2020 Retrospective

To say I wasn't looking forward to writing a summing up of this year would be an understatement. Not only has everything this year seemingly conspired to take the wind out of my sails but, most of the time, if felt as though there was precious little good to balance it all out.

Still, it's a tradition, even if I did let it slip last year. Time to get back on track...

On Femme-Bots and Fandoms

I mentioned in my post about Big Firebird Toy's debut TransFormers figure and Arcee-analogue, Nicee, that I'd started to write a long rant about various issues surrounding the figure, but that I removed it to keep the focus of that post on the figure rather than the reactions it generated...

 

However, it was rather a long post, and I'd kept adding to it over the course of a few weeks, so I figured I should save it and make it a post of its own.

 

After all, I can't very well call myself a Femme-Bot Fanatic without having a few opinions on the subject, right?

...And so, for better or worse, here is that post...

Big Firebird Toy EX-01 Nicee

(Femme-Bot Friday #74)

Because of course I was going to buy this. It's Femme-Bot Friday's raison d'être, innit?

Big Firebird Toy seem to have been around for quite some time, but only recently decided to join the TransFormers Third Party community, thrusting themselves into fans' awareness with a unique take on Arcee which set tongues wagging and tempers flaring from the earliest concept images. To call it 'divisive' or 'controversial' would be an understatement, considering the backlash some fans faced for daring to point out that its design was... shall we say... a little racy? This is, of course, nothing new... but while most G1-style Arcee toys are, to a greater or lesser degree, criticised for being action figures hiding inside vehicle shells which inevitably just fold up onto the robot's back, this one doesn't even try to conceal the fact. Quite the reverse - it practically celebrates taking the easy route, confident enough that the allure of Nicee's robot mode and its ability to adopt all manner of sexy poses will make up for any perceived shortfall in her vehicle mode or the complexity of her engineering.

All of which to say that it's difficult to talk about this model without, to an extent, taking a side in an ongoing discussion which has seen at least one 'fan' forum ban photographic images of said model... And, me being a self-styled Femme-Bot Fanatic, you can be pretty certain before we start that I'm broadly in favour of it. All that remains is the details and caveats.

The only other thing to note is that I considered - for quite some time - posting a write-up of this figure on my other (somewhat neglected) toy blog, treating it as something apart from the TransFormers brand... however, in the end, I decided that would be disingenuous... Instead, I'm going to ask my girlfriend to write her own post about Nicee. Never let it be said that I'm not open to cynical, gimmicky posts.

A Valuable PSA

But not from me this time. While I'd imagine anyone making their way to my little blog will already be aware of YouTube and the myriad TFTubers operating therein, I feel it's worth drawing special attention to this very timely video from The Lazy Eyebrow.

I've only bought a handful of figures from the War for Cybertron series, and have been lucky to find only minor QC issues thusfar, but I'm genuinely shocked by the shoddiness of some of the figures I didn't buy. On the one hand, this video makes me feel glad I didn't waste my money on them but, on the other hand, it's a seriously shitty legacy for John Warden.

JustiToys WST Dino(ro)bots

Given that the current vogue in Knockoffs is to oversize everything, it seems strange to look back on what JustiToys decided to do in the mid-2000s, some years after the appearance of Takara's Smallest Transforming TransFormers line of blind-boxed, miniaturised G1 toys. STT ended somewhat prematurely, with only a handful of characters under its belt, but clearly captured the imagination of some of the Third Parties. None were as notable or as ambitious as JustiToys, who released a complete set of their own World's Smallest Dinobots over the course of three years.

But rather than being simplified versions of the original toys with even more limited articulation, these were downsized duplicates, scaled to fit alongside STT figures according to the G1 cartoon so that each of them towered over the official toys' robot modes.

I've never made any secret of my disdain for the very concept of the G1 Dinobots, but I was fascinated by the STT line, and these were just interesting enough to get my attention, not least because I'd never owned any of the original Dinobots myself, but had handled a couple of those owned by schoolfriends back in the day.

Since I don't want to prolong the agony of writing about more Dinobots, I'm going to deal with all five of them as a complete set, even though their releases were staggered and each was individually boxed.

TransFormers Animated Shockwave

It's not often that I have to contemplate adding a spoiler warning to a toy post, but I'd like to think that, by now, TransFormers Animated has been seen in its entirety by everyone who actually wants to watch it, and so the story spoiler inherent in this toy is thereby no longer likely to affect anyone's enjoyment of that show.

 

Essentially, Shockwave had a small but pivotal role in the show, with far-reaching consequences for several other characters, thanks to the very interesting spin the show's writers put on the G1 stalwart. Not content with having him follow tradition and be the de facto Decepticon commander on Cybertron, in Megatron's absence, they made him a spy, infiltrating Autobot Boot Camp and, from there, Cybertron Intelligence, thanks to abilities which allowed him to adopt an Autobot disguise, known as Longarm, with its own unique robot and vehicle modes.

 

Naturally, this was more successful in the cartoon than it could ever be in three-dimensional plastic, but the TF Animated toyline performed some minor miracles with its engineering in some cases, so it's really just a question of whether or not Shockwave is one of the better attempts.

Superlink Black Rodimus Convoy (TV Magazine Exclusive)

Proof positive, as if any were needed, that giving a toy a black repaint will entice me to acquire it, however terrible that toy may be, this is the disappointing and clumsy Energon Rodimus mold, with a swanky new colorscheme...

Seriously, sometimes I curse my compulsion for black repaints.

Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-9 Jazz

Jazz really must be the unluckiest character from the live action movie series. Fans expectations (mine included) were rocked by his choice of alternate mode - the Pontiac Solstic being a far cry from the Martini Racing-sponsored Porsche 935/76 of Generation 1, albeit for obvious legal reasons... He was introduced as a super-cool robot whose transformation looked like breakdancing, his movements were showy yet precise... but he barely had any dialogue, amassed just five minutes of screentime in a movie that exceeded two hours runtime, and was unceremoniously ripped in half during the final battle - a fact which received only a perfunctory acknowledgement from Optimus Prime.

Making matters worse for Jazz, all his toys - up until the 2010 Human Alliance figure - were basically shit. The original Deluxe class toy was poorly proportioned, yet it got about a billion reuses - including an insipid G1 repaint - alongside its battle-damaged variant, while the Legends class toy had the vehicle's front duplicated on its roof. The head sculpt of every single one of them seemed to have been either based on early, pre-production artwork, or just plain wrong, with the HA figure - which, let us not forget, was released as part of the second movie's toyline - being the first to get the details right.

But even that wasn't entirely right - just for starters, the arms were essentially reversed, while the legs were too long and very awkward-looking compared to the elegant CGI. So when a Masterpiece interpretation of Jazz was revealed, I hoped to finally add a decent representation of the on-screen character to my collection. Photos, videos and reviews from other collectors seemed roundly positive, so I ordered him late last year.

Let's find out what a twelve year wait yields for one on the more forgettable characters from the first movie.

Binaltech BT16 Skids

Here's another fine example of how I've made a mess of things by blogging about later iteration of a figure before the original... Skids was one of the final handful of Binaltech figures, but he came out only very slightly earlier than the last of the Binaltech Asterisk spin-offs, Broadblast, made from the same mold. Nevertheless, I seem to recall I acquired Broadblast much later than Skids, simply because I was following the main Binaltech line with more interest than Asterisk.

Skids was yet another G1 toy that I wasn't able to acquire back in the day, instead picking up the Toys'R'Us exclusive Commemorative Series re-release when it appeared almost 20 years later in 2004. While I was surprised that such a neglected G1 character was chosen to appear in the Binaltech line, the bigger surprise was the choice of vehicle...

Universe 'War of the Waves' Air Raid vs. Storm Surge

Hot on the heels of Energon Skyblast, we have a carded pair of vaguely movie-related Unicron Trilogy repaints, one of which is a Skyblast repaint!

War of the Waves was apparently a Black Friday exclusive at Walmart in the US, which would most likely have made it an Asda exclusive here... But I've never been a regular patron of Asda, and didn't exactly scour their toy shelves at the best of times. If it didn't come from Toys'R'Us, it was more likely acquired at Sainsbury's or Tesco, neither of which have consistently stocked any US store exclusives. In fact, the only one I remember even seeing in any supermarket was the Walmart exclusive racing repaint of Sidearm Sideswipe, which was a Sainsbury's exclusive over here.

I'd also assumed, based on the 'digital camouflage' paint job on Air Raid and the Sector 7 insignias stamped onto both toys, that this was a movie-related two-pack, but the instruction leaflet - shared between both figures in the pack - clearly labels it as being part of the Universe line... which both was and wasn't an extension of the movie line...

So, let's take a look at this curious, cross-generational two-pack.

Energon Skyblast

Here we have another of those instances where I genuinely don't recall when, where or indeed why I bought a figure. Aside from Arcee, none of the smaller Energon/Superlink figures were of a great deal of interest to me, at least until the Collectors' club re-used them either for BotCon or Club store exclusives, and even most of those weren't actually compelling enough to buy once I'd got my hands on a more readily-available version of the mold.

This one, perhaps, had the dubious benefit of being a fairly blatant G1 Jetfire homage, as well as seeming to complement the Energon version of Jetfire. But is a colourscheme that's as nostalgic as it is complementary to a contemporary enough to make a toy interesting in and of itself?

Studio Series #65 Blitzwing

Probably the one clip from the trailer for Travis Knight's Bumblebee solo movie that got the most attention and generated the most excitement was the transformation of a jet into a red and grey Seeker-style robot that many people conjectured would be Starscream. Knight himself dashed such hopes when questioned, announcing that this robot was named 'Blitzwing' - a great nod to another G1 character, but not necessarily the most appropriate name, given that he didn't also turn into a tank. Then again, he was only on screen for about five minutes before getting blown up so, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think that's particularly significant. I mean, chances are, the name was one of several put forward by Hasbro, and no-one really put that much thought into the selection.

Given the small cast of robot characters in the movie, it's no surprise that they'd all be added to the Studio Series roster, with Bumblebee, Dropkick and Shatter each receiving two releases within the line (and even more for Bumblebee, if you include the special boxed sets). Blitzwing is the last of these, and only the second Voyager class figure from the film, the first (naturally) having been Optimus Prime - another character who probably only had about five minutes of total screen time.

With such a small role in the movie, one could be forgiven for having low expectations of the Blitzwing toy, but just being a Voyager - considering the more prominent Decepticons each became a pair of Deluxes - was a strong positive in my books... So let's take a look.

A Horrifying Thought

Earlier today, I watched a certain YouTuber's review of the upcoming War for Cybertron: Kingdom Blackarachnia figure, in which he mentioned that the Beast Wars characters will be appearing in the eventual third and final chapter of the mind-numbingly bad Netflix series.

I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me beforehand - perhaps I'd subconsciously blocked the deeper ramifications from my mind - but, the moment he said it, I had a terrible realisation... It's going to be shit.

Robots in Disguise Side Burn

The last of the three RiD Car Brothers is, for the most part, my least favourite... in many ways, his one redeeming feature is the vehicle he transforms into, though the paint job - much like that of his brothers - comes a close second. It was, I think, Side Burn that looked most awkward, least like what I thought of as a traditional TransFormers toy, when I first glimpsed the trio in the window of Harrow's Computer Exchange many years ago.

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that I've only seen a couple of episodes of the TV show, on a random charity shop DVD purchase gifted to me by a friend, I did end up buying all three when I'd later developed a new appreciation of their unique stylings... And so it's about time I dealt with this one.

Reflecting on 'Dark Portents'

A little over three years ago, I wrote an opinion piece - Dark Portents - reflecting of the TransFormers brand during Titans Return, just before the shift into Power of the Primes. It occurred to me to go back to that and consider how things actually transpired versus my dread pronouncements on the matter... and then opine a little further on what the future may bring.

Another Public Service Announcement

Having acquired Studio Series Blitzwing this last weekend, it didn't take me long to notice something slightly adrift with the figure. No, not the lack of paintwork or the strange choices of accessory storage: a minor assembly error.

If you take a look at any of the cgi images of Blitzwing from the Bumblebee solo movie, you'll notice that the fins on his shoulders are angled backward. They're also larger and feature red paint, but let's ignore that for the moment. It appears as though the fins are angled forward on the toy so they can be folded a bit more flush with the body in vehicle mode... But they also feel a little floppy, and the sculpted detail on the shoulder doesn't seem to line up as well as it ought:

There's a distinct forward tilt at the joint, and the panel lining at the base of the fin isn't quite in line with the line on the grey shoulder mass. It's not far off, but just enough to look bad when coupled with the mismatched angling of the base of the fin with the joint socket it sits inside. The 'back' of the joint rises above the level of the socket, while the 'front' is sunk well below it.

Thankfully, the fins aren't pinned in place, so pop 'em off, swap 'em round, and you get this:

Suddenly, everything seems to line up properly - more than that, though, the fin almost clips into place in this position, and the joint is nowhere near as floppy as it was with the fins the other way round. They're still too small versus the CGI, and of course there's no red paint on either side, but it looks far better generally.

The only downside is that, in jet mode, the fins now butt up against the shoulder section's transformation hinges in jet mode, where they used to fold in behind them. It actually doesn't look too bad, though. In fact, considering how much robot junk is under the wings already, it almost looks intentional - like a part bridging between the jet's body and the supplementary engines hidden under the wings:

I'll obviously get into more detail about this figure once I have the opportunity to set up my light tent and take some better photos, but I'm genuinely more impressed with Studio Series Blitzwing than I'd expected to be, even having seen some video reviews.

Twelfth Anniversary

Somehow I neglected to log this anniversary on any of my calendars this year, and only remembered it yesterday... Mind you, there would have been a good reason for skipping this year, as I've only bought ten official TransFormers toys and two Third Party figures due to my finances being somewhat less stable this year than they were last, thanks to this whole COVID-19 situation. Really, the only reasons I bought anything after March of this year was that I started selling a few bits and bobs on eBay. I figured I may as well divest myself of a handful of duplicates and toys that just don't seem to fit in my collection anymore - things that, according to the all-powerful KonMari Method, no longer spark joy.

One might think that having a selection of only twelve figures to work with, organising a top ten and a couple of Honorary Mentions would be simplicity itself: just organise things in order of preference... But this year's slim pickings have been highly targeted. All have been toys that I was really looking forward to, or that I had high expectations of. Certainly, some turned out to be a bit disappointing, for one reason or another, but the main problem is that I feel as though I'd be doing my latest three purchases an injustice by attempting to include them at all, since they only arrived in the last week. I really haven't had time to decide whether they've met (or exceeded) my expectations, let alone fully get to know and appreciate them.

With that in mind, I'm going to present only a Top Nine this year, with my most recent purchases being honorary Honorary Mentions because otherwise this list would feel disappointing.

So, let's get on with it:

Revenge of the Fallen Bumblebee

You know, it's honestly starting to feel as though the Revenge of the Fallen toyline just isn't going to leave me alone... As I've been sorting through the toys I had in storage, I keep finding more of them... I know it was pretty much the biggest TransFormers toyline in quite a few years, and had myriad spin-offs and sublines, but this is getting a bit silly.

Also, I really, genuinely hate that what now appears to be the final RotF toy in my collection is the first Bumblebee from that line, and techically just a minimally altered re-release of the Camaro Concept toy from the first movie's range. There's almost a poetic irony to it, considering it'd forgotten I even had this thing...

So, let's get it over and done with...

Binaltech BT14 Wheeljack

If the choice of the contemporary Ford Mustang for Grimlock seemed strange, using that same bodytype for Binaltech Wheeljack made no sense whatsoever. Going by artwork available online, it seems as though the plan had originally been to make the second usage into Windcharger, but with Hasbro renaming Overdrive as Windcharger for the western market, Takara Tomy dropped the idea. Their Windcharger head sculpt ended up being used for the Alternators-only release Decepticharge and the Binaltech-only Arcee - both made using Overdrive's Honda S2000 mold - and the mismatch between the head sculpt and the way it attached to the body was very apparent.

Wheeljack certainly isn't an obvious candidate for a muscle car vehicle mode, having always been some form of racing car in other toylines, but let's give Takara Tomy the benefit of the doubt, and see what he looks like...

TransFormers (Movie) Strongarm (Target Exclusive)

Based on an Energon/Superlink Omnicon mold which I declined to purchase when it first emerged, something about movie Strongarm nevertheless tickled my fancy, because I can remember having to return the copy I originally bought to the Harrow branch of Woolworths for a replacement, because parts of it had become glued together during its construction. Whether this means it was a Woolies exclusive in the UK, I can't say...

I can also remember being somewhat interested in the BotCon 2005 'Descent into Evil' repaint as Outback (named Fallback in that set for legal reasons), but have never felt like paying the secondary market prices for it... It's possible I bought this to see if it would be worth trying to acquire Fallback, or it may simply have been a substitute.

Either way, this is the first - and, so far, only - iteration of this mold I own, so let's have a look...

TransFormers Animated Wreck-Gar

While the robot characters in TransFormers Animated weren't particularly plentiful, what they lacked in numbers, they more than made up for in personality. The small cast seemed to have been perfectly selected for what they were able to add to the storytelling potential of their situation.

A prime example of this would be Wreck-Gar, who was given an entirely new origin story - no longer leader of the Junkions, a race of transforming (and partsforming) robots which evolved separately from those of Cybertron - he was, instead, the innocent creation of Sari Sumdac's AllSpark key. Introduced with no idea of his own identity, his occasional appearances served to develop his character, though I seem to recall his fate was left very open-ended.

Perfect Effect PC-18 Upgrade Kit for GodJinrai

Picking up the upgrade sets for Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai had two effects on me. First and foremost, it somewhat restored my confidence in Perfect Effect's output... but, perhaps just as important, it left me wanting to ensure my Legends Godbomber/Super Ginrai combination was as good and 'complete' as it possibly could be.

The stock Godbomber figure is far from perfect and his components, when added to Super Ginrai, leave the figure substantially less stable than he was in his basic form. Given that the PC-16 set puts a little bit more weight onto the robot's back (in the form of Jinrai Prime's legs), his weak ankles leave him even more prone to overbalancing and falling over backward.

With that in mind, to be perfectly honest, the only part of this figure I was really interested in was the ankle supports for the God Ginrai gestalt...

Cybertron Landmine

Every so often, there's a mold in a toyline I like that doesn't particularly inspire me. Landmine was one such mold, until I got my hands on the Rhinox repaint, part of the BotCon 2006 boxed set, 'Dawn of Futures Past'. Larking about with that figure gave me a different perspective on the mold and so, while I still wasn't overkeen on having a dull Autobot construction vehicle on my shelves, I did end up buying the substantially cheaper Cybertron version of the mold, that I could play with and pose while BotCon Rhinox languishes in his box till I'm able to display him adequately, along with the rest of his crew.

This might seem like a strange reason to buy a toy but the Cybertron/Galaxy Force line really grabbed me as a whole, and I didn't want to miss out on a fun toy, even if it didn't appeal to me straight away.

A Bump in the Road

Yesterday saw the sudden failure of one of my external hard drives.

Thankfully, the only thing related to this blog contained therein was the spreadsheet I'd been using to track my collections and - more recently - my eBay sales. That can be rebuilt, of course, but it was frustrating to find that the autobackup option was not enabled by default and, while the software does autosave its own backups every 15 minutes, those backups are wiped when the document is saved/closed.

All my photos are stored on another drive, but even those could have been re-taken if the worst had happened. I've ended up re-taking photos of quite a few toys, despite having rescued the originals from Photobucket before I closed my accounts there.

The main problem is that a number of ancillary files - such as the original Adobe Illustrator file from which this blog's banner was made - are gone. As are many files relating to my freelance work and personal projects. A good proportion of it is still lurking in emails, so it's just a matter of tracking it down and remaking spreadsheets, InDesign documents, etc. as appropriate, but it's still pretty frustrating, considering I've gone through more PCs than external hard drives over the years, and those drives have helped me transfer to new PCs almost seamlessly.

I guess the lesson here is that I should start to trust the Cloud a little more, and keep backups of my backups going forward.

Binaltech BT13 Laserwave

Based on the number of iterations of it I own - five in total - the Mazda RX-8 would seem to the casual observer to be my favourite Binaltech mold. While the first version I wrote about - BT20 Argent Meister, one of the final Binaltech releases - turned out to be a bit of a floppy mess, the original Meister - BT08, released four years prior - was really only a let-down because it was too a pedestrian car to turn into Jazz... Though this was before the movies turned him into a Pontiac Solstice which, in many ways, wasn't much better.

For the third release of the mold (the second being the red 'Zoom-Zoom' repaint of BT08) Takara seemed to have given up on the idea of the Binaltech Decepticons having commandeered bodies intended for Autobots, because this guy is unmistakeably Shockwave.

Or rather, Laserwave...

Perfect Effect PC-15 Upgrade Kit & PC-16 Jinrai Prime

TransFormers developed along some very strange lines during the Prime Wars trilogy. We were treated to the second ever G1-style Ultra Magnus toy which transformed as a unit rather than being a white Optimus Prime with power armour (the first being the Masterpiece figure), and that led to a reinterpretation of Powermaster Optimus Prime (and Takara Tomy's Super Ginrai remix) in which the 'cab only' Optimus Prime - and the Powermaster feature - was bypassed in favour of keeping with Titans Returns' HeadMaster gimmick and the single-unit transformation.

While I like Super Ginrai and enjoyed him as a single unit, the moment I saw Perfect Effect were producing upgrade sets - the first being essentially supplemental parts for the second, a fully transforming, independent cab - I knew I was going to treat myself to the full Super Ginrai/Powermaster Optimus Prime upgrade, and ordered both PC-15 and PC-16 as soon as they became available.

On War for Cybertron: Siege, the Netflix show

The much-anticipated Netflix TV show based around Hasbro's now year-old War for Cybertron: Siege toyline debuted a couple of days ago, and I decided to watch its six-episode opening chapter today. My initial impression of it was simply that the frame rate was higher than the awful Machinima shows based around the Prime Wars trilogy of toylines. Aside from that... there's honestly not much good I can say about it. It's OK... but suffers from the same problems that plague a lot of modern TV, in that it feels like it was written with a particular conclusion in mind, and everything else was written purely to achieve that conclusion. There was also a real sense of cheapness to it, in that there wasn't much variety in the body types of the robots. Literally all the background 'extras' were repaints of the main characters, without even slight changes to their heads. When a cheaply made cartoon from more than 35 years ago had more character variety than a new CGI show, you pretty much know from the start that it ain't going to be groundbreaking.

Now, because it's only just out, I'm going to try to avoid outright plot spoilers... but be prepared, as there may be a few spoilerish details...

Studio Series #57 Offroad Bumblebee

I was reasonably convinced, back when I bought MPM-7 Bumblebee, that I'd never feel compelled to buy another live action movie Bumblebee figure. Even when Studio Series #49 turned up, looking pretty good (and, of course, in scale with the rest of the Studio Series line), I didn't feel it was necessary for my collection because I'm still a huge fan of Battle Blade Bumblebee from 2010, and I really think I've had enough Camaro Bumblebees for one lifetime.

So, seeing the flaw in my plan to avoid lining their pockets by buying yet more Bumblebee toys, Hasbro decided to take advantage of the only other terrestrial disguise taken by their protagonist in his solo movie... leading us to now take a look at the so-called Offroad Bumblebee.

Binaltech BT12 Overdrive

Binaltech initially seemed to be focussed on reasonably prominent members of the cast of the G1 cartoon who were based on Diaclone vehicles (albeit with some strange choices of Decepticon), but BT12 was a decidedly odd choice. G1 Overdrive - along with the other two Omnibots, Camshaft and Downshift - had come from Diaclone stock, but was released in the US and Japan as a mailaway figure, making use of the Robot Points printed on the toys' boxes. Perhaps due to their limited availability, the Omnibots never appeared in the G1 cartoon, or even in the original Marvel comics. They also lacked the usual Tech Specs, making each of them very much an unknown quantity in terms of personality, abilities and armaments.

Typically, while the Omnibots appeared in the pack-in advertising leaflets in UK toys, they weren't actually available in Europe. I wasn't overly fussed at the time, as none of the Omnibots looked particularly special, but I have to admit I'd be quite keen to get my hands on them now, as an adult collector.

But here we have the Binaltech version... which is surely a vast upgrade on the original, even though it's not a Ferrari, right?

Robots in Disguise Prowl

Of the three RiD Car Brothers, I've always felt that Prowl was the least crap-looking. This may be largely due to the choice of vehicle mode, but he's also the most TransFormer-y figure of the set because of the way certain car parts become aspects of the robot rather than just hanging off him.

In keeping with tradition, Prowl transforms into a police car... but, while the colourscheme of the original version was a clear homage to G1 Prowl, the version I picked up - his 'Super' form, albeit unacknowledged on the packaging - does things a little differently...

Making some space...

After a lot of reflection, I've decided to put some of the TransFormers toys in my collection up onto eBay.

It's going to be a slow process, as I'm reluctant to part with any of it, but the fact remains that I've left a significant number of figures in storage for years now, because I just don't have enough display space for everything. There's a bit of a tradition in my family that, if something goes into storage and isn't sought out for a certain number of years, it can be disposed of as appropriate. There's also the KonMari Method, of which my girlfriend is a strong proponent, and which aims to rid one of things that do not 'spark joy'. These will be the first to go, as I sort out the necessary packaging.

Being a UK-based TransFormers collector, my initial plan is to only despatch within the UK, particularly when I get to the handful of BotCon or TransFormers Collectors' Club exclusives I'm inclined to part with. However, I will look into international despatch options eventually, though I feel it would be a shame for some of the exclusives to end up being shipped back over to the US, for example.

I've flagged a number of toys from the movie lines, Classics, Beast Wars, Robot Masters, and even some Third Party items, but I'm starting with mostly small stuff out of convenience... and also because my hoarder mentality actually makes the process of parting with my toys surprisingly difficult.

An interesting byproduct of this move is that I've recently been taking photos of some of the older oddities in my collection - such as the Real Gear toys that came out alongside the first live action movie's toyline - which I had thusfar neglected to photograph. I will be aiming to write about such toys before I try to sell them off as a means of ensuring that I really do want to try to sell them off.

There's not much there right now, but I'll be adding stuff over the coming weeks (or months, knowing me). Take a look at what's currently on offer...

I'm still debating whether or not to even try selling my decapitated Beast Muscle Leonidas... That figure pretty much does the opposite of 'sparking joy' but, given how fragile it is, I'm not sure it's worth bothering...

...And it might be more cathartic to just take a hammer to it and chuck away the pieces.

Also, hypothetically, does anyone know how to pitch the TFCC Seacons set from 2008, price-wise? I mean, it's a cool set... but the QC was atrocious.

Addendum 29/7/20: Disappointingly, one of the first Club exclusives I put up online got snapped up by an international reseller based quite close to me... I may have to rethink how I handle exclusives from here on.

On Kingdom, and John Warden's exit from TransFormers

OK, so this week has brought a couple of big pieces of news to shake the world of TransFormers toys to its very core...

Hyperbole aside, for the announcement of the name of the final chapter in the War For Cybertron Trilogy to be followed so swiftly by the news that the franchise's Design Manager is leaving the brand and moving over to the Power Rangers team is quite a bizarre turn of events. The part of my brain that thrives on puzzles and mysteries is intrigued... if not quite threatening to spiral down into full-on conspiracy theory mode...

On Crossovers

Just a quick rant, as I'm trying to work on other things at the moment...

Back when the Ghostbusters X TransFormers crossover, Ectotron, was revealed, I figured it was a novelty - a minor feature on the landscape of the continuing TransFormers brand... Even though I already had the two Street Fighter II X TransFormers sets in my collection.

In retrospect, I really should have seen it for what it is.

Studio Series #59 Shatter (Jet)

(Femme-Bot Friday #73)

There really wasn't much good to say about the first version of Shatter to appear within the Studio Series toyline. Vehicle mode was OK, but transformation was not much fun due to several parts tending to fall off, and the robot mode was littered with clashing panels that restricted its articulation.

However, since she and Dropkick adopted two vehicle modes in the Bumblebee solo movie, and Dropkick turned up as Studio Series #22 in helicopter form, then #46 in car form, it seemed likely that Shatter's abysmal #40 car mode would eventually be followed by a jet form... And since the second Dropkick toy was much better than the first, it didn't seem like too much to hope for that the second Shatter toy would also supersede the first.

I mean, surely, Hasbro couldn't cock up the same character twice..?

Cybertron Skywarp

I've mentioned my Seeker OCD several times (probably every time I write about a Starscream, Skywarp or Thundercracker, to be honest), but there are occasions when it manifests itself in completely illogical ways. The Cybertron version of Skywarp is just one such occasion, since it's a repaint of Thundercracker, which had previously been a unique mold in the toyline rather than the traditional repaint of Starscream.

Making matters all the more interesting, it followed the example of Galaxy Force/Cybertron Thundercracker by largely ignoring the traditional Skywarp colourscheme. When I wrote about the original, I noted that I was sufficiently impressed by it that I picked this one up... but, having the repaint in hand, is it still impressive enough to forstall any buyers' remorse?

3H BotCon (Europe) 2002 Universe Rook

It's interesting to note, in retropect, that my purchasing of older BotCon exclusives - those that preceded Fun Publications' acquisition of the license from Hasbro - has followed a similar trajectory to my earliest collecting. Tap-Out was the first 3H BotCon figure I picked up, and was a repaint of the first TransFormers toy I ever bought, Cliffjumper. It gets less precise after that because, while Glyph - based on Bumblebee - was the next BotCon repaint of a G1 Mini Autobot that I acquired, the second Autobot toy I bought was Windcharger... and it took me several years more to finally get round to buying this BotCon repaint of that mold.

Rook was originally made available at BotCon Europe 2002 - an event I wasn't even aware had existed until a few years ago, since it preceded my return to TransFormers collecting by a year or two - and is based on the slightly remodelled version, released as a novelty key fob in the early 2000s, but is otherwise just a repaint... and the only reason I really thought about picking him up is that Rook appeared in Fun Publications' TF Collectors' Club magazine a few times. He's not even that hard to track down, or expensive to buy, so it eventually became a bit of a no-brainer...

Situation Update

Being out of work and stuck at home except for local shopping excursions hasn't quite galvanised me for making progress on this blog the way I'd hoped... At least, not initially. Until May, I could barely get anything done. A big part of the problem was that list of existing drafts that I felt obliged to plough through but, no matter how I tried, none of them were grabbing my attention well enough.

I have finally got that original list down to 10 remaining ancient drafts, but I've been adding new ones as I go. Sometimes, I can get away with using the original images, rescued from Photobucket before I finally closed my accounts. A lot of the time, I'm finding that I have to take new photos, either because the original set were incomplete, uninspiring, or just crappy quality. Taking new photos, occasionally, has reminded me how cool the toys were... or how terrible the toys were... But, along with those 10 remaining millstone drafts, I've so far added 10 new drafts, either of new toys (all bought prior to the COVID-19 lockdown/unemployment austerity kick), or old toys where I either decided to replace the old photos for one reason or another, or had simply neglected to photograph in the first place (and there's quite a surprising number of those, all things considered!). What I'm (still) hoping to do is work through these 20 drafts, adding as few new ones as possible, till they're all, finally, complete.

And, by and large, I'm doing it... I've certainly done pretty well over the last couple of months.

Energon Rodimus

Rodimus - or Rodimus Convoy in Takara Tomy's Superlink line - seems to be a pretty confusing character. I gather he was essentially second-in-command in the TV show (which would explain the 'Convoy' suffix in the Japanese version), but he'd generally been a sports car of some form. When G1 Hot Rod became Rodimus Prime, he turned into what's been described as a 'Space Winnebego', which was essentially a slightly modified form of his sports car plugged into a trailer, rather than suddenly becoming a whole different vehicle. Also, just to make things even more convoluted, there was already a Hot Rod analogue in the Unicron Trilogy, in the form of Hot Shot (the Energon incarnation of whom being the toy the Collectors' Club turned into Timelines Nightbeat).

Energon as a whole was a bit of a mixed bag, pitting its weird combination gimmick for the Autobots against the so-called 'Hypermode' of the Decepticons, but some of the individual toys were pretty good... Is Rodimus among them?

Robots in Disguise X-Brawn

Given how few toys from the original Robots in Disguise line I actually own, it seems a little daft, in retrospect, that it's taking me so long to write about them... It's likely that I bought Megatron, Galvatron, Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus in 2001 or thereabouts, but I cannot recall when I started adding to that selection... It may well have been 3+ years later that, having become more interested in the idea of Collecting again, I started filling out the ranks a little. I genuinely can't remember when I picked up this particular figure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was at one of the few Auto Assemblies I attended, as I have a dim recollection of an argument with my companion at the time over a breakage... and my X-Brawn is definitely broken (more on which later).

I also know that I first saw X-Brawn, Prowl and Side Burn before I bought my first few RiD toys and, at first, really didn't like the look of any of them, so the fact that I own not just them, but two repaints each of the latter pair, just goes to show how my tastes changed over the course of a few years.

Cybertron Shortround

Up until recently, when one thought of TransFormers hovercraft, there was pretty much only Seaspray. The Cybertron toyline forever changed the seascape by introducing a whole new character - Shortround - with a hovercraft vehicle mode, a geeky personality and (apparently) a dangerous (to himself) obsession with Chromia (aka Thunderblast).

There's probably a very good reason that seafaring TransFormers are a rarity. Even if one assumes Cybertron has no oceans of any kind, the very nature of its sentient robotic life is inclined toward adapting to its environment, and lack of exposure does not automatically preclude the ability to acclimatise. That said, I just don't feel that the open ocean on Earth presents as many opportunities for TransFormers stories as the land... I mean, even in the G1 TV show, the Decepticons gave up on attacking oil rigs after a single battle with the Autobots, despite the fact that the Autobots were largely unable to fly after the pilot episode, let alone travel over or through water.

Galaxy Force Dark Ligerjack

There's something a little bit sad about Galaxy Force Ligerjack. Obviously the character is one who, having been defeated in battle, obtained an upgraded form - supposedly through the power of the key, according to the cartoon, though that's not a feature reflected in the toys - but also the toy itself is only part of what it should have been. Designed from the start to combine with Galaxy Convoy or Master Megatron/Galvatron as a new arm, his original design included fingers and thumbs for this additional mode, and the key gimmicks were rather more extensive. Evidently too costly for the final toy, these additional features were removed, leaving gaping holes and rendering the arm form a bit useless.

My reason for not buying standard Ligerjack was mainly that I disliked his colourscheme... so, naturally, when the 'Dark' version was announced, it made it onto my want list immediately.

Alternators Battle Ravage (Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Convertible)

The connection between Generation 1 and Beast Wars might seem tenuous if one were to look at the toys in isolation. Aside from a very familiar-looking head on the Maximals' leader, there was no real visual continuity. It was the TV show that very cleverly posited that the Maximals and Predacons were descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons, respectively, and the two small teams travelled back in time to prehistoric Earth, where the Beast Wars were waged.

Why am I writing about Beast Wars in the writeup for an Alternators model? OK, kids... this is where it gets complicated (and also involves a major Beast Wars spoiler for anyone who's not yet enjoyed that series): In the TV show, Tripredacus agent Ravage - a rebuilt version of G1 Ravage - is sent back in time to put a stop to Megatron's plans, but ends up helping due to a fragment of message from the original Megatron, encoded on the Golden Disk. He ends up getting destroyed, but not before downloading his consciousness into his ship's black box, only to be recovered in the present day and installed in a Binaltech body... along with G1 Ravage, stasis-locked in his cassette form, in the dashboard of his Chevrolet Corvette Z06 alternate mode to provide the body with a Spark. So Binaltech Battle Ravage = Beast Wars Ravage + G1 Ravage... but BW Ravage is a future version of G1 Ravage, for whom the events of the Binaltech story must already have happened, so Binaltech Battle Ravage represents an infinite temporal loop of Ravage personalities.

Or something...

Now, I hadn't planned on buying BT11 both because I wasn't overkeen on BT06 Tracks and because a humanoid form of Ravage didn't appeal... but then my best mate gave me the Alternators version for my birthday!

New Tag: Electronic

It occurred to me today, as I've been looking at a couple of toys with battery-powered features, that I've so far neglected to add a specific tag to any posts where the toy features any electronics... Since that rather sells them short, I figured I'd spend a little while trawling through posts and adding a new tag where relevant.

I may have missed some... and, for the moment, I've deliberately omitted things like the TransFormers Prime toys with Poweriser weapons (mainly because they were all a bit crap) and MP05 Megatron (LED in the Fusion Cannon, which I removed anyway)... but it looks as though I have more than 50 TransFormers toys with electronic features of one form or another.

For those who prefer not to have to brave the tags list at the very bottom, I've added Electronic Toys to the top menu, just below the blog masthead as well.

TransFormers (Movie) Hardtop (Target Exclusive)

There are times when I really don't understand Hasbro. Their strategy with the TransFormers brand generally seems pretty haphazard, their strategy with specific toylines often seems not to be fully thought through... but their strategy for store exclusives can be utterly baffling. The only consistent thing is their inconsistency.

When the first TransFormers live action movie came out, the new toys featured novel and impressive engineering, the likes of which had genuinely never been seen before. It may not have been perfectly accurate to the on-screen CGI, but the movie toylines were the first step in a quantum leap in toy engineering than continued over the next few years.

And yet, for a set of Target Exclusive, movie branded Scout class figures, Hasbro mined their back catalogue for repaints. The selection was, somehow, very Energon-centric despite the clear disparity in aesthetic. Then again, the other line selected was Cybertron, which generally wasn't much better. Hardtop - a repaint of the Cybertron figure of the same name - turned out to be the best match, at least as far as his vehicle mode was concerned, since it's not a million miles away from Landmine.

Studio Series #51 Soundwave (Dark of the Moon)

The live action movies' treatment of iconic Generation 1 characters tended to play fast and loose, both with their appearance and their characters. Soundwave's first appearance was in Revenge of the Fallen, as a satellite orbitting Earth, molesting other satellites with Hentai-style cyber-invasion tentacles, and pooping out Ravage, and then having no bearing on the anything till the next movie. But in Dark of the Moon, Soundwave was just another silver-coloured, sharp-edged, gun-toting brawler in the movie. His main contributions to the drama were threating Carly with his tentacles and deciding - on the instructions of Dylan Gould - to execute the Autobots who had been captured in the city. He was a far cry from the laconic, calculating opportunist of old.

Due to distribution issues, I never did get my hands on the original DotM Deluxe class toy, and ended up skipping on the Human Alliance figure because they all got downsized for the third movie, and Soundwave's robot mode proportions were bonkers. I did eventually pick up the repaint of the original Deluxe, Darkside Soundwave, from Takara Tomy's Movie Advanced line at one of the London Comic Cons, but he lacked the original's Mech Tech weapons and his robot mode is a bit lankier and slimmer than the CGI character from the movie.

The Studio Series version came along with a more accurate-looking robot mode and a fully silver-painted Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and, given the secondary market cost of the previous versions now, he seemed like the best option... at least until a Masterpiece version - either official or Third Party - arrives.

TransFormers Encore 07 Sky Lynx

Generation 1 was a strange old time... For all the Japanese/Asian market exclusives we get these days, Hasbro's approach to the franchise back in the day led to several TransFormers-branded toys that were not, at the time, released anywhere but the USA, and the final waves apparently only surfaced in Europe, long after I'd stopped collecting.

Toys like Shockwave, Omega Supreme and this one were licensed for US distribution from companies other than Takara, and who frequently already had some sort of domestic and non-US distribution in place with other companies (ToyCo's Astro Magnum came to the UK as Tandy/Radio Shack's Galactic Man, while Toybox's Mechbot-1 turned up in Grandstand's Converters line as Omegatron). Takara - quite rightly - declined to distribute toys made by others and, even in those days, Hasbro's distribution in the UK was less than optimal.

As far as I can tell, though, the toy that became Sky Lynx wasn't picked up for distribution by anyone else in any other territories, making him that much rarer and harder to find until Takara Tomy's 2008 Encore-branded re-release. This, naturally, has seen its price increased on the secondary market but, right at the start of the year, I found a second-hand Sky Lynx on eBay, priced at a little over half the current average, once shipping from Australia was taken into account

Naturally, I hit the 'Buy It Now' button as soon as I saw it - opportunities like this don't come along very often!

AM20 Arms Micron (TFPrime) Ironhide

Here's another of those strange situations that sometimes occur within the TransFormers brand. Illustrator Ken Christiansen, in his role as freelance designer/concept artist for Hasbro, submitted an awesome design for a TransFormers Prime version of Ironhide - channelling equal parts Generation 1 and movieverse. Hasbro, in their wisdom, took the design, changed the colour, and released it as Sergeant Kup instead, with Ironhide only appearing in the Cyberverse Commander size class.

...Only for Takara Tomy to later return to the originally intended colourscheme and release it within their Arms Micron spin on the TransFormers Prime toyline, along with a single Mini-Con weapon in place of the twin cannons from Christiansen's original design.

Really makes you wonder what's going on behind the scenes at both companies, doesn't it?

Universe 'Standoff Beneath the Streets' Springer vs. Ratbat

Hasbro used to release quite a few multipacks of TransFormers toys, but I didn't tend to pay much attention to them. Either I already had one of the figures in the set in one form or another, or at least one of them was crap (witness the sheer number of multipacks that included a variation of the awful Armada Sideswipe mold).

However, when the 'Standoff Beneath the Streets' set turned up, it seemed like a good deal: two great figures from the Cybertron/Galaxy Force toyline repainted as G1 characters in a set which - I gather - paid homage to a particular IDW storyline. The only downside was that one of the characters, Springer, was traditionally a Triple Changer, but the mold used was not. 2007's BotCon Springer gave him a single, ground-based vehicle mode, Hasbro were now giving him his helicopter mode via the GF Live Convoy mold.

But, for me, the main event was the first re-use of the Noisemaze mold - one of the most interesting figures in the Galaxy Force line.

TransFormers: Prime Beast Hunters Ace (Jet) Vehicon

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, having bought the dinky Legends class TransFormers Prime Beast Hunters Jet Vehicon figure, despite Takara Tomy having released a full-size (Deluxe class) version the year before in their Arms Micron line. Sadly, though, it seems I repeated almost exactly the same error the following year, and picked up this little variant, at a time when Takara Tomy's AM Jet Vehicon General would still have been more cheaply available than it is now.

And the less said about my error with the other Vehicon General, the better.

But, since we're here, let's take a look, shall we?

FansProject Lost Exo Realm LER-06 Echara

(Femme-Bot Friday #72)

Having bought Comera and almost immediately broken one of her ankles, I was rather more dubious about picking up her slightly-remolded sister figure. Aside from a handful of cosmetic changes, they were identical, and it seemed likely that the ankles on Echara would be just as troublesome. Add my general disdain for Dinobots, and I'd pretty much convinced myself not to bother.

Then TFSource had a sale, late in the summer of 2019, and she was essentially half price. Where a Femme-Bot is concerned, that's an offer I couldn't refuse.

Clever/Sneaky TFSource. Now I have another Dino-Femme-Bot in my collection.

Studio Series #46 Dropkick (Car)

Dropkick and his partner Shatter have both been given two separate Studio Series releases, each with a single vehicle mode, rather than a single, triple-changing version (that particular hurdle has been left to the Third Parties). Given that the car-form Shatter was an utter travesty and helicopter-form Dropkick was apparently pretty disappointing (even if it did give rise to helicopter-form Drift), I initially had reservations about car-form Dropkick.

Early photos seemed to suggest he was rather simpler, and perhaps more traditional in his execution compared to his partner. Still, of the Bumblebee movie figures released up to this point, none had been without flaws, and there was no reason to expect any better from this one, right?

Binaltech BT10 Grimlock

If Binaltech's pre-movie 'lost years' timeline wasn't weird enough when it repurposed obvious Autobot shells into Decepticons - even if there was a valid in-story explanation - it jumped up a gear with its tenth entry. Early G1 Autobots getting new, contemporary, licensed vehicle modes to replace their old, unlicensed G1 vehicle modes was one thing... but the latest figure, Grimlock, had originally been a Dinobot, with a robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex as his alternate mode.

Yet, while turning the former Dinobot Commander into a car may have seemed strange, they at least chose a fitting vehicle - the latest iteration of one of the most well-known American muscle cars.

Reveal the Shield Fallback

The TransFormers subline entitled 'Reveal the Shield' was as strange as it was shortlived. By and large, it was a callback to that period of G1 toys which featured heat-activated faction insignias. The bulk of them were also just another part of the ongoing Classics line, but a small handful could be interpreted equally as part of the continuing Revenge of the Fallen toyline due to the ambiguity of their packaging.

Fallback - aka Outback, another name Hasbro lost for a few years - was one such figure. Clearly based on the G1 character, going by his colourscheme, yet a repaint of the movie version of Brawn. So... technically, while I thought Legends class Ravage was the final Revenge of the Fallen toy in my collection, it seems it's actually this one!

Revenge of the Fallen Ravage (Legends)

Continuing my recent theme of ten-year-old movie toys and - finally - completing the write-ups for my collection of Revenge of the Fallen toys, here we have the second mold made of Ravage, yet another G1 character who got a bit of a raw deal out of that movie.

The Decepticons' master spy, a renowned lurker-in-the-shadows, got turned into a shiny, bare-metallic cyclopean robo-kitty whose contributions to comic relief far outweighed his few awesome moments of action. Rather than sneaking into the N.E.S.T. holding facility to steal their Allspark fragment, he went in all guns blazing and essentially provided a distraction for the weird gestalt known as Reedman, which he had merely deployed by coughing his component ballbearings down a ventilator shaft. His only other significant contributions were delivering Scalpel to the captive Sam Witwicky (anyone else find it odd that Soundwave ejects Ravage, then Ravage ejects both Reeman and Scalpel, without any indication of how either got inside him?), and then getting his spine ripped out by the tail when it went up against Bumblebee during the climactic battle of the movie.

His Deluxe class toy proved to be disappointing, in that it had only a perfunctory alternate mode - dubbed 'Re-entry Mode' and supposedly representing his 'missile' form after Soundwave shot him down to Earth - and a colourscheme that was more G1 than movie. After about a year - and a couple of repaints - Hasbro released a completely new mold, in the smallest current size class. There were two positive signs on this version - first and foremost, his colourscheme was very much movie-style bare metallic. Perhaps more interestingly, its alternate mode was based on the fish/submersible form Ravage was given in his concept art, but which didn't make it into the movie.

Is it possible that a tiny Legends class figure is better than a Deluxe?

Revenge of the Fallen Mudflap

Intended as comic relief - in a franchise that was overburdened with comic relief from its very first installment - the Twins, Skids and Mudflap, attracted a lot of scorn due to perceived racial stereotyping. Personally, I found it odd that they were seen that way, as their characterisation seemed to be taking aim at Hip Hop-obsessed white trash more than anything else. Maybe my impression - as a middle class, middle-aged white dude in the UK - is flawed, and I'm missing some critical element of their portrayal, but it felt to me like manufactured outrage for the sake of outrage, over a movie that was just poorly made from start to finish.

Meanwhile, it took me five years to get round to writing about the Deluxe class Skids, and he turned out to be a floppy mess of a figure, with a large amount of car shell wrapped around a comparatively small robot. It was a well-designed toy, certainly, but let down by the materials and the manufacturing.

...Which doesn't exactly bode well for his brother...

Revenge of the Fallen Dead End

One interesting feature of Hasbro re-using established names in new franchises is that some fairly high-profile names end up appearing in unexpected places. 'Dead End' was used for two separate figures in the extended Revege of the Fallen toyline - the Scout class figure later repainted into Nightbeat, and this Deluxe class figure, a repaint of the Sideways figure with a new head sculpt.

Notably, neither of them were in any way connected with the Stunticon Dead End, and the name was applied in reference to the character being some kind of robotic vampire. Whether this makes him distantly related to Ratbat, or just the expanded movie universe's resident Goth stereotype, who can say? But I'm a big fan of the mold for its interesting transformation, automorphing features and the unique look of its robot mode, even as a poor second choice for representing Dino from Dark of the Moon, so this Revenge of the Fallen repaint was a no-brainer.

TransFormers Animated Bulkhead

In many ways, this should have been posted as a direct follow-on from the KuBianBao upsizing of movie Hound, since TF Animated Bulkhead surely played a part in the Bayverse reimagining of the old G1 favourite. While the mass release of TF Prime Bulkhead was fudged to stop him looking 'fat', the First Edition paid greater attention to the CGI, leading to a vastly superior toy. The toys made of TF Animated Bulkhead - regardless of size class - didn't even try to disguise how chunky the character was, and they all ended up with fairly stumpy legs, as was appropriate to his animation model.

And, like most TransFormers figures at that time, Bulkhead was made available in just about every size class. All of them had their shortcomings, but only one of them - the Leader class version - was anywhere near the right scale for the rest of the toyline. While the line as a whole wasn't overly concerned with scale - Bumblebee being one of the largest Deluxes, despite the character's diminutive stature on the show - I've always like to try to get the characters matching up as well as possible. While the Voyager class version of the toy was more accurate to the character's overall appearance on the show, even this Leader class version was technically undersized in robot mode... but it was the closest available.

Of course, 'best available' doesn't always equate to 'best overall', and it's not as if Leader class figures always made best use of their budgets back when they were all huge and packed with features...

TransFormers Cloud Starscream

I don't know a great deal about TransFormers Cloud, not least because the toys - by and large - didn't interest me. Most were pretty dull repaints, with the occasional new head sculpt, but only two tickled my fancy: Hellwarp - a repaint of the Generations Sky-Byte mold in Skywarp colours - and this one, Starscream.

Neither were priority figures when they first appeared, but when the Bumblebee movie turned up, featuring a character named Blitzwing, who transformed into a jet coloured suspiciously like Starscream, the latter figure got bumped up the list since it occurred to me - thanks to my weird way of thinking - that he could function both as Cloud Starscream and a Generations version of Bumblebee movie Blitzwing (even though he never transformed into a tank, or gave any indication of being a triple-changer in his brief appearance).

Of course, I already own both Generations Blitzwing and Generations Doubledealer - the latter's head sculpt being reused here - so let's see what makes Cloud Starcream unique...

Studio Series #56 Shockwave

While I've not liked all the designs of the robots in the live action movies - particularly the randomly spiky Cybertronian forms of the Bay movies - there's no denying how striking they are, and how imposing they managed to appear in the films. Given that some Decepticons didn't even transform on-screen, they could have been given just about any alternate mode imaginable.

One such character was Dark of the Moon's distinctly non-traditional interpretation of Shockwave. Gone was the logically-minded custodian of the remnants of Decepticon Cybertron and, in his place, we got a fairly generic, virtually mute metal monster with a honkin' great cannon on one arm (and the wrong arm, at that) and an enormous, city-munching robo-phallic tentacle monster for a 'pet'. Pretty much the only things the production artists got right were the head (cyclopean, albeit heavily embellished versus the G1 character) and the power cable for his gun arm.

Not that I'd expect a movie bot to transform into an enormous space gun but, given that Shockwave's appearance in the game of the very first movie had him transform into both a helicopter and a howitzer, there's already precedent for something out of the ordinary... And yet the original toy just had him turn into a spiky tank... Now, about five years later, Shockwave has been granted a Studio Series makeover - packaged as a Leader class figure, no less - so let's see what sort of improvements Hasbro have made...

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2009 (Timelines) Skyquake

There are a number of figures in my collection that I can look at and genuinely wonder what ever possessed me to buy them... and there are figures in my collection that are flawed in some small but critical way. Thankfully, either one are rare occurrences particularly since, on the rare occasion I shop in bricks-and-mortar toy shops, I can give any figure I want a quick once over in the box, to see if I can spot any obvious flaws.

I've not always had the best of luck with TransFormers Collectors' Club figures, and particularly BotCon figures bought via the Club shop after the event, but this figure - part of one of the souvenir sets from BotCon 2009 - would certainly fit into both categories were it not for the fact that he was packaged alongside Banzai-Tron, an excellent reimagining of a G1 Action Master using a bonkers Energon mold.

Wings of Honor didn't interest me a great deal, but it was nice to effectively get a bonus figure along with the one souvenir toy I actually wanted. Aside from these, the only figure from 2009's set that's even on my radar is Scourge, made using the Galaxy Force Noisemaze mold.

(And, yes, I know Elita-1 and Razorclaw were available at the 2009 show as well, but they were additions to Games of Deception and Dawn of Futures Past, respectively, not Wings of Honor)

TransFormers Go! Hunter Soundwave

Takara Tomy's take on the Beast Hunters extension to TF Prime was a bit of a surprise. Most of the beasts/Predacons were incorporated into their TransFormers Go! TV show, but only a few of the non-beast toys made it into the toyline. Shockwave was one, receiving a far better paint job than the Hasbro/Beast Hunters version, and Soundwave was another. While Hasbro's release seemed to channel an old TransFormers Universe toy, Takara Tomy went a bit more traditional...

One might wonder why I'd pick up another version of TF Prime Soundwave when I already have the original TF Prime Deluxe and Hasbro's Beast Hunters version... but remember I also went and bought the Collectors' Club's Old Snake & Advanced Steath BATs set... and read on.

Street Fighter II X TransFormers Hot Rodimus [Ken]

While I wasn't particularly interesting in obtaining a second iteration of the Titans Return Hot Rod mold, I pretty much had no choice, since that's the mold that was chosen to represent Ken in the Street Fighter II X TransFormers Deluxe class 2-pack.

Or, at least, that's what I thought at first. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that Takara Tomy had used their slightly modified TF Legends Targetmaster Hot Rodimus mold. While I'd already acquired Hot Rod before Hot Rodimus even appeared, I did - briefly - entertain the possibility of picking up Takara Tomy's version as a replacement, as I have the Targetmaster version of G1 Hot Rod, and the translucent plastic flame pattern on his chest, along with the overall better colourscheme, were quite appealing.

In the end, I decided to get the Reprolabels set and make do with Hasbro's offering, so getting my hands on this mold via the Street Fighter II crossover set seemed like an unexpected bonus. He's packaged along with Arcee/Chun Li, and she turned out pretty cool... So, without further ado, let's see what Takara Tomy made of Ken.

Street Fighter II X TransFormers Arcee [Chun Li]

(Femme-Bot Friday #71)

So, having dealt with the Street Fighter II X TransFormers Convoy/Megatron set in one hit, I find myself having to split the second set to properly accommodate the main reason I was interested in either set: Generations/TF Legends Arcee repainted as Chun Li.

It's a bit puzzling that the two sets were made out of toys in different size classes (Arcee and Hot Rodimus being Deluxes), but I guess they felt either that both Ryu and Vega/M. Bison warranted partnering with the Voyager class leaders of the two Cybertronian factions, or at least that Ryu should be partnered with a robot of the same size class, even though he'd generally depicted as being much smaller than Vega/M. Bison in the games.

Still, is that any more strange than including a figure from an older, entirely unrelated line, when three out of the four crossover figures are from Titans Return?

Street Fighter II X TransFormers Convoy [Ryu] vs Megatron [Vega]

Considering I already have three iterations of the Generations Blitzwing mold, I decided I wouldn't bother with the Titans Return remake, either as Megatron (the form it was first released in) or as Blitzwing. Conversely, while the Optimus Prime version of the Octane mold was of no interest to me, I've ended up with not only TR Octane (in fact the first and only contemporary Octane in my collection!), but the Tokyo Toy Show 2017 Nemesis Prime/Black Convoy version as well.

All of which is to say that, of these two Street Fighter II crossover repaints, only one was entirely new to me... but the idea was certainly bonkers enough to get my attention, and I ordered both of the Street Fighter II X Transformers boxed sets as soon as they became available.

If you've ever wondered how an arcade beat-'em-up would translate into TransFormers toys, read on!

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2006 (Timelines) Buzzsaw & Laserbeak

The pattern with me and TransFormers toys appears at times to be "the weirder, the better". The Beast Wars figures I picked up tended to be rather strange (Lio Convoy, Mach Kick, Longrack, Break, etc.) and I often appreciate a robot mode more the further it is from standard human proportions.

That said, the Superlink/Energon Shadowhawk/Divebomb mold really ticked my fancy because it managed to do both its avian beast mode and its robot mode in a convincing, innovative way, without wasting the bird's wings as the robot's backpack the way so many other avian TransFormers have.

BotCon 2006's Dawn of Futures Past boxed set was one of the things that got me into the idea of joining the Collectors' Club and possibly, eventually venturing across the pond to a BotCon. While the boxed set was awesome in and of itself, I did also covet a couple of the attendee-exclusive souvenir packs. Since I wrote about the boxed set and one of the attendee figures, Tigatron, almost nine years ago and I still haven't found an affordable Megatron/Waspinator (the former appearing every so often for something in excess of a thousand pounds, while the latter has recently turned up on eBay for over £500), I figure it's about time I wrote about the other bagged pair I currently own...

War for Cybertron: Earthrise Cliffjumper

Considering that G1 Cliffjumper was the first ever TransFormers toy I bought, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd be on the lookout for a decent update. The Classics version took the easy way out and reused the Bumblebee mold - even down to the head sculpt - and that pattern of laziness carried on into the perfunctory Cliffjumper repaint of the original Concept Camaro Bumblebee from the first movie toyline. While Windcharger - my second ever Autobot - has had three new Scout/Legends class molds in the last decade, Cliffjumper's only other appearance in anything approaching his traditional form was in Alternity, while he had a complete makeover for his appearance in TF Prime.

Then, in a baffling albeit welcome move, Hasbro announced a new, unique, G1-style Cliffjumper toy in the Earthrise chunk of the War for Cybertron toyline - without even a hint of a Bumblebee, despite him supposedly having a major role in the IDW comics series, according to their plans. What's more, it looked almost like a simplified version of the MP21 Bumblebee figure. It seemed perfect... but then it became apparent that Cliffjumper would be another of Hasbro's recent pricepoint cheaters - effectly a large Legends class toy with accessories included to bump him up to the new, inflated Deluxe class bracket.

What trickery is this? Let's take a look!

(Worth noting here that my photography will be a bit inconsistent between posts for a while, as I've been experimenting again with the white background for my light tent - newly taken photos will have a white(-ish) background, older drafts will feature the more usual 'black' background)

Studio Series #45 Drift (Helicopter)

Drift's sudden and unexpected appearance in Age of Extinction had at least a modicum of fanfare because Paramount had somehow convinced Ken Watanabe to lend his voice to the character. He ended up with little to do, as the scripts still gave the majority of the dialogue to the human characters - pretty much all he did was spout some haiku, argue with Crosshairs and Hound, and fawn over Optimus Prime.

The big surprise was that, during a couple of sequences of the movie, he transformed not into his much-publicised Bugatti Veyron vehicle mode, but a sci-fi (possibly even Cybertronian) helicopter. It wasn't mentioned, let alone referenced as being unusual in any way, it was just another throwaway bit of CGI trickery in a movie series that had already stopped giving a damn about consistency.

Hasbro's response was to release a separate One Step Changer for each vehicle mode, and repaint Dark of the Moon Skyhammer as a Voyager class companion to their Deluxe class Veyron Drift. I don't think anyone actually expected to see a Triple-Changer movie Drift toy, but none of the available options really looked a great deal like what was (briefly glimpsed) on screen...

Cue Studio Series, with a new take on helicopter Drift, derived from the (not especially well-received) helicopter Dropkick mold...

Generation 1 Sunstreaker Knockoff

When the toys that later became known as TransFormers Generation 1 first hit the shelves, there were many larger toys that I was unable to obtain. They were plentiful enough in toy shops - I have fond memories of visiting toyshops in South Harrow and Ealing Broadway, as well as the massive Tesco superstore in Wembley/Neasden which was always very well-stocked - but, at the time, I just couldn't afford more than one of the Diaclone-derived figures every few months on my pocket money.

This has naturally led me, later in life, to seek out some of the figures I missed out on. Just as naturally, original G1 toys from those days are frequently in a poor state due to having been extensively played with - chipped paint and worn stickers, at the very least - and several were notorious for breaking, not least Mirage with his fragile waist joint. While some original figures have been re-released in Takara's TransFormers Collection/Encore or Hasbro's Commemorative Series and Platinum Edition, several molds are long known to have either gone missing, or become degraded beyond repair, meaning several key figures will never see a re-release.

However, Knockoffs have been springing up, including some of those supposedly missing or irretrievable molds. This one appeared on eBay mid-2019, listed as a genuine G1 toy but, since Sunstreaker is one of those that cannot be given an official re-release, and the chances of finding one still sealed in his box are beyond slim, the simple fact that this existed, and was priced at a mere £30 was enough to prove, sight unseen, that this was a knockoff. Since I already have a KO G1 Mirage, and its quality is impressive, I figured I may as well give this a spin...

Binaltech BT09 Swindle

If BT05 Dead End seemed like a weird - not to say controversial - choice for the first Decepticon to appear in the Binaltech ranks, the second provoked a reaction no less angry. When the photos emerged, fans expected this variation on the Jeep Wrangler to become Trailbreaker - which made a certain amount of sense - but the finished figure ended up instead as everyone's favourite Combaticon con-man. According to TFWiki, the change of character came as a result of trademark issues, and originated in the Alternators line, rather than being another example of Takara attempting to subvert expectations.

Swindle having originally been a military jeep, this actually works pretty well on the surface... but let's take a closer look.

Cybertron Hardtop

Hasbro's Cybertron line wasn't just their take on Takara Tomy's Galaxy Force toyline - it actually included a handful of figures that didn't appear in the TV show or the Japanese toyline.

Quite what the rationale was for this, I'm not sure anyone knows - it's not as if there was any shortage of Galaxy Force toys to repaint if Hasbro wanted new characters. It's entirely possible Hasbro's designers had simply been working away in the background, and needed a toyline - any toyline - to release their work into, and Galaxy Force/Cybertron was the best available option.

One such figure was Hardtop, who doesn't seem like a particularly good fit...