Device Label Broad Blast (aka Blaster)

Music Label and Device Label were two very short-lived offshoots from the TransFormers brand, created by Takara Tomy, which featured functional memory sticks (2Gb - paltry by today's standards) and optical mice which transformed into robots. They were so short-lived, in fact, that they seem in retrospect to have been created to facilitate one particular model in each case (Soundwave, under the Music Label banner, for example).

The last two releases in the Device Label line were a third repaint of the memory stick (as Cheetor, supposedly, Takara Tomy having used the same mold first as Ravage, then as Tigatron) and a the only model never to be repurposed: a functioning 4-port USB hub made to look like a Toshiba laptop. How does Blaster fare with such a strange alternate mode? Let's find out...

Binaltech Asterisk BTA-03 Broadblast

Binaltech may not have been the most well-regarded TransFormers line and, certainly by today's standards, it set its sights rather low in terms of complexity. Nevertheless, it lasted a good few years - from the 20th Anniversary in 2004, to the year after the first live-action movie in 2008, Binaltech models were released, although new molds became scarcer in the Japanese line, and a couple ended up only seeing release as Alternators. It successor, Alternity, didn't even manage half that lifetime.

The BT Asterisk subline was very shortlived, though, comprising only three models by the time it was cancelled, and really noteable only for providing a part die-cast version of Sunstreaker. The gimmick was that these were transforming robots who lived and worked alongside human partners - Red Alert was a police car operated by a female police officer, Sunstreaker was a racing car 'owned' by a race queen, and this one, Broadblast (aka Blaster) was a news van partnered with an investigative journalist. In several ways, it almost seems like the spiritual predecessor to Human Alliance...

TransFormers Collection #21 - Broadcast & Steeljaw

Another of Generation 1's MIAs, Blaster got a US release, but never came to the UK. While it was understandable with the likes of Perceptor, it was strange, disappointing and downright annoying that Blaster didn't get an official UK release - he was basically Soundwave's counterpart, and played quite a major role in many of the Marvel UK comics.

That said, while Soundwave had a fairly subdued and complementary colourscheme, Blaster's seems to have been decided upon by a five year old, and was designed to fit his robot mode at the expense of his alternate mode.