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.