Femme-Bot Friday #91
Technically, this probably should have been supplemental for FBF #90, but I'm feeling somewhat generous, given the significant changes wrought by this upgrade kit. Legacy's version of Inferno/Antagony was a huge disappointment and, while I would never have expected Hasbro to alter the mold to make it more feminine, Dima Core/Mechanical Skull Studio clearly felt that some improvements were required.
How much of an improvement this actually is - considering applying the kit makes the figure untransformable - is very much subjective... So, let's take a closer look.
Packaging:
The kit comes in a plain, brown mailing box with a sticker on the main flap featuring an artist's depiction of the figure with the kit fully installed. It takes a few liberties here and there - which comes as no surprise - but it's a pretty good depiction of the upgraded figure. Alongside the kit itself is a bio card which features the same artwork - albeit on a different background - on both sides, along with a text bio and tech specs. The bio, somewhat unsurprisingly for a shapely, black-clad Femme-Bot, makes her out to be a complete sadist, while saying next to nothing about her weapons or abilities beyond that her armour makes her invulnerable to pain. Not damage, just pain. Having looked into the character a little, it seems as though some of this information could have been copied-and-pasted from TFWiki.
Installation:
This is mostly a plug-and-play kit, making it fully reversible. Starting in robot mode, the head must be popped off its ball joint to allow the beast head to fold back over the robot's shoulders - which isn't a problem as the figure was designed to have a replaceable head. This works well enough as-is, but would likely benefit by having a notch cut out of the hinged panel the head was attached to, since its molding prevents it folding back fully. With the split ant head now acting as pauldrons, the new torso and head can then be slotted into the body cavity. The original hands - and the middle pair of ant legs with them - must be taken off their mushroom pegs to accommodate the new wrists and hands, which lengthen the forearms a little. A new butt panel and crotch plate have to be fitted over the stock pelvis, and whole new thigh shells must be attached around the existing thighs. Finally, the toy's stock feet must be folded back against the calves so the new ankles and feet can be attached to the pegs that would fix the beast mode's abdomen together on the stock figure.
It's all fairly simply, and most of it fits together very snugly... though I found the thigh additions were too tight on one side, requiring a lot of pressure to clip almost together. The pelvis wrap-around is a little wobbly as well, but the main problem I had was that the new chest has some very sharp protrusions, making it uncomfortable to fit properly.
Results:
Well, Antagoness is certainly more shapely than the stock Inferno/Antagony toy, but there's the obvious problem that she now carries only four ant legs, and they're still inclined to get in the way. The bulker thighs and pelvis also seem to get in the way of her articulation, with the legs no longer able to swing as far forward or back. That's not to say she loses out on poseability, per se, it's just the more extreme poses that are no longer accessible. Implausible though the feet now look, they still offer a fairly stable base, and they even have ankle tilt... not that it's really necessary, given that her footprint is so small now. The hands are an improvement over the stubby claws of the stock figure, while retaining the rotation and standard 5mm grip.
The alternate ant head - which features metallic purple mandibles, while those of the stock toy had to be folded inside for robot mode - is rather more refined and stylised, while the sculpted detail of the compound eyes looks excellent.
Antagoness' new gun is based very closely on the Beast Wars TV show's animation model for Inferno's gun which was, itself, a development of the gun packaged with the original toy. Hence, it's a very chunky weapon with enormous long mandibles coming out of the bottom. The main body of the gun is painted black, while the mandibles have the same metallic purple paint as those on her torso, while the gun barrel is a metallic magenta, closer to the paint on the stock figure's back and abdomen. Technically, this is accurate to the original BotCon figure, but not to her hideous Andrew Wildman box art, which had the entire gun in black and the mandibles emitting an eerie green glow. Just on first impressions, This weapon looks leagues better than the dual-purpose gun/rocket engine that Hasbro included with the stock figure, meaning that accessory can now be permanently relegated to engine duty, should one so desire... Of course, if they're all as loose as mine, it probably won't stay there... and I have to admit she requires far more shelf space with the abdomen fully kitted out.
Another thing that is - thankfully - not fully accurate to the original source material is the head sculpt which, in everything but colour, looks far closer to the 2017 Max Dunbar design used in the IDW comics. This is a welcome improvement over both of the stock head designs - one of which being based on the Beast Wars TV show's design for Inferno, the other being based on TransMetals Scavenger - and the original toy's head, which was just a recolour of Beast Wars Inferno. I wouldn't say the head is overly feminine, though the jawline is certainly softer, and the lips very pronounced. The eyes are translucent purple, but there's no input for light piping, so they end up looking fairly dead from most angles, only catching the light from the sides. Good as they look, I do rather wish they'd been textured like compound eyes, rather than just looking like bulbous sunglasses. The face has been coated with a dark and very glossy pinkish-burgundy paint which was perhaps not the best move. Like the eyes, it only catches the light in a very particular way, making her face almost disappear from some angles. A lighter shade - perhaps even the metallic pink of her gun barrel, or certainly the metallic purple of the mandibles - would have looked far better. I'd also suggest that some of the details of her helmet would benefit by being painted in either colour, since that would make the spikes more visible and so less of a danger to unsuspecting fingers.
I'm really in two minds about this kit. The fact that Antagoness loses Antagony's ability to transform feels like a huge negative, but the upgraded robot mode looks great, and carries enough implications of its beast mode that it's a good figure in its own right... Since I seem to have somewhat softened my stance on non-transforming TransFormers toys, perhaps that's enough.
That said, some aspects of the kit's finish feel rather low-quality. The new ant head/robot torso piece has the texture of a 3D print that wasn't sanded before painting, and the aforementioned fit issues on one of her thighs suggests the tolerances of each kit will be extremely inconsistent. The same is true of the 5mm peg on the new gun, which only seems to fit snugly in her hands if it's not pushed in all the way. Tolerance issues also affect the new head which is on a disappointingly loose ball joint. It doesn't loll about on its own, but it's far too easy to accidentally knock it out of position. On the plus side, the translucent purple eyes - both robot and beast - and the redesigned gun look fantastic. The paintwork on the head feels a little lacking - the face really should have been lighter - but probably my biggest complaint would be the redesigned feet, with their oddly-proportioned and unnecessarily pointy stiletto heels, which look like shoes designed by someone who's never actually seen a pair of high heels outside of a cartoon.
Whether Antagoness is truly an upgrade kit is one of those 'your mileage may vary' questions. I'm inclined to think it is, but a good part of that is that the original Antagony toy was so poor, both as a remake of the original and as a new toy in its own right.
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