War for Cybertron: Kingdom Blackarachnia

(Femme-Bot Friday #75)

A fitting follow-up to Big Firebird's inaugural entry into the 'sort-of-TransFormers-but-not-quite' market, since Beast Wars Blackarachnia was one of the first - if not the first - TransFormers TV show character to have blatant robo-tits, even though her toy was largely androgynous thanks to its original use as the male-coded Tarantulas. The TV show was able to better differentiate between the two Predacon arachnids, and the character designers clearly didn't want any ambiguity around her role as the Femme-Bot Fatale, giving her the proportions of a pin-up.

It's also interesting to see a mainline Blackarachnia toy so soon after the mostly well-received Masterpiece, since that figure's nigh-flawless robot mode came at the expense of a bulbous and hopelessly inaccurate beast mode.

What better way to begin, then, than by looking at how it's done with a Deluxe class toy?

War for Cybertron: Kingdom Optimus Primal

It surely goes to show what a terrible toy blogger I am that this will actually be the first Optimus Primal toy from my collection to get a post on this blog, despite having owned the original, Kenner-branded Beast Wars/Biocombat toy since I discovered it while idly browsing a department store in the mid-90s, and the Beast Wars Reborn version since its release in 2006. Problem is, either I never got round to photographing them, or I somehow lost the images at some point in the distant past. Right now, the original figure is in a cabinet I can't easily access, while the re-release is boxed up and in storage. Whether that works in the Kingdom toy's favour or not remains to be seen...

The original toy is still quite close to my heart, even though I only really bought it for a laugh and, at the time, found the idea of TransFormers turning into animals quite ridiculous. Frankly, I'm finding the G1/Beast Wars crossover that appears to be implied by the first two chapters of the Netflix show just as ridiculous, but at least some of the new toys are looking quite good.

So, as has almost become the tradition with this blog, let's look at the most recent interpretation of the Beast Wars Maximal leader, Optimus Primal.

G1 Protectobots/Defensor

Back in the days of Generation 1, I wasn't very successful in completing gestalt sets. I picked up all the Stunticons, Terrorcons, and all of Piranacon's limb-bots, but only acquired Snaptrap comparatively recently, on the secondary market, having already bought the Collectors' Club's boxed set back in 2008... On the Autobots' side, I didn't manage to obtain a full set of Protectobots, and didn't even start the Aerialbots or the Technobots.

Since I was closest to completing the Protectobots, I made a point of trying to obtain the two missing components - Streetwise and Hot Spot - as soon as it became practical. Both are reasonably easy to find on eBay, but the former is frequently broken, while the latter is normally missing some, if not all of his accessories - particularly the 'arms' for his base mode. I got lucky eventually, though, and even managed to get my hands on Streetwise complete with his packaging and a Hot Spot who was complete apart from missing stickers...

Still, Defensor is as good as complete, so let's now - finally - take a look at... The Protectobots!

2020 Retrospective

To say I wasn't looking forward to writing a summing up of this year would be an understatement. Not only has everything this year seemingly conspired to take the wind out of my sails but, most of the time, if felt as though there was precious little good to balance it all out.

Still, it's a tradition, even if I did let it slip last year. Time to get back on track...

On Femme-Bots and Fandoms

I mentioned in my post about Big Firebird Toy's debut TransFormers figure and Arcee-analogue, Nicee, that I'd started to write a long rant about various issues surrounding the figure, but that I removed it to keep the focus of that post on the figure rather than the reactions it generated...

 

However, it was rather a long post, and I'd kept adding to it over the course of a few weeks, so I figured I should save it and make it a post of its own.

 

After all, I can't very well call myself a Femme-Bot Fanatic without having a few opinions on the subject, right?

...And so, for better or worse, here is that post...

Big Firebird Toy EX-01 Nicee

(Femme-Bot Friday #74)

Because of course I was going to buy this. It's Femme-Bot Friday's raison d'être, innit?

Big Firebird Toy seem to have been around for quite some time, but only recently decided to join the TransFormers Third Party community, thrusting themselves into fans' awareness with a unique take on Arcee which set tongues wagging and tempers flaring from the earliest concept images. To call it 'divisive' or 'controversial' would be an understatement, considering the backlash some fans faced for daring to point out that its design was... shall we say... a little racy? This is, of course, nothing new... but while most G1-style Arcee toys are, to a greater or lesser degree, criticised for being action figures hiding inside vehicle shells which inevitably just fold up onto the robot's back, this one doesn't even try to conceal the fact. Quite the reverse - it practically celebrates taking the easy route, confident enough that the allure of Nicee's robot mode and its ability to adopt all manner of sexy poses will make up for any perceived shortfall in her vehicle mode or the complexity of her engineering.

All of which to say that it's difficult to talk about this model without, to an extent, taking a side in an ongoing discussion which has seen at least one 'fan' forum ban photographic images of said model... And, me being a self-styled Femme-Bot Fanatic, you can be pretty certain before we start that I'm broadly in favour of it. All that remains is the details and caveats.

The only other thing to note is that I considered - for quite some time - posting a write-up of this figure on my other (somewhat neglected) toy blog, treating it as something apart from the TransFormers brand... however, in the end, I decided that would be disingenuous... Instead, I'm going to ask my girlfriend to write her own post about Nicee. Never let it be said that I'm not open to cynical, gimmicky posts.