Over the summer, fellow Jumpstarter Topspin was granted the
title of Should Be A Great Figure, But Is Rather Bland. The idea was floated
that perhaps once teammate Twintwist showed up, Topspin’s property value would
increase. In early November, a package arrived at Coffin HQ containing the last
four desired Titans Return toys, and
one of them was Twintwist. So, does the presence of one validate the other?
Twintwist, for starters, is a slight remold of Topspin, as
the two figures share almost everything aside from the front ends of their
vehicle modes. True, Twintwist does have some cosmetic differences, things like
different shoulder molding and different engine parts in the vehicle mode, but
by and large the two figures are the same. They transform the same, they have
the same weapons, they have all the same joints and posability. That is not supposed
to read as a negative, even if it does come across that way. These are two toys
that have almost no reason to exist as updated figures, given their almost
total lack of character and exposure, as well as the generally terrible nature
of their original versions. And that’s not some snooty
2017-looking-back-at-1985 attitude, it’s just the truth. While it is pretty
cool to have these nice new updates of them, few G1 toys were worse than, or
less deserving of updates than, the Jumpstarters.
The main issue with Twintwists’ robot mode is the vehicle
treads on the shoulders. They seem to get in the way of transformation
occasionally, something that Topspins’ wings never did. Stock images of this
figure make those shoulder treads look terrible, but after having the figure
for a while, it seems that that terribleness was due to misaligning or
mistransforming the figure, as in reality, they don’t look bad at all. The Jumpstarter
duo have their whites and blues in opposite places, so Topspin has a white
chest and blue legs, while Twintwist has a blue chest and white legs. Despite
it being such a simple placement swap, Twintwist is the nicer looking of the
two robots. Twintwist also has the same value of looking like he should be more
exciting than he actually is, although for Twintwist, there isn’t much in the
way of “excitement” that is really expected. This may be an entirely personal
matter, but he has always been the less interesting looking of the two
Jumpstarters, and while that doesn’t change very much in 2017, this is at least
a good and capable figure. The blasters are still goofy, and Titanmaster
Flameout gives good face, resembling at least at a fast glance Ironhide, which
almost makes you wonder why a Titans
Return Ironhide never made it to production.
The alt mode is a cool, sci-fi drilltank that honestly does
not look like the wings were simply removed from Topspin. In reality, that’s
precisely what happened in order to make this figure, but the tank mode appears
different enough to warrant it being called a different vehicle, and not just a
clipped aircraft. The drills do not spin, which is somewhat of a surprise, as
it seemed almost natural that they would. (this may be thinking caused by
increased time spent with third party figures causing me to expect too much out
of toys. – mr) The weapons do not plug on to the tank mode as well as they did
with Topspin, and so are generally floppy or loose, and that is no good.
So the real question was whether or not having the two
Jumpstarters would make either of them seem more exciting. The answer to that
is . . . kind of. Like Topspin, Twintwist by himself is a nice figure, and a
satisfying one to futz around with. As with the Triggerhappy remold figures,
Twintwist feels like he is missing some of the wonder that Topspin came with,
simply because this is a figure that has already been experienced; one element
of the Curse of the Repaint/Remold, and not anything that should be held
against Twintwist as a standalone figure. There is nothing to complain about
here, other than Twintwist also suffers from that “Should be great, but kinda
just is” syndrome that has claimed a few Titans Return figures. Perhaps the most damning thing that can be said about
Twintwist is that shortly after taking pictures of him for the Coffin, he was
put away, right next to Topspin. There has been a general storing of Titans Return toys over the last few
weeks as usually happens, the usual cycling of figures, but for this one to
have been put away so fast is kind of startling. It hasn’t happened since . . .
Titans Return Topspin was put away
shortly after having been the focus of a Coffin article.
But like others before him, the reasons for Twintwist’s
blandness can’t be easily divined. Maybe he just is not that interesting of a character,
or one that strikes no particular personal chords, even though that has never
really been that much of a factor in the past with toys. Maybe it’s the rather
pedestrian appearance, and the pretty plain alt mode, as the drill tank has
never really been that impressive, and even expensive drill tank figures don’t
seem to be able to make drill tanks exciting. This is ultimately a repainted
figure, which shouldn’t bother a Seeker fanatic, but Twintwist is repainted
from a pretty bland base, so he retains some of that dullness. The Takara
versions of the Jumpstarters are coming with Targetmaster partners, and even
then they don’t look very thrilling.
But, the two look good together. That may be the best
quality of this toy: it looks good in pairs. Almost makes one wonder why there
could not have been a two pack release, as a store exclusive or something, as
the real value of either of these figures is found when it is placed next to
the other one. Niche characters, not a whole lot of value on their own, but
packaged together could have been the thing that pushed these figures into
winning territory, as happens sometimes with Star Wars figures. If your collection
already contains one of these two, it’s almost necessary to obtain the other
one; but if you’ve made it to the end of Titans
Return without one or both of these figures, you could call the line
complete and not really miss out on anything. If you want these figures just
because, or to complete a Wrecker line up, or for whatever reason, you could
certainly get worse toys.
They just aren’t very exciting, and that makes them, by
definition, and causes them, in practice, to be boring.
No comments:
Post a Comment