Heavy Labor is the TFC Toys version of G1 Constructicon Long
Haul, and he just may be my favorite member of the team individually. The toy,
not necessarily the character; that distinction belongs to another, and I have
no doubts that stories about him will surface when we finally get to him. But
that’s for another time, and now is the time for Heavy Labor.
The Constructicons have a complicated history in the lore of
the Transformers franchise. They were either created by Megatron, or a set of
six brilliant engineers who go back to the pre-war days on Cybertron, or are
deranged sadists, or a group of wild masochists so devoted to either the war
effort or the spirit of discovery that they experimented on themselves to
develop combiner technology. Long Haul is the second of the team sad sacks,
along with Scavenger, and he hates his general role of materials transport. He
is typically, whenever it is convenient to show the Constructicons in different sizes, the largest of the six, and
has the ignoble distinction of transforming into a crotch for Devastator. All
the dirty jobs, huh?
The second released figure in the set, Heavy Labor is, like
Exgraver, a pretty simple figure in terms of transformation. Switching between
dump truck and robot mode is real easy. He is another large, chunky figure, kind
of humorously so. Robot mode is a squat, wide, sturdy looking one, incredibly
wide across the shoulders. The dump truck bed unfolds into the robot arms, so
Heavy Labor gains probably an additional quarter of this chest width in the
form of the shoulders. Overall the transformation is very simple: truck bed
becomes arms, lower half of truck becomes legs, and the front end of the truck
becomes the torso. Both modes look good, but it doesn’t take much to move
between them.
This is a general condition of the Hercules team, but it is
not something that impedes enjoyment, for me at least. From what I gather there
are some people who find the basic conversion to be a real drawback, but I
don’t see it as an issue. These figures look good in both modes, are fun in
both modes, and are damn excellent in combined form, so it’s a win all around
for me.
The dump bed does not move in vehicle mode due to the way
the robot arms plug on to the centerpiece, which keeps the entire part in a
static position. This means the vehicle mode really doesn’t do much other than
roll, but I don’t feel that the vehicle ends up lacking anything as a result.
The front end is very blocky and square, doing its best to replicate the front
end of a real world dump truck, the large kind. Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m not a man
who knows a lot about construction vehicles. But there are dump trucks, and
then there are those super massive ones, and Heavy Labor is supposed to look
like one of those super massive ones. And this introduces the issue of scale to
the Hercules team. Long Haul was, again, the largest Constructicon when it was
necessary, but for the most part all six of them were the same size. The
Hercules team are all six the same size, with one or two of the later ones in
the set maybe being a fraction larger due to the placement of a piece of the
vehicle mode or something. The vehicle mode for Heavy Labor is intended to be a
larger vehicle than the other vehicle modes, and yet, all six vehicles are the
same general size. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that this ruins the
entire set beyond any hope of redemption.
Nah, I’m kidding. Heavy Labor ends up being my favorite of
the six, mainly because he is fun and simple to transform. It feels like it
only takes two or three steps and bam! other mode. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned
before, I do appreciate a complex transformation, but I also enjoy a simple one
from time to time; or at least, a simple transformation does not ruin or spoil
most figures for me. The weapon is again some indecipherable chunk of plastic,
but this is again a byproduct of its role as part of a larger blaster for
Hercules in combined mode. The headsculpt is really, really solid, giving good,
strong squareheaded, faceplated realness that never disappoints. I know some
people were or are unhappy that he doesn’t have that silver dome-shaped head
that G1 cartoon Long Haul had, but I like this one a lot better: the silver and
round look just doesn’t go with the hazardous neon green of the body, and had
always looked ugly to me. Heavy Labor’s head looks nice and sharp and fits in
with the other five headsculpts, a uniformity that the silver dome would have
severely upset.
And I think that the headsculpt is kind of a good overview
of the freedom that third party companies have when they make these not-Transformers.
For as much as they absolutely lift from the original toys or character
designs, they are not shackled to anything in particular; and so if they think
a uniform type of head design is what they want, that’s what they do. As
adults, we should be beyond the concept that Hasbro is in any way tied to old
looks or designs, or even faithful adherence to original characters.
On another note, let’s talk about Heavy Labor’s legs. The
robot legs are basically hollow plastic parts that flip over the solid plastic
block thighs, with a second, knee cap piece connecting the two. Third parties
seem more or less incapable of making sliding pieces, at least for the time
being, as I’ve yet to encounter an unofficial toy that has sliding legs or
arms. Now I’m not a manufacturing expert, and I don’t know how difficult or
costly it is to produce such a part, or how challenging it is to design one,
but I do imagine that, as simple a construction as it appears, the sliding
joint is probably tough to produce or replicate. With Heavy Labor, what we get
is essentially a knee joint that is born from a transformation step, with an
extra piece added to give it some more resistance. He can make fairly simple
leg poses, nothing like deep knee bends or anything, but his legs are stubby
enough that they prohibit that more than any joint assembly. He has the little
flap feet that don’t really hold any weight, so again, dynamic poses generally
require hand support.
Heavy Labor is the one figure out of the six who is most
obviously designed first and foremost for integration into the combiner mode.
He is the guy that holds Hercules together, and turns into a waist and thighs.
This, he accomplishes very well, but the individual robot mode legs are clearly
designed around being Hercules’ thighs. Everything about the toy is based
around the idea that this guy is a waist. He is less poseable than Exgraver,
and less cool looking than some of the other guys, but once more, I think Heavy
Labor ends up being my favorite. An easy transformation, pretty good in both
modes and just generally fun, he does get a serious run for his money from some
of his remaining teammates. My feelings may change as I continue through the
other four team members but for now, I’m going to stick with him as being the
best of the set.
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