Transformers: Titans Return Scourge

  

Rounding out Wave 1 of Titans Return is Scourge, another toy I was initially avoiding for reasons listed in my write up on Blur. A few weekends ago, my wife and I went to IKEA and bought new bookcases, and then stopped at a couple stores before heading home. One of them was a Toys R Us, and I grabbed both Blur and Scourge.

While I wound up being absolutely floored by Blur, Scourge is pretty good as well. It’s hard to not read that as some type of disinterest or similarly bland response, but it truly is not. Scourge has gotten some figures over the last ten or so years, most noteworthy being the good Universe 2.0 figure and the spectacular Titaniums version, which is probably the most accurate and overall best G1 Scourge update toy around. The Universe offering does away with the futurisitic/Cybertronian alt mode, opting for something more realistic in a flying wing, stealth bomber type of jet. Titans Return Scourge goes right for the original alt mode while pumping it up a bit here and there, making it less of a flying surf / ironing board/bar of soap/whatever and more of a space ship type thing if you squint at it.

One thing that keeps drawing my gaze with Scourge is the face. So far, this is the first time I’ve got a complaint about a Titanmasters’ face mode, but Fracas here, named after G1 Targetmaster Scourges' Targetmaster partner, I’ve got issue with. The Titanmaster itself is whatever, but the Scourge face is a more slender face than the other figures, and so the Titanmaster arms are clearly visible on the side of the Scourge face. It sort of makes Scourge look like he’s got big rabbit ears, and so far, this is the first Titanmaster that has taken the approach of keeping a slimmer face. I’m sure the face could have added larger sides, like a helmet, to cover the tiny robot arms and still look good. Fracas’ special ability is that he gives Scourge the ability to utilize whatever weapons he may find, a nebulous and vague ability to say the least. But overall, the face sculpt is super nice and Fracas has the same sliding head fin piece that Hyperfire has, giving Scourge that headpiece that he’s always had in the same way that Hyperfire does for Blur. All the things I’d said about it with Blur apply to Scourge as well.

Robot mode is nice but surprisingly uninspiring. Obviously G1 Scourge, like he stepped right out the 1986 movie, but not anything really extraordinary. I’m not a real Scourge fan, so my enthusiasm for a super accurate new version may not be very high, but there is nothing that I can say negatively about this figure in robot mode. Maybe, maybe, that the wings are on the small side: Scourge always had large, sprawling wings in robot mode and here, they are a little short and terminate in a straight line, rather than the bat wing-esque look of the original. I know that this is a feature that has never really been replicated in toy form, except for that Titanium figure which may have come closest, but the wings are a bit weak. They look good, and fall behind the shoulders and arms giving something of a cape-like appearance, so again, not a negative statement, but maybe something that would have been done better. The legs do the Voyager Galvatron thing of using panels to close the gaps huge gaps in robot mode, but this time, the panels cover the front of the legs rather than the rears as in Galvatrons’ case. More on these panels in the vehicle mode discussion. Overall the robot mode has some fine detail work and looks good, but also has a real puzzling flaw.

The wrists don’t lock in to place at all. At all. They flip out from the forearms, and then have essentially a 15 or 20 degree range of motion when in regular hand configuration. This means Scourge can hyper extend his wrist, as if he were bending it back to try and touch his forearm with his knuckles. This extreme of a movement is not at all possible, but it means the figure can hold his gun at odd angles from his wrist. I don’t know how difficult it would have been to incorporate a stopping piece or a tab or something into the forearm, but Hasbro certainly did not. While this is not a detriment to the toy, it is a confusing omission, to say the least. On the same notion of flaws, I might as well point this out as well: Scourge’s Titanmaster connection port is situated pretty high up in the robot torso, and so the Titanmaster tends to ‘bobblehead’ as the online community has taken to calling it. The Titanmaster fits just fine, and solidly too, but because the clip is seated so high up, there isn’t enough resistance in the joint and the head flops around a little on the Titanmaster neck. Again, not a terrible issue, but a first for my experience with the line. Once again, the weapon is lame, incorporating a seat for a Titanmaster figure to the detriment of the overall look of the accessory. But I have already discusses that enough, I think, in previous reviews.

The transformation is pretty nice, but nothing amazing. The robot wings fold around the torso to become the outer shell of the vehicle, some kind of space ship thing, as Scourge has always been. The cockpit is pretty cool, and seats the Titanmaster well. I’m still really enthused by the pilot thing here, and I think it has always been my one real irrational complaint with Transformers toys, ever since I was a kid: such cool vehicles, but why can’t any of the other toys pilot them? I remember playing as a kid and always being a little disappointed that G. I. Joes couldn’t control a vehicle mode Transformer; maybe not disappointed, because as long as I was having fun with my toys, I didn’t really care. I was always wishing that that could be done, I guess. That sounds a little better. Anyway, I’m really digging the Titanmaster as pilot thing in this line. 

Once again, the vehicle mode is a space ship of some kind. As for the leg flaps, Scourge does something with them that sort of makes up for them just being flaps that don’t go anywhere. The flaps just flip underneath the vehicle, and the ship rests on top of them if you put it down on a table. But, on the underside of these flaps are molded weapons in the form of twin blasters, giving Scourge a fearsome foursome of firepower options. Neat! I don’t think that this molded detail overcomes the fact that two pieces of the robot simply don’t go anywhere in vehicle mode, but this arrangement is much better than Galvatrons’, where the flaps simply fold under the alt mode and that’s it. Rather than become unstable, Scourge's chest provides some stability for the rear of the craft.

I like Scourge. I think this is a really good figure, and part of me feels a bit upset that I am not as enthused about it as I was about Blur. I think one unfortunate thing about the Scourge mold is that, while the skeleton of the figure is already being reused for Highbrow, there is probably no one that can be straight remade from Scourge, meaning that this will probably be the only use of the mold in this version. I have to repeat my sentiments from the Blur review for Scourge though: I don’t advise skipping this figure. I know that I was, for the longest, not at all interested in it, but much like Blur, I am glad that I bought it. I think that eventually, Wave 2 and 3 will start to show up at retail, and the Scourges and Blurs that are now so irritatingly prevalent will be squeezed out, so while it may be easy now to keep walking past them, you’re going to miss out. I’d say, if you have even a little interest in this figure, he’s a good pick up, and a cool and satisfying toy.