Revenge of the Fallen Nightbeat

One of my favourite Generation 1 characters was Nightbeat, the Cybertronian detective forged in the image of the traditional Film Noir gumshoe, with the exception of his ostentatious choice to 'disguise' himself as a blue and yellow Porsche 959 with red flame patterns on his doors.

The former Collectors' Club released their exclusive version - based on the Energon Hot Shot mold, which had a fairly similar vehicle mode - which just happens to be the first proper post I ever made to this blog. A few photos of the G1 version were included there, in lieu of a proper write-up of that (which I will get to... eventually... I do feel like doing some G1 stuff soon...), but Nightbeat is one of those fringe characters who has gone unrepresented in the mainstream toyline ever since...

...Until he was referenced (weirdly) in the Real Gear subline from the first movie, only to return in this (slightly) more traditional form in the extended Revenge of the Fallen toyline.

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2008 Exclusive (Timelines) Nightbeat

And what better way to start this Collector-Blog than with an exclusive from the official Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club?

2008 brought members the opportunity to own a re-imagined Nightbeat, the Autobot Detective. Originally a barely-articulated thing with the kind of simplistic transformation that began the cooling of my interest in the toyline, Nightbeat appeared in the Headmasters line - Transformers binary-bonded to a humanoid who transformed into the robot's head.

This new version is a reworking of the Hot Shot mold from Energon/Superlink and, to be honest, is little better in the way of articulation. Oh, sure, he has joints... but they're not exactly well-executed, and don't offer much poseability.

But let's start at the beginning.