This guy. xD

 

Wait, does he still function?

 

Haha Not yet. His arm and head can collapse. Hopefully I'll finish building him tomorrow. Took me a second to get the hang of it and understand the Japanese instructions. xD

 

Jetfire in the glow of the morning light.

 

Wishing Megs a speedy recovery.

You’ve been a funny wee beast, haven’t you Power of the Primes. It’s been hard not to see the whole thing as a bit…non-commital. The line seems to have been built around getting Predaking, the Dinobots and the Terrorcons out. Everything else, from the random hodge podge of deluxe characters (like, why is Jazz there?), to only getting eight pretender shells gives off the sense that whole line has been a bit half arsed. There’s pelnty of potential reasons for this, from wanting to get on with the next trilogy (the first part of which looks AMAZING) to some tightening of the budgetary belt, but it all still feels a bit like a damp squib.

Which leads us to these exclusives.

In Combiner Wars and Titans Return we got some boxsets and extra releases that made perfect sense within the line. Computron, Victorion, and Liokaiser were welcome additions in my house and I know many people were thrilled for the G2 deco sets. In Titans Return we had two boxsets (out of four?) that gave us the clones and some much desired but rather obscure characters like Nautica, Quickswitch, Metalhawk, and Tidalwave. In Power of the Primes we get an individual figure celebrating each part of the Prime Wars trilogy.

So, not even it’s own dedicated set of exclusives.

Anyway, G1 Blast Off. I literally remember none of Blast Off’s appearances in the comic. Curse of the combiners, forever just background characters awkwardly inserted into a story. I’m sure he said something mean and Decepticon-y in the story where Prime blows himself up over his poor gaming ethics.

The G1 toy is probably on the of the better end of the combiner limb spectrum, despite being a green space shuttle. It’s a really neat alt mode. Simple but clear in the way the best ‘special team’ limbs were. The bot mode is pretty neat too, with a classically evil looking Decepticon facesculpt. The hands are VERY wweird though. But that’s pretty much the only areas I’d deduct a point.

Combiner Wars let itself down a little with some ill fitting repaints, with none of glaringly off model as Blast Off. Not only was he a fighter jet (which actually made him scale little bit better with his team, but only a little) but he didn’t even have the faceplate.

So awkwardly off model was CW Blast Off that Takara made thier own, brand new, mold that was much more faithful to the original animation model. Unfortunately the colours sucked and had a weird chest. So with PotP we get the best of both worlds; toy colours a nd animation model design.

It was funny coming back to a CW era design after seeing the PotP combiner limbs. When you compare PotP Jazz to Blast Off you see how they’ve refined some of the more awkward characteristics, like the gappy lower legs and flimsy little waists. Everything just seems that much more integrated with the PotP limbs. None of which is really a slight on Blast Off. He’s a really good figure with an excellent deco and that headsculpt is a mighty fine thing. I was never that bothered by the change from shuttle to jet, but the CW headsculptreally irritated me. I’m not that keen on the shuttle mode. It doesn’t really look like much of anything. Some wings and some rocket boosters on the back are the only things that really tell me it’s a shuttle. That cockpit is a bit of a mess, to my eye at least.

I can’t help but wonder how they’ll handle these boxsets and exclusives in the War for Cybertron tilogy. They’ve been great fuel for speculation and anticipation throughout the Prime Wars trilogy, and added tremenodus value to the individual lines, but it’s clear that they’ve had to reign in the ambitions from CW (six boxsets!) onwards. If we lose these extras altogether I’ll be rather sad.

 

Well, I wanted Decepticon repaints/ retools of the Aerialbots, and Power of the Primes delivered.



PotP Blackwing for today.

 

MISB

 

Shiny see through things.



All the best
Maz

 

Today's FToD goes to Sunstorm, who's chilling on my desk as I work  

 

Ratchet today

 

MP Dinobot

 

G2 Sureshot and Device Label Optimus Prime today...

 

Glyph and her bodyguard Tap-Out.

 

Amazing what a G1 weapon will do for a generations toy to differentiate it from a mould mate. (Ignore the chipped up desk top)

 

Starscream. But which Starscream? Hmmm...

 

Leader class movie Starscream....... Jk jk

 

RID2015 Warrior class Megatronus:

 

Studio Series Bumblebee:

 

I can never quite tell if I love or hate Wreck-Gar. My spoiled friend, the guy that got all the cool toys, loved Wreck-Gar. I think Simon Furman liked him a lot, or at the very least was really into the fun he could have with Wreck Gar’s speech patterns. And he seemed to get a fairly prominent part in any of the TF:Uk stories he turned up in. But I think he might have actually been an incredibly annoying character.

But I felt the peer pressure when I was little and somehow Wreck-Gar was a big deal. Sure he helped put Magnus back together, sure he fixed Bumblebee into Goldbug, sure he got his ‘tasche burnt by Quintesson guards but uh…was that it? Who cares? You could use him to get quotes from old TV programmes in. Done deal.

Alongside Rodimus Prime, Wreck Gar felt like the ’86 equivalent of a ‘Deluxe Autobot’; a little bit bigger than the other guys coming out, but not up at the top of the scale chart or price point. Ok, he was a motorbike. And Transforming Motorbikes were cool. There’s a reason that Groove was my favourite ‘Scramble City’ limb. But hey, here’s another hottake; Super Gobot Cy-Kill was a better bike-former than Wreck-Gar. Wreck-Gar even stole Cy-Kill’s design for the front wheel.

In bot mode Wreck-Gar has some nice features, like that nice chrome-y chest, and some nice arm articulation, but still manage to look a bit awkward. That helmet is so so so big. I know there’s probably not much more they could do within the limitations of the time, but it really looks so bulky. The fact his knees bend back also drives me a bit crazy. It’s not unknown in TF designs, but it always makes me wince. The big let down of the bike mode is those legs just sitting there looking like legs. Urk.

I came into collecting too late to get the Reveal the Shield figure and then was too put off by the scare stories about him to actually dare to pick one up. So for the last few years of CHUG collecting Wreck-Gar has been a gap I could have closed at any point. I guess it helps that John Barber didn’t actually bring him in until near the end of the IDW-verse. So of course when the PotP Wreck-Gar finally got leaked (this guy’s been a rumour since like, Combiner Wars?) I was all over it.

As if you didn’t already know, PotP Wreck Gar is a redo of Unite Warriors Groove. And frankly it’s a pretty poor fit for Wreck-Gar. Wreckgar had such a distinctive look, from his windshield head to his tit cannons and metallic engine chest, and PotP Wreck Gar has none of these features.

As bad as all that is, the fact that the ‘bot mode has such a tiny little pinhead is really the worst thing. I mean, it’s not a bad head mold by any stretch. It’s not amazing, but it certainly looks like Wreck Gar. But the rest of the body is so hideously generic that it looks like a random ’86 combiner limb.

Oh, yes. Right.

The bike mode isn’t awful. but it’s simply that the detail all seems have gone into windshield, lights and front wheel, with the rest of the bike seeming a bit bland and blocky. But the windsheild and lights are very pretty, so I really can’t totally write it off. Adding to the overall feeling of this being a cheap afterthought is the addition of a weapon accesory from the RtS Wreck Gar.

With the agenda of of the incoming WfC trilogy clearly being a reset I’ve felt a bit funny about updates of characters like Ultra Magnus and Springer, toys where I’ve felt the recent versions were superb and whom I wouldn’t wish to replace. Wreck Gar? I’m near praying at them to take a gimmick free stab at the dude. Turns out I like him enough to wish that for him.

 

MISB