Cybertron Landmine

Every so often, there's a mold in a toyline I like that doesn't particularly inspire me. Landmine was one such mold, until I got my hands on the Rhinox repaint, part of the BotCon 2006 boxed set, 'Dawn of Futures Past'. Larking about with that figure gave me a different perspective on the mold and so, while I still wasn't overkeen on having a dull Autobot construction vehicle on my shelves, I did end up buying the substantially cheaper Cybertron version of the mold, that I could play with and pose while BotCon Rhinox languishes in his box till I'm able to display him adequately, along with the rest of his crew.

This might seem like a strange reason to buy a toy but the Cybertron/Galaxy Force line really grabbed me as a whole, and I didn't want to miss out on a fun toy, even if it didn't appeal to me straight away.

Cybertron Skywarp

I've mentioned my Seeker OCD several times (probably every time I write about a Starscream, Skywarp or Thundercracker, to be honest), but there are occasions when it manifests itself in completely illogical ways. The Cybertron version of Skywarp is just one such occasion, since it's a repaint of Thundercracker, which had previously been a unique mold in the toyline rather than the traditional repaint of Starscream.

Making matters all the more interesting, it followed the example of Galaxy Force/Cybertron Thundercracker by largely ignoring the traditional Skywarp colourscheme. When I wrote about the original, I noted that I was sufficiently impressed by it that I picked this one up... but, having the repaint in hand, is it still impressive enough to forstall any buyers' remorse?

Cybertron Shortround

Up until recently, when one thought of TransFormers hovercraft, there was pretty much only Seaspray. The Cybertron toyline forever changed the seascape by introducing a whole new character - Shortround - with a hovercraft vehicle mode, a geeky personality and (apparently) a dangerous (to himself) obsession with Chromia (aka Thunderblast).

There's probably a very good reason that seafaring TransFormers are a rarity. Even if one assumes Cybertron has no oceans of any kind, the very nature of its sentient robotic life is inclined toward adapting to its environment, and lack of exposure does not automatically preclude the ability to acclimatise. That said, I just don't feel that the open ocean on Earth presents as many opportunities for TransFormers stories as the land... I mean, even in the G1 TV show, the Decepticons gave up on attacking oil rigs after a single battle with the Autobots, despite the fact that the Autobots were largely unable to fly after the pilot episode, let alone travel over or through water.

Cybertron Hardtop

Hasbro's Cybertron line wasn't just their take on Takara Tomy's Galaxy Force toyline - it actually included a handful of figures that didn't appear in the TV show or the Japanese toyline.

Quite what the rationale was for this, I'm not sure anyone knows - it's not as if there was any shortage of Galaxy Force toys to repaint if Hasbro wanted new characters. It's entirely possible Hasbro's designers had simply been working away in the background, and needed a toyline - any toyline - to release their work into, and Galaxy Force/Cybertron was the best available option.

One such figure was Hardtop, who doesn't seem like a particularly good fit...

Galaxy Force Chromia White Version

(Femme-Bot Friday #62)

I've waited quite a long time for this one... Originally released back in 2005 and packaged with part of the Japanese DVD release of the Galaxy Force TV series, Chromia White Version is a homage to the Japanese G1 (specfically Super-God Masterforce) release of Minerva - a toy which was repainted and released in the West as Nightbeat.

Rather foolishly, I decided against ordering this figure when I first became aware of it because I hadn't quite got to the stage in my collecting habits where I wanted to try to focus on Femme-Bots and, let's be honest, Chromia was hardly the best toy to come out of Galaxy Force. Nevertheless, she became one of my Holy Grail figures a few years later - after I'd bought a BotCon repaint and the standard version - but became impossible to find online until earlier this year, when a pair of them turned up on eBay, minus the packaging and the DVD.

It's entirely possible this is actually a knockoff... though I'm not aware of this figure having been knocked off, let alone this version of the figure and, to be honest, cost aside, I'm not too fussed.

Let's have a closer look...

Galaxy Force Chromia

(Femme-Bot Friday #7)

I've noted in my write up of BotCon 2009 Elita-1 that this mold was essentially a bit rubbish - pretty much the worst kind of shellformer - yet it ended up being quite compelling in-hand as it was so cute. Considering I didn't want that figure at the time (she came 'free' with BotCon 2009 Razorclaw to complete a couple of previous BotCon sets), I ended up quite liking her, and so my quest to find her progenitor, either GF Chromia or Cybertron Thunderblast, began.

The secondary market being what it is, a crappy figure from an old toyline became rare and expensive, so it's basically taken five years to track one down at a price I'm comfortable paying and without the rather pointless addition of Cybertron Sideways and Brimstone as 'purchase incentives (or was it the other way round?).

But why all this hassle to pick up a figure that isn't even that good?

Cybertron Smokescreen

If there's one thing Hasbro does well (by and large, with some glaring exceptions), it's repaints. All too frequently, the first run of a mold ends up quite plain, lacking paintwork, particularly as the engineering became ever more complicated. Repaints, when they happen, have a tendency to be G1 references or out-and-out homages. Since Galaxy Force seemed from the start to be a great big G1 fan-gasm, it's no surprise that some of its repaints take the idea to the next level.

I noted in my write-up of Autovolt that his mold was the closest thing to the G1/Diaclone standard the toyline had seen in many years - the hood becomes his chest, the legs fold down at the back (yet from the front)... He even has shoulder launchers as his key-activated gimmick. All things considered, it should have been a no-brainer to make a couple of new heads and turn him into Bluestreak/Silverstreak/Streak, Prowl, maybe even Jazz...

But, no. For the Cybertron line, Hasbro never remolded and only repainted the Autovolt once... As Smokescreen.

Galaxy Force Live Convoy

If there's one thing the TransFormers line doesn't do well, it's helicopters. Those rotor blades and long, thin tails invariably end up just hanging off somewhere awkward, and the overall shape tends to be in the region of a brick with a long, thin tail and rotor blades.

There have been exceptions to this rule, such as TF: Prime Airachnid and movie Blazemaster/Evac/Tailwhip, and even movie Blackout (to an extent - his tail hangs from his back) but, by and large, they don't work very well and tend to follow the same, fairly simplistic transformation schemes.

Back in the days of Cybertron/Galaxy Force, risks were taken with the robot designs, and the Voyager class helicopter Evac/Live Convoy did things a little differently...

Cybertron Downshift

During the Unicron Trilogy, Hasbro seemed to play fast and loose with its character names and representations. The character named Wheeljack (Rampage in Japan) was a clear homage to G1 Sideswipe and, on the two occasions where a character turned up looking like G1 Wheeljack, he was named Downshift (Takara got his name right, though!).

Wheeljack as a character still gets a poor deal - while the G1 character was a scientist and weaponsmith, in the Unicron Trilogy he was just a rookie soldier. Even now, in TransFormers: Prime, where he actually looks like the original Wheeljack, he's just a roaming hunter/warrior with a penchant for explosives. The only recent version of Wheeljack that's really been Wheeljack was the Classics/Generations version.

While the Energon/Superlink version was a sports car decorated to look like the G1 Lancia Stratos, the Cybertron version took a whole new approach... So, when is a homage not a homage?

Galaxy Force Demolishor

Construction vehicles are nothing new to the TransFormers toyline - there's a grand tradition, particularly with the Decepticons, of these giant alien robots disguising themselves as machines involved in building. I guess it's a good cover for building all those weapons of mass destruction, but it does seem strange that the faction who are intent on destroying are the most likely ones to turn into machines used to create.

The Galaxy Force/Cybertron line featured a whole planet populated by giant robots, neither Autobot nor Decepticon, who lived to build... but there was one construction vehicle which was a Decepticon from the start...

Cybertron Armorhide

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the Cybertron line was the inclusion of characters unique to the toyline. Not just repaints of existing molds as new characters, but whole new molds which did not appear in the original Galaxy Force line or the TV series.

As one such model, and in keeping with Galaxy Force's tendency towards G1 homage, Armourhide offers something new mixed in with something surprisingly familiar...

Galaxy Force Thundercracker

Considering how much G1 referencing went on in Galaxy Force/Cybertron, it's worth noting that it wasn't so completely slavish that it gave us another set of Seekers all repainted from the same mold. In a somewhat surprising move, while Starscream got a Voyager-scale (or Supreme-scale in the US/UK) model of a futuristic/Cybertronian jet/spacecraft, Thundercracker - the only other Seeker to appear in the TV series - took a completely different form, was released in the Deluxe size class only... and wasn't even in his traditional colourscheme...

Galaxy Force First Aid

Once upon a time, the TransFormers ambulance was always going to be Ratchet... Sadly, that seems to be a difficult name for Hasbro to hang on to these days without some form of prefix. First Aid, meanwhile, is somehow far easier to use and reuse and, since it was first applied to the Protectobot who also transformed into an ambulance, it's just as appropriate.

Galaxy Force Autovolt

While Autovolt is obviously not a homage in terms of his name, character or paintjob, he most certainly is in terms of his construction and visual style. Back in the days of Generation 1, one mold got almost as much reuse as the F-15 body - the Nissan/Datsun Fairlady Z. It was pretty much the iconic body form for the boxed Autobots - the front of the car became the chest, the back of the car became the legs, and the doors spread out like wings behind them.

Fast forward to 2005, and we have Autovolt transforming into a modified Bugatti Veyron, a far prettier car than even the contemporary version of the Fairlady Z. Bugatti seem to have taken some design cues from Anton Furst's Batmobile, creating a curvy car whose front sweeps inward to what could easily be a jet engine intake. There are key differences between the way Autovolt transforms and the way the G1 icon transforms, partly due to overall improvements in toymaking allowing greater articulation, and partly because they only really needed to hint at, rather than duplicate the aesthetic. Classics/Universe later duplicated and updated the look with the new Prowl, (Silver)Streak and, later, Smokescreen.