Optimus Prime and Jefire, MISB.

 

Combiner Wars Tarantalus for today... all thanks to Perfect Effect  

 

Tiny Derpy Turbo Changer Hound.

 

RID Soundwave:

 

UW Combaticons. Again.

Is it wrong that I kind of love Brawl?

 

Same here! This guy is just all sorts of awesome!

 

Soundwave for the win!  

 

Beast Wars Neo Big Convoy for today:

 

Combiner Wars Rook today.

 

Going with my TF spirit animal today... (CW)Dead End

 

You, sir, are a damned evil enabler. Keep up the good work!   Some of these RID figures are annoyingly tempting.

I wish that I had seen the actual Bludgeon toy but this hilariously thin attempt at making an Autobot out of this mould was too good to pass up today. I wish that there was an official figure that turned into the Metal Slug so that we could have the worlds cuddliest tank battle.

  The second best G2 release after Laser Optimus Prime. I definitely need to get the Tokyo Toy Show set to go with mine.

I've never wanted any Unicron Trilogy figures before but I read the TFWiki articles after seeing this.

Damn you.  


I'm not sure if I can choose between the worlds most adorable psychopath/alleged Autobot skeleton fetishist and the 9 year old (formerly)MISB Movie Voyager with ball jointed hands that cost me $10 less than the brand new movie Voyager Prime without articulated hands.  

Actually it has to be First Strike Optimus. The G1 colour Alt-mode is sweet but the little pop out Peter Cullen in the cab just kills me. I literally needed this figure.

 

Good old Defensor. Definitely my favourite combiner when I was a kid,

I'm almost embarrassed to show my G1 Chromedome on here. I've never been a 'mint' collector. My toys weren't pristine when I was a kid so I don't feel the urge to have a super perfect collection as an adult. My itch usually seems to get scratched at the point where the toy can be displayed, preferably with the other characters that I associate them with. In this instance having a Chromedome that looks fine from the front and stands well with his other 'Steelhaven' crew mates is enough.

But man, like I say...almost embarrassing. He's had his window smashed in (rough neighbourhood) and old Stylor is missing an arm. He doesn't have his, admittedly quite cool looking, guns. He's yellowed, but it's hard to actually notice that with his horrid colour scheme that makes him look like a 1970's suburban kitchen. What were the thinking? Well, fond thoughts about their mum's cooking most likely.

I want to like the car, I really do. It has that sort of Pontiac style head lights that I loved as a kid and it's kind of sleek and realistic. But only kind of. It's boxy and kidified without the charm that other late era G1 cars, like Nightbeat, managed to pull off.

I went on at length about Highbrow's excellent proportions. Looking at Chromedome they seem even better. I never mentioned it in the review I do like the way he winds up with some shoulder due to the way the bit his propellors attach to (I'm sure there's a better expression but I'll leave that for the Helicopter engineers) sit above his torso. Chromedome looks slope shouldered. Like that incredibly skinny gawkwy kid that always seems to be wearing a shirt far too big for him. And his arms. Those stubby little arms. They don't even have the little wrist flip that the others do. Just dull up and down at the shoulder. The transformation sequence is probably the most simplistic of these four classic Headmasters.

My final grumble is the head, and the grumble is less about Chromedome than it is about a design choice that crops up on a few of the '87 Headmasters; His visor being part of that flip down panel. I hate it. I'm visually repulsed by it. On any bots. Hardhead is another great offender. For a long time I thought his eyes were beneath the visor so it always just looked...so wrong. A paint app would have solved this, I admit, but that didn't happen. It'd be melodramatic to say that it spoils these Headmasters but with a figure that's already got a lot going against him it certainly doesn't help.

After this his Titans Return figure is kind of a joy and triumph. He looks fantastic. So much so I even forgive the aforementioned 70's suburban kitchen colour scheme. His proportions are fantastic, with a broad chest and distinct shoulders. He's got all the great articulation going on, waist, shoulder, bicep, knee, etc, so he's lovely and pose able without ever losing the sense of his silhouette as you sometimes get with some of the more contortable 'bots. Of course he's not perfect. He has many of the mildly irritating compromises that come with the Deluxe price point, like a certain hollowness to his arms and legs. Speaking of his legs a lot was made about Chromedome reusing the tooling from CW Deadend, with some saying early on that it was a straight up re-use. Now, I hated Deadend's legs with a passion. they don't function well as legs or as a combiner wrist. Chromedome's legs, while maybe taking some design cues from Deadend, are thier own thing. they seal up nicely and have solid, sturdy feet. I can't say that about Deadend.

The car mode is pretty neat, although the colour scheme grates more here, but I hate that roof/cockpit. It's a fiddly nuisance that rarely tabs it neatly. I'm never quite sure how I feel about the translucent wheels. On one hand I think they look cool. On the other I think the execution is cheap.

I LOVE his headsculpt. That blue visor makes all the difference, and as a big fan of the MTMTE/LL character it's a thrill to see his likeness captured so well here. For me Chromedome has been one of the standout characters of James Roberts run. Perhaps more than many of the other characters he's seemed like a real person; a nice guy, troubled, made some seriously stupid mistakes in his past and now carries around a slightly dubious moral outlook, desperate for validation through a partner and equal parts irritated and fawning in the relationship. I'm a massive fan of that relationship with Rewind and MTMTE #16 is one of my favourite issues of the series, if not comics in general. I talk about Furman a lot in these reviews, as he was the sun that all other aspects of my fandom orbited around, but it's Roberts work on MTMTE that is to 'blame' for me being an adult collector. I chanced about the 2nd part of Shadowplay at a low point and fell deeply in love with Transformers all over again. Hats off to James Roberts.

 

Dia-Battles V2 Cosmo Maneuver type...I didn't think the original DB could be improved upon to this degree, but holy pants, this thing is astonishingly nice and there is SO much to do and explore.



All the best
Maz

 

Bruticus

 

Today I cheat again. Yeah yeah I know... But what can I say ? My favorite is my TR Deluxes collection.
Urgh, still missing Convobat, but those things are like with my favorite things ever.

 

CW Bombshell

 

G1 Grapple today.

 

Titans Return Krok for today.

 

Cool Superion hands!!!