Let’s take things back to a simpler, happier time: a few
weeks ago, before the world went crazy, and I attended the gathering of love
and frivolity known as TFCon Chicago. At that time, I was in full on hunt mode
for Wave 2 of the Titans Return Deluxe
figures, and had obtained all of them except for a certain vampire hypnotist
Decepticon.
Mindwipe is a character that has gotten some use in the US
fiction post-“Rebirth”/Headmasters,
playing a fairly large role in the Dreamwave The War Within comic’s second story arc, the one that delivered the
Fallen to the Transformers world. Along with Bludgeon and Bugly, Mindwipe was a
member of a strange Cybertronian black magic cult that brought the Fallen back
to this dimension, and what that would have meant long term we will never know,
because Dreamwave went under before the third arc of the comic was completed.
Mindwipe was also granted a fantastic Revenge
of the Fallen-era figure. But original Mindwipe was a Headmaster, partnered
with Vorath and capable of controlling the minds of his adversaries. Even as a
kid I loved the notion that the Decepticons employed a hypnotist, Mindwipes’
official combat designation, kind of on the same level of COBRA’s keeping Dr.
Mindbender around.
Deluxe Mindwipe here has a truly unique and exciting
transformation scheme, with the bat wings becoming the robot legs. OG Mindwipe
sported the bat wings as robot wings, but new school Mindwipe has a second set
of stunted wings that fill the need for robot wings. This large change to the
transformation makes Mindwipe the first of the Titans Return figures that doesn’t just update but maintain the
original G1 transformation pattern, and I think that’s pretty noteworthy. The
wings fold around the joint that ends up being the robot knee, and tab together
to form a closed leg. An interesting development, given the recent years-long
trend of hollow arms and legs. The wings are a rubbery plastic, sturdy enough
to hold folded up shape and to support the scant weight of the toy, but their
elasticity is definitely a point of concern for the future of the figure.
Nothing lasts forever, and one imagines that manufacturing practices and
chemistry have moved beyond the dreaded scourge of Gold Plastic Syndrome, so
that we ought to be confident in the longevity of our toys. But softer,
malleable plastics often grow brittle over time and conditions, and so
Mindwipe, or now, should tentatively be added to the roster of toys to keep an
eye on as the years roll by team. The small bat wings visible in robot are also
made of this softer plastic, and while they don’t move at all other than
rotating into place on the shoulders, they should be watched as well.
Also made from this softer plastic is the bat head, which is
a real disappointing feature of the toy. It’s very detailed and scary looking,
but it is just a large plastic blob that folds behind the robot butt. We may
recall the G1 Mindwipe bat head folded into the Headmaster cockpit, so it was
at least out of the way in robot mode; but in 2016 the bat head hangs off the
robot back and generally gets in the way. The Headmaster cockpit is generally
the same as on the G1 toy. Mindwipe comes with a blaster and a shield-claw
amalgamation, kind of like the Predator arm blades on a shield piece. It’s a
neat piece, but it attaches to the figure via a peg either held in the hand,
which doesn’t look good, or to the forearm, which looks real bad, because it
rides too high off of the arm and the peg is set so far back that the shield
claw juts way out in front of the hand. It also looks like it’s flimsily
attached, rather than being a sturdy accoutrement. This piece is also some kind
of tail for the bat, which is just ridiculous, as it doesn’t look like a tail
in the slightest bit. This piece is a real dud, in that it is practically
unusable in all of its intended formats. Unlike the larger Chromedome weapon,
which can be functional when properly held, the Mindwipe shield thing is just a
failure all around. A cool idea, but not a functional one. 
Bat mode ditches the G1 speakers in favor of a more
realistic bat look, downplaying the robot or technorganic features. Again the
bat head is a fairly realistic looking one, a far cry from the originals’
cartoony visage. The bat legs can be positioned in two different stances, and
each changes the overall profile of the figure. The legs can be arranged closer
together, making Mindwipe stand taller and look leaner overall, and I suppose
are supposed to look like a flying bat in terms of being slender and lean. The
second way allows the lowest tips of the wings to plug in to the bat legs,
making a unified wing to limb look, and I guess looking more like a stationary,
sitting or hanging bat. Wings unattached to the legs also allow for them to be
folded over the bat body, in the Dracula/vampire look. I don’t feel that either
leg stance is the better one; in fact, they both are good for what they allow
the figure to do. Bat mode in general looks better with the wings attached to
the squatter leg configuration, but then the bat itself looks kinda fat and
dumpy. The closer leg arrangement makes the figure look thinner and more
natural, but then the wings hang unattached at the sides. I miss the speakers
because I think that was a detail that made the original real unique and
different, and would have loved were it translated to the new version. 
The robot mode is slender and menacing looking, a very good
look for the character. He has that ninja/assassin/covert operative kind of
look going on, and I think that works terrifically for a character such as
Mindwipe. Titanmaster Vorath grants stealth ability, and looks like the
original head, which for the Decepticon Headmasters isn’t really saying that
much. The three Decepticon beasts didn’t have very noteworthy faces or
anything, whereas the Autobots were fairly recognizable, so the expectation bar
for the Titans Return iterations is
set pretty low. In general, the robot is poseable and everything, not having
any large parts getting in the way of moving parts like arms and legs. The bat
head does destabilize the figure a bit, making it slightly back heavy, and
since it doesn’t actually attach by any means it may eventually just swing
downward, or maybe it already will if you get a copy that doesn’t have the
tightest pins holding it on. The torso is not all that detailed, and the toy
loses some of its looks in its two tone black and purple paint scheme, but I
think it’s a good one overall. | |||
| I vant to be your faworite figure from Vave 2, but for some indiscernable reason, I am not. . . | . |
And yet, as I write this, I feel a sense of disappointment
with Mindwipe. This was one figure I was really, really looking forward to, and
was the last one I found from the wave. And maybe those factors caused me to
inflate the toy in my mind to a level that it couldn’t really reach, which
actually doesn’t happen to me that often. Maybe, given all the things that have
been going on in life over the last few weeks and the fact that I don’t
remember the last time I held the figure in my hands I can’t recall feeling
excited or entertained by it. I know that that was a problem I had writing on
Chromedome. Despite these figures cluttering my desk at home, and never being
far out of reach, I’ve been startlingly inattentive at home for the last few
months. Apparently though, the general opinion on Mindwipe is “good, but
missing something.” I think I have to agree. Mindwipe checks off all of the
right boxes for me, but something about him is keeping me from being really
excited about the figure. At least with Chromedome, I could call it mold fatigue
and move on; but Mindwipe is doing for me what I figures Skullcruncher would
do: provide a solid, likeable figure that just feelssomehow flat.
 |
| Team Picture |
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