The last few reviews I’ve done have been focusing on characters I’ve liked since I first discovered the Transformers franchise, aka Megatron, Shockwave, Soundwave, and Starscream. Cyclonus is a somewhat more recent favourite. I’ve always like his design, but something about the James Roberts More Than Meets the Eye version of the character made me start going out of my way for Cyclonus toys. Even going so far as to order a 3rd party version of the character. As one of the breakout characters from the series, it’s great to have a representation of this version of Cyclonus. Pity the toy ain’t that great of a representation. Boreas comes from Mastermind Creations and is there quasi-sorta Masterpiece interpretation of the character. And well, he’s kind of a weird one. See Mastermind Creations, instead of strictly adhering to a specific G1 aesthetic of their characters, tries to put their own spin on characters. It sometimes works and doesn’t. Case in point, their Terminus Hexatron, aka Masterpiece-esque Sixshot, is a great figure. The over the top details works really well for that guy and he is one of my favourite figures. ANY WAY, here on Boreas…well it doesn’t really work with his normal head. See I modded figure because the default head has a very G1 head which also has two horns. And quite frankly it looks kinda plain and just doesn’t go with this arguably over-designed body. On the other hand, the alternative IDW V1 head looks better, but only comes with one horn, which makes it look just off. I know this was the look Cyclonus sported for a good while in the comics, but neither “normal” head looked right to me. Please see these images by Starcream’s Toast over at Gear4Geeks for his review on behalf of Kapow Toys for what I mean, cos I couldn’t be bothered digging out the normal head from the box. Essentially I had to disassemble the heads, cut some plastic away to allow me to replace the faces, and it works so much better like this for me. The samurai/daemon head works far better and should have been the default version if you ask me. Hell, his hands are even sculpted as claws like in the comics! Considering the large amount of detailing and the bloody comics sword he comes with, I honestly feel this was designed to be an IDW Cyclonus and then they bunged the G1 head on for…reasons? He just looks so much better when modded. Now that we have his face sorted out, let’s talk about the rest of the figure. From the front, he looks good. He’s tall, lanky and slightly alien. I know the sci-fi greebles and detail won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it works for him. I just wish he was a deeper shade of purple. While the light blue/purple he has going on here is fine, I just prefer a slightly darker breed of resurrected Seeker/Insecticon corpse. However, problems start at his shoulders, which are just badly designed. They move down the body during transformation, but they don’t actually lock in for robot mode, meaning they feel loose and can make posing a pain. They do have some nubs and recesses to help this, but they don’t work very well. The shoulders also have a tendency to be blocked by his head and backpack, depending on the angle. Speaking of which, I’m also not a fan of his back, mainly because there’s no way to have his wings folded outwards and not make it look kinda daft. The closest I can get is to have them like I do here, set out flat and pointing up. Meanwhile, the “official” way is to have them pointing down. You can also store the sword on his back thanks to magnets, which is nice To be blunt, the backpack reminds me of every single version of Silverbolt, aka a robot that wears a jet on his back. But without the excuse of being a combiner torso. Articulation wise he is very good, featuring everything from rotating wrist, double bends at his knees and elbows, (slight) ankle tilts, bicep swivels etc. Throw his included Sword int the mix and you can get some good sword fighting/fencing poses. Perfect for dated jokes. There is ONE big pitfall of one point of articulation, but we’ll get to that after we have a look at the jet mode which is beautiful but fraught with danger. The jet mode looks sleek and dangerous and is one of my favourite things about the toy. He takes the tall lanky nature of Boreas and kinda squashes it out to give him an impressive wingspan. The colours work and then you get stuff like his knees becoming jet boosters and it’s lovely. However, despite it being one of my favourite things about the toy, I always have a knot in my stomach when transforming him, because THIS is where the fairly well-known problem with this toy and its other versions (Death’s Head and Lockdown) comes up. His waist snaps like a Kit Kat. This is actually my second toy. As the waist on mine broke within a day of owning it. The guys at Kapow swapped it with no hassle but this is where I found out this is a known issue with the toy. Basically, when you transform him the legs end up on top and tab into the fuselage. HOWEVER, if you don’t do it 100% correct you cause an issue where the legs pull on the tiny fucking waist joint and after maybe 5 transformations it’s just gonna snap the waist and then you have two halves of a Cyclonus and a dent in your bank account. So, you have a few choices. Practice getting it 100% right, only for the thing to break anyway, never transform him, or miss-transform him slightly so that the legs don’t fold fully and don’t sit 100% flush with the fuselage and cause the boosters on his knee to point down slightly. The latter is the least bad option as seen in the pics. This guy actually turned me off Mastermind Creations other stuff, as I don’t want to pay a large amount of cash for something to just break. He’s also kind of indicative of criticism of MMC I’ve seen pop up every now and then. They seem to focus on making a mould then making it into as many characters as possible, rather than making a good mould itself. That kind of philosophy can lead to things like missing these big problems with the waist. I mean, repaints are fine and all, but you gotta make sure the thing works. Still, despite all the issues and having to do some work to get him looking “right,” I do find myself liking Boreas. But I must stress you gotta be careful with this bugger. That said he’s still easier to get a hold of than the Maketoys Tailgate that came with a kit that made your deluxe Generations Cyclonus an IDW one. And you can get him for roughly the same price. I got mine from Kapow Toys for less than £60 in a sale, but I wouldn’t say he’s worth more than that. For those that have the extra cash you’ve also got FansToys Quietus with its accessories to make him the comics version if you so choose, but if your budget doesn’t stretch that far this guy could probably fill that space in your collection. Basically, Boreas is for people who like Porsches but buy the Boxster cos they can’t afford or don’t want to put the money down for the 911.
Great review. I looked past all the faults on this figure, except the shoulders. On a side note, which version of Hexatron is that? Is it the clonedroid version?
Just wanted to jump in to verify the OP's warning about the waist on this mold and it's variants – I just got my hands on copies of Boreas and Jaegertron, and Jaegertron's waist tore itself apart on the first transformation. I couldn't find anywhere else outside of this review that mentioned it being a problem, but nevertheless I was very careful – I was aware it might be ab issue, and I followed along with the official transformation video. I'm very surprised that nobody else reported experiencing breakage, because the waist mushroom peg is tiny. The post is maybe 3 - 4 mm in diameter, skinnier for sure than a 5 mm peg. I straight up cut off the tabs on my copy of Boreas that the feet are supposed to peg into and that seems to have avoided the issue with him. But it's scary just how fragile it seems to be.
