In any case, the Steampunk Thundercracker is the last of the set, and I think it's a shame Mastermind Creations haven't continued the Cyber Engine Knight Morpher subline, but Reformatted seems to be more generally appealing and, having now actually read Hearts of Steel... I think leaving it behind after the Seekers was probably for the best.
Packaging:
Much like the others, Stormer comes in a box covered with CGI images, with the third part of the 'spacewarp' triptych created by standing all three boxes next to each other in numerical order. the other side has a plain white background, just like the others. One thing I particularly like about these otherwise fairly standard boxes is that none of the art assets are recycled and recoloured - each box features unique images for the character.
As with Warper, he comes with a section of track, a set of plugs for his screw holes, an alternative head... and exactly the same instruction booklet, so still no new chapter of the pack-in mini-comic. I know MMC's priority is the models but, having created part of the Cyber Engine Knight Morpher story focused on their Steampunk Seekers, it would have been good to create enough to cover each of the releases. Then again, that may have complicated matters, as there was a fourth release - the Awakening version - which was a limited edition (500 made) plain grey version, released a little ahead of the coloured, character-specific models, kind of as a proof of concept/engineering, and featuring all three weapon sets. Had another comic been made for that version, that would have made the story very difficult to complete for most collectors...
Vehicle Mode:
As bizarre and unfeasible this is as a vehicle intended to fly, I really do like Guido Guidi's design for the Seekers in Hearts of Steel, and I found it really disappointing that the design appeared on only about half a dozen pages within the collected edition of the story (with a few more, including alternate designs, in the gallery at the back). Mostly, they were seen in robot mode, and never once did any of them take to the skies... Seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity, but then, IDW's TransFormers Evolutions line began and ended with Hearts of Steel, and the end seemed rather abrupt, at that.
Stormer's colourscheme is closer to the Thundercracker of old than the more contemporary sky blue bordering on cyan that's often used these days. The plastic colour used seems just a touch darker and richer than that of the Hasbro Masterpiece Thundercracker, and has an even finer metallic sparkle to it - not pearlescence, just a metallic sheen that is normally only seen in paintwork. Weirdly, my photos have failed completely to capture any of this, and he seems lighter - almost as pale as iGear's Thunder-Wrath where, in reality, this figure's plastic is much bolder in colour. As with most interpretations of Thundercracker, his secondary colours are black, silver and red, used in much the same pattern as on Warper. Certain incidental paint applications are different - the green detail under the pipework on the back appears darker (though that may just be in comparison to the surrounding colours) and the grey plastic used is darker than on Warper, but they're as similar as just about every other iteration of the Seekers.
His weapons are a unique mold, but mounted in the same way - each one is a single-barrelled gun inside a pair of serrated barrel shrouds. They look like fairly standard machine guns but, since Thundercracker doesn't actually do anything in Hearts of Steel, it's impossible to know what they're intended to be.
Robot Mode:
Unsurprisingly, the lack of differences between Stormer and his fellow KM Seekers carries over to robot mode, with his distribution of colour being much the same as Warper, just with blue substituted for the black and red or black for the purple... Ultimately, there's not much to say about him having already covered most of the detail on the other two write-ups.
As far as paintwork is concerned, it does seem as though some of his silver paint - particularly on the protrusions either side of his head - is almost translucent, though that effect may just be a trick of the light. I also have to say that Stormer's dark grey/gunmetal plastic looks far better than Warper's flat, pale grey - not just truer to the spirit of the G1 toy, but the lower contrast in colours suits the model far better, and the wheels and gears in his legs look more convincing.
Stormer's weapons look great in robot mode - possibly my favourite of the three, though they perhaps look a little anachronistic - a bit too futuristic for the Steampunk aesthetic of the robot. I particularly like the fact that the rotation added to Screecher's Gatling guns was used to enhance the unique weapons for Warper and Stormer, as they actually need to rotate when transforming - they lay parallel to the wings in vehicle mode and then rotate 90° to lie flat agains the arms in robot mode.
As with Warper, Stormer comes with a second, open-mouthed head sculpt, but I think the basic, expressionless sculpt works best for this character.
With all three of the MMC Knight Morpher Seekers in hand, it's really hard to decide which is my favourite, but it comes down to Stormer or Warper because their colourschemes and paint jobs are far more impressive than Screecher. Had Screecher used a metallic red paint, it might have been an even more difficult choice. On balance, I'd probably say Stormer is the better of the three... but then, Thundercracker was the first of the Seekers I bought (largely because if the bit in his bio that says "Doubts about his cause sometimes impedes his effectiveness", and I really liked the idea of a Decepticon who wasn't entirely engaged in the war against the Autobots - another nice touch from Bob Budiansky), and Skywarp was basically an afterthought, bought circa 2004 as part of the Commemorative Series because my Seeker OCD didn't fully develop until adulthood.
One of these days, when I have the finances (and space) available, it'd be nice to have MMC Annihilator so that I actually have a locomotive to pull the three Seekers, in their vehicle modes, along the provided track pieces. It's certainly a shame that the Cyber Engine Knight Morpher series ended after the Seekers but, who knows, with the recent announcement by Mech Planet of their Hot Soldiers Iron Hero - AKA Hearts of Steel Bumblebee - perhaps they'll deliver a full set of Steampunk Cybertronians to fill in the blanks left by Mastermind Creations..?
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