TFC Toys Hades: Minos

(Journey back with me friends, to one last set of pictures taken on my kitchen table..... I took these pictures back in early December, and have been working on this article for like two and a half months. You know my pictures have been getting slightly better, so forgive me this set of old ones.)

Minos is the 3P version of Hellbat, treacherous and devious member of the Liokaiser team from Victory. Long ago, I was watching that, and then as often happens to all things good and pure in my life, the semester started, and my fun time ended.

But enough of that already, let’s talk Minos. This is one incredibly good figure. Long ago now, November to be precise, I ordered two of the Hades team after having made the foolish mistake of not buying them at TFCon. My wife had gotten me two others for Christmas last year, one of which was the previously detailed Hypnos. From the minute I had Minos in hand, I was just totally impressed with it, and I think that this is my favorite figure from the entire set. At one point I had been scrambling to assemble a list of the Top Ten Toys of 2016, and Minos was without a doubt the undisputed number 1 on that list. What happened to the list, well, I got ambitious with it too late, and by the time it was ready the way I wanted it, it was the middle of February, and just didn’t feel appropriate anymore.

Minos’ robot mode is stunningly cool. He is a sleek, strong looking robot in gorgeous blue and crisp white with some gold here and there. The transformation is fairly standard jet-to-robot transformation, but the wings contain some extra joints to help them fold away behind the robot rather than stick out in the standard wings-as-cape arrangement. The way they fold behind the shoulders gives a really nice profile to the robot mode, and a generally more compact look than jetformers usually have. The jet cockpit however does just hang off the back, which does follow the fairly typical jetformer robot look. And, as an aside, I find the transformation here absolutely terrifying. To convert to either mode, the entire jet nose section has to be rotated not only 180 degrees around but then also fold downward over the back of the robot, and there is not much clearance for the part to move. Swinging the jet nose around requires a lot of patience and more force than ever feels right, as a kind of twist and rotate motion is needed. The instructions make it look like all you do is flip the part back and turn it around, but that is not what actually happens. You kind of have to walk it around over the robot back, in a slide and turn type motion. It is amazingly stressful, and each time I’ve transformed the figure I grind my teeth and feel my face getting all hot and am gripped with fear that I am going to either stress the plastic or flat out break it. For a $100 figure, I am really, really uncomfortable with this, and have watched videos and stuff to try and find out if there’s a better way to transform the toy while avoiding this terror. It does not look like there is. I tend to transform him once in a while, but my fears of breakage mean I don’t fiddle with the figure as much as I really, really, really want to. My video investigations have yielded a sense of confidence that the parts at issue are more resilient than they seem to me, and that makes me feel a little less fearful; but that does not make me feel anywhere near comfortable. It looks like this amazingly tight fit is actually accounted for in the build of the figure, and that all it really needs is a little patience and wiggling. Still, it’s scary stuff. 

Looks good now, but getting here is terrifying.

Minos’ plastic feels thin, something that I experienced with Hypnos but, given the stockier nature of that toy, didn’t seem like much of a potential issues save for in a few places. But on Minos, it is more of a concern due to a lot of thin parts, such as the canard wings behind the cockpit, the fins on the robot head and the tailfin of the jet. Moving the nosecone part potentially puts one in contact with the robot head and the canard wings, and so there is a compound fear of stressing or breaking something. Overall I think the problem is a mental one, but still it’s not one that I feel real comfortable about. The nosecone is attached via a slightly extendable arm that connects the nosecone to the robot back, but would it have hurt to provide a little more extension so as to alleviate this situation? A literal centimeter more extension on the armature that connects the nosecone to the robot back would have 100% eliminated the issue, and so why that tiny fraction of extra reach is missing is hard to understand. The entire time trying to effect this step in the conversion, you know that something is wrong. There’s no good place to grip to toy, because the canard wings or robot head or some other part are right in the way of your fingers, or right there in that place where you need to put your fingers so as to be able to exert pressure. There are some pins that hold the various parts and panels together, but you know they don’t move in the ways that would allow this movement to happen any easier than it does. And the instructions don’t give enough information that the kind of flip and twist motion is necessary; they make it look like you flip the piece and THEN twist it, which is basically the instinctual motion that you feel this piece should be making.

Pretty typical underside.

Other than this sanity blasting nosecone maneuver, the transformation is fairly normal, right down to the robot arms nestling close to the jet fuselage. The calves open and fold over the thighs, as again the one thing a third party apparently cannot figure out is a sliding joint. The result is a stunning jet mode that looks like a real model fighter jet. While Hypnos’ drill tank is clearly a fictional vehicle, Minos’ jet is based on a real world plane, and the alt mode reflects this type of real world quality. The lines are smooth and crisp and the jet is real angular and aerodynamic. It’s a real good look. I’m not real sure what type of actual aircraft this is, or whether it’s a real plane or just a concept type thing. But nevertheless, it is a good looking plane. The only true flaw in the jet mode is that the robot head can clearly be seen on the underside: it spins around so you can’t see the face, but the head just presses up against the underside of the nosecone area and then you pretend you can’t see it. For all the great that this figure contains, they couldn’t find a way to hide the robot head in vehicle mode? I’m not sure how much of a real detraction this is from the overall finished product, but it is a head scratcher for sure. I suppose the head can’t fold away into the chest, because that is where the combiner port is hidden, again hidden, the same way it was on Hypnos.

Aw!

The Breastmaster partner here is a little bat, complete with wings that fold across the chest. Again, the little beast partner can function as a robot, a weapon for Minos, and a chest plate for Minos, and it is mostly in the first and last modes that it works the best. The body is too flat and wide to adequately serve as a blaster, and the fold out double barrels aren’t large enough to be easily or clearly visible in weapon mode. As a beast, it’s ok; but as a chest plate, the wide, slightly curving beast is wonderful. He chest plate gives the large robot a real interesting and different look than that of the robot without the armor, a larger, bulkier, more armored up look. The bat plugs in beneath the nosecone in jet mode and if you look at the vehicle from the top down, you can see that the intent is to make the bat seem like an extra set of stabilizing wings for the front section of the plane, but the illusion is imperfect at the best. Nobody is buying the Hades figures specifically for their Breastmaster figures, and so the shortcomings of this little guy are more than easily forgiven. If there is any real drawback to the bat, it’s that Minos really does not have any type of weapon besides its weak blaster mode. No real loss, and the true value of the tiny animal is as a chest augmentation anyway.

I know the nosecone is supposed to split open, but I like the solid look in robot mode.

Minos is a marvelously competent standalone figure, just like the aforementioned Hypnos, with one general improvement: Minos has no integrated combiner parts. Hypnos hides a Hades foot inside his calves; Minos has an attachable hand. This makes Minos more capable of being an individual purchase, because there is no part of him that obviously betrays his membership on a team. Yes, he comes packaged with hands, so you leave them in the box. Done. And I can totally see someone wanting this figure purely for this figure, without any interest in the combined form whatsoever, and not being in the slightest bit disappointed. Minos is such a good figure, and he is more visually exciting than Hypnos, furthering the idea that one could want him as a standalone. He makes for a good Decepticon warrior, one that looks fuller of personality than a more standard robot such as Hypnos. In fact, since I’m behind on Victory but long finished with Masterforce, I’d have to say that Minos gives off a real Buster and/or Hydra vibe, though not enough to say that Minos could be a stand in for either of those characters. But, with that nosecone flip and twist transformation, I almost wonder if a Buster and Hydra could be possible from TFC Toys, using the general Minos transformation scheme and layout for at least Hydra. TFC Toys pretty much only makes combiners at this point, but I suppose if they ever did go the Buster/Hydra route, elements of Minos would certainly make their way into those designs.

On the topic of shared designs, let’s talk about the Hades team and how they related to the Hercules squad, also currently being examined here at the Coffin. The two sets have almost nothing in common, to the point that I find myself frequently double checking while writing to ensure that the two sets are indeed made by the same company. Where Exgraver and Heavy Labor are large and chunky, Hypnos and Minos are slender and less bulky. At some point I mentioned that those two Hercules teammates recall the early 2000’s toy lines of Armada, Energon and Cybertron, the Hades figures very closely resemble the 2010 Revenge of the Fallen toys or more modern Generations-style toys. It’s an interesting development on TFC Toys’ end, and it is nice to see them moving forward with their products rather than stay in one style with everything. I know that between Hercules and Hades are a number of other TFC Toys combiners that I have no expose to (yet, at least) and I wonder if the evolution can be clearly seen from one to the next. At C2E2 this year there was a seller who had Hercules, Uranos and Warbotron for sale, and I was able to see the Uranos figures in their boxes: they look more or less the same as the Hercules figures in terms of their overall appearance. Personally, I like the look of the Hercules figures, but would not like it if the Hades figures looked the same way.

Minos is a figure that is completely worth the price. There is so much to like about this figure, and once you master the terrifying nosecone transformation he is an enjoyable and satisfying in hand toy. I can’t recommend this figure enough, honestly, as it is the best toy I’ve had in my hands in a long time, not to sell other figures short. Minos is just so much better than practically everything else I’ve experienced in quite a while.