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?

Vehicle Mode:
Straight away, one has to wonder if Energon Rodimus was an influence on the designers working on the original live action TransFormers movie, because there's something very familiar about that paint job... A red, longnosed truck with a flame pattern on the bonnet and front wheel arches? Now where have I seen that..? OK, movie Optimus Prime had a graduation of red to blue on his cab, and he certainly wasn't rocket-powered, but even the shape of this - particularly the oddly-arranged front grille and bumper - somewhat resembles the embellished 'Stealth Force' look of Striker Optimus figure from the Dark of the Moon toyline

Other than that, Rodimus looks like one of those weird custom jobs that Americans seem so fond of... Like someone bought a truck, but thought "No, that's just not badass enough!" and too it straight to a workshop to have it souped up with an angled nose, a windvane, a huge spoiler... and rocket engines. Take most of these embellishments away, and you have a fairly standard truck... but also half the robot would be missing.

In terms of sculpted detail, the vehicle is mostly quite simple, and some specific details seem misplaced. For example, there are what appears to be the tops of external petrol tanks poking out of the front wheel arches, and the side panels at the rear of the cab feature details near the bottom that almost look as if they might be part of a drive train. The smokestacks, painted silver and sat directly behind the side windows, appear to have additional vents coming out of their side, angling up and leading back... which would feel more like a reference to G1 Rodimus Prime if they'd been painted like the smokestacks. The strangest feature of the cab is that door handles have been sculpted in... but no doors, and the panel lining almost seems to suggest the cab opens by having the roof, windscreen and bonnet swing up as a single unit. At the back, there are sculpted tail lights, and even a trailer hitch... but it's directly below the afterburners, so I can't imagine it would get much use. I'm guessing it's compatible with Energon Optimus Prime's trailer, though his trailer hitch seems to be higher up than this one... The engines themselves are decent-looking, though the turbine details on the tops, just in front of the spoiler, are a little confusing.

Paintwork is pretty simplistic - aside from the large, gold flame design on the front of the vehicle, there's a darker (but still gold-ish) paint used on the grille, the back of the windvane (though it doesn't wrap around to the sides) and all the hubcaps, while all the windows and the headlights are painted metallic blue and, as previously mentioned, the upright smokestacks have been painted silver. Aside from the hubcaps, nothing at the back of the vehicle has been painted, which is about par for the course.

Rodimus came packaged with a spring-loaded missile launcher, styled like another afterburner, which could plug into the Mini-Con port on the spoiler. I ended up repurposing it for another toy, and am currently not certain where it is... Both the weapon and its missile were molded in translucent orange plastic, and looked pretty good... If I ever manage to locate it, I'll aim to update all these photos.


Robot Mode:
I don't know what it was about the designers of some of the Energon toys, but they clearly had some kind of fetish for massively disproportionate, large, unwieldy feet. Rodimus and Roadbuster/Ironhide are probably the worst offenders, but there's also the likes of Laserwave among the Decepticons. The entire front section of the truck becomes Rodimus' lower legs - the feet being his windvane, the shins his windscreen and bonnet, while his massive front grille and bumper become enormous knee guards which almost entirely cover his thighs. That leaves the diminutive rear section to provide the torso and arms but, for some reason, the designer thought it would be a great idea to leave the wheels together on expansive shoulder pads that end up looking like a caricature of military epaulettes. His upper arms are essentially nonexistant, while his forearms stretch down to his knees... or they would if his massive lower legs didn't force them out to the sides.

Perhaps worse than all this, though, is that the torso is essentially just the tiny strip displaying the gold flame pattern and the pale metallic blue collar, while everything below the waist hinge is just a flap that covers the robot's hips... And that's also where the majority of the interesting paintwork and sculpted detail has been placed. The sculpt appears to suggest a reorganisation of the bumper, headlights and grille, despite these components being just a few millimetres below, and this flap somehow merited paintwork in the metallic blue, darker gold and flat grey to highlight some of its features.

The back view of Rodimus is, unsurprisingly, pretty dismal, with cavernous shoulder pads webbed with structrual supports, transformation hinges making up the robot's spine and segmented neck, and lower legs that are not only gaping holes (because they accommodate his almost invisible thighs in vehicle mode), but the source of his long heel spurs, which fold out from the approximate area of his ankle. Curiously, the robot can stand quite well without the heel spurs deployed - even though this makes him lean backward - so I have to wonder why they were deemed necessary... and why, if they were deemed necessary for the figure's stability, no-one thought to just completely redesign the figure.

I mean, I know all of the Deluxe/Combat class and Mega/Voyager class Autobots were designed with the silly 'Powerlinx' combination gimmick in mind, and the connection on Rodimus is located within his tiny torso, but this toy - above almost any other Energon figure in my collection - really screams out for a redesign. I didn't even bother taking photos of his two combination modes, because they both look ridiculous. 'Legs' mode literally just requires hinging the upper torso back so that it's hanging off his arse, while 'torso' mode has him standing with his 'arms' out such that his elbows are level with his shoulders.

The handgun would plug into either fist, since it's equipped with both a 5mm socket and a 5mm peg but, again, I have no photos of it in 'action' because I'm no longer certain where it is... I really will try to address this at some point.

The head sculpt isn't one of the best in Energon. It's clearly a Hot Rod-style scuplt, but with a bulkier helmet that evokes the likes of G1 Prowl or Bluestreak as much as it does Hot Rod. The bold yellow brow chunks on either side of the metallic blue central crest don't really help this mismatch, as Hot Rod's brow pieces have always tended to be more subtle in both shape and colour. He has the traditional silver face and blue eyes, but it's all a bit nondescript...


Rodimus' transformation is kind of fun, if a little simplistic and wasteful, all thanks to that combination gimmick. While the arms are quite chunky, I like what they did with the hands - stashing them behind the afterburners, and hinged so that opening the top of each engine allows one to switch one for the other - effectively giving him the option of using his vehicle mode boosters as additional weapons. Also, the way the shoulders are set up forces the wheel chunks up at a slight angle in robot mode, giving them a touch more visual appeal. As with many of the Energon Autobots of his size class, his head is on a hinged arm that allows it to shift from his individual robot mode shoulders to his combined mode shoulders (between his legs!), though it looks too small in either position.

I know I knocked the massive heel spurs, but I have to admit they are extremely beneficial for posing. By default, his massive, flat feet are stable enough when he's standing straight, but he quickly ends up standing on the inner edges or the tips of his toes in any kind of action pose, so the spurs can be swung down to offer additional support. The legs have a decent range, for the time, able to swing out to 90° on ratchets moving through only four clicks (so, 22.5° each?), and can even - just about - managed a fifth click before the hit against the body. Forward and back is much the same story, but with only three clicks for the same 90° swing. Moving his legs forward at all requires that the lower torso plate be moved out of the way, exposing both hip joints and making the body look even more awkward. Swinging the legs back, he might even manage a fourth click (120°) if it weren't for the combined mode's fist crashing into his backside. There's no thigh rotation, but he effectively has a double knee joint due to transformation. The actual knee can only bend to 90° (four ratchets again), but the lower joint can supplement this as far as the sole of the foot will allow. The arms are comparatively disappointing - unable to lift at the shoulder because the cutout on the ball joint is for transformation, while the hinged 'bicep' offers less than 45° and is really only useful for getting the arms out of the way of the legs. The elbows are ball joints, so they're able to bend to 90° and swing out to the sides, but there's no further articulation at the wrist. The head probably comes off the worst as, even though it's mounted on a ball joint, that's largely for transformation, and only allows the head to turn or tilt by a few degrees in any direction.

In a lot of ways, I think Energon was not a toyline I am able to fully appreciate, and it certainly wasn't aimed at me. The combination gimmick on the Autobots was extremely variable in its results (Rodimus being one of the worse, I think), while the Supermodes on the Decepticons were generally pretty cool, if a little underdeveloped on some. Rodimus isn't a terrible toy by a long shot, and it's actually really nice to see the designers take such an original route with the character's vehicle mode... but the simplicity and chunkiness of the design don't do him any favours, and neither of his combined modes look good.