Child Sized Coffin: Transformers: Combiner Wars Groove

"Never."

One thing that I absolutely love about toy-based fandoms is the quickness with which some members rush to yell from the highest mountains that a figure will never, ever be released because the producing company says that they aren’t releasing one right now. As an unrelated reminder, there is still plenty of time to decide which of the two Combiner Wars Computrons you want, and . . . . wait, is that a Deluxe class Combiner Wars Groove? As in, original G1 Protectobot Groove?

It certainly is. Preorders for it went up like a month ago, all from overseas dealers, as Groove is some kind of Asian exlcusive. Then, not long after that, news leaked that Hasbro would be releasing Groove domestically at some point in May, but orders for that have yet to go up online.

But Moby Richard, the Fandom said that there would never be one; they said that the gangly Legends class Groove was now the one and only Groove because Hasbro said so; they said that Rook was now a forever Protectobot, and that there would never be a Deluxe Groove for Combiner Wars Defensor. How can this Groove be?

They also said we’d never get a Slingshot or a Wildrider, and then when they were proven wrong, They said we’d never get those two in the US. And then They were wrong again. They say a lot of things, and they are usually never right.

Groove has always been the hilarious addition to the Protectobot team, a police motorcycle that was the same size as an ambulance and a helicopter. Groove was left out of Combiner Wars as a limb, but was reimagined as what is perhaps the best of the Legends members, serving as a pretty cool piece of chest armor for the combined form. Groove’s place on the big kid team was taken by Rook, who does an adequate job. But, Takara, being super invested in making their Unite Warriors line as G1 accurate as possible, created an entirely new figure, previously only available in the Unite Warriors Defensor box set, for Groove. It was inevitable that this Groove would eventually come out in the States. Inevitable. I typed that extra slowly, you know, for emphasis.

Groove has the scissor Aerialbot leg set up, where they split open and then clamp around the inner part, allowing him to be tall like a Deluxe yet compact as a motorcycle. The overall transformation is very simple, to and from each mode and each limb. The figure has a huge backpack piece, which is the front end of the motorcycle. It would seem that, even compared to the rest of the Combiner Wars line, Groove is overly simplified, perhaps a result of the pretty rapid development to production schedule this toy went through. He is basically a torso and combiner peg (a standard, ‘it could have come from anyone’ type set up) atop a set of modified Aerialbot legs with the windshield part stuck on his back. Every thing about this toy is simple, but I don’t know where complexity was supposed to be installed here. I think the best thing to say may be that he’s simple like the truck mold (Off Road, Trailbreaker, Ironhide et al) is, and that is about as simple a mold as the line has.

"He'd rather see his own Spark extinguished than harm another..."

The head sculpt is very nice, with a big piece of clear plastic on the back so as to maximize the lightpiping for the eyes. The weapons are also pretty cool: a pair of guns with red police lights on the tops, which peg into the sides of the motorcycle for added pipes and lights, giving the vehicle mode more of a real vehicle look, not just a clean, white bike. The hand foot gun is the one that comes with the helicopter figure, so it’s the dual chain gun one, and it can plug in to a hole on near the handlebars of the bike to make a total killing machine, riderless two wheeled cycle of destruction, perfect for the ultimate Cybertronian pacifist like Groove. The rear wheel of the bike splits apart and doesn’t fit together all that great, but it’s a small issue, as given a few seconds of fiddling, the wheel halves tab together fine. A few pegs on the insides of the halves would have certainly solved this issue, even as minor as it is.The front wheel of the bike will pivot frmo side to side a little bit, and the whole front windshield part spins 360 degrees around, so that, in robot mode, you can have the front tire sticking up from behind Groove's head.

Groove’s chest is a nice gold, but there is not a lot of color on the toy in general. He’s rather plain, and there is very little paint in bike mode, but he does fit in to the Protectobot color scheme of white and red well. He’s not any more dull looking than Rook, really, and Rook is about as plain a vehicle as there is.

Both arm and leg modes are good, solid limbs, with the arm probably being the superior configuration, because Groove is a much more slender figure than either Streetwise or First Aid, so he looks thin and weak as a leg opposite either of those two. Because the helicopter mold is slimmer in the forearm area, Groove looks better opposite Blades, even to the point that the windshield piece serves as a good balance for the rear of the helicopter part on Blades. This configuration gives Defensor a slightly more symmetrical look than the other combiners with the exception of Superion.

There will be opportunities to get Groove in the future, whenever the US orders for him open. This was even confirmed at Botcon a few weeks back, so if you missed out on the chance to get him from overseas, don’t worry. From pictures that have appeared on some of the boards, there are no real differences between this and domestic Groove. I got in on Robot Kingdom’s preorders for Groove, and at $22, this was a much better way to obtain one than going the Unite Warriors box set route. Also, this guy is going to be the base mold for both versions of Afterburner, so depending on which Computron you pursue you’ll be able to get the mold. You know, those Technobots that are never, ever coming out because Hasbro said they had no plans to release them. If you think about the prices of Transformers these days, $22 for this Deluxe is not really all that far off the $16-17 Deluxes are usually going for in stores right now, and I think Slingshot and Wildrider both went for $20 online due to their ‘exclusivity’ last summer.