Cybertron Crumplezone

Much like Ransack/Gasket, Crumplezone/Landbullet was a toy I decided I didn't want or need - on import, at least - until I experienced the figure as pre-Beast Wars Optimus Primal in the Dawn of Future's Past boxed set from BotCon 2006. As its own figure, This toy looked ugly and poorly-proportioned, with a hideous pairing of muted, military green and eye-searingly bright acidic green, and the vehicle mode wasn't particularly exciting.

However, DoFP Optimus Primal worked really well, and showed me what a fun toy he was, so I ended up buying the Hasbro version on the cheap. Being one of the larger Cybertron/Galaxy Force figures, he features some electronics, but is that enough to redeem such a terrible colourscheme on so ugly a toy?

Cybertron Brakedown GTS

I noted in my writeup of Galaxy Force Autolander that he seemed to be a homage to Kup in his overall appearance, but that it took a repaint to make it more apparent... and here is that repaint!

 

I'm not sure I ever understood what the whole 'GTS' suffix thing was about (outside of allowing Hasbro to release repaints that weren't even new characters) but it certainly brought with it some interesting reuses of a variety of molds... at least some of which were better than the original.

But is Brakedown one of them..?

 

Cybertron Ransack

While the majority of my Galaxy Force/Cybertron collection is made up of Takara's version, there were a few toys that, to begin with at least, didn't exactly light my candle. I wasn't even watching the TV show (I don't know if it actually aired in the UK - probably only on satellite TV if it did), there was no investment in the characters, as such, so my purchases were entirely based on how I felt about the toys.

One such toy was Gasket, who just looked weird... But, having decided against importing him, I ended up buying his cheaper Hasbro analogue after acquiring the BotCon 2006 boxed set, 'Dawn of Futures Past', in which the mold had been repainted as a pre-Beast Wars Rattrap.

Cybertron Excellion

With the Unicron Trilogy, Hasbro started each chapter with character names reassigned from their existing pool of G1 names, where Takara (by and large) came up with new names for what were essentially new characters within the franchise. Thus, while Takara had Exillion as their Hot Rod analogue in Galaxy Force, Hasbro actually named the same character Hot Shot for their adaptation, Cybertron, since Hot Shot had appeared, in one form or another, in both Armada and Energon.

But this led to things getting a little convoluted... Because Takara released a G1 Hot Rod-inspired repaint of Exillion as part of a DVD set (much like Chromia White Version), and Hasbro decided to get in on the act by releasing a similar repaint in the western markets. However, with the name 'Hot Shot' already taken by their version of Exillion, they decided to turn him into a whole new character within their Cybertron continuity, named... Excellion.

Confused? Well, let's have a look at the toy, then...

Cybertron Override GTS

(Femme-Bot Friday #4)

Aside from the Revenge of the Fallen 'wheelsnakes', this is probably the most contentious inclusion in the femme-bot feature, because it's only the US version of the character, Override, who was a femme-bot - in Galaxy Force, Nitro Convoy was a dude.

I wasn't really enamoured of this mold, and only bought another version because it was a black repaint, and black repaints are cool. Honestly, I don't remember why I picked up this model when I already had that, other than the slight improvement over the clownish colourscheme of the original.

Galaxy Force Autolander

With all the obvious homages going on in the Galaxy Force/Cybertron line, some of the smaller, more subtle references slipped past. Autolander was particularly interesting because his homage to Kup - not obvious at first glance - was made more apparent by Brakedown GTS, a repaint in the later waves of Cybertron toys.

Galaxy Force Dark Nitro Convoy

The original form of Nitro Convoy (aka Override) didn't interest me much. Vehicle mode looked cool and all, but the colourscheme was completely over the top, tending toward clownish. The gold face of the Japanese version didn't help, but the orange face of the western release just sealed the deal. Plus, there's that much-vaunted 'auto-transform' gimmick, the spring-loaded likes of which frequently ruins an otherwise decent toy...

However, if it wasn't already apparent from this blog that I tend to think a black repaint covers the gravest of sins, it soon will be... possibly. TakaraTomy, in collaboration with Telemaga (TV Magazine), released Dark Nitro Convoy... somehow making an eminently avoidable toy become part of my collection...

Galaxy Force Exillion

As much as Galaxy Force paid homage to Generation 1, it also threw in a few curveballs. At some point, Hasbro stopped using the name Hot Rod and switched to Hot Shot in the Unicron Trilogy, saddling that name with a couple of terrible toys of stereotypically hot-headed characters 'with great potential'. TakaraTomy, meanwhile, used Hot Rod in its Micron Legend range, switched to Hot Shot for Superlink... then changed tack completely for Galaxy Force and came up with the name Exillion for their Hot Rod analogue.

In just about every way, it looks like it should be Hot Rod - it positively oozes G1 Hot Rod references and, in fact, for a limited edition packaged with a DVD, they even gave him G1 Hot Rod's colour scheme... and imaginatively named him 'Exillion Red Version'. Then Hasbro, in their wisdom, released their own red version of the mold they called 'Hot Shot'... and called it Excellion. Confused yet?

So, how does this miscoloured homage stack up?