Ocular Max (MMC) Infinite Finity IF-01A Eris: Kultur Subjugation Alternative

 (Femme-Bot Friday #83)

I'd be the first to admit that my knowledge of IDW's TransFormers comics is sorely limited. I used to get the Marvel comics back in the 1980s but, as an adult, comics just don't appeal to me quite so much. First and foremost, they take up space that I'd prefer to use for other things. Secondly, the individual paper comics require much more careful handling and storage than graphic novels (what Marvel UK used to refer to as 'Collected Comics' back in the day) so, on the rare occasion I buy anything comics-related, it will be in that form. But, more than that, my interest has always been mainly in the toys, not any of the associated fiction, so the comics never seemed especially important... Especially after they started following the US version in messing up all the characters in both appearance and portrayal.

I acknowledge that this has probably led to me missing out on some excellent stories, as well as the introduction of new characters who had not been part of G1 or G2 in the Marvel comics... but media-only characters always feel like a waste of time to me, considering any and all TransFormers media is, fundamentally, advertising for toys. I may have encountered analogues to some of them via the TransFormers Collectors' Club, but they carried no special significance to me because I hadn't been following the comics.

However, there's always one sure-fire way to grab my attention with a tertiary character, and that's to make them a Femme-Bot. And here, Ocular Max - aka Mastermind Creations - have done just that. Some years back, they turned the character of Tarn - erudite leader of the so-called 'Decepticon Justice Division' - into a figure in their Reformatted line - Kultur. It looked interesting enough but, lacking any connection to the character or even the concept of the Decepticon Justice Division, it wasn't as interesting to me as the myriad repaints of Reformatted Azalea. While the majority of Ocular Max's output seems to have been G1 Animation-style figures, the Infinite Finity line seems to been created with the intention of branching out, possibly with an IDW focus, while maintaining a degree of continuity with Reformatted.

Eris: Kultur was the first figure from this line, revealed in 2020 and first released - available exclusively via web store Planet Steel Express - in 2021, with its original colourscheme being a very limited run specifically for that web store. I wasn't really in a position to order it at the time, but MMC/Ocular Max hinted at a recolour to be released later, so I hedged my bets and waited.

And so, here is the result of my... patience..? Or, at the very least, the response and solution to my Fear Of Missing Out.

Packaging:

MMC have always produced nice boxes for their products, and largely kept their styles quite consistent. Infinite Finity appears to be drawing on a similar kind of retro-G1 packaging to their Perfection Series, even down to typography, and without the window in the front of some of the PS boxes. The whole thing has a matte finish, but with Spot UV varnish on the front, covering the logo, name and character image, and a silver foil application on the top flap highlighting the use of die-cast in the figure. The Infinite Finity logo appears to be drawing on Takara's reworking of Hasbro's TransFormers logo into Katakana, with its distorted, angular lettering and blue-purple 'chrome' affect.

There are product shots on the top and rear, with a smaller image of Eris - a slight variation on the cover image - on the righthand side of the box, a closeup of Eris's face on the left side, and all the usual blurb on the bottom (in Chinese). The back of the box also features something I really appreciate: a G1-style Tech Specs card, complete with a 'cut out and keep' dotted line frame. It includes a brief character bio (which only takes up about two thirds of its box, so they should probably have increased the point size of the text), and the 'encrypted' stats graph which requires the use of a translucent red 'decoder' card (included, albeit about a centimetre too short) to read properly, ticking literally all of my nostalgia boxes. My only complaint about the look of the box would be the almost total lack of contrast on the artwork. The photos are fine, but the pictures on the front and sides appear to have had some kind of murky red filter applied, making it difficult to make out the details. Not technically a complaint, as such, but I'd also add that her name is a bit... overcomplicated? The front cover has it as "Eris: Kultur Subjugation Alternative" (or possibly "Eris: Kultur Alternative Subjugation", based on the text layout and the version on the top flap), but then the sides simplify it to "Eris: Kultur Subjugation", probably just due to space restrictions. Given that Kultur was the name of MMC's Reformatted version of Tarn (or, more precisely, "Kultur Mystery"), this building on the name makes it a lot longer than it needed to be... But it does seem to be one of MMC's habits.

Inside the packaging, Eris is contained within a clear plastic clamshell, in robot mode, along with two separate resealable bags - one containing the instruction leaflet, the 'decoder' card and a collectors' card featuring her bio and stats (displayed numerically), the other containing her weapon accessory. The instruction leaflet is formatted like the G1 toys' leaflets - a single strip folding down to a square - and similarly printed in 4-colour on both sides, but the artwork is vector graphics rather than photos, and largely greyscale with red and purple highlights. The collectors' card is of surprisingly light stock (at 63mm x 88mm, it barely registers as 1g on my kitchen scales), but is nicely designed and cleanly printed, with a matte finish. Neither version of the bio offers any indication of what her guns actually do, so I presume they're identical in function to those of Tarn/Kultur... Now, if only I knew what theirs are supposed to do...

It's also worth mentioning that there's a credits panel on one of the inner flaps of the box, listing the figure's designer, Makotron, the packaging artist, Chogoking, and even the product photographer, Ian Reid (can't be certain of a web link for him, unfortunately, as there seem to be several photographers with that name!), along with a credit for YouTuber Paik4Life, who put together the official transformation video.

Vehicle Mode:

I have to confess, I'm getting more than a little bored with tanks as a vehicle mode for TransFormers toys, and that goes double for Third Parties, despite them being somewhat rarer and, at the very least, typically appearing as the result of being an adaptation of a character who became a tank in G1. Eris forms the typical H-tank at first glance, with two sets of treads - each about 4cm/1.5" long - on each side of a surprisingly low and flat, but fairly nondescript and largely black tank body. These treads are probably the most exciting feature of the figure, though, because they're fully-functional, fully-articulated plastic chain-link treads, each hung from two wheels inside the body of the vehicle. This sort of detail just wasn't possible with their Tarn analogue, due to the way the treads transform, but I think any tank toy is improved by the inclusion of working treads, whether as rubber bands wound around several wheels, or as solid, interlinked segments strung between just two.

Something about the tank body puts me in mind of Armada Megatron... and it's more than possible that was wholly intentional, given that another version of Eris, overtly based upon that toy, was revealed later. Eris is rather more symmetrically designed, however, with both the sculpted detail and the paintwork being identical on each side. The sculpt is clearly designed with the idea of asymmetrical paint applications in mind, albeit with detailing that hedges its bets on what it actually represents, to the point where consistent paint applications are just as effective. Where the PSX-exclusive version had a largely purple tank body, this one is largely black - seemingly more like Tarn - with a couple of vibrant purple chunks on each side, between the tread sections, and some armour panels picked out with pale metallic blue and darker gunmetal paint applications. The two 'shelves' on each side of the front tread section are painted grey, there are panels of darker purple paint on the front and rear, and small sections of pinkish 'glow' have been dotted about.

By comparison, the turret is fairly plain. It, too, is mainly black, but with a grey upper section. There's substantially less intricacy in its sculpted detail, and the overall shape of the turret is far more 'sci-fi' than the body, to the point where it actually looks pretty incongruous. The most egregious issue is its size - it looks like the turret from a much larger tank, both by covering such a wide area of the base body, and by being taller than the body. While it's adorned with what appears to be sets of four small missile pods on each side, it's mostly quite sleek, and the lion's share of the paint applications are on the barrels of her cannons. Something I hadn't twigged, just looking at photos, is that the gun barrels are each of unique design. One is fairly plain, with just a bit of recessed linework in the pink 'glow' paint and a ridged ring, painted with the pale metallic blue, toward the base. The other features a section of narrow, brassy-painted rings toward the tip, a panel in the pale metallic blue on the underside and four strips of the pink 'glow' ahead of a ring of the pale metallic blue which is interrupted by a raised 'sight' near the base. Right in the middle of the turret is what appears to be a raised cockpit section, with a circular 'hatch' detail on top, and windows painted with the pink 'glow'. It all looks pretty good until you turn to the back of the turret, which is entirely open, revealing the front of the robot's pelvis. From some angles, the use of black paint somewhat disguises how large this concave section actually is but, honestly, it looks like there's a part missing.

The turret can freely rotate 360° and is even able to tilt slightly backwards thanks to one of the robot's waist joints, but the barrels are limited to downward tilt, which then breaks their continuity with the turret. I can't see any way of giving them upward tilt, given the way they connect, but it's a strange oversight - particularly in this day and age, to have a tank whose cannons are effectively immobile along the vertical axis.

Strangely, just in front of the turret - and largely concealed by it when facing forward - is a hatch/cockpit detail much like the one on the top of the turret, but this one lacks the pink paint in its sculpted 'windows'. It's flanked by two pairs of what appear to be small, sculpted missile pods, painted purple, while the very front of the tank has a couple of stumpy protrusions that are likely in service of the Armada Megatron version of this figure. The front of the tank also features a pair of pink headlights over each set of treads, another feature derived from the Armada toy.

Vehicle mode is pretty weighty - partly as a result of this figure being larger than I'd expected, but mainly because of the use of die cast metal for most of the turret/legs - but that seems fairly appropriate for an armoured combat vehicle... And it certainly makes a change from Hasbro's typical output. I would have to say that the mismatch between the purple plastic and the purple paint is both a little strange and rather jarring, though it's more because the darker shade of the paint better complements the mainly black tank versus the brighter, warmer plastic panels separating the tread sections.

Robot Mode:

Given that she transforms into a tank, Eris is surprisingly slinky in robot mode... But the biggest surprise for me, as soon as I opened the box, was how tall she is - approximately 20cm/8" to the top of her head, when (for no discernible reason) I had been expecting her to be closer to the 13-14cm/5+" of the Reformatted Azaleas. Based on a quick look over my shelves, I suspect Eris is currently the tallest Femme-Bot in my collection, by quite a margin - while the likes of Big Firebird's Nicee/Mooka and FansToys' Rouge are just a head taller than Perfect Effect's Echara and Comera, Eris towers over them all, easily a head taller again even without taking her backpack into account. Along with her substantial weight due to the handful of die-cast parts, her stature gives her a real attention-grabbing presence despite her comparatively muted colourscheme.

In terms of sculpted detail, there are really no surprises: Eris is one of those transforming robot figures that efficiently reconfigures most of its vehicle mode mass to form the robot mode, with little or nothing new being exposed in the process. Aside from the head, the only wholly new detail is the chest panel, which is a faux-part slung on the underside of her tank mode. In keeping with the typical depiction of Femme-Bots, the chest is narrower, but less flat than MMC's Tarn, while featuring much the same detailing and broadly similar paintwork. The sweeping angled parts across the collar don't extend beyond the shoulder joints, while the central arrowhead extends forward as much as it does down, resulting in a discernible but decidedly non-human bust. The raised circular details (reminiscent of eyes set in a torso that looks like an alternative take on the Decepticon insignia) are picked out with both silver and pink paint, with more pink applied to recesses dotted around. All things considered, the closest thing to a genuine surprise offered by Eris' robot mode is that her backside does not present the much-maligned appearance of unnecessarily separated butt-cheeks... though the fact that it is nevertheless curved gives the impression of an inflated nappy.

I'd have to say that, in terms of overall structure, she looks closer to an Armada Megatron analogue than to Tarn, if only because of the way the arms are handled: each upper arm is made up of an entire tread section from tank mode, albeit with the shoulder joint set halfway down rather than at one end of the treads, so the arms don't stick up from the shoulder quite so much. Given the repurposing of the mold, perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise, particularly given MMC's longstanding habit of reusing molds for multiple characters but, with Eris, it feels like the main connection to Tarn is her colourscheme more than any other aspect of her appearance. It's also a little disappointing that the front set of treads just ends up swung onto her back, barely transformed from their vehicle mode look.

While her weapon in robot mode is basically just the vehicle mode's cannons, attached via the most minimal rearrangement of their mounting, I'm quite impressed by the efficiency of it, and how well it integrates into robot mode. The cannons can be attached to either forearm and, being mounted themselves via round pegs, each individual barrel gains a greater range of movement than it had in vehicle mode. The size and mounting point of the weapon does cause some problems with the elbow articulation, since the back end of the uppermost barrel butts up against the upper arm's treads at about the 45° mark, but a slight adjustment of the rotation joint above the elbow gives the required clearance to bend the arm to its fullest extent.

One of the most interesting features of Tarn - and something lazily omitted from Hasbro's own take on the character in the Legacy toyline - was that what appeared to be his face - a minimally-detailed adaptation of the Decepticon insignia - was just a striking mask over a surprisingly normal, humanoid face. This has been carried over to Eris, but her mask is rather more three-dimensional, since it fits over a much rounder head sculpt. The similarity to the Decepticon insignia remains strong, despite it being even more stylised - flaring out at the top, and coming to a much narrower point at the chin. The eyes are painted with a flat red, and there are little touches of black paint around the edges of the mask to emphasise its angles.

Behind the mask is a clearly feminine visage, painted grey, with red eyes and the lips highlighted with a purple lipstick smirk - which is to say, the sculpt appears to be identical to the original release of Eris, but the paint application (or, more specifically, the angle of its application) alters her expression. This was perceived by many of those who bought this version as a production error, since there had been images of a resculpted face which appeared to be a clear homage to Brigitte Helm's iconic sneer in the movie Metropolis. MMC's responses to this have apparently been somewhat ambivalent, saying at one point that the adjusted head never went into production, but also that it was a production error, and the new expression for this version should have been both sculpt and paintwork.

Personally, I'm not too fussed - the paintwork does an adequate job of conveying her expression, even though it's applied to a sculpt it doesn't match... and I honestly prefer her eyes being balanced. What I find strange about this head sculpt is that the helmet appears to resemble Deathsaurus/Deszaras, or possibly Leozack from the Liokaiser gestalt, more that it does Tarn, thanks to its beak-like silver protrusion over the brow, the extra set of eyes, and the 'cat ear' protrusions from the crown. She also lacks the large silver discs from each side of Tarn's head... so about the only thing she has in common with Tarn's head is the overall colouration and the central crest on her forehead. While I know the upcoming Eris: Armadon figure has a wholly new head sculpt featuring Armada Megatron's 'antlers', this sculpt makes me wonder if we should expect to see previews of one or two additional versions of Eris based on villains from the TransFormers: Victory anime.

With the upper body and backpack forming the base of the tank, the legs forming the turret, and the cannons being a removable accessory, there are obvious comparisons to be drawn with the Generations Straxus and Skullgrin figures. Thankfully - despite the increased size and complexity of Eris - she is, if anything, easier to transform... Or, at least, less prone to things popping off during the process. Since this was a fairly expensive figure, I referred to a video for my first transformation, mainly to get the hang of the legs. Since then, I've followed the printed instructions and, just for a change, they're actually pretty good. Not only are the images clearly presented, but there's some brief text with each step explaining what should be accomplished. Most of it is very straightforward, just somewhat unusual when one is more accustomed to Hasbro's more basic solutions to engineering problems. Considering how little the backpack actually does - it basically accounts for the front half of vehicle mode, but doesn't exactly 'transform' in and of itself the way the rest of the figure does - I almost wish they'd come up with an alternative vehicle mode that didn't require such large, unwieldy chunks to hang off the robot mode's back. The back end of the tank is remarkably simplistic, with the forearms compressing and the shoulders reconfiguring around the head, while the torso opens out at the front - to give the treads some ground clearance - and swings up and over from the back to conceal the head. The waist bends 90° to get the pelvis into its turret configuration, then the legs simply bend to the fullest extent of the knee, allowing the calves to peg into the backs of the thighs, and for the feet to tuck into the armour at the top of the thighs. To be honest, though, I might have preferred larger feet that fill out that massive cavity at the back of the turret. The cannons peg into her backside, and the thighs peg into each side of the mount to secure it in place. One very cool aspect of the transformation is the way a small section from each side of the pelvis flips up 180° to restrict the movement of the waist while the legs are in the turret configuration. Now that I've got the hang of her transformation, the only complaints I have are that the mask has a tendency to pop off while being concealed at the back of the tank, and the inner thigh panels - intended to cover over the void left by her hips' transformation joints - are difficult to deploy, and then far too loose to stay closed, to the point where I'm often inclined not to bother.

MMC/Ocular Max have proven to be among the best at creating highly articulated robots that nevertheless transform into convincing vehicles, and Eris is no exception. In fact, as far as the waist is concerned, I'd be tempted to suggest she's too highly articulated. As well as unrestricted rotation (advantageous for tank mode) she can tip forward or arch backward, and tilt slightly from side to side. The legs and feet are fairly standard but for two main points. Firstly, the hips rotate at a 45° angle (one of my least favourite features on any action figure) so their full range can only be accessed by rotating the thigh in one direction at the top, and then compensating by rotating it the opposite way just above the knee, which then breaks up the sculpt of the thigh. Then there's a transformation joint just below the calves which allows the lower legs to fold out and peg in to the thighs to complete the turret, but it's slightly misaligned, such that its stopping point for robot mode is a touch beyond the vertical. This is then compounded by the overly complicated feet, which can rotate and tilt sideways at the ankle, and then have separately jointed heels, bridges and toe-points, making it a real pain to get both feet levelled for posing. In all honesty, though, the problem isn't getting her into dynamic poses... it's getting her it's neutral, straight-legged poses that becomes an exercise in constant, tiresome tweaking of every joint, from the feet up, and then trying to get the other leg to match. The arms are fairly standard, with 360° rotation at the shoulder (backpack permitting) and a slight butterfly joint due to transformation. The ability to shift the shoulder mass down for transformation also allows the arms to swing 90° out to the sides, while the standard configuration ends up with the shoulder mass hitting her in the head at about the 30° mark. There's a rotation joint just above the elbow, which can bend to the standard 90° via its single hinge. The wrists can rotate, tilt up and down (perpendicular to the flat of the hand), and then the fingers are all individually jointed, even down to allowing them to splay, giving access to a variety of expressive gestures... Though they are likely the most fragile and fussy part of the figure, so I'm a little reluctant to play with them too much. The head is on an alarmingly tight ball joint (granted, not as tight as the neck on Perfect Effect's Leonidas or the ankles on their Dino-Femme-Bots, Echara and Comera) which is then hinged at the base, allowing for a substantial range of motion.

The fact that this is a Femme-Bot knock-off of a now-canonical, IDW-created character doesn't change the fact that, for me, it's the vastly more interesting figure of the two. Additionally, were I sufficiently interested in Tarn, Mastermind Creations have released their own version which includes the mask gimmick of the original design. Quite how Hasbro expected to get away with releasing a Legacy toy that lacked such a feature is beyond me. OK, theirs is massively cheaper... but it's still lacking what some might consider to be a distinctive, not to say character-defining feature.

I have been a fan of MMC's Femme-Bots since their very first release of the original Azalea mold (and, to an extent, in spite of their somewhat excessive reuse of it!) and, while I have no idea of - or interest in - who Tarn is, I can appreciate a striking design when I see one. Eris takes that design, refines it (kinda) and feminises it, to create a wholly new and distinctive design for a Femme-Bot. While I can't say for certain I'll be buying any of the repaints (Armada Megatron already announced, but I can foresee some others along the way even if they don't do an automatic repaint into Armada Galvatron), I will certainly keep an eye out for future Eris figures with new and unique molds. After all, her main character trait, according to her Tech Specs bio, is that her "outlier ability can now transmogrify her exo-skeleton along with giving her the same skill set of any combatant".

Eris feels substantial and sturdy in hand, has a fun transformation, and looks great in both robot and vehicle mode (albeit with an incomplete and somewhat oversized turret on the latter). Having her almost raises my interest in the Legacy Tarn figure... But only almost.

When I missed out on the original release of this figure, I was naturally disappointed... but I feel that my patience paid off, as the dialling-down of purple on the figure makes for a truer representation of a feminised version of Tarn, albeit with a more traditional-looking tank as her vehicle mode. The fact that she is so much larger than I'd expected, and features a fair amount of die cast metal, means that she feels like even better value for money. The best thing about this version of the figure is that it's not exclusive to a single online retailer. I picked mine up from TFs-Express for a little under £120 including shipping, though it appears as though she was eventually shipped via their UK partners, Omegalock, who currently list her as out of stock.