TransFormers Collectors' Club 2016/Combiner Wars Bluestreak

Starting in its second year, the Figure Subscription Service offered by the TransFormers Collectors' Club started to include a bonus figure which would only be available to those who bought into that year's full subscription. Any overs of the other six figures might end up in the Club store eventually, but the seventh was the true exclusive, and its nature tended to be kept secret until the final boxes arrived with subscribers and their photos started turning up online. Due to this, the bonus figure attained an almost mythical status which was, unfortunately, responsible for a certain amount of disappointment throughout my experience of the Subscription Service.

Series 4 was largely a disappointment generally... but this - the supposed bonus figure, packaged with Impactor - feels to me like the Club's worst output in all their 12 years. So, as something of a compare-and-contrast with the previous post, about the Binaltech version of the character, let's have a closer look to see what rubbed me up the wrong way...

Binaltech BT03 Streak

While Smokescreen had been a surprising way to debut the Binaltech line, BT03 was far more predictable. It seems Streak was actually planned to be the first, but switched out in favour of the more eye-catching Subaru Rally coloured Smokescreen. The downside to this, of course, is that the third figure in the Binaltech line is basically a repaint... Though, based on the street version of the Subaru Impreza from 2003, he does have a few unique features.

And a whole new colourscheme, of course...

Cybertron Ransack

While the majority of my Galaxy Force/Cybertron collection is made up of Takara's version, there were a few toys that, to begin with at least, didn't exactly light my candle. I wasn't even watching the TV show (I don't know if it actually aired in the UK - probably only on satellite TV if it did), there was no investment in the characters, as such, so my purchases were entirely based on how I felt about the toys.

One such toy was Gasket, who just looked weird... But, having decided against importing him, I ended up buying his cheaper Hasbro analogue after acquiring the BotCon 2006 boxed set, 'Dawn of Futures Past', in which the mold had been repainted as a pre-Beast Wars Rattrap.

Is Generation 1 Stifling The TransFormers Brand?

Just another little opinion piece, since I'm currently both struggling to work on any actual toy posts (the most recent Femme-Bot Friday having been completed about a month ago and scheduled to go live when it did), and a little grumpy due to being unwell. This is something that has been on my mind for quite a while, and which I've touched on obliquely in my complaints about the toys from Siege, the first chapter of the new War for Cybertron trilogy. Specifically:

Is the current laser focus on releasing new and improved versions of toys based on Generation 1 characters ultimately detrimental to the TransFormers brand?

Energon Treadbolt

(Femme-Bot Friday #66)

A few years ago, a good friend of mine developed a habit of buying almost anything with TransFormers branding and gleefully presenting it to me at the earliest opportunity. She also really loved visiting charity shops so, when she happened upon a TransFormers Energon toy sitting all alone and virtually complete, she snatched it up at a knock-down price and handed it over the next day.

Being based on a poorly-regarded Armada mold, Treadbolt isn't a toy I would have bought myself, but was more than happy to receive as a gift, particularly since the only thing missing was the missile for the Mini-Con activated missile launcher in the robot's side - even the collectors' card was included.

Funnily enough, it was only a couple of years ago that I discovered Treadbolt is actually a Femme-Bot, which naturally made her vastly more interesting, not least because she's a repaint of the Constructicon-themed Autobot Armada Scavenger, and essentially uses the G2/European Constructicon colourscheme.