(Femme-Bot Friday #87)
It struck me in the afternoon of January 1st that, as of this year - and, more specifically, yesterday - Femme-Bot Friday has been a feature of this blog for ten years. That being the case, I thought it appropriate to try to post something special... which might have been easier if the franchise had offered a greater quantity of worthwhile Femme-Bots. It would have been wonderful to hit FBF#100 for this anniversary, but that could only be achieved by re-posting Femme-Bots that I'd posted about before FBF became a thing.
And, while it would have been ideal to celebrate 10 years since I kicked off this feature with a post about Flame Toys' Arcee model kit, I haven't yet taken sufficient photos for that figure (lack of time, motivation and daylight over the last few months being largely responsible), so we're just going to have to make do with a Legacy: Evolution versus set that - miraculously - pits two unique Femme-Bots against each other. Little did I know, before I started writing all this, but this set actually refers to a specific story in the IDW comics, though the two featured characters don't exactly face off.
Is this unprecedented boxed set worth the investment? Well... That's an especially astute question, given my opinion of Hasbro's current output...
Much as I dislike the overall style of Legacy's packaging - the garish, G2-adjacent colour palette most of all - the front cover of this Versus pack is decent enough. The artwork is as competent as any other Legacy box, and is clearly based on the toys rather than some idealised version of the character, which is always appreciated. Name boxes across the top identify the figures as Ascenticon Kaskade and Senate Guard Autobot Javelin... which is largely meaningless to me, but apparently 'Ascenticon' is what Decepticons were before they named themselves 'Decepticons', according to the IDW comics. Ho hum.
The back of the box shows the toys themselves (or CG renders, at least), but only one image each of robot and vehicle mode, with nothing specific about their accessories.
Inside the box, the figures were wrapped in tissue paper inside their - full colour printed - cardboard tray, with accessories wrapped separately. Instructions are the usual 2-sided leaflet with one character on each side.
Kaskade
Vehicle Mode:
There's no getting around the fact that Kaskade is the duffer of the pack, and uses a mold I'd grow fed up with after buying PotP Moonracer and Novastar. That Hasbro applied only minimal changes in the development of WFC Greenlight and Lancer, with barely more substantial changes to the sculpt for Chromia and Nightbird, was a clear sign of how lazy they had become with the concept of Femme-Bots if they genuinely felt they were doing those characters justice. That they would then use that same mold again, in a 2-pack like this, is a clear sign of how little they care about such laziness.
What's really crazy here is that this reworked mold is, in many ways, actually inferior to the original. Leaving aside the fact that this particular iteration doesn't have translucent plastic for its main canopy, it no longer has a complete, closed front end and the included accessories do nothing to conceal the robot's hands at the rear. The sculpted detail is the same level of ugly, unnecessary excess as the very worst of Siege and, for some reason, the rear wheels are now mounted backwards - hollow side facing outward - and on the inside of the vehicle. I guess that's to make it look more 'futuristic' or 'alien'? I mean, sure, Arcee generally has her rear wheels mostly concealed, but it would have made more sense on this mold to put all the wheels on the inside.
So, we have here one of the worst molds ever produced in the 40-year history of TransFormers, and it's coupled with a terrible paint job. Since the entire vehicle shell is molded in opaque, pastel blue plastic, the canopy is painted a sort of neon pink... apparently leaving next to nothing in the paint budget for the rest of the toy. The headlight nubs and hubcaps are painted silver, but the rest of the vehicle is a block of pastel blue, broken only by exposed neon pink robot parts.
The accessories do little to improve matters. The two 'grenades' feature both 3mm pegs and sockets on either end, along with 5mm rectangular tabs and sockets on either side, making them remarkably adaptable in terms of where they can be attached. The instructions indicate that the intended arrangement is to use the two pegs at the very back of the vehicle, just above Kaskade's folded-up fists, possibly because they provide the barest of concealment, from some angles. However, given that they're an entirely different colour, not featured anywhere else on the toy, it isn't particularly effective.
Meanwhile, vehicle mode offers six 5mm ports - two on each side, just behind the front and rear wheels - and then two on the roof - one at the back, one on top of the canopy. Given that the remaining weapon components build up her rifle, they're not ideal for a long, low vehicle. The instructions here indicate that the entire combined rifle should be pegged into the rearmost roof socket but, ugly as it is, I prefer to separate the main chunks of the barrel from the pistol, with the former attached to the canopy socket and only the pistol at the back. The only other viable option seems to be plugging the barrel sections in on either side, ideally at one of the rear sockets, but no other configuration really looks sensible or worthwhile.
Robot Mode:
And here's where the decision to mount the rear wheels inside-out becomes all the more baffling because, in robot mode, those wheels are exposed, along with the simple structural supports on the inner face of the vehicle shell they're mounted on. These are then tabbed into the folded up canopy section, making for an insanely clunky backpack, with the front wheel housings bulking out the lower legs on an otherwise quite lithe figure.
Where Moonracer and Novastar had chunks of canopy on the undersides of their feet, the adjustments to this mold include moving that to a separate panel that folds into the backpack, and now the front wheel housings rotate around the lower legs for a marginally cleaner look. The torso also no longer has a combiner peg occupying space in the back, yet the space made available hasn't been re-engineered to allow the backpack to collapse down into something more manageable.
The sculpt work in robot mode exemplifies the very worst excesses of the War for Cybertron Trilogy's opening chapter, leaving Kaskade looking like a hyperdetailed Star Wars robot with sci-fi car parts tacked on. The thighs are relatively plain, but almost every other surface is covered with greebling that doesn't relate to or reference anything on vehicle mode (other than itself, where the canopy and wheel mounts are concerned). Since the mold is identical to Siege Chromia in every respect apart from the head sculpt, there's nothing uniquely 'Kaskade' here, and the pastel colourscheme just looks bizarre. From what little I've seen of the character in the comics, it's more or less accurate... but that just goes to show that, as with superhero costumes, some colour combinations should never appear in the real world. A dark wash over the entire figure might have improved things slightly, but the main problem is the overall dearth of paint.
Unique to robot mode, all she has is pink paint on the fronts of her feet, while the applications of pink on her chest and waist, along with the meagre dashes of silver on her robo-boobs are visible in vehicle mode. Granted, neither Chromia nor Nightbird had particularly extensive paintwork, but either were more extensive than this, and did more to highlight unique elements of the sculpt. This is just lazy.
And, while she comes with a couple of unique accessories - the two parts of her rifle barrel - the pistol, sight and grenades are the almost identical to those provided with Siege Chromia and Nightbird. The rifle parts and pistol are at least painted using a nice gunmetal, while the other components are unpainted, and thus present a rather odd contrast. The grenades have also been retooled such that Kaskade cannot hold them. Making matters all the more confusing, the instructions depict them as attachments for the pistol, something like suppressors, which might make more sense if there was only one of them. Alternatively, the main rifle barrel can be detached from the grip section, and the second grenade/suppressor can be attached to that, giving Kaskade two silenced pistols. This does leave the rifle barrel with nowhere to go, though... Unless you want to attach it to one of the blast effect nubs, of course. The instructions also indicate that the grenades can be stashed on her backpack, by plugging the rectangular tabs into the 5mm port just behind each wheel. This isn't a particularly secure connection, though, and they're all too easily dislodged.
On the upside, there are myriad options for arranging the components and, while the 5mm peg on the smaller pistol/rifle grip section is rather short for her hands, it can be pegged into her forearms instead, or into her backpack, if you feel like giving her an 'aerial', of sorts. Most of the weapon components feature 3mm pegs for blast effects, but none were included in the set.
The head sculpt is a mixed bag for me. It is undoubtedly close to the appearance of the character in the IDW comics but... it's bland and generic. It's also surprisingly similar to the design of Shadowstriker from Cyberverse, thanks to the built-in monocle. On the upside, while it has the narrow jaw typical of Hasbro's Femme-Bot head sculpts, it doesn't have the overblown lips, or the separately painted lips, that have been applied to some other Femme-Bots in recent years. It's not a bad head sculpt, it's just not remotely exciting or unique... But that's as much the fault of the IDW artist who first drew her as it is Hasbro's design team. The entire head appears to be painted, but the colour matching to the plastics is excellent, with only a minor variation visible in some lighting conditions. The helmet is painted pastel blue, while the face is neon pink, and her eyes are picked out with yellow paint. The overall effect is somewhat reminiscent of a prettier version of Energon Slugslinger, and could have been great if it weren't for the bizarre choice of colourscheme.
Transformation is much the same as Moonracer and Novastar, but with some noteworthy differences. Kaskade's feet are wholly separate from the front of the vehicle, which now folds back under the canopy. The canopy itself is longer, and so protrudes up behind her head, while the front wheel sections now rotate a few degrees on her lower legs, exposing gaping chasms in the plastic behind her shins. The most frustrating thing, though, is that the central crest on her head is slightly too long for the space intended to accommodate it, inside her back. Thus, the head has to be tilted back on its ball joint before the collar can be flipped backward, and then the head has carefully manoeuvred back to the upright position once it's cleared a ridge, or it gets caught on a screw fitting inside her torso, which prevents the collar clicking properly into its vehicle mode position. Even so, since the head is fully painted, the crest will likely prove to be prone to scuffing.
As far as I can tell, the adjustments to his mold's transformation were purely to facilitate ankle tilt, which, along with a small increase in the range for forward/backward movement, is the only improvement to articulation. However, along with this, the secondary knee joint has been removed, so the knee only has a 90° range. This isn't a critical loss, but it is another aspect that marks this iteration of the mold as inferior to the original.
Javelin
Vehicle Mode:
One thing I'd never have expected from a Legacy release is the use of a modified Studio Series mold. Nevertheless, that's precisely what Javelin is: a remix of SS #85 Arcee. It's a great mold, though, and I'm glad it's getting more than one use - particularly that its second use isn't the Paradron Medic repaint, which I'd normally consider to be inevitable.
However, unlike her box-mate, 'Senate Guard Autobot Javelin' (to give her her full name) features some quite substantial changes, apparent even on her vehicle mode. The 'cockpit' area is completely redesigned, and the panniers at the back are larger and more angular than Arcee's. The design hasn't been altered so that the front wheels are spread out, per the IDW character design, but the overall feel of that design is close enough... as I mentioned above, I wasn't aware of either character until I started writing this post, so the inaccuracy of her vehicle mode is not a problem for me.
Colour-wise, Javelin seems eerily similar to TFPrime Arcee, albeit with a lighter, wishy-washy blue that skews closer to purple. She's also graced with far more individual paint applications, in three different colours, so she's far more visually interesting that Kaskade, quite apart from being a generally better-looking vehicle. The front of the cockpit section and the 'wings' on her panniers are painted pink, with little touches (the edges of the robot's knees) visible in the midsection, while dark blue paint is applied to each side of the front wheel assembly, silver has been added to the grilles on each pannier, and the cockpit canopy itself is painted cyan. Due to transformation, the entire robot chest and her hands are left uncovered at the back of the vehicle, so the applications there of dark blue, pink, cyan and silver paint are fully visible.
Much like Kaskade, Javelin is packaged with a rifle... but this one is of far simpler construction, with a barrel extension and a sight that can be removed from the gun and attached to the sides of the vehicle, leaving a full rifle to plug into the roof, just behind the cockpit. It's every bit as unwieldy as Kaskade's vehicle mode loadout, with the downside that, unlike SS #85, she doesn't also have a pair of pistols to hide her robot mode hands, hanging out at the back of the vehicle. Supposedly, there's a way of transforming it to better conceal the arms/hands inside the panniers... but I've been unable to find any images or instructions on how to accomplish this.
Robot Mode:
So, clearly I'm a fan of this mold, quite apart from it being a Femme-Bot... And what we have here is a limited but shrewdly targeted retooling which, along with the adjusted colourscheme, makes Javelin look far more unique than she actually is in terms of plastic parts.
The problem with using a movie mold as the basis of a Generations/Legacy figure is that the aesthetics are almost diametrically opposed. Where Kaskade is a brick on wheels that turns into a skinny action figure with a folded-up brick on her back, Javelin retains the more organic silhouette and proportions of the original Arcee mold. Both her body and limbs feature curves, her feet are far too intricate for a Generations/Legacy figure and, let's face it, when have any of the designers working on G1- or even IDW- based figures had the balls to include something as novel as heel-wheels? It's unusual enough to find a Legacy toy that's not constructed almost exclusively out of hexahedrons, for fuck's sake.
The odd thing about the new chest sculpt is that it appears to be made up of angular armour panels at the top and - thanks to the paintwork - an Energon-infused corset around the waist. This is all very true to her IDW design, but not a single other aspect of her body looks like the character this toy is referencing. The torso certainly got the lion's share of the paint budget, with panels in silver, dark blue and bright pink, while smaller details are picked out in cyan. Meanwhile, the forearms have dark blue paint on the raised panel of the vambraces, the legs have pink paint on the kneecaps and dark blue on the calf flaps, and the curved panel at the top of the pelvis has silver paint added to the front.
While Javelin's rifle is certainly very true to the IDW design, it looks weirdly haphazard. The main body of the rifle dips down around the raised sight, to the point where it's not entirely clear where its ammunition might be stored, or precisely how it can fire... but I guess that's the advantage of sci-fi energy weapons over ballistics. The strangest thing, from a functional point of view, is that the shoulder stock is far too close to the grip to work as a shoulder stock. Perhaps the sculpt is meant to imply that it can be extended... but then, perhaps a separate stock should have been added, rather than a barrel extension? Both the sight and the tip of the barrel can be removed and stored on her backpack, but it makes so little difference to the size of the rifle, I'm really not sure why they bothered. On the upside, it's nicely painted with a sort of 'dirty gold'... though, for some odd reason, the sight appears to be painted with a slightly different shade/hue than the rest of the gun. As with Kaskade's weapons, this rifle is equipped with 3mm pegs on both barrel parts... just a shame no blast effects were included.
Javelin's new head sculpt is one of my favourite things about the figure. The character's design in the comics is unique and very distinctive, and it has transferred into three-dimensional plastic exceptionally well. Where Kaskade has a weird monocle, Javelin appears to have a mask with a single, vertical optic sensor in the middle. It gives her a far more 'robotic' look, reminding me a little of GLaDOS from the Portal games. This 'eye' is picked out with yellow paint, the helmet sections below the 'mask' are painted dark blue, and then the vent details on her cheeks/jawline are painted pink and silver. What little face she has visible is also painted silver, and carries a neutral/serious expression, with a somewhat jutting chin.
Obviously, Javelin's transformation is identical to SS Arcee's but there are a couple of issues. Where Arcee's collar section and torso pegged together securely, Javelin's collar slips out of the chest socket very easily, and the backpack doesn't tab into the torso at all well. No alterations were made to her transformation process, only to some of the components involved, and it feels like the socket in the back of her chest plate isn't allowing the collar to slot in all the way.
I have to confess that I bought this pack from Hasbro Pulse's Outlet section, at approximately half its original price. That being the case, I basically bought Javelin and got Kaskade free, which would normally be a great deal, however you look at it... But Kaskade is just such a terrible figure, I still feel like I paid too much. Even Javelin, much as I like her, highlights the poor design decisions - in fact, the only particular disappointments - of the original Studio Series Arcee figure she's derived from.
While a Studio Series figure is never truly going to fit on a Generations/Legacy shelf, I really can't hold that against Javelin. Of the two figures in this pack, she's by far the better toy, and far more effort was put into her creation, both in terms of the new components - head, chest, panniers/nacelles - and her paint job. She's a quirky design and, while a full-on adaptation of the IDW design would have been interesting, I can't honestly say - with any degree of certainty - that it would have been preferable to this... but I would happily buy any other repaints of the SS Arcee mold.
Kaskade, meanwhile, is yet another iteration of an already overused mold that was never any good to begin with. A better colourscheme, a more extensive paint job, might have made her tolerable but, as-is, she feels like a cheap bit of crap Hasbro chucked in to justify the price point. I pity anyone who forked out the full RRP for this set when it first launched, because they were thoroughly ripped off.
The fact that, even now, with the brand's 40th Anniversary behind us, there still aren't that many decent Femme-Bot molds in Hasbro's repertoire is as shocking as it is disappointing... Even so, we can only hope that Kaskade's mold will now be permanently retired, and that Age of the Primes brings us either new molds for some of the more disappointing Femme-Bots from previous lines, or wholly new and unique Femme-Bot characters.
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