...But with Studio Series Thundercracker - based on the same mold - now available, is it worth tracking down an oversized upgrade on the original?
Packaging:
Make no mistake, Ares Nitrogen is a pretty huge figure. He comes packaged in a sturdy, loosely Leader class box featuring a nice, glossy finish and some truly gorgeous, moodily-lit product shots - even the front of the box features a photograph of the figure (albeit with some Photoshop glow added to the main eye and the turbines on his shoulders) rather than CGI or hand-painted artwork, which shows real pride in the product... even if it is largely someone else's work.
Taking something of a design cue from Hasbro circa The Last Knight, the box is a mass of different logos, including Black Mamba's 'BmB' badge, a "Movie 5 Super Power" roundel and a sort of red crystal shield-thing with some Chinese characters running down the centre. The panel down the righthand side features the Black Mamba snake crest (which always reminds me of the Dodge Viper badge) and... is that really the Star Trek font they've used for the 'Deformation' masthead? I guess it's a reasonable match for the current TransFormers brand logotype, but it's distractingly incongruous once recognised for what it is...
The righthand side of the box features one photo of the figure using its alternate head, lifted from Dark of the Moon Shockwave (and not as close to the final CGI from the film as one might think) along with graph showing the usual spread of stats that used to appear on Generations toys, even down to using the term 'fireblast' rather than 'firepower'. The left side, rear, top and bottom of the box show a selection of additional product shots and the standard 'choking hazard' warnings. The images on the back are accompanied by some slightly confused captioning, including the phrases "Gun Can Stretch" and "Can Open The Cabin".
Inside the box, the figure is packaged in robot mode along with his accessories, and he comes with a fairly basic instruction leaflet. There were two copies of the leaflet in mine, both folded untidily and without any reference to the artwork. The pages appear to be printed out of order, whether one assumes it's meant to be read right-to-left or left-to-right, as the first page of actual instructions (covering steps 1-10) is facing the front cover, with the rest of the steps (11-31) on the other side.
It's worth noting that the figure is mistransformed at step 1, with the hip joints not pegged together at the groin - they're just hanging down either side of the groin. Other than that, the instructions are about as clear as those on the average official TransFormers toy, which is to say ambiguous at best...
Vehicle Mode:
Nitro's jet mode was a fairly decent size for a contemporary Voyager class figure, but this thing has been enlarge to approximately Masterpiece size, rather than just Leader class. Despite this, all the detail and panel lining remains crisp and, if anything, the sculpted machine guns on the tip of the nose seem a little too small. There don't seem to be any significant changes to the mold as far as the jet is concerned - everything functions the same - which suits me fine... though I confess I wish they'd replaced the sculpted landing wheels with proper, rolling wheels.
For the most part, the Hasbro toy did a decent job of Nitro Zeus' vehicle mode. Just about every TransFormers jet (other than the original MP Starscream and, arguably, Galaxy Force Thundercracker) has some sort of obvious robot junk on the underside. This mold was no different, and it's no surprise to see that Black Mamba didn't even try to improve it - it's a great jet mode, but there's just no way to conceal the robot's legs any better than Hasbro/Takara Tomy did with the original release. What has been improved is the paint job and, while this version keeps the simplistic look of the original Hasbro release, vastly more paint has been applied. While molded in a pale grey plastic, the upper surfaces of the jet have a coating of glossy grey paint, with matte black applied to the trailing edges of the wings, the vertical tailfin and much of the nose. The grey paint extends onto the small intakes on either side of the nose, for a slightly more realistic look to the jet, but the paint job is not without its faults and flaws.
Chief among these is the lack of paint on the canopy. Just like the Hasbro version, it's clear, colourless plastic and features no paintwork on its framework. Worse still, there's no paint on the small sections of nose that aren't really part of the canopy, but were there on the original to ensure the cockpit cavity was wide enough to accommodate a Titan Master figure. This is beside the point on Ares Nitrogen as I don't believe there are any Titans Return figures that have been knocked off and oversized to quite this scale. I've read that he can accommodate Human Alliance figures, but this must refer to the later, slightly smaller figures, as I've tried the one I had to hand (Epps, from HA Sideswipe) and he's way too tall - his legs alone are the full length of the available space, and the figure isn't so well-articulated that he can compress down enough to fit, even in a seated position.
It's worth mentioning at this point that Black Mamba made no real changes to the cockpit interior either - it still has the same blank-faced, 'control panel'-like section at the front, and structural ridges on the floor, with an enlarged socket for the peg on the back of a Titan Master's feet.
For some reason, Black Mamba decided to paint the 'crossbow' arms of his nosecone weapon in a gunmetal colour, which stands out against the black of the nose. Similarly, there's a fist poking out from the bottom of the nose, just in front of the landing gear, which is coated in metallic paint. Both of these on the Hasbro version were black, and so blended in almost perfectly. Still, as flaws go, they're in service of making robot mode look that much better, so it's pretty much forgiveable.
Weapons-wise, Ares Nitrogen comes with the same missile racks as Nitro, just upscaled to fit. Comparatively speaking, they're less well-decorated, in that only the tips are painted, versus the entire chunk of plastic on the Hasbro version. These ones are painted to stand out, at least, and red-tipped missles are not uncommon. Weirdly, they seem slightly larger, proportionally, as they seem to butt up against the robot's legs more on this figure than they did on Nitro.
Robot Mode:
Ares Nitrogen is not quite double the size of Hasbro's Nitro figure, coming in at approximately the same size as a Leader class figure from Studio Series - quite a bit shorter than the old Hunt for the Decepticons Starscream toy, taller than SS Blackout, but his head is at much the same level as SS Grimlock. Taking his backpack into account he's maybe an inch and a half taller than the Dinobot. Very much a case of "abandon all hope, ye who favour accurate scale", as Ares Nitrogen will likely never quite fit with anything else, official or otherwise.
To say that the changes to the mold in robot mode are purely cosmetic would be to do Black Mamba a disservice. There are several subtle changes to the way the figure functions, some of which are tweaks to the transformation to cover over certain gaps (such as in the left arm, where a flap can be deployed to cover the space his hand comes out of) while others are minor improvements to his articulation (the right hand is now separate from the jet's nose and the wrist can be bent slightly, while the feet now have ankle tilt). One of the oddities of the original mold - where there was no stopping point for the hinged shoulder armour, meaning it wasn't clear what angle they were intended to sit at - has been addressed, and the backpack has been improved somewhat by introducing a double hinge to the tail section, which leaves it higher up on his back, so it's both less visible from the front and less obstructive of his leg movement. The fins still fold in exactly the same way, so it's not that much tidier overall, but I do prefer not seeing his jet tail hanging down behind his legs like a cape.
One of the big changes to this figure is the inclusion of die-cast metal parts, most notably the feet. The moment Ares Nitrogen comes out of his box, the difference in heft is easily apparent - he almost feels more like a statue than a knockoff toy. The original figure is stable, but the additional weight on his base, coupled with the ankle tilt, makes this version pretty much rock-solid once posed.
Another odd little inclusion is a translucent rubber pipe, seemingly modelled after the one packaged with Dark of the Moon Shockwave. This seems to have been molded in a different colour with each batch - mine being cyan, while others have been yellow. The instructions don't specify where it's intended to attach, but one end is molded in a shallow 'D' shape, which goes into the socket on the back of his left shoulder, while the other is square-ish, offset from the pipe, and features a ridge on one side, and this - with some effort - goes into a rectangular slot on the back of his elbow. This goes some way to furthering the screen-accuracy of this figure, but opaque grey rubber would have been sufficient - colourful translucent rubber draws perhaps a little too much attention. All the stock figure is missing is the massive chain he wore around his neck and what seems to be barbed wire and either rope or steel cable wrapped around his right arm.
In terms of paintwork, this figure couldn't be more different from Hasbro's offering. Gone is the black paint representing bare metal, gone is the disturbingly faecal brown representing gold and gone, by and large, is the appearance of any unpainted plastic. Ares Nitrogen looks shiny, new and the intricate detail of the original toy is taken to nigh Masterpiece levels by the simple application of red, silver, gold and metallic blue paint, some of which are so small and inconspicuous it's surprising they bothered. The armour panels are painted grey to match his vehicle mode parts, but all the exposed pipes, wires and gears are thoroughly painted and utterly gorgeous... Which, in itself, presents a small problem - Nitro Zeus, in the movie, was grimy and covered with graffiti, and I'm honestly surprised that there haven't been any complaints in the fan forums about Ares Nitrogen's pristine appearance. Personally, I think Black Mamba made the right call - I'm not one for the 'battle damage' paint applications - and, while I might have appreciated either a slightly darker shade of metallic paint or a black wash over some parts (particularly the brand-new-and-unused-looking shoulder-mounted Gatling guns), it looks excellent as-is, and the paint applications emphasise the sculpted implication that he has armour panels partially covering moving, mechanical parts. The paintwork is so good and so thorough that the only way to be sure which parts are die-cast and which are painted is by touch - the metal parts tending to be colder. All of the paint applications missing from Hasbro's Nitro toy are here, while the weird tampographed numbers - 13 of the left shoulder, 1 or 7 on the right thigh panel - have been removed, and there are even unique detail paint applications where you wouldn't necessarily go looking for them, such as on the heels, the calves and the areas of thigh covered by the hinged armour plate. Some of the finer details - such as the black on the inner part of the hinged thigh panels - may be absent, but I don't feel they missed anything truly important.
The default head is treated similarly to the rest of the figure - it's an upsized version of the one from the Hasbro toy, but with the face painted silver rather than black, the eyes painted red rather than yellow, and an additional metallic strip on the recessed detail running back over the top of his head. The four smaller eyes aren't much more apparent than they were on the Hasbro version, and I think I would have liked his 'horns' to be painted silver, but it looks decent enough as-is.
As well as the upsized Nitro toy head - which many fans complained was based on pre-production concept art rather than the final CGI - Ares Nitrogen comes with an upsized, repainted adaptation of Dark of the Moon Shockwave's head. While this appeased many of the fans, it still doesn't quite match the movie CGI - the horns aren't quite the right shape and should have been painted silver or a darker grey, the top of the head is too flat, and the details of the 'face' were actually changed slightly between Shockwave and Nitro Zeus - the final CGI was derived more from one of the KSI drones from Age of Extinction. The alternate head works but, for me, the original head is far superior and, not having seen The Last Knight, I have no attachment to the CGI head, so it just looks like DotM Shockwave's head in the wrong colours. Some folks have suggested that Black Mamba should do an actual Shockwave version of this oversize figure, but in his traditional/toy-style purple rather than the movie's 'bare metal' look. That's all very well for robot mode, but a purple jet wouldn't make a great deal of sense with the grittier, more 'realistic' and intricate look of this model.
As a massive fan of the original mold, any and all repaints and upgrades are highly likely to end up on my want list. I ended up buying Studio Series Thundercracker after this because it was an imaginative reuse of the mold and came with a bizarre, almost Lovecraftian new head sculpt. Since so many people on the forums were complaining about the original Nitro head sculpt not matching his on-screen appearance, it's really no surprise that Black Mamba tried to give the fans what they thought they wanted by including a upsized an recoloured Dark of the Moon Shockwave head... but it didn't play any role in my picking up this knockoff. Other than this head swap option, the HeadMaster gimmick is effectively useless without upscaling Titans Return figures to the equivalent size.
With all the improvements, it's worth mentioning that Ares Nitrogen is not perfect - transformation is just as fiddly (mainly remembering the correct orientation of his shoulders in vehicle mode, since this has a knock-on effect on the legs and, thereby, the wings), and the Titan Master-style socket isn't a perfect fit for the neck joint on either head. I find his wings slightly easier to deal with than the Hasbro figure I own, but the turbine chunks are just as inclined to pop off during transformation. The extendable cannon on his left arm is a little loose, though not to the point of being wobbly, just that it doesn't click into place in either position, and sometimes starts to slide out while he's in vehicle mode. Little things, like the continued lack of rolling wheels, aren't really that much of an issue for me, but it does seem strange that such a minor improvement wasn't included.
While Ares Nitrogen is almost certainly on a par with WeiJiang's Commander, I have a harder time considering him a 'must buy'. I bought him comparatively cheaply (about £45), and decided to take the plunge because I liked Hasbro's version, but wished it had a better paint job. Impressive and imposing as he is, given the option, I would have preferred him to stay closer to the original size, as he takes up an awful lot of shelf-space. He's not replacing my Nitro figure - he's currenly on the same shelf as my Studio Series figures, including Thundercracker, but I may have to rethink this at some point.
It's worth noting also that there is at least one repaint on the way. A version styled after Starscream's 'tattooed' look in Revenge of the Fallen has been revealed online and, while it's not for me, I have to admit that the jet looks great in silver rather than grey, and the robot does look awesome, somehow closer to the grimy, graffiti'd look of the movie character. Whether other repaints will be considered in future is anyone's guess but, with this version in my collection, Black Mamba would have to pull of something truly special for me to buy another... I like the mold, but not to the point that I'll eagerly buy every version of it.
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