasn't really till TFPrime Arcee that a main-line Hasbro Femme-Bot could get away with not being pink and, much like her G1 namesake, she ended up with pronounced robo-boobs on a slender, slinky body, so Glyph was a real trailblazer.
When I wrote about MAAS Toys' Rune, I wasn't entirely convinced by their 'feminised version of humanoid Bumblebee' face sculpt, but I understand the decision to go that route rather than use their homage to the G1 Bumblebee toy, in Glyph colours... Still, despite its age and simplicity, this does feel like the better Glyph, overall.
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