Studio Series Core class Concept Art Rumble

Core class looks, for all the world, like it should be a line of pocket-money toys. They're small, they're basic... Similar to the Mini Autobots from Generation 1, but with better articulation. Unfortunately, the £13/£14 UK RRP means they're too expensive to be considered true pocket-money toys... quite apart from being far too expensive for what you're actually getting.

The figure chosen to debut Core class in the Studio Series line was Bumblebee movie Shockwave - a truly baffling choice - which came out four years after the Bumblebee movie, and two years before the Voyager class toy. In some respects, it was also better articulated than the larger version. Some might say that alone made him worth the price - perhaps even better value-for-money than the Voyager - but his 'vehicle' mode was almost identical in structure to the TransFormers Prime version of Shockwave, which wasn't exactly inspiring. There had been no concept art for Shockwave's vehicle mode, theoretically giving the designers carte blanche to create something unique. The other figure in the first wave was Ravage which, arguably, should have been included with SS #83 Soundwave, so it's no surprise that Hasbro would later decide to create more minions for Soundwave, given they're now mining the archives for concept art.

Rumble is an obvious choice, considering his popularity and the frequency of his appearances in the G1 cartoon, and the fact that both he and Frenzy have come along in almost every recent toyline, including War For Cybertron, Studio Series '86 and Legacy, essentially all being Core class, or the closest equivalent in that line... These have all been rather lacklustre, though, so let's find out if the Core class Studio Series Concept Art Rumble breaks this pattern.

War for Cybertron: Siege Soundwave Spy Patrol #2

It can hardly be disputed that the War for Cybertron toyline took a lot of its cues from Generation 1. The whole thing was pitched as (yet another) reboot of the very origins of TransFormers, but set in the time before Optimus Prime led the Autobots away from their home planet. More than that, though, the line saw the reintroduction - much to my chagrin - of the Micromaster size class along with the continued downsizing of toys in the existing Leader, Voyager and Deluxe pricepoints. While the Voyager class Soundwave wasn't packaged with any Micromasters, Hasbro's strategy of releasing them as 2-packs neatly mirrored not only the G1 Micromasters, but the card-backed releases of the original Cassetticons.

The only Micromasters I bothered picking up initially were Laserbeak and Ravage, comprising the original 'Soundwave Spy Patrol' set, but when a second Spy Patrol later emerged, featuring Rumble and Ratbat, I had that awful, sinking feeling that I was about to part with some money to obtain another pair of sub-par remakes of G1 classics. Strangely, this proved not to be the case initially, since the second Spy Patrol set seemed to sell out everywhere, almost instantly... There were sources overseas, but I didn't feel like paying over the odds and then risking import fees...

 

Cut to almost two years later, when I found a UK-based eBay seller offering them at a reasonable price. No need to ask what happened next, right?

Masterpiece Cassetticons: Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage & Laserbeak

Way back in July 2014, when I decided to write about the Masterpiece Soundwave set in three parts - based on the way he was packaged in G1 and according to the split Takara Tomy releases - I figured I was being terribly clever, and honestly thought I'd get to the remainder of the minions a bit sooner than this. Then again, there's not much to them, so they're fairly easily dismissed considering some of the drafts I've had lying around in Blogger for substantially longer.

Still, I figure it's about time to get on to them but, rather than split them into two further posts, I've decided to lump them all together in one, just for (my) convenience.

And, just so there are no surprises, the characters are named per their G1 toys rather than the G1 TV show, so Rumble is the red/black one. I don't care about the arguments - to me, the toyline (and Bob Budiansky's bios) are correctly assigned (though I concede that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's bios were switched, most likely because their Diaclone colourschemes were switched). Others are free to name them as they see fit...

TransFormers United 2-pack: UN-20 Rumble & Frenzy

If there's one thing I find frustrating and disappointing about the TransFormers brand, it's the reliance on tanks to solve just about any issue with updating a character's form. Megatron can't be a gun anymore because gun toys are considered more dangerous and contentious in America than real guns? Make him a tank. Shockwave can't be a space gun anymore because space guns are still guns? Make him a space tank.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so fussy about a toyline which is still, let's face it, predominantly made up of cars... but surely there are better updates to contentious G1 alternate modes than tanks?

And yet, just because the extended Classics line had no Soundwave of its own (despite there being a sort of contemporary figure in one of Takara Tomy's short-lived offshoot lines), two of his more enduring minions appeared in somewhat familiar and sadly unimaginative forms...

TransFormers: Prime Rumble

If the first live action movie was notable for its plethora of toys created from either otherwise unused concept art and designs from the associated videogame, it certainly wasn't unique in doing so. Granted, a lot of new 'characters' have been simple repaints of existing toys (with remolded parts in some cases, like TF Prime Hot Shot) but there have been occasions where an entirely new character has been created with no obvious explanation.

Considering how small the character roster in TF Prime actually was (fewer than ten individuals on each side!), it's both surprising and disappointing that Hasbro didn't add more toys into the mix, but one of the few wholly unique characters they did bring in was a complete re-imagining of one of G1 Soundwave's minions, Rumble

Galaxy Force Ramble Drones

When I first got back into TransFormers, Galaxy Force was pretty much the perfect toyline for me, combining nostalgic character references with bold new designs and levels of articulation that just hadn't been possible when I first encountered the toy line back in the 80s.

While some homages were more obvious than others, the toy designers didn't shy away from taking things in unexpected directions, and some references were broader than others. Soundwave's design came across as a fairly logical extrapolation of the G1 character, except that he only had one minion.

Or did he? Technically, the Ramble drones were nothing to do with GF Soundwave, coming across more like evolved Scraplets, and the fact that their name was romanised to 'Ramble' rather than 'Rumble' seemed to confirm that these weren't intended to be a homage to G1 Rumble (and Frenzy), but that seems to be just a symptom of poor translation.

Alternators Rumble

OK, so the whole point of the Binaltech/Alternators line was to update some of the characters from Generation 1 using contemporary performance cars... So... where did it all go wrong? I mean, let's face it, Rumble - the Decepticons' diminutive street punk, and one of the last Alternators to ever be produced - is hardly a fitting match for the Honda Civic, is he? First of all, the car is in nothing like the same league as the Chevrolet Corvette, the Dodge Viper, or even the Subaru Impreza. OK, the Toyota dB isn't exactly King of the Street Racers either, but at least it was in keeping with the Generation 1 character of Skids, the Autobot Theoretician, who was originally a Honda City Turbo. And the Alternators release of Skids had a customised 'flaming wheel' paint job to make it look more impressive... whereas this...