I am still bummed the west market never realesed a head pack like the Japanese did. Just in reverse, Japanese heads colored to match the west figures. I really wish I could have had a face for my Hardhead and I might have actually bought Brainstorm or Chromedome. I was waiting so patiently for that. Some say I am still waiting.

 

I like the head Takara Weirdwolf got much more than the one we got here in the US. Someday, maybe. Someday...

 

Perhaps you thought my time was up,
That all reviews were done.
If so, I fear you're misinformed;
There's one more left there, son.

A special 'bot (for me at least),
My first transformer toy.
Just three or four I would have been,
An innocent, undeserving boy.

This gift of G1 Wheelie was
To taunt me evermore.
A plastic piece of crap that should've
Been thrown right out the door.

But worse was yet to come, my friends.
For in the cartoon show,
His gimmick was to rhyme and sing,
With neither chill nor flow.

Wheelie was a hated 'bot
By fans both young and old.
A cap'ring fool who pissed us off
And left us feeling cold.

And then in the Headmasters anime he no longer rhymed everything, but instead just acted like a prick and a bully, constantly berating everyone and everything for no reason. AND they continued to partner him with Daniel, bad influence though he was. Why were we ever supposed to like him again?



So shitty toy and character too,
Why give a toss for Wheelie?
The answer came in Titans Return,
His toy was great! No, really!

A little one, just legends size,
But poseable in spades.
Wheelie looked the part at last,
Though without his visor-shade.

No weapon too, which was a shame,
But does it really matter?
It's Wheelie guys, he doesn't fight!
All he does is chatter!

But problems lay in transformation,
To turn him to a car.
For many the parts did not line up.
The tabs too loose by far.

I must confess my copy's fine.
But even here you see,
Huge panel lines all over him,
To take away my glee.



But best is yet to come, my friends!
For as a legends 'bot,
He holds a cavity there within,
For titan masters to squat.

I love this little gimmick too,
It makes them so much fun.
In Titans Return 'bots big and small,
Had pilots in their tum!

So does this all redeem the boy,
Who rhymes all night and day?
God no! He's still a little shit,
But here he gets to stay.

Since though he'll never be a one
With a dear place in our hearts,
Young Wheelie at least can now say
Here his redemption starts.

And thus my write-ups are now done,
Here with this rhyming stunt,
And a review of Wheelie no less,
That whiny little-

OH HEY THANKS FOR READING EVERYBODY!

 

I wonder how long this took to write..... have a like fine Sir for your effort

 

Oddly enough it only took about the same time as the other reviews. I'm not a great poet, but then this is a pretty simple rhyming scheme anyway.

 

I'm impressed

 

Yeah. That could have saved a lot of money.
Not even that third party company fixit studio did that.

 

It's really amazing.
That last picture of Wheelie looking through the window is really creepy by the way  

 

Rough and Tumble crowd.

 

'Meet the Wreckers...and get wrecked!'
From TF:UK#82 'Target:2006'

 

With Siege going strong currently, I go back to take another look at my Titans Return Blurr.



The color on this figure isn't for everyone, but frankly I'm fine with it. Despite being a bit on the overused side, it's still a pretty good mold with nice articulation, packed with nice transformation and robot mode.

 

Siege bullying Titans Return. It's not ok.
"Shrapnel dies instantly...turning him into a weapon I can use against Octane"
Impactor, you fucking bad-ass!
From TF:UK#82 'Target:2006'

 

Tank battle:




Didn't end well for Quake.

 

Very funny and then a great tank battle at the start!

Bat mode with closed wings and cockpit is very beautiful and dark lightning wins!

 

Let's talk about Decepticons for a moment. While the Autobots have really only ever had two leaders, and Rodimus Prime was quickly shuffled away and replaced with Optimus Prime again because of the tears of children, the Decepticon leadership has always been more fluid, and many different characters have taken on the mantle from time to time. The Watsonian explanation is that the Decepticon ranks are full of ambitious, power-hungry warlords all climbing on top of each other to claim power, but a more sober Doylist view is that the original leader Megatron was never quite the smash hit that his Autobot counterpart was. An awkward toy that very quickly became difficult to sell thanks to its realistic gun mode, and none of the Robo-Dad charms that Prime held, meant that Megatron's time in the limelight was limited.

All of which means that the Decepticons ended up with a far more interesting roster of lead characters than the Autobots ever managed. Let's start with the first major replacement for Megatron... Galvatron, aka Megatron-but-with-a-crown.


I think that the G1 cartoon failed Galvatron. Introduced in the 1986 movie with Leonard Nimoy's growliest of growl-voices and a mean streak half a parsec wide, he was a definite step up from Megatron in terms of ability and raw power. But when season 3 rolled around at the end of the year it was felt he needed to be taken down a peg or two, so his power was tempered with utter batshit insanity. Suddenly Galvatron wasn't quite as compelling a villain, as he constantly carried the potential to derail his own plans with a moment of manic screeching and shooting his own lackeys in a fit of rage. He fared better in the Marvel comic, where the insanity-ball was passed back and forth between him and Megatron, ultimately being a far more intimidating villain over its run. I get the feeling that Simon Furman hadn't really watched season 3 in any great detail, as his 2006-characters all seemed more in line with their movie portrayals than the series itself.

I never owned the Universe Galvatron mould, and confess I'm somewhat bemused by the bad reputation it's garnered over the years. It doesn't look bad at all in pictures, but even so, the Titans Return version was clearly going to be the definitive Galvatron for the ages... right?

Titans Return Galvatron is a great toy, the best Galvatron we've ever had from Hasbro, and a failure. That's a fascinating brew of good and bad all thrown into one, and somehow just adds to the underlying charm. The greatest sin is undoubtably the terrible attempt at Galvatron's three-spiked helmet design, relegated into an utterly hopeless pop-up mask. It looks awful from any angle other than straight on, and barely turns at all. It's all made worse by the poorly-hidden revelation that the original design featured a separate helmet that fit much more snugly. There's a bunch of options to rectify this, including 3D printed helmets from Shapeways and a more solid job from Toyhax. I've got my Galvatron modelling a G1-based Shapeways helmet, and it makes for a far, far greater look. As in, Galvatron can now look around.

The second problem is the perennial misunderstanding over where the arm-cannon should be placed. Takara, Hasbro, once and for all can you please make it a rule that arm guns should be in line with the back of the hand, not the thumb? The latter, which is TR Galvatron's default look, never looks anything other than utterly dorky. It's all because the G1 toy had the cannon in the same place (as with Megatron), but as soon as the animation teams got on it they quickly decided it had to go on the outside of the arm for the characters' dignity. Anyway, another Shapeways add-on fixes this, giving a new port for the cannon in the right place.

And it certainly is a mighty cannon. You can well argue that the original G1 toy's gun was a little bit on the skinny side, so TR goes all out making it a huge, day-glow murder-cigar. Any bigger and it would look absurd, but it just about stays on the right side of bonkers to work. Just. Either way, the cannon becomes the unavoidable key feature of the entire figure, dominating the look in every single mode. Along with the triple-horned crown, it's how you can tell that this is Galvatron.

So yeah, two key features of the character, and they managed to bork them both up. That's a failure right there, a failure on its own terms of engagement. It's like making a Hot Rod and forgetting to put any flame decals on there. Still, it's good to know that they can be fixed, and when you do... you get one hell of a toy. Galvatron is just so much more alive than his predecessor. Megatron looks like some tired, down-on-his luck colonel by comparison, but Galvatron gets a friggin' great crown. Much respect for the first real Emperor of Destruction.



The alt modes are about as good as you'd expect, i.e. they're fine. The space-artillery cannon mode is the traditional one, and does a good job of beefing up his firepower by making his entire body part of the weapon. It was always a more dependable alt mode than a tiny little handgun, but perhaps doesn't have the same pizzazz for the kids as artillery guns aren't exactly as in-vogue like they were in 1917, and Galvatron didn't look that much like one in the first place. But it's still fun. Along with this the handgun has been swapped out for a sort of space fighter thingy. It's not the best, essentially being Galvatron's legs being arranged funny and a cockpit swinging up over his shoulders, but thank god it exists. It's no good that your Deceptileader needs to constantly rely on his underlings to ferry him around, and means that Cyclonus doesn't have to grow to 10x the size every time his boss wants to climb inside to nip down to the shops. Get your own groceries, Galvatron! Anything that manages to do away with mass-shifting is a win in my book.

Like with Rodimus Prime, I do wish that the G1 cartoon had built up the confidence to really go for Galvatron and give him the arc he deserved. Imagine what would happen if in the first episode of a full season 4 Galvatron rocks up with his sanity fully restored, and the Autobots utterly bricking it. Instead he just faded away again, and never quite fulfilled his true potential as a character. We lost so much with the collapse of the cartoon at the end of season 3. At least we'll always have Marvel, Galvy.