So, I did a thing...

I've mentioned before that Thew Adams is one of the few TransFormers YouTubers I can bear to watch, because of his (normally) quickfire reviews, canny avoidance of the frequently painful step-by-step demonstration of transformation and, perhaps most important, the plethora of puns and percipient portmanteaus that are as much his stock-in-trade as his enthusiasm for shape-shifting plastic robot toys. During one of his recent videos, he mentioned that his G1 Outback was knackered... and, since my iGear Mini Warriors Bushwhacker had been up on eBay for a while, I figured I could do worse than cancelling the listing and 'donating' it to Thew.

So imagine my delight, when tuning in to his latest "Dammit, Open!", I see that very figure unboxed on-screen - the very first item in the video.

And imagine my surprise when he actually seems to like it...

Seriously, though, I'm glad Bushwhacker has found an appreciative home... Though, honestly, seeing it smashed on a Knockoff Beatdown would, I think, be quite cathartic. I almost wish I'd sent him my decaptitated Leonidas now.

iGear Con Air Raptor Squadron IG-C02 Sky-Wind

Is this the last of them? Am I finally up to date on my Third Party G1 Seeker analogues? Weirdly, it's taken me about 15 months per Raptor to get iGear's sort-of-IDW-style Seekers out of the way, having bought them over two and a half years ago. It's a fine example of the one of the problems with having a G1 Seeker OCD, and feeling obliged to buy the same mold in three different colours: what more is there to say having already written about this mold twice?

Still, Sky-Wind is the Skywarp analogue, so at least you know you're about to see photos of the sexy black-and-purple version, and that has to count for something, right?

No box shots with this one either because there's so little difference between the three... So, without further ado...

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

iGear Con Air Raptor Squadron IG-C01 Star-Burst

IGear don't have the best reputation among the third parties (and, at the moment, seem to be entirely out of action) with some truly awful products in their back-catalogue, as well as some blatant rip-offs (specifically the customised Masterpiece Seekers which were 'acquired' by iGear for not-quite-mass production, and their 'Faith Leader', a downscaled MP01). As well as their (as far as I know) wholly original mini-bot remakes, they released a set of larger-scaled Seekers and Coneheads (designed by Cassy Sark, after Guido Guidi's updated Seeker design for the IDW comics) which were just as divisive as their other products.

Now I have a set of the Seekers, I honestly can't understand why...

iGear MW-08 Bushwhacker

I've heard mixed things about iGear generally, from the accusations of ripping off the work of others to the praise for their Masterpiece Seekers and Coneheads, and now they're producing their own line of G1 Mini Autobot homages, beginning with (Sea)Spray and Rager (aka Huffer), under the banner of 'Mini Warriors'. For the most part, the line wasn't of much interest to me - the models were OK, but not really as complex or as good-looking as the more recent mainstream releases, so they wouldn't be a particularly good fit for my Classics shelf.

However, strange things happen to me when I go to conventions and, faced with a small selection of iGear's newest additions to the line, I somehow felt compelled to pick up their homage to one of my favourite G1 models, Outback.