CHUG Appreciation Thread

Discussion in 'Transformers Toy Discussion' started by Scaleface, Feb 22, 2012.

  1. DocSeth81

    DocSeth81 Well-Known Member

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  2. barry

    barry Well worn member

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    Trench warfare part two.
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  3. Dachande

    Dachande MULTI-QUOTE- USE IT. Super Mod TFW2005 Supporter

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  4. roguesaint

    roguesaint Reconnaissance Expert

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  5. Murasame

    Murasame 村雨

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    Woah, that Scamper is awesome.
     
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  6. barry

    barry Well worn member

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    "Even after deca-cycles behind bars...Unmistakeable..."
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    "Permission to come aboard?"
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  7. smf2045

    smf2045 Aficionado of Combiners

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    Astro-force!

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  8. DocSeth81

    DocSeth81 Well-Known Member

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  9. barry

    barry Well worn member

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    Trench warfare part three. 'SMAK'
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  10. Imperator

    Imperator and he drove the fastest milk-cart in the west.

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    (Blueberry mango s)Whirl
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    People like to complain about Whirl's toys. Too short, too tall, too skinny, too bulky, too much like Alex Milne, not Milney enough, you get the idea. But here's the thing: who was even into Whirl before 2012? Absolutely no-one, that's who. And yeah yeah yeah, you're sat there grumbling "Well I knew him before he was in More than Meets the Eye." Yeah, you knew of him. But did you have any of his early albums? Did you see him at Glastonbury in 2011? Well?

    It's possible we're talking about different people.

    Whirl then. Don't underestimate his influence on modern Transformers storytelling, at least as far as IDW is concerned. See the problem is, with his G1 toy originating from a non-Takara toy company, he gets the sinister expressionless cyclops face like Shockwave. But with Shockwave it works - he's emotionless and logical, so a face that can't emote suits him just fine. Whirl's not like that, in fact his original bio was pretty clear on him being the exact opposite, an insane and ruthless bastard that just happens to be on the side of the good guys.

    So James Roberts had something to address. If the cyclops-face isn't tied to a lack of emotion, where does it come from? Enter Empurata, the process of removing the head and hands of its victim as a legally sanctioned punishment. Brr. But with this, the obvious clash of visual styles of Whirl and Shockwave with the rest of the bunch was rectified. Hurrah.

    I liked Whirl, which hardly makes me unique. Spend any time on Tumblr and you'll find he has a large fanbase quietly ignoring the fact that they're stanning (I think that's the word) an out-and-out murderer who's at least partly responsible for the entire civil war starting. Whirl may have a tragic past, but he's not the sweet misguided innocent that some people want to believe he is. He's a bad person who's done terrible things, and by the end of the series Whirl is in and out of jail. His redemption is not in his actions, but in his connection to others, especially his relationship with Cyclonus and Tailgate. I didn't massively aww for Drift and Ratchet, but I did for Whirl.

    Anyway, why this Whirl? It's not exactly the most popular of toys, being a redeco of Fall of Cybertron Vortex, and the FOC Combaticons have a contentious reputation as toys. But, ah, well, here y'see. a) The Vortex mould is one of the better of that lot and b) this way Whirl doesn't tower over Universe Cyclonus. Plus he gets this snazzy splash of mango-flavour orange paint all over him which really does brighten him up. There are problems, such as the weedy arms, the rotor blades that have nowhere to go and the great big combiner hand on show tucked into his leg, but it's worth the tradeoff for a raggedy orange kilt and tits that actually scowl. Who even needs a face on your head, eh Whirl?

    He doesn't make for a particularly great helicopter, especially thanks to an inability to sit on a flat surface. Yes, I get that on Cybertron he doesn't have much use for sitting around idle in alt mode, but when there's no flight stand hole to support him either he just ends up daftly flopping around the moment you set him down. Also, getting everything to clip together right can be a bit of a faff.

    Oh well, he's not for everyone, this Whirl, but he's definitely for me. He gets Vortex's bonkers swords as well as a huge spinny Gatling gun that has nowhere to go in helicopter mode, which is certainly a very Whirl move to pull, bringing more weapons to a fight than he could possibly ever use. Just don't leave him to his own devices, or he'll start shooting Moomins.

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  11. KraegorStark

    KraegorStark Well-Known Member

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    I'll admit I didn't have much interest in Whirl before the IDW comics, but the blueberry mango flavor was my first Whirl. It was actually one of the first toys I bought when I started collecting again. I restarted by picking up figures at Vintage Stock and my first purchases were FoC Whirl, Impactor, and Cybertron Defense Hotshot. I went through several molds on him, but I settled on the MMC version. It's from the Furman "ation" era, but it looks great on my Lost Light shelf.
     
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  12. Imperator

    Imperator and he drove the fastest milk-cart in the west.

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    Oh man, how I wished that that Impactor wasn't based on the crummy old Onslaught mould. I really dug his reverse colour scheme but the lacklustre base toy was never worthy. All moot now that the Siege Impactor is out, of course.
     
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  13. KraegorStark

    KraegorStark Well-Known Member

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    Agreed. At the time, I had just recently finished the Last Stand of the Wreckers, and I was pumped to have an Impactor. I just recently picked that toy back up for pics and, man, it's a stinker compared to all that followed.

    It wasn't until much later I read the wiki and realized the color scheme for the FoC Wreckers was an homage to the RiD Commandos.
     
  14. Onibaku_Rave

    Onibaku_Rave Posing is part of my religion

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  15. Cool Hand Lube

    Cool Hand Lube Well-Known Member

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  16. barry

    barry Well worn member

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    More LSotW love.
    "You think you're enjoying this, but you're not."
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  17. DocSeth81

    DocSeth81 Well-Known Member

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  18. barry

    barry Well worn member

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    Trench warfare pt.4. Heat Seeking missile to the back of the head for poor Hound. What a way to go.
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  19. Imperator

    Imperator and he drove the fastest milk-cart in the west.

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    Ambassador to the stars

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    Skids? Nah, yesterday's news. Now Crosscut on the other hand, he's a bot that's going places. Well, sorta. Okay, no. But just because he's not one of the big name megastars of More than Meets the Eye doesn't mean he's not worth a gander. Plus I don't own a Skids, so there's that.

    The original Diaclone toy that begat G1 Skids had a few variants, including a different headsculpt. This never got a release in the 80s, though Takara did do a cheeky 'reissue' of it in 2002, with a silver paint job and a bio describing him as Autobot Ambassador IN SPAAAACE because it's Japan and they don't do subtle. The move to IDW made him a former senator turned playwright who had also served in the war and done something heroic with a shovel, and.... that's a pretty long CV already isn't it?

    I mean, I get it, these are long-lived people, but it's not like you see the multifarious career paths of people like Rumble or Nightbeat. They have one thing and they stick to it. Occasionally you get some that have had a proper job before the war and had to give it up when it all kicked off (Tracks, Needlenose) but this guy's an ambassador-politician-playwright-soldier and that just makes you wonder if superhero Skids was really the one we should have been paying attention to. Is Crosscut secretly the most accomplished Autobot in existence?

    Well, no. It's Thunderclash, obviously. Followed by Countdown. Come on.

    And on top of that, since Crosscut's Thrilling 30 toy is a short-walk redeco of Skids, he comes with all the Alex Milne glow-up additions that Skids carried. The wrist-blasters, shoulder missiles, neck-mounted artillery, and two guns to be combined into one bigger gun. It made more sense with Skids when you found out he was able to pick up new combat techniques in an instant and needed to arm himself to keep up with it all and help out with his super-secret secret-agent business, but Crosscut? Give the guy a shovel and be done with it.

    It's not the best toy though. The transformation is fiddly due to parts not having adequate clearance to move past each other, and in robot mode his feet are placed too far forward, so he has a chronic habit of topping back. Possibility is hampered in the shoulders by an inability to move outward very far (much like Slicer) and often he looks like he's huddling himself up with his arms tightly hugged to his sides.

    It is nice to see a hatchback in the Autobot ranks though. We get so many sports cars and massive American 4x4s that it's refreshing to see a two-door city car that you wouldn't even blink at if you saw it pottering along a back road somewhere on the continent, boot all laden with bags from The Big Weekly Shop at the nearest Carrefour. Compared to Skids's boy-racer getup and his even more garish rally deco for that Age of Extinction redeco nobody saw and nobody bought Crosscut is a nice, gentle change of pace. A cup of tea and Radio 4 sort of bot, rather than Red Bull and Soundcloud R&B. Still, he's obviously got a little bit of a wild side, with the Delorean-style wing doors cheekily complimenting his silver paint job. Great Scott!

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  20. smf2045

    smf2045 Aficionado of Combiners

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    "Argh! My T-cog is malfunctioning! I can't get the mass from my subspace bubble to enlarge! Take off, Springer! Take off!"

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    "Oh, that's why this flight deck seemed kinda small!"
     
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