Carwash day.

 

My figures of the Year.

 

Got some childhood favorites today! Too lazy to pull out the nice camera (and my camera flash is broken....) but here we are!

Generations Select Abominus with an Upgraded Scorponok! The gun is worth the asking price for set one

 

Chillin' after a day of bustin' Deceptichops.

 

It’s interesting how many of the ‘secondary’ group of Maximals seemed so much better balanced and competent than the team that Primal was saddled with at the start. You can almost imagine Rhinox wanting to maybe go off and form another team with Tigatron and Airazor.

And perhaps that why I never really connected with Airazor. Amongst the misfits she was just too…sensible. While I’m sure many would disagree, that possibly also highlights why Blackarachnia ultimately wound up being such an excellent fit for the Primal’s team.

The thing that sticks in my mind about Airazor’s cartoon appearances is the sheer body horror of she and Tigatron being merged against their will into Tigerhawk. Things like that always freaked me out when I was a kid. Vera getting turned into a robot in Superman III and the scene in TF:TM (to keep it on-topic) where Megatron is stripped of, in essence, his flesh, reduced to wireframe before being reborn a new person. Don’t even get me started on Hellraiser.

The original ‘Basic’ class Airazor is a thing of surprising joy. While the ‘bot mode is very simple, as you’d expect from this price point, it’s also a lot of fun and well-detailed. The head sculpt is characterful, the silhouette is strong, as is the colour scheme, and the articulation is amazing. Sure, maybe she’s carrying a little too much kibble to be able to hold the more dynamic and dramatic poses, but she’s still an incredibly expressive action figure. To this day, I struggle to think of another Transformer that has hip, knee AND thigh articulation (not an invitation. Please restrain yourself from listing other examples).

Solid as the bot mode is, the beast mode is the real star. It’s a ganrly little bird that has more articulation and features than a little transforming toy of a bird probably should. I mean,m it’s a bird. There shouldn’t be that much you can do with a bird toy. But Airazor does it all. And more.

All that leg articulation allows you to pose her in a variety of different ways, and she even has some beak articulation on that determined little face. The wing articulation is enhanced by the wing swinging action feature. And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s a flip-out pincer attack in the wings. Definitely a toy I’d give to a demanding child I’d want to keep out of my hair (I feel you, father!).

I’ve only got four of them, but I think the Basics BW figures may be the most fun. They just seem to get the value for money thing right (though possibly not if you’re buying through the aftermarket, I’ll admit). If I was a kid in 1996 I’ve no doubt that Airazor and Rattrap would be two of my go-to toys. Some of the Deluxes almost seem clunky and poorly designed in comparison to the Basics, at least in my eye.

So, I think Airazor might be the most accomplished of the Kingdom Deluxes. Ok, yes. There are some qualifiers in there. The Kingdom Deluxe range hasn’t wowed me this far, and my distance from the character make it hard for me to say this is my favourite (that’s going to be Huffer). So accomplished it is.

First of all, this is screen accurate in all the right ways. I look at this and see the character from the cartoon. If I hold it next to a screenshot I could find half a dozen things that aren’t accurate, but I don’t really understand why I’d want to do that. It looks utterly right, like MP Sideswipe did. Now, I don’t think this is any small feat. Airazor animation model has such a weird deco, with the purple face, the coloured helmet, and the black eyes with the green pupils. And they’ve absolutely nailed it and made it work ‘in the plastic’ in a way I wondered if they could.

They’ve also managed to make this an excellent, well balanced and articulated action figure. I spoke about how Dinobot and Inferno could manage high kicks, but I think Airazor may be the true ninja. in all the many poses I’ve posed this figure in they’ve managed to look incredibly natural. I really find this encouraging. If they manage to keep this up we may be entering a real golden era for Generations (possibly just as a I complete my collection).

And the final thing that really impresses me about his character in ‘bot mode is that none of the body mass has been sacrificed to give us well built wings taht can be fully extended or neatly compresed. It’s fantastic! Oh, and it doesn’t have a fake chest, where the actual piece of the alt mode that is meant to form the chest doen’t becasue that’d be too difficult. But we’ll return to Kingdom Tracks once he’s been released.

I even think the bird mode is one of the better beast modes in Kingdom, maybe not up there with Primal’s ape mode, but much better than the rest. Yes, it has the panelling issues that Dinobot and Megatron have had. but the form is so tight and compressed my eye isn’t drawn to it quite so much. I suppose I wish they’d gone for something that evoked that angrier looking toy bird headsculpt, but that’s trivial. I mean, have you seen how good those wings are?

My only real complaint about the figure is a QC one; I’m already starting to see stress marks on those wings. This isn’t a figure I’m going to be transforming often, if ever. There’s been QC problems with this line already, but I wondered if those were part of ‘first wave syndrome’. Now I’m starting to wonder if this is the cost of getting such slinky BW Deluxes.

 

I'm in love with this dude. Definite Mega Man X vibes happening here. He's totally rad.

 

When your new Optimus Prime figure looks more like the animation model than the animation model does..

Tried my hand at a poster type thing with him, seems to be doing the trick as more than a few people have thought this was a screengrab from the show  



Featured 'bot - threezero War For Cybertron DLX Optimus Prime. Digital arsing about - me.

 

This does put a smile on my face.

 

Yesterday’s date was likely a more fitting time to post this guy. Oh well.

 

Heroes must evolve.

 

I can still see T30 having more in common stylistic cues with animated with part placement

 

Redwing does more or less sport a deco similar to Armada Scream so... Hmmm...