Showing posts with label Maximal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maximal. Show all posts

Wednesday, 15 March 2023

War for Cybertron: Kingdom/Golden Disk Collection Mutant Tigatron

Looking back on the War For Cybertron Trilogy, now that we're entering the second year of Legacy, it is quite easily apparent that it was a troubled toyline from the very start. How much it was affected by COVID-19 is anyone's guess but the line, as a whole, was an occasionally glorious trainwreck, with little in the way of consistent direction, particularly when the Netflix series is included in its context.

Siege was a toyline that didn't live up to its promise and which ended before it really got started. Its accompanying show didn't feature half the molds or characters available, yet introduced some who weren't represented on the toy shelves. Earthrise was yet another in Hasbro's seemingly interminable series of 'true' G1 reboots, yet half the expected characters wound up in the Studio Series '86 line, while the animated series was a continuation of Siege that had zero connection to the toyline beyond certain specific figures. Kingdom, meanwhile, was seemingly cobbled together from the end of Earthrise and a Beast Wars anniversary toyline which has continued into Legacy without ever properly acknowledging Beast Wars, or its anniversary, and the Netflix show kept the same old Siege CGI for the Autobots and, while it introduced some of the Maximals, most of the Predacons were absent.

So it seems strange that Hasbro chose to further muddy the waters by creating several unrelated boxed sets, all of which featuring either repaints or minimal retools. The Golden Disk Collection would have been an easy pass for me, in its entirety, were it not for Hasbro's decision to make Terrorsaur part of the set rather than a mainstream Kingdom toy. This one was only of mild interest to me, because the original Tigatron figure was unexpectedly good... but, at £32, Mutant Tigatron was a figure I decided I could live without. However, as part of Hasbro's Advent sale in the run-up to Christmas 2022, they dropped his price to just £16... and I found I could no longer resist.

Friday, 25 February 2022

War for Cybertron: Kingdom Tigatron

Much as I object to the use of Kingdom - the third and final chapter of the much-vaunted War for Cybertron Trilogy - as a perfunctory 'celebration' of Beast Wars in lieu of a dedicated toyline, I have to confess that I've been at least somewhat impressed by a number of the Beast Wars figures who appeared in the line.

Cheetor, however, was not one of them... poorly proportioned and with a rather sad axe/whip formed from his beast mode tail as his only weapon, he didn't seem that much better than the awful mess of a Universe toy from 2008. Given that the original BW Tigatron was a simple repaint of Cheetor, I wasn't holding out much hope for a Kingdom Tigatron to be much better. When it was announced that he would not only be a unique mold, but a Voyager class figure rather than just another Deluxe, my hopes started creeping back up again. When photos were eventually released, he looked - not to put too fine a point on it - almost like a completely different figure. Sure, the engineering was similar, but the additional size clearly allowed for refinements of the engineering, resulting in a figure that was objectively far better looking in both modes.

Of course, this being a Hasbro release, it wasn't without its fair share of controversy... because he ended up - somehow - being voted Figure of the Year in Hasbro's 2021 Hall of Fame, despite not being (widely) available until late January of this year. While that may have been a promotional coup, generating significant 'buzz' for the figure, many fans resented the inclusion of something only a select few had handled at the time of the awards, having acquired it by questionable means.

Mine arrived mid-January, and I've given myself plenty of time to familiarise myself with it... So let's take a look at Tigatron to see whether or not he truly deserved the award, and if he's as significant an improvement on the Beast Wars original as some of his Kingdom contemporaries.

Tuesday, 16 November 2021

War for Cybertron: Kingdom/Battle Across Time Collection Skywarp

One of the most frustrating things about being sick and tired of G1 reboots is that, when Hasbro releases a boxed set of two or more TransFormers toys, there's a good chance I'd only be interested in half the set, at most. Such was the case when the 'Battle Across Time Collection' was announced. Comprising two boxed sets - Maximal Grimlock & Autobot Mirage and Maximal Skywarp & Autobot Sideswipe - my interest was piqued by both of the Beast Wars reboot repaints, but I couldn't have cared less for the two Autobots. Upon seeing the final products, my interest in Grimlock was seriously reduced by the uninspiring (not to say incomplete-looking) paint job. Skywarp, meanwhile, was a bit of an oddity from the start. A repaint of Kingdom Airazor (which I really liked) with a head sculpt based more on the character's appearance in the Beast Wars anime than on the original toy (which was named Silverbolt in the west, but categorically not another form of the other Silverbolt)... and I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not.

Of course, that was largely a moot point, considering the somewhat ridiculous cost of either set: £58.99 for the former, £48.99 for the latter, both of which seeming somewhat over the odds for a two pack when the paintwork wasn't exactly extensive. Granted, it's still (objectively) better value than most BotCon toys, which could start at those sorts of prices for a single Deluxe class repaint, but it was more than enough to put me off buying either set, considering I'd then have to dispose of the figures I didn't want.

However, it seems there are more than enough fans who are only interested in the Autobot figures and don't mind selling off the Maximals (Skywarp being, by far, the more common on the secondary market right now). I quick look on eBay identified a handful of UK sellers offering him for around the £20 mark - well below half the cost of the set, which is always a surprise given many sellers' propensity for asking close to the full price of the complete set for just half its contents (or less). A few days later, I got a notification that one seller was willing to knock £2 off, making him about a quid cheaper than a standard, solo-release Deluxe in the Kingdom line, so I figured I might as well.

The only question being, is this semi-'exclusive' figure - rejected by its original owner - a worthwhile addition to my collection, considering it's no longer even a Femme-Bot?

Friday, 2 April 2021

War for Cybertron: Kingdom Airazor

 (Femme-Bot Friday #77)
It's beginning to look as though there will be very little of interest to me in the final chapter of Hasbro's War for Cybertron line beyond a handful of its Beast Wars remakes. Even those have generally been undersized remakes and, for better or worse, minus many of the play features of the originals. The one area of the toyline where the results have exceeded my expectations is its Femme-Bots, with Blackarachnia being both an early release and a (small) Deluxe class reworking of the Masterpiece figure that ended up being, if not generally better, then at least better value for money.

So, when Airazor was revealed, and looked pretty fantastic, she went straight to the top of my want list. Considering I only acquired the original Beast Wars version comparatively recently (six or seven years ago, I think) and, broadly speaking, still think it's a pretty good toy (even if it's not remotely 'screen accurate'), my main reasons for wanting this are the improved articulation demonstrated by other War for Cybertron toys and a head sculpt more in line with her on-screen appearance.
 
It also came into stock on Hasbro Pulse UK ahead of its arrival in other UK outlets (and we can't all be YouTubers, graced by Zavvi's largesse) so that gave me an excuse to sign up.

However, all of the Kingdom toys I've picked up have come with several significant caveats, so let's find out if Airazor swoops to conquer what I've come to regard as the 'Kingdom Curse'.

Monday, 18 January 2021

War for Cybertron: Kingdom Optimus Primal

It surely goes to show what a terrible toy blogger I am that this will actually be the first Optimus Primal toy from my collection to get a post on this blog, despite having owned the original, Kenner-branded Beast Wars/Biocombat toy since I discovered it while idly browsing a department store in the mid-90s, and the Beast Wars Reborn version since its release in 2006. Problem is, either I never got round to photographing them, or I somehow lost the images at some point in the distant past. Right now, the original figure is in a cabinet I can't easily access, while the re-release is boxed up and in storage. Whether that works in the Kingdom toy's favour or not remains to be seen...

The original toy is still quite close to my heart, even though I only really bought it for a laugh and, at the time, found the idea of TransFormers turning into animals quite ridiculous. Frankly, I'm finding the G1/Beast Wars crossover that appears to be implied by the first two chapters of the Netflix show just as ridiculous, but at least some of the new toys are looking quite good.

So, as has almost become the tradition with this blog, let's look at the most recent interpretation of the Beast Wars Maximal leader, Optimus Primal.

Friday, 13 March 2020

Beast Wars TransMetals 2 Blackarachnia

(Femme-Bot Friday #70)
I have a bit of a history of buying toys that I once professed to hate. Probably the best example of this is Lio Convoy, about whom my feelings changed very dramatically and for no reason I can readily recall. He - and his gorgeous black repaint - seemed to open the floodgates, though, leading to me buying BotCon 2001's Universe Arcee, a repaint of the Beast Wars TransMetals version that appeared a couple of years before.

That, naturally, led me to seek out the mainline original, a much-maligned toy in its own right, both because of its wasteful transformation and the ridiculously un-robotic looking, bikiki-wearing robot mode. TransMetals was, after all, the point in the Beast Wars toyline where it started to go completely crazy, in preparation for the nightmarish distortions of Beast Machines... But I think I've already proven that I consider Blackarachnia such a fun character that at least one of almost every iteration is worth acquiring... How bad could this one be?

Monday, 30 January 2017

Beast Wars Neo Mach Kick

OK, now for something from the weirder portion of my collection, to celebrate another milestone - TFCC/SS4.0 Windsweeper being my 500th post to this blog - it's kind of a shame I didn't hit the 500th post before starting the new year, considering how close I was... but I've had a hard time with anything creative recently...

I think I've mentioned before how the more ambitious Beast Wars molds came along after Hasbro had gradually started reorienting the brand back towards the mechanical, and Takara picked up the idea and ran with it in some very strange directions. The original set of characters was quite small and, while it certainly covered a wide range of animal types, quite a few others were conspicuous by their absence... For the most part, the animals of Beast Wars Neo were fun, quirky, and beautifully detailed.

Robot modes, however... that's where things went truly bonkers...

Friday, 20 May 2016

Beast Wars Metals Airrazor

(Femme-Bot Friday #38)
Yes, you read that correctly - I had to double-check the box, instructions and bio card to be certain but, for no obvious reason, Beast Wars Metals Airrazor has a double-R in her name. For the sake of simplicity (and because I'm more used to typing a single R in her name) I'm going to call her Airazor throughout. That's not the strangest thing about the BWM version of one of my all-time favourite femme-bots, though. The strangest part is that, since she and Tigatron were imprisoned by the Vok at the point when the quantum surge hit, she never had a TransMetals form in the TV show, though she did in an incomplete 3H Productions comic.

I've seen plenty of photos of this figure over the years and it never really lit my candle in any way, shape or form, despite my fondness for the character, because the vast majority of TransMetals toys seemed to be a bit on the rubbish side, and the fact that she was repurposed into Armada - largely a junkpile of poorly-designed toys - kept her off my radar.

...Buuuut... Times change, I started this Femme-Bot Friday feature, and I figured it'd be worth picking up the first ever TransFormers mold that was designed to be a canonical femme-bot (the original BW Airazor wasn't designed to be any specific gender, and the original Blackarachnia doesn't count as she's just a repaint of Tarantulas). I picked up the Japanese version largely because it was available fairly cheaply on eBay, but I've since realised there are some significant differences to the US/European version, so I'm very glad I chose this one over the Hasbro version.

Friday, 29 April 2016

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2016 Combiner Wars Airazor

(Femme-Bot Friday #36)
While the Club (and BotCon specifically) isn't averse to retreading old ground and presenting alternate continuity versions of the same character, it's rarer for them to present a BotCon version of a character they've previously done as a Club premium exclusive.

And yet, BotCon 2016 seems, to some degree, to have brought us full circle with the Club's/BotCon's output, harking back to the appearance of the Tripredacus Council in the very first BotCon comic, Descent into Evil, updated as a Combiner Wars gestalt. There were other references both to Beast Wars and BotCon 2006's awesome Beast Wars prequel Dawn of Future's Past, too, with attendee exclusives including a version of TransMetals 2 Megatron made from RiD/Car Robots Mega-/Galvatron, Terrorsaur from CW Air Raid, CW versions of  BW Tripredacus Agent Ravage, a second pre-Beast Wars Tigatron and even a CW version of a character who'd previously only been a Happy Meal toy.

The one that caught my eye, though, was BotCon's do-over of the reason I joined the Club back in 2007. Daring, perhaps... but was it foolish for them to take a mulligan on what is still one of my favourites?

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

Beast Wars Metals Silverbolt

While late to the game by over a decade thanks to patchy UK TV showings, I've considered myself a fan of Beast Wars for quite a while - certainly longer than I've owned the DVD boxed set of the complete series. Even so, I think the turns it took later on - mainly as a toyline rather than the TV series - were a little bizarre, and consequently I own very few toys from the extended lines (Fuzors, Metals/TransMetals, Beast Machines). Then again, the toys weren't very well represented in the TV series - only two Fuzors turned up, and the introduction of the TransMetals was completely inconsistent.

Of those Fuzors toys available, one exemplifies the better aspects of the concept, and was an awesome character in the TV series... That character is ol' Bird-Dog himself, Silverbolt...

Monday, 13 July 2015

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2015 Members Incentive (Timelines) Lio Convoy

(Members Incentive Monday #11)
Over the last few years, I've been quite ambivalent about much of the Club's output. Membership figures have been fun, but the exclusives - and particularly the Subscription Service after year one - have been eminently avoidable... Just as well, considering the import charges I normally end up paying. In fact, overall, during the time I've been a member (wow... almost ten years now?), they've hit very few home runs.

But this year, something pretty miraculous happened. The club announced that one of its premium exclusives would be Nova Prime, based on the 'Thrilling 30' Orion Pax mold, but with a new head... and that this would also be used to create the 2015 Members Incentive figure... a reimagining of one of my favourite Beast Wars characters, none other than Lio Convoy!

Friday, 10 July 2015

3H BotCon 2001 Universe Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #26)
Once in a while I get a bee in my bonnet about a particular mold, or just a particular iteration of a particular mold... Especially if that iteration is an exclusive. For example, having spent many years thinking Beast Wars II Lio Convoy was the most ridiculous TransFormers creation in all history, I suddenly decided it was awesome and set about collecting as many instances of the mold as I could (currently the original and black versions of both the Robot Masters mold and the Beast Wars II version... Flash Lio Convoy I haven't bothered with thusfar because he looks rather like he's made of sparkly wee).

The latest example of this strange mania is the Beast Wars TransMetals version of Blackarachia which, thankfully, has only two iterations. One was the mass release in the TransMetals toyline... The other was this limited edition (1200 pieces, according to TFWiki.net) from BotCon 2001, back in the days when it was run by 3H Enterprises...

Friday, 5 June 2015

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2014 (Timelines) Trans-Mutate

(Femme-Bot Friday #21)
Since it's only fairly recently that I've seen the entire run of Beast Wars, the whole 'Trans-Mutate' phenomenon passed me by at the time. Out of curiousity, I did once consider trying to buy the US Beast Wars reissues which came with parts of a Trans-Mutate figure but, frankly, the Japanese reissues that were around at roughly the same time looked better, and more accurate to the TV show.

'Trans-Mutate', the episode of the TV show, was an interesting one... a damaged stasis pod releases a misshapen, cognitively impaired wreck of a robot that can't even transform. Megatron loses all interest but, strangely, Rampage and Silverbolt instantly take a shine to the new arrival and each tries to convince her to join them. Needless to say, it doesn't have a happy ending.

Now, almost 20 years later, the Collectors' Club has decided, almost on a whim, to add an alternate continuity, properly functional version of the character to its collection of exclusives...

Friday, 23 January 2015

Beast Wars Airazor

(Femme-Bot Friday #2)
After Arcee in the 1986 animate movie, the TransFormers franchise suffered something of a dearth of Femme-Bots until Beast Wars, when suddenly we had two in one continuity (though admittedly Airazor was... shall we say 'gender-fluid' in the Japanese version, appearing as both male and female across the various sub-continuities). Airazor was one of my favourite characters in the TV series, being a strong female character who developed an understated romance with Tigatron. Blackarachnia was cool and all, but rather more of a Femme Fatale stereotype.

Since, as I've mentioned, I was rather late to the game with Beast Wars, finding some of the toys became an epic quest and, for absolutely ages, Airazor was ridiculously expensive for what would amount to a Scout class figure these days. Aside from the recent Generations reboots, I suspect Airazor was one of my final Beast Wars purchases... So was she worth the wait?

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

Generations (30th Anniversary) Rattrap

Since I joined the ranks of true Beast Wars fans quite late in the game, I had to do quite a lot of searching to find some of the figures from the TV show. Characters like Optimus Primal and Megatron got reissued several times over (not least on a smaller scale in the Robot Masters line), and the likes of the original Cheetor, Tigatron and Rhinox received more show-accurate reissues only a few years ago. The smaller, simpler figures that weren't reissued, like Rattrap and Airazor, required constant vigilance and frequent searching of Ebay before I got my hands on them.

The original Rattrap uses one of the earliest 'Automorph' features, where springs and gears handled most of the (very basic) transformation, leaving an inner robot made almost entirely of ball joints. For several reasons, it didn't look much like the CGI in the TV show, so when a Deluxe class Generations remake was revealed, I made ready to pounce at the earliest opportunity...

Monday, 30 June 2014

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2014 Members Incentive (Timelines) Rampage

(Members Incentive Monday #10)
When it comes to the Collectors' Club's Members Incentive figures over the last few years, the only consistent element has been their inconsistency. When I first joined, they were in the second year of a 5-year 'plan' which ended up with a semi-custom Energon-style 5-part gestalt with an extremely dubious name. From then on, for a couple of years, there was little discernible reasoning behind them (meaning no connection to BotCon, at least) - there have been two G1-inspired figures and an RiD/Car Robots-inspired figure... But this year's figure seems to tie into last year's - sure, it's a repaint from a different toyline, but it's another Beast Wars character... and this time, it's taking pride of place as one of the main characters in the club comic...

Has the Club started kind of listening to some of my whinges?

Monday, 26 May 2014

Generations (30th Anniversary) Rhinox

While comparatively few of the original Beast Wars figures were especially realistic in terms of molding or colouration, Rhinox was easily one of the worst. The body wasn't awful, but the head looked as though it had been designed by someone working from a written description rather than any visual reference.

Since he's such an important and well-regarded character, Hasbro saw fit (eventually) to completely remake Rhinox, from the ground up, in an attempt to give him both a true-to-life beast mode and a more CGI-accurate robot mode... And then released it in the 'Thrilling 30' toyline which didn't get very far in the UK before being cancelled in favour of the rebranded Generations toyline which will, for a while, at least, focus on the Age of Extinction toys.

Another masterstroke for Hasbro UK's TransFormers brand team, masters of forging disaster from the materials of awesome success.

Saturday, 16 November 2013

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2013 (Timelines) Ultra Mammoth

OK, people, here's the main event of the TransFormers Collectors' Club Subscription Service year one, the model I've been most keenly awaiting. Despite being a straight repaint of a Beast Wars figure, it tickled my fancy in several ways. First and foremost, the name is awesome: not quite a pun, but clever-ish wordplay nonetheless, and that kind of thing always amuses me in the TransFormers line. Next, it's hardly the most common mold - its only official western release was as Nemesis Prime in the much maligned Universe line of random repaints almost ten years ago. The club did well in its selection for this reason alone. Finally, the colourscheme is inspired. OK, it's inspired by the G1 character this model is meant to represent, but the distribution of colours and the extent of the paint job, going by the publicity mock-ups alone, was excellent.

And I'm not the only one waxing lyrical about this model, David Willis - creator of Shortpacked! and other webcomics - created a 13-page fan-fic Comic in honour of the club's latest exclusive.

But after a full year of waiting since he was announced and all the hype, does Ultra Mammoth live up to all the expectations?

Monday, 22 July 2013

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2013 Members Incentive (Timelines) Depth Charge

(Members Incentive Monday #9)
I have developed a nasty habit with this blog of writing up repaints/remolds before the original iteration of any mold... I'd aimed to break that trend over the weekend with Terradive, but just couldn't seem to keep myself interested, knowing full well that he was just the preamble to this Beast Wars homage.

Little has been seen of Depth Charge so far in the 'Beast Wars: Shattered Glass' storyline currently running in the club magazine, but I was intrigued from the moment he was announced. Naturally, all the Beast Wars characters had pre-Beast Wars forms (as investigated by Botcon's 'Dawn of Futures Past' set and Club exclusive Airazor), but the story suggests this is set after Beast Wars, and possibly on a different planet... so what form could Depth Charge take after spending time as a large robotic ray?

Thursday, 20 June 2013

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2007 Exclusive (Timelines) Airazor

I'll be perfectly frank here - there was one reason that I joined the TransFormers Collectors' Club, and that reason is this model. The moment I saw it, I thought it was awesome. It takes one of the quirkier molds from the Energon line and turns it, quite successfully, into one of the coolest characters from Beast Wars.

Slugslinger may not have been the obvious choice for this accompaniment to the Dawn of Futures Past BotCon set (made, as it was, largely from Galaxy Force/Cybertron models), but it was one of my favourites... surely this is ideal stuff for an exclusive?