2022 Retrospective

I realised this year that, over the course of the last few annual retrospective posts, it has metamorphosed from a set of lists - highlights, disappointments, etc. - with a brief introduction, into a massive wall of text detailing some events from the year and going off on various tangents, followed by the standard lists...

...This has become increasingly difficult - not to say downright depressing - to work on, even when I start early in the year and continually add to it, because there's often an update to specific information that necessitates great swathes of the wall of text to be rewritten, sometimes more than once. It's been enough of a struggle to work on regular blog posts - writing about the toys I've been collecting since the 1980s - which, over the course of most of this year, I just haven't been enjoying as much as I used to. I managed a decent number of posts in September but, overall, this has been the leanest year since I first started this blog!

As a result, this year, I'm going back to basics, and just presenting the lists. Honestly, if you'd seen the original, full version of this post about this dumpster fire of a year, you'd be thanking me right now.

So, without further ado...

Real Gear Robots Spyshot 6

All things considered, when Hasbro decided to launch a range of TransFormers toys modelled after real-world electronic devices, my thoughts and feelings tend toward "what took them so long?". Micro Change had been part of the foundation of the brand, back in the early 1980s, but the focus turned more toward vehicles as the line progressed... These toys might have been in development alongside the Cybertron/Galaxy Force line, but it took the 2007 live action movie to shift focus back. By positing that our technological leaps in electronics had been achieved by reverse engineering Megatron, the movie gave these toys some context.

Given the number of electronic devices already in the TransFormers back catalogue, one might have expected a new take on Soundwave or Reflector... but the closest we got to the former was Booster X10 - a clear reference to Laserbeak - and the closest we got to the latter... would be this little fellow.

But, of course, cameras have got substantially smaller since the 1980s, what with the digital revolution, and all... and just 15 years after this toy appeared, many people believe cameras, per se, to have been made redundant by those built into cellphones... So let's take a look at this relic of the past, and see how it works as a TransFormers toy.

 

Real Gear Robots Speed Dial 800

Given the increasing popularity of cellular telephony over the last few decades, it was perhaps inevitable that a toyline like Real Gear Robots would include a compact, hand-held phone as one of its innocuous devices... And, in fact, the concept has even been revisited since, with the 2017 au X TransFormers line of INFOBAR figures, featuring Optimus Prime, Megatron and (of course) Bumblebee, created as a promotion with the Japanese-made devices.

Weird as those are, though, they're not a patch on the abject insanity of the attempt Hasbro had made ten years earlier. Here, I present what must surely be the nadir of the Real Gear Robots line... Read on, if you dare!

 

MetaGate G-01 Haiku

I have quite a few excellent Third Party figures in my collection now, with an increasing number based on movie characters, and in a loosely Masterpiece-adjacent scale. Considering the couple of Hasbro-produced, Deluxe class figures of Age of Extinction Drift that I own are less than stellar, the announcement of a Third Party MP-analogue version certainly piqued my interest... And the fact that it was to be a triple-changer, taking both his Bugatti Veyron and futuristic helicopter modes into account, seemed like a tall order.

Add to that, the creators, MetaGate, were previously unheard of, and suddenly launching themselves toward an eager - and frequently highly critical - fandom with such an ambitious debut project. There have been rumours - as there were with DX9's La Hire - that Unique Toys have had a hand in this figure's creation but, so far, there appears to be little or no concrete evidence of that.

However, it quickly became a figure I was intent on acquiring, and the recent sale of my Game Boy Color game collection gave me just enough breathing room in my finances to risk taking a punt on a stunning-looking figure from an untested company. I preordered from Iacon.Store at the start of September, and it arrived a little over three weeks later... so, let's take a look at MetaGate's inaugural offering, and see how it compares to the output of some of the more established Third Party figures.

Jurassic Park X TransFormers Tyrannocon Rex (& Autobot JP93)

(Femme-Bot Friday #80)

By and large, the very concept of TransFormers crossovers with other properties is not one that interests me. The pair of Street Fighter II sets won me over because I'm also a Capcom fan, and because it used the Generations Arcee mold - which I was quite keen on - for Chun Li. The movie crossovers - Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Top Gun and Universal Monsters - all looked low-effort and poor-quality.

And, to be perfectly honest, when the Jurassic Park crossover was revealed, I planned on skipping it. Sure, the new paint job for the Kingdom Megatron mold and its new head sculpt looked great, but the transforming Ford Explorer looked like the kind of knockoff toy sold in the London Zoo gift shops. With a price tag in excess of £120, I felt it was more overpriced garbage that I could happily live without, even though the absurdly-named Tyrannocon Rex was billed as a Femme-Bot. If Kingdom Megatron was overpriced at £52, and the equally absurdly-named 'Autobot JP93' (whom I shall henceforth refer to as 'Dickie Attenbot', per my girlfriend's suggestion) is very clearly not Leader class in terms of size or engineering, this boxed set was clearly a rip off, and not worth investing in.

But then I saw an announcement on Reddit that Zavvi had cut over £70 from the price tag, bringing it down to about £51 for the pair... and then saw that Amazon had followed suit... meaning that the cost of the boxed set of two figures was below Kingdom Megatron's RRP. That changed everything...

Studio Series #88 Sideways

The funny thing about the original Revenge of the Fallen Sideways toy was that, in spite of its inaccuracy - both in robot mode and vehicle mode - I enjoyed it so much that I ended up buying its two repaints - Dead End and Movie Advanced Dino - both of which I enjoyed every bit as much as the original.

However, it can't be argued that Sideways wasn't in serious need of a do-over, so the announcement of a Studio Series version was great news. What wasn't so great was that, once again, Audi had declined to grant Hasbro the licence to reproduce their car (one has to wonder why they ever agreed to have one of their vehicles appear in the movie franchise in the first place - what did they think they were getting themselves into?), so he's still not an authetic Audi R8.

Still, with expectations suitably adjusted and allowances made, let's see how the new version of Sideways compares to the version from 2009's Revenge of the Fallen toyline.

Fourteenth Anniversary

I said last year that it seemed as though there was a good chance that the Third Parties were going to become the only worthwhile thing about collecting TransFormers and, in the intervening time - particularly with the disappointingly inconsistent War For Cybertron Trilogy coming to an end, and the introduction of the generally disappointing TransFormers Legacy line - I have yet to see anything that will change my opinion for the better.

At this point, Studio Series is basically carrying the full weight of my expectations as a collector and, while some of the toys released over the last year have been great, there has been a discernible drop in quality in others, both in terms of design and materials. Worse still, with the introduction of Studio Series '86 - effectively a dumping ground for figures they couldn't squeeze into Kingdom - and the addition of Core class to the line, even this flagship brand is beginning to look a little dubious.

I have a set of Third Party figures on order or preorder, but, for one reason or another, none arrived in time to make this list... but hopefully it gives me a head start on next year's.

So, let's get this sad little show on the road...

Studio Series #85 Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #79)

Arcee doesn't have the greatest of histories in the live action movie series. Unceremoniously pulled from the first movie, she was pushed back in for the second - albeit in such a way that it wasn't clear whether she was a single consciousness split across three bodies or one of a team of three independent robots with superficially similar designs - only to be (presumably) killed off in the final battle. Fans seem to have been reasonably positive toward the original, unused movie design, but overwhelmingly unfavourable toward the so-called 'wheelsnakes' of Revenge of the Fallen.

She was then absent from subsequent movies, only turning up in the tentative reboot that was the Bumblebee movie, in the all-too-brief opening scene set on Cybertron. Even here, the reception to her design was not consistently positive, with many feeling that, while the overall design looked good enough, the uncanny appearance of her face was off-putting... And, of course, that brief CGI sequence only featured the movie protagonist's vehicle mode, so many were inclined to feel pessimistic about any toys that might come along.

But, when the toy was finally revealed, it looked surprisingly good... from most angles, at least. Let's give it the once-over, and see what we make of it.

TransFormers Legacy Tarantulas

While I've amassed a fair old collection of original Beast Wars toys, Tarantulas is one character of whom I've never owned a single toy. Even the Telemocha re-release didn't grab me... Though that's perhaps more because I just felt the original Beast Wars toy failed to adequately represent either him or Blackarachnia, and the TransMetals upgrade never really appealed to me because I was very late to my appreciation for its ostentatious chrome and gaudy colourschemes. Nowadays, I'd be somewhat keen to get my hands on the TransMetals version, if it weren't for the fact that I'm basically out of space on my single Beast Wars/Machines shelf.

After the third chapter of Hasbro's War for Cybertron Trilogy turned into a haphazard convergence of G1 and Beast Wars, I ended up buying more of the latter selection than the former... But, while two versions of Kingdom Blackarachnia were produced, Tarantulas remained notable by his absence.

But then Legacy arrived, and it wasn't long before Tarantulas was announced. It wouldn't be unreasonable to presume that he'd effectively be Kingdom Tarantulas, rebranded for the newer line... but, to my surprise, that has turned out not to be the case. Come into my parlour, and lets find out what makes this figure something different.

Studio Series #84 Ironhide

The funny thing about Ratchet and Ironhide, these days, is that development of one will always lead to the appearance of the other, even if only one of them is actually present in whatever media might be associated with a given toyline.

The less funny thing is that, like the Seekers, it's becoming increasingly common for the pair to be released according to different strategies - witness the US release of both War for Cybertron Ratchet figures as Walgreens exclusives.

Thankfully, no such problems with the Studio Series interpretations of Cybertronian Ratchet and Ironhide from the 2018 Bumblebee solo movie. Not only did both appear on screen (if only for a couple of seconds apiece), but both have received distributions seemingly unrestrained by any retailer-exclusivity marketing deals. As mentioned in my write-up of Ratchet, my expectations were low, but the toy turned out to be both technically impressive and a more satisfying Cybertronian form than those offered by the War for Cybertron line... So let's take a look at Ironhide and see how much of that carries over to the mold's inevitable second use.

Studio Series #83 Soundwave (& Ravage)

The arrival of a Cybertronian Starscream in the Studio Series toyline, based on the brief appearance of the Seekers and Coneheads in the Bumblebee movie, certainly got people excited for the prospect of more toys based on the robots seen in that short CGI sequence.

From my point of view, while Starscream himself was a huge disappointment - firmly putting me off buying the Thundercracker repaint, even if they do subsequently produce a Skywarp repaint as well - the next round of Cybertronian toys made for a very refreshing change from the ugly, blocky simplicity of the War for Cybertron: Siege line... But that's not to say the Studio Series figures weren't without their controversies.

Because, while a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is pretty much prerequisite when it comes to the concept of alien robots transforming into vehicles - even alien vehicles - some folks felt that Soundwave stretched credulity. But could he truly be the straw that broke the donkey's back?

A Brief Outage...

While working on a couple of upcoming posts this morning, I was a little surprised to see an email, purporting to be from Google's Blogger team, telling me this blog had been removed. According to the email, it had been "flagged for review" because my content had "violated our SPAM policy".

Now, I'm no stranger to spam comments, and I've removed and replaced a couple of posts because they started getting increased volumes of traffic well outside what I would consider believable... I've also previously had a couple of posts flagged and suspended due to some sort of false flag caused (if I remember correctly) by Google's own bots... But the idea that the whole blog could be taken down as spam? That seemed a little far-fetched.

And yet, when I then tried to view the blog itself, I was presented with a message to the effect that the blog could not be found... And then I noticed my current drafts weren't saving... And then I couldn't access the back end of this blog at all.

Naturally, I clicked the link to request a review, and even the web page that initiates the process seemed to give me some cause for optimism... Apparently the very fact that I followed the link went some way toward proving this wasn't a spam blog. However, it said that the review would take place some time in the next two working days. This being a Sunday, it's not normally considered 'a working day'...

Yet, lo and behold, precisely 30 minutes later, I had a new email telling me the blog had been reinstated.

And then it occurred to me: the original email said the TransForm-A-Blog had been "flagged to us for review", the implication being that it had been deliberately flagged by a person. I mean... Wow. Nice.

In other news, I got a lot of photography done today, and got quite a way through several drafts, one of which is now scheduled for late this coming week, another might even go live tomorrow...

For the moment, I'll leave you with a hint about one of the upcoming posts...

...Something I would never have bought were it not for a massive price cut...

New Purchases - AKA A Third Not An Unboxing Post

During some recent tidying, my girlfriend uncovered a box containing my old Nintendo Game Boy Color and the 17 game cartridges I bought for it many, many years ago. I'd pretty much forgotten its existence, since it hadn't seen the light of day in the eight years Courtney has been living with me. I remember bringing it to my flat, but I wouldn't have been able to remember where I'd put it... And, since I've not used it in so long, I figured it was time to sell it all on.

What has this to do with TransFormers? Well, I've bought nothing new since January, and the act of selling those 17 games made for a surprising windfall. As a result, I decided to spend a small part of it on acquiring the handful of toys I'd actually been looking forward to from Hasbro, and take the opportunity to have a more serious look at obtaining a couple of Third Party figures I was starting to think I'd have to miss out on (unless their release conveniently coincided with Christmas).

It also seemed like a good opportunity to try out a couple of new e-retailers I've found - Dinobot Island Toys and Star Action Figures - both of whom have been added to my sidebar's 'Cybertronian Datanet' section for a short while now. They seem to have a good range of stock, all of which is a few quid cheaper than the likes of Hasbro Pulse, Smyths, and some of the other online stores I've used in the past. They also, between them, had everything I wanted to buy, where my regular options were out of stock when I was ready to order.

Of course, my orders went through at precisely the time the CWU (Communication Workers Union) were going on strike, which naturally had an effect on postal services. That said, I put my orders through on 27/8 and 31/8, they were despatched on 30/8 and 1/9, respectively, which is quick service on the part of the two stores, in spite of the Summer Bank Holiday Weekend.

Additionally, both packages arrived in this morning's post, so I'd say that's still pretty good service on the part of the Royal Mail, in spite of any backlog caused by the (very necessary) industrial action.

Full writeups will, of course, be coming... but here are a few pics to tide you over.

Studio Series #82 Ratchet

Of all the figures to come from the Bumblebee movie section of the Studio Series toyline, the one for which my expectations were lowest was the Ratchet/Ironhide mold. This was largely because of the absolute travesty of simplistic and outdated engineering that was the Siege version and its hopelessly lazy Earthrise retool.

Because, let's fact it, if Hasbro were going to get lazy about an established vehicle mode, and leave the robot's blocky Cybertronian feet hanging off the back of an ostensibly terrestrial van, what hope was there for a transforming toy of a character that never had a vehicle mode designed for him, as he only appears very briefly in the movie, and then only in his robot mode?

And yet, sometimes, just sometimes, Hasbro can surprise a jaded old fan like me, and make me believe that perhaps there is some hope for originality of thinking within the brand. Could it be that the Studio Series figure of Ratchet from the Bumblebee movie is one such surprise? Let's take a look...

Cybertron Crumplezone

Much like Ransack/Gasket, Crumplezone/Landbullet was a toy I decided I didn't want or need - on import, at least - until I experienced the figure as pre-Beast Wars Optimus Primal in the Dawn of Future's Past boxed set from BotCon 2006. As its own figure, This toy looked ugly and poorly-proportioned, with a hideous pairing of muted, military green and eye-searingly bright acidic green, and the vehicle mode wasn't particularly exciting.

However, DoFP Optimus Primal worked really well, and showed me what a fun toy he was, so I ended up buying the Hasbro version on the cheap. Being one of the larger Cybertron/Galaxy Force figures, he features some electronics, but is that enough to redeem such a terrible colourscheme on so ugly a toy?

Studio Series #81 Wheeljack

It is my strongly-held conviction that the War for Cybertron Trilogy was a poorly-conceived, poorly-executed mess of a toyline that nevertheless produced a handful of great toys. Part of its problem was that it didn't keep to its own brief - Siege was supposed to represent the early days of the war, yet each figure came with extensive battle-damage paint apps. The most egregious problems, though, were that there were some critical omissions from the Siege portion, the Earthrise toyline was rendered pointless by it's own Netflix tie-in show, and the best toys in Kingdom were Hasbro's perfunctory acknowledgements that Beast Wars was a popular thing back in the 1990s, though clearly not popular enough to warrant its own, specific branch of the franchise rather than insertion into yet another of their interminable attempts to perpetuate their golden age of G1.

The omissions, while not obvious, became clearly problematic in the opening moments of the Netflix show, which paralleled the pilot of the G1 cartoon, showing Bumblebee and Wheeljack on an Energon scavenger hunt. This would have been a great idea, but for the fact that Bumblebee's Siege toy only got released under the Buzzworthy banner, while Wheeljack did not get a Siege toy at all. That said, neither of them actually transformed in the TV show, so perhaps their absence from the Siege line is not important to some people.

Surprisingly, it fell to the Studio Series line to present a Cybertronian Wheeljack figure - based on the CGI sequence at the start of the Bumblebee movie - and, based on the average quality of War for Cybertron toys, I'd have to concede that this was probably for the best. So, let's take a look at what is - in my opinion - one of the best War for Cybertron toys not to appear in the War for Cybertron lines, and try to get to the bottom of what makes it so good.

Studio Series #80 Brawn

I have to confess a certain favouritism when it comes to Brawn. The original G1 toy was likely my fourth purchase in the TransFormers line, and I've always loved its blocky awkwardness, long legs, short arms, and utilitarian claw/hook 'hands'. To this day, one of my favourite stories in the 1980s Marvel Comics series is The Enemy Within, in which Brawn goes bonkers after an electric shock, and ends up in a trial by combat with Starscream.

To say that I dislike his animation model from the cartoon would be an understatement, since he became too generic among the other blocky, poorly drawn robots. While the approximate shape of his head remained, its simplistic, almost featureless mask was replaced by a more expressive, humanoid face, even though he was never a particularly prominent character in the show.

I wasn't at all surprised that he didn't appear in any of the first five live action movies - if anything, I was surprised that he did appear - albeit briefly - in the Cybertron sequence in the Bumblebee solo movie... There was a toy named Brawn in the extended Revenge of the Fallen toyline (and which was repainted into a rather more mold-appropriate Outback analogue) but, much as I liked it, it wasn't quite the update to the G1 character I was hoping for. I quite liked what I saw in the Bumblebee movie, though, and so was excited when he was announced as being part of the first wave of Hasbro's 2022 selection in the Studio Series line. Was this excitement justified..?

Human Alliance Mudflap & Chromia

And here we have yet another ancient and long-neglected figure from my collection, this one hailing from the Revenge of the Fallen portion of the short-lived but truly excellent Human Alliance toyline. It sometimes feels as though I'll never run out of toys from that film - not least because, naturally, Studio Series is now chucking out some of the... er... less well-represented characters - but, of those that came out around the time of the film, I thankfully have just two more Human Alliance toys to write about... And Mudflap is one of them.

Human Alliance was essentially as close to Masterpiece as affordable, play-oriented toys will likely ever get, and in some ways could be considered superior to Masterpiece due to their semi-realistic interiors. Kind of a Binaltech/Alternators-lite, and packaged with less creepy human figurines than Kiss Players.

Frankly, it's high time I got round to dealing with the last handful of HA figures in my collection, so let's start here!

Hasbro Fan First Tuesday - April 2022 - Post-Mortem

While I'd received some sort of notification about the 'Fan First Tuesday' event this month, I'd honestly forgotten all about it till I saw a reminder (possibly on Reddit) on the 12th. After quickly calculating what the BST equivalent of 11 AM ET would be, I dutifully tuned in with low expectations...

...And was not especially impressed. So unimpressed, in fact, that I've put off writing about it at all for a little over two weeks. I considered not bothering... but only after I'd started writing something, and then wasn't inclined to simply delete the work in progress.

Didn't stop me finding all kinds of ways to distract myself as I finally completed this post today, though.

So... Here we go...

Medic!

Following my disappointing Amazon experience recently, my replacement Studio Series #82 Ratchet arrived today, and I was pleased to find that it was actually the Studio Series figure, not another Rescue Bots Academy, or Siege, or Earthrise... However, my joy was perhaps a little shorter-lived than I might have hoped.

I've been reading about this figure yellowing far more quickly than other contemporary figures and, to my dismay, mine was already starting to turn, inside the box. It's quite obvious that different types of plastic have been used, as some parts are pristine white across the whole figure, while other parts are discolouring inconsistently. It may not be easily apparent in the photo below, but the the panel the right side rear wheel is attached to and the robot's right thigh joint are perceptibly discoloured versus those on the opposite side, while the front wheel arches on both sides are discoloured. Making this all the worse is that the white paint used for the front section is far whiter than any of the plastic, possibly because it's painted over translucent blue.

Left side: Pristine White

Right side: Discoloured

Not good, Hasbro... Really not good, considering the price hikes. I'm also a little dubious about the engineering, but I'll get into that later...

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

Having received a whole bunch of Amazon gift cards for Christmas, I tried valiantly to avoid using them for TransFormers toys, but the temptation to acquire the first wave of new Studio Series toys from the Bumblebee movie - #80 Brawn, #81 Wheeljack, #82 Ratchet and #83 Soundwave - quickly proved too great for me.

Naturally, everyone who ordered the toys from Hasbro Pulse (as I would normally have done in the absence of Amazon gift cards) would have received them earlier, but my shipment from Amazon was despatched today for collection at my local post office. Upon receipt of delivery confirmation, I wandered down, collected my parcel, brought it home, and opened it to find... this:

Now, strangely, while the three Studio Series toys in the box were listed as having been sold and despatched by Amazon, the erroneously-included Rescue Bots Academy Autobot Ratchet was not - it appeared to have been sold by a third party vendor under Amazon's umbrella. In these circumstances, though, I'd have expected it to have been despatched in a separate box, so I'm more than a little confused.

I've gone through the Returns procedure - with the small hitch that the closest shop that has an Amazon counter did not have a functional printer, so I had to come home, cancel the return, restart the return and print a label myself. No great shakes, really, but it was raining by the time I was ready to head out again, so I decided to wait till tomorrow/later in the week.

The figures I ordered are quite fun, so hopefully I'll get to writing about them soon. I'll re-order Ratchet once the refund comes through.

War for Cybertron: Kingdom Tigatron

Much as I object to the use of Kingdom - the third and final chapter of the much-vaunted War for Cybertron Trilogy - as a perfunctory 'celebration' of Beast Wars in lieu of a dedicated toyline, I have to confess that I've been at least somewhat impressed by a number of the Beast Wars figures who appeared in the line.

Cheetor, however, was not one of them... poorly proportioned and with a rather sad axe/whip formed from his beast mode tail as his only weapon, he didn't seem that much better than the awful mess of a Universe toy from 2008. Given that the original BW Tigatron was a simple repaint of Cheetor, I wasn't holding out much hope for a Kingdom Tigatron to be much better. When it was announced that he would not only be a unique mold, but a Voyager class figure rather than just another Deluxe, my hopes started creeping back up again. When photos were eventually released, he looked - not to put too fine a point on it - almost like a completely different figure. Sure, the engineering was similar, but the additional size clearly allowed for refinements of the engineering, resulting in a figure that was objectively far better looking in both modes.

Of course, this being a Hasbro release, it wasn't without its fair share of controversy... because he ended up - somehow - being voted Figure of the Year in Hasbro's 2021 Hall of Fame, despite not being (widely) available until late January of this year. While that may have been a promotional coup, generating significant 'buzz' for the figure, many fans resented the inclusion of something only a select few had handled at the time of the awards, having acquired it by questionable means.

Mine arrived mid-January, and I've given myself plenty of time to familiarise myself with it... So let's take a look at Tigatron to see whether or not he truly deserved the award, and if he's as significant an improvement on the Beast Wars original as some of his Kingdom contemporaries.

War for Cybertron: Kingdom Slammer

While I didn't buy Generations Metroplex - essentially the centrepiece of the Thrilling 30 portion, celebrating that anniversary of this toyline - I do own the original, and have always been sufficiently intrigued by his companions that I would sit up and take notice if they ever got independent toys of their own. When Sixgun was given the Weaponiser treatment in the Siege toyline, I somewhat expected Slammer to follow a little sooner than two years later... but, let's face it, much of this War for Cybertron line has been long-delayed supplementary Generations/30th Anniversary material...

As with his Siege comrade, Slammer has been updated into Weaponiser form, though this feature appears to be a less significant part of Kingdom's 'play pattern' due to the introduction of the 'Fossilisers'. Let's see how this affects him, both as an individual toy and as accessories to the others!

War for Cybertron: Kingdom/Golden Disk Collection Terrorsaur

I mentioned in my write-up of Kingdom Airazor that it would be pretty much criminal for Hasbro to fail to produce a Terrorsaur figure having developed such a good remake of the Maximal falcon, so it came as no surprise when he was eventually announced. What was a surprise was that he would be made available as one of Hasbro's much-vaunted 'capsule programme' sets - in this case, the (technically) Amazon-exclusive Golden Disk Collection. Split across four 'chapters' (comprising Road Ranger & Puffer, Jackpot & Sights, Mutant Tigatron and this one), it's basically a bunch of mostly uninspiring (and uninspired) repaints with the exception of Terrorsaur, who is a substantial reworking of the Airazor mold.

This was not unexpected, but the actual execution of the figure was certainly not what I'd hoped to see. So, the big question is, are there any other surprises with this figure, and is it a worthwhile representation of the Predacons' less accident-prone flier?

Winds of Change?

Not really... But, having preordered Flame Toys' Furai Model Kit Windblade in March of last year, it finally arrived today:

I'm not going to start working on her immediately - I've got a few important things to do right now, and it feels as though it would be prudent to keep this as a 'reward' for having completed them.

Considering I tend to rail against any non-transforming TransFormers-branded product, it may seem strange for me to have bought this... But it's a Femme-Bot (this is as close as I'm going to get to a Femme-Bot Friday post until the Bumblebee movie/Studio Series Arcee turns up), and beautifully designed - very evocative of Sarah Stone's artwork in the original Windblade mini-series of comics from IDW.

I can see myself picking up the upcoming Arcee and Blackarachnia figures, but I don't think Furai Model Kits are going to be appearing on this blog with any real frequency... Much as I like their take on Hot Rod, I can live without a non-transforming sexy beefcake Hot Rod, and most of the others are nowhere near as appealing. If I do ever feel the need to lay my hands on a three-dimensional interpretation of that design, it'll be either the Mastermind Creations version, Calidus, or the one from SXS Toys, Hot Flame... But I'm honestly not that invested in the character, so neither are particularly likely acquisitions for me.

Desert Island (Golden) Disks?

Last week, I received a slightly early notification that another of my Hasbro Pulse preorders - specifically Golden Disk Collection Terrorsaur - was ready for despatch. I believe it was only one day earlier than it was due to ship, but Hasbro UK were clearly very pleased with themselves.

As has been the case on the last couple of Yodel deliveries, the shipping notification was swiftly followed by the courier's own notification that the package was on its way, with the usual estimate of delivery in two days' time... and, of course, it arrived the following day.

When I was out for most of the day, helping my folks with their loft clearance and then going on to my local computer club in the evening. Thankfully, Courtney was working from home and able to accept the parcel, so it was waiting for me when I got back home that night.

I've had a quick play with him, and am largely pretty happy... The windowless presentation box appears to be on a par with Hasbro's usual 'event' sets, features generic art on the front... and Terrorsaur himself is strung up in an awkward position, which had me thinking uncomfortably of shibari for some reason...

As always, full write-up coming 'soon'...

Big Cat Arrives

And so, just a day after the arrival of Kingdom Slammer, and the day before he was originally due to ship according to Hasbro Pulse, Tigatron has arrived.

I've got a few other things on my plate at the moment, so I'm probably not going to get either photographed fully till I've dealt with at least the most pressing stuff but, in the spirit of keeping things up to date, here's a quick photo:

Looks pretty good, I think, aside from the rigid tail and the Gut Gun sticking out of his belly... Full write-up on the way, eventually.

Perhaps I should start an Instagram account for situations like this..?

Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers Annual 1985

Back in my youth, publishers of comics and teen-oriented magazines habitually ended the year with a hardbacked book featuring either retrospectives or - frequently, in the case of the comics - some wholly new material. In those days, I would always get such annuals for Christmas, and amassed quite a selection over the years, from The Beano to The Eagle (shared with my sister) to TransFormers, all of which ended up in the loft at my parents' place.

Cut to just before Christmas 2021, and my mother mentioned that she wanted to do a massive clear-out of the loft. Earlier this month, I popped over there a little earlier than I normally would when attending a local computer club, and assisted with the sorting effort. While most of my time was spent identifying toys/toy parts and grouping them together by type, we did find a couple of bags of annuals, so I grabbed the four TransFormers ones just for fun...

But then I figured I may as well take the opportunity to write about them, as they're as much a piece of TransFormers history as the toys. Here's the first...

On Hasbro Pulse, and Courier Frustrations II

While I'm very grateful that Hasbro Pulse UK exists, I have to admit I still have serious doubts about Hasbro's distribution strategy. A couple of months back, I preordered Kingdom Tigatron, then Golden Disk Collection Terrorsaur and Studio Series Jolt, then Kingdom Slammer, as each were added to the shop. All but Jolt were labelled as due to ship this month, with the first and last scheduled just a few days apart, and Terrorsaur expected toward the end of the month. Jolt shipped on his own as soon as he came into stock back in November, so Hasbro are clearly happy to split orders if that seems appropriate, even when not specifically requested.