Perfect Effect Perfect Combiner PC-05 Combiner Upgrade Set G1 White Version

I honestly think Hasbro/Takara Tomy had the right idea in turning the Combiner Wars hands and feet into secondary weapons for the Deluxe class components of each team. After all, the G1 characters all had their secondary weapons, most of which had to be simply removed and set aside for gestalt mode, making them a bit of a waste of space.

By combining these secondary weapons with the hand and foot requirements of each gestalt, the became more efficient in design, and the potential was there for something very good.

Unfortunately the execution left a lot to be desired. The hands all had massive, protruding knuckledusters - theoretically quite cool and useful, but ugly and unwieldy in plastic form - while the feet ended up being far too small and, with no real ankle joint, they rarely presented a stable footprint. Together with frequently loose hip joints, they conspired to make the completed gestalt wobbly on his feet, and the poseable thumb/heel had no discernible benefit.

This is normally where the Third Parties step in, and so I was very pleased when Perfect Effect announced their 'Perfect Combiner' upgrade sets, which take the idea to a whole new level of brilliance.

Combiner Wars Superion

This being the toyline called 'Combiner Wars', of course there's more to it than just groups of individual Deluxes with a Voyager class team leader. These things do actually combine to form gestalt robots and, unlike Generation 1's diminutive combiners, the size class of the components involved means that the combined mode is pretty colossal by the standards of contemporary TransFormers toys - easily exceeding what now passes for Leader class.

But we all know these gestalts are big... are they actually any good?

Combiner Wars In-Hand

Now that I've got almost two complete Combiner Wars gestalts, but don't currently have time to photograph them all and write them up fully, I figured I may as well note down a few thoughts I've had on my experience of the line thusfar...

CW Silverbolt Addendum

Or

A Quick and Easy Modification to Silverbolt/Superion's Antennae,
being a Cheaper Alternative to a Third Party Head

I opened up Superion's head to look at how the antennae are attached, and found that they're both part of a single piece of painted rubber. This, no doubt, contributes to the difficulty in flipping them into place because there's not just the resistance from each individual antenna, but the drag caused by the piece linking them twisting rather than actually moving as well as rubbing against things inside the head. Having cut a chunk out of the rubber in the middle, I can report that the antennae - while still not perfectly willing to move into the proper place due to friction between the painted rubber and the plastic they're mounted in - are far more cooperative.

Superlink Superion

Just like the Generation 1 combiners of the mid-80s, the Energon/Superlink line brought us 5-strong teams of Autobots and Decepticons who could combine into even larger, mightier robots (frequently with personality disorders, courtesy of its components). Since the whole selling point of the Energon/Superlink Autobots was that they could combine, they only got one team - referencing the G1 Aerialbots - who combined to form Superion (known in the US/UK as Superion Maximus... because, obviously, it's a name that requires some kind of qualification)

To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the Energon/Superlink combiner teams, not least because I'd heard they were rather floppy... but, for my birthday one year, my workmates clubbed together money for a large bottle of rum (my drink of choice at the time) and £50 worth of tokens for Forbidden Planet.

The boxed set of Superlink Superion cost £51 at Forbidden Planet. You do the maths.