TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2013 (Timelines) Thundercracker

One interesting byproduct of my acquisition of some BotCon boxed sets is that, once in a while, they introduced me to molds I'd not experienced from the main Hasbro toylines. One such example was Revenge of the Fallen Dirge, in the retooled and repainted form of Skywarp in the Machine Wars: Termination set from BotCon 2013.

While the figure from the extended movie universe didn't appeal - its interpretation of the 'Conehead' style looked pretty ugly to me - FunPub's idea of a Machine Wars Skywarp was very well executed, and showed that the mold itself was actually great... and, as a result, I decided to pick up the Thundercracker repaint. He was originally made available with yet another repaint of the Classics Mirage mold which FunPub had already used for the BotCon 2007 hologram figure - this time with a colourscheme taken from the original Machine Wars toy. Having no interest in that, I ended up buying Thundercracker separately, on the secondary market.

So, let's see how this version compares to the toy from the boxed set...

Studio Series #09 Thundercracker

Studio Series appears to present a certain element at Hasbro in a more experimental light. Traditionally, the mold used to make a Starscream would inevitably soon be used as either Skywarp, Thundercracker, or both, with remarkably few exceptions. Given the new, and largely pretty well-received Voyager class Starscream toy in the Studio Series line, one could be forgiven for expecting F-22 Seeker repaints from that, as we'd had from the Deluxe class Dark of the Moon toy and the original movie's Voyager class toy.

However, when a Thundercracker toy was revealed - without any rumours preceding the appearance of photos online - it had been made as a repaint of the awesome Nitro (Zeus) mold from The Last Knight. It's probably already quite apparent that I'm a fan of the mold - not least because I also bought the upscaled, upgraded Black Mamba version - so I was very keen to get my hands on him.

As luck would have it, he was originally released in the US as a Toys'R'Us exclusive, right around the time the toy retail giants were going into administration both in the US and the UK... so, fearing that I might lose out, I took to eBay, and picked him up for not much more than the £35 RRP. At the time, I was perfectly happy to pay over the odds, particularly on import, as I just didn't want to miss him and have to pay a ridiculous sum, tracking him down years later, on the secondary market...

...But of course, that proved not to be a problem, as I've been seeing him on the shelves of The Entertainer for months - not quite plentiful enough to be a shelfwarmer, but easily available... and at the reduced price of about £20.

Ah well, let's have a look at him...

Arms Micron (TF Prime) Thundercracker

I've often noted in this blog that the appearance of one of the Seekers in a TransFormers toyline will often lead to the appearance of the other two but, certainly in recent years, Hasbro has not followed this strategy quite so closely as they once did. Aside from oddities where Combiner Wars Thundercracker actually preceded CW Starscream and Skywarp, we tend to get a Starscream first, and then either a Thundercracker or a Skywarp from Hasbro (usually the former, it seems), while Takara Tomy will release the other as some sort of region-exclusive.

The TransFormers Prime toyline, being quite small due to the limited cast in the TV show, seemed like the ideal line to bolster with Starscream repaints, and yet the only ones we got were literally alternative Starscreams. Given that two versions of Starscream were created - the First Edition Deluxe and the mainline Voyager - it seems ridiculous in retrospect that Hasbro didn't turn either into Thundercracker or Skywarp...

...Thankfully, Takara Tomy wasted no time in producing the other two Seekers in their Arms Micron version of the line, repainting not only the Deluxe class figure, but also the Arms Micron mini-figure packaged with the toy.

Alternity A-04 Thundercracker (Sonic Blue)

The last of my Alternity purchases was actually in my collection not long after Starscream and Skywarp, and I really don't know why I didn't get to him back then (a little over eight years ago!), not least because Skywarp lacked the immediate, punchy impact of Starscream's stark, pearly white paint job and Thundercrackers icy blue.

There were further entries in the Alternity line after this, but they seemed to be nothing but repaints of a retooled Convoy under the 'Mission GT-R' banner, so I think I've got at least one of all the unique molds and won't be looking to get any more of these... Which means I'm actually closing off one part of my collection right at the start of the year!

Mastermind Creations Cyber Engine Knight Morpher KM-06 Stormer

It was always my intention to spread out my write-ups of Mastermind Creations' Knight Morpher Seekers simply to avoid the risk of monotony, writing about the same mold in three different colourschemes, but I'd hoped to get through more than one per year! At least this one is only eight months after the last, rather than the 21 months I left between the first two...

In any case, the Steampunk Thundercracker is the last of the set, and I think it's a shame Mastermind Creations haven't continued the Cyber Engine Knight Morpher subline, but Reformatted seems to be more generally appealing and, having now actually read Hearts of Steel... I think leaving it behind after the Seekers was probably for the best.

iGear Con Air Raptor Squadron IG-C03 Thunder-Wrath

It's been over a year since I picked up the three members of iGear's Raptor Squadron and, while I'd intended to get through them all in fairly quick succession, things haven't worked out that way... I guess part of the problem is that they are basically identical bar their colourschemes, making the exercise seem like a bit of a chore at times.

Nevertheless, let's have have a closer look, to see if there's anything special about iGear's vaguely IDW-style take on Thundercracker

Armada Thundercracker

Hasbro and Takara/Takara Tomy are an interesting pair of companies: they are ostensibly working on the same toyline in TransFormers, but frequently handle them in a very different way (and often with a very different story coming out the redubbing of the same TV series). One case in point - rather ancient now, being from a toyline that appeared 14 years ago - was the Decepticon jets in TransFormers Armada, where Takara Tomy introduced Starscream and had him later develop a 'Supermode', while Hasbro evidently took one look at Supermode Starscream and decided he looked sufficiently similar to G1 Thundercracker to turn him into a unique character for their version of the continuity...

Masterpiece Thundercracker

When Takara Tomy took a second look at the Masterpiece Seeker mold and released a new Starscream only four years after the divisive original, it was only natural for Hasbro to follow suit. MP03 is truly awesome, though not without its problems (many loathed the tail fins hanging off the hips, for example) and the remold seemed, on the surface, to fix all the major issues.

When Hasbro US released the new Seeker mold as Thundercracker, I had to consider carefully whether I wanted to pay secondary market prices for the original MP07 (currently between about £550-£800) or go for the cheaper, more convenient new mold. Toys'R'Us in the UK briefly had the new Masterpiece Thundercracker available to order online, but eventually dropped it in favour of Acid Storm... who isn't even a real G1 character. I could almost understand if Hasbro Europe released Sunstorm... but Acid Storm? Did he do anything other that warm the pegs and shelves as a Deluxe?

From that point on, the secondary market prices on the Hasbro US version started creeping up... so when I saw an eBay auction starting very much at the low end (£40 - amusingly still about double what I paid for Hasbro's MP Skywarp at Argos many years ago) I jumped right on it. Naturally, the price went up quickly, but I managed to win the auction at a price still nicely below the current average for a new, boxed one.

DotM Mechtech Thundercracker

I have to confess that, when I first heard that Starscream in the the Dark of the Moon toyline would be Deluxe Class, I was pretty disappointed. While the Voyager Class models from both the original movie and Revenge of the Fallen were flawed in their own ways, both were reasonable interpretations of some fairly impossible CGI. The closest version up to this point had been the largest, so how on Earth would they make a halfway decent version of the movie Seekers using a smaller scale?

Since I was perfectly happy with my Leader and Voyager Class models for Starscream, Hasbro attempted to trigger my Seeker OCD as they did with the first movie, by repainting this model as Thundercracker (while only Japan got a Skywarp out of this mold!). When I found him on the cheap in one of my local toyshops, I figured he was worth a try, if only to show some willing with the otherwise quite disappointing Dark of the Moon toyline.

Galaxy Force Thundercracker

Considering how much G1 referencing went on in Galaxy Force/Cybertron, it's worth noting that it wasn't so completely slavish that it gave us another set of Seekers all repainted from the same mold. In a somewhat surprising move, while Starscream got a Voyager-scale (or Supreme-scale in the US/UK) model of a futuristic/Cybertronian jet/spacecraft, Thundercracker - the only other Seeker to appear in the TV series - took a completely different form, was released in the Deluxe size class only... and wasn't even in his traditional colourscheme...

TransFormers (Movie) Thundercracker

In many ways, Generation 1 has a lot to answer for. In reusing one mold - the F-15 - so frequently, it has enabled obsessive-compulsive collectors, and forced them to repeatedly buy duplicates of other molds in later lines, just to complete their 'Seekers' sets.

In recent years, however, Hasbro and Takara Tomy have taken a different tack... a rather more sinister tack... Starscream is almost guaranteed to be in any new TransFormers line (the only one he's skipped is Beast Wars, and that's only if you don't include his spark-possession of Waspinator). After Starscream, however, you tend only to get either Skywarp or Thundercracker in the main line, with the other being some freakish exclusive. Sadly, the movie line was one such example of this villainy.