Bagged along with the latter came a repaint of Galaxy Force Fang Wolf/Cybertron Snarl as another otherwise out-of-context character - Weirdwolf, formerly a HeadMaster, but now Nebulan-free and very much different from his G1 form.
Beast Mode:
Is there something about yellow plastic generally that makes almost anything look like a knockoff, or is it just the specific plastic type used for some figures? There was a similar look to the Botcon 2009 Razorclaw, at least partly due to the use of a similar sunny shade of yellow, yet exacerbated there by its combination with bright reddish-orange and black plastics. It's true that a properly vibrant yellow is not a common colour for Transformers toys, with a more 'sunshine' colour being used for contemporary Bumblebees, and a more 'acid' version used elsewhere. A weird sea green plastic is used for the wolf's beard and lower legs, with a matching paint applied to various points of detail.
Fang Wolf/Snarl turned out to be one of those molds that impressed me more in-hand than it had in photos, at least partly because the beast mode is so poseable - moreso, in some ways, than robot mode. The paintwork here does a fairly good job of representing G1 Weirdwolf, as far as this mold's detailing will allow. I quite like that orange paint has been used on the top of his Cyber Key slot, to imply the cockpit of the G1 original, but I find the white paint on the top of the head a little puzzling, as it leaves him looking like a cyborg wolf wearing a mask or skull cap. I can understand leaving some of it unpainted, as the G1 version did seem to have a white robo-wolf head sticking out of yellow armour panels, but the upper lip and lower jaw should have been white rather than bare yellow plastic.
It also seems strange that the sculpted fur on his tail is painted sea green, and the 'frills' on the sides of his head are sea green plastic with white paint on the tips, but the bulk of his mane on the top of his head/shoulders is more unpainted yellow plastic.
Still, it's recognisably Weirdwolf... in this mode, at least...
Robot Mode:
Let's address the elephant in the room here: Weirdwolf was a HeadMaster and the closest any of the Cybertron/Galaxy Force molds came to that was having Mini-Con partners. Fang Wolf/Snarl was an entirely standalone character, more in the vein of Beast Machines than Generation 1, even down to the 'beast head as forearm motif, making him a truly bizarre choice for an update to Weirdwolf...
...At least until you read the BotCon 2007 comic, 'Games of Deception', and find a character with even more crossed wires than the G1 original, taking his old habit of talking to himself "in a sing-song backward way" to a new extreme and, if his bio is to be believed, talking directly to his wolf-head 'hand'.
Personality quirks aside, this ends up being a fairly decent interpretation of Weirdwolf, with the details on the chest painted in such a way as to vaguely resemble a wolf's head, and the multi-layered armour effect emphasised by having certain parts painted white or yellow, with the unpainted greenish plastic representing the outermost panels.
Keeping Fang Wolf/Snarl's head is either missing the point or over-egging the pudding, depending on your point of view - but clearly Fun Publications felt their remolding budget was better spent elsewhere, most notably the new head for Dreadwind in the boxed set and, of course, Weirdwolf's bag-mate, Alpha Trion. It's nevertheless painted sort-of like the G1 version, only with a sea green helmet rather than plain grey, and with the details of his BW Silverbolt-esque face fudged somewhat under a thick layer of orange paint.
One really cool bonus to using this mold as Weirdwolf is the weapon - Fang Wolf/Snarl's combination sword/gun covers both of G1 Weirdwolf's weapons, with the 'blade' painted white, and a translucent orange missile for the spring-loaded gun. It's still a bit too big and chunky to be believeable as a sword, but I reckon it actually suits Weirdwolf better than it did the original version of this mold.
Considering I never had a G1 Weirdwolf, it may seems strange that I have a habit of picking up new versions of the character but, to be honest, it's just that something about the molds he's made with seems to appeal to me. So it is with this one, as the Cybertron Snarl/Galaxy Force Fang Wolf mold didn't interest me a great deal until I had it in my hands, having originally bought it only to repaint it. Weirdwolf's coloursheme works remarkably well here, despite the cheap-looking yellow plastic, and the paintwork is cleverly applied to take full advantage of the molded details. What's left unpainted of the yellow plastic does lose some of the detail, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was with the white plastic on Snarl/Fang Wolf.
As mentioned at the start, BotCon Weirdwolf came packaged with Alpha Trion... and Alpha Trion was the only part of the package I was particularly interested in acquiring at the time. As with the original version of the mold, though, having Weirdwolf in hand made all the difference, and I went from being ambivalent about him to actually preferring him to many of the other figures from BotCon 2007, both those in the boxed set and the extra figures made available to attendees at the show. It's not perfect, but it's a lot of fun, and an imaginative take on the old G1 character - probably one of Fun Publications' better choices, even if it was for one of the less prominent characters in Games of Deception...
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