Friday, February 16, 2018

DX9 War In Pocket Usurper, BlueBolt, and SkyShaker



 

 Here’s something really exciting. Proving that good things come in small packages, DX9 has produced a Legends-scale trio of G1 Seekers Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp, packaged them all in one excellent throwback style box, and managed to get them out to the market for about $60. Amazing.

This is not the Coffin’s first experience with the third party Legends class, as last Fall Iron Factory’s Wing of Tyrant Clone figure was a very pleasant and generally unexpected surprise. It is only natural then that these Seekers be compared to that one from time to time, and as good as Clone is, there is no contest to be had.


Let’s begin with the packaging, a very fun long box with very Diaclone/pre-G1 artwork. The three figures come packaged in jet mode, partially visible through plastic window next to very blocky late 70’s/early 80’s/all of G1 styled artwork. From the minute you hold the box in your hands, you can tell that this set of figures is a real love letter to the originals, or that at barest minimum, someone took great pains to make the throwback appearance feel legit, and not just look cool.

True to Seeker form, this set is one figure in three different paint jobs, so the commentary here applies to all of them. Each figure is really well jointed and posable, with ball joints in the shoulders and forearms, as well as in the hips, but the shape of the upper leg prohibits much forward leg movement. The arms are jointed in different ways at the elbows, because of the way the arms transform for jet mode, which is a really different and ingenious design different from any other Seeker design that comes immediately to mind. There are only two problematic body parts: the head and the feet. The head sits a little far back on the torso, and when viewed from certain angles it looks like the chest protrudes super far out in front of the figure. The head actually sits right in between the shoulder pylons, so it isn’t really a bad placement or anything, so much as it is just a byproduct of the size of the jet mode cockpit. And the look is only compromised from certain angles; a straight ahead angle in not one of them. Looking from the side or the top down makes the head look oddly placed, but that’s about all. The feet fold down on hinges from the calf, and are attached to the jet engine which, again true to Seeker form, becomes the robot heal. Because the jet engine is itself on a ball joint to facilitate posing, it can occasionally result in a less than stable or flatfooted stance, although this is easily rectified. The ball joint in the engine is not very tight, so posing can get a little bit fidgety, but is not weak once a pose is attained. This engine ball joint is also quite literally the only weak joint on any of the three figures in this set, as the others are all almost concerningly solid. The elbows in particular: they need to be rotated a little during transformation, and they are stiff. They don’t feel so stiff that they may break, but they are stiff.


Otherwise, the null rays plug into the shoulders and remove to plug in under the wings, as is Seeker typical. The wings are a single flip up piece that have the tail fins attached, and those fold away in a super cool way that allows them to fill out the mass at the rear of the figure. The calves are achieved by swinging a panel down towards the feet, and this is a really neat step, definitely something different for a Seeker transformation. Maybe it’s the tightness of the joints, maybe the size of the figure, but transforming these figures is sometimes stressful, due to the amount of force needed to do so. Nothing ever feels loose, or like it’s being stressed, but concern does arise. As a robot, the DX9 Seeker is essentially the same size as the Iron Factory Seeker, with DX9’s being more slender and G1ish, while the Iron Factory version a slight bit squatter and bulkier, aesthetically closer to the Seeker bodies portrayed in the IDW comics circa 2014 or thereabouts.

The jet mode is enormous for a figure of this size, completely dwarfing the Iron Factory Seeker mold. The DX9 jet mode also does an infinitely better job of hiding the robot underneath, as the arms fold inwards at the shoulders to fill out the underside of the jet fuselage, instead of just pegging on to the side of the body or something, another oh-so-typical Seeker transformation step. But, the large size of the jet is accomplished by not requiring the legs to compress at all between modes: there are panels that swing up and down the calf to effect legs or accommodate the feet in alt mode; the wings flip over as one solid piece. The waist doesn’t need to be compacted at all. The nose folds out of the chest into a long fuselage section, so the overall plane is rather big. And it is an excellent F-15, a total G1 accurate alt mode. There are no flaps or control surfaces on the jet mode, so the wings are a solid part. A trio of ridges on the underside act as landing gear, which is helpful, as the long fuselage section leaves the jet unbalanced if laid on a flat surface, as it tilts forwards slightly.  

This trio of figures is really outstanding, and initial reactions to them out of the box were overwhelmingly positive. This small third party scale is not exactly the kind of thing I’d ever thought would be of interest in the Coffin collection, and whether or not they gain more of a foot hold here is yet to be seen. Some thing on my third party shopping list had been a set of these small Seekers and Coneheads, and when Clone arrived, it was thought that the Iron Factory versions would be the ones that were hunted. But after literal minutes with these, that initial plan was jettisoned, and the DX9 Conehead three pack went on that list instead. I suppose, this is not really meant to say in any derogatory way that the Iron Factory Seeker is bad, but that the DX9 is just so much better. Not sure that they can mix, which was sort of an early version of the plan as well: DX9 for the original trio, Iron Factory for the Coneheads. But DX9’s are just too good. And now, whenever images from the DX9 War Giant set surface, I find myself glancing at them just a little bit longer, or ever so slightly more seriously than I had done the last time, and I have caught myself a few times clicking through etailer listings for other War In Pocket figures, just sorta checking out what there is. You know, in case I decide I really like them. Just in case.

And, since we are on the topic of the Legends class, the Hasbro Scout/Legends/Cyberverse size class has gotten a lot of praise over the years for some interesting designs and honestly solid figures, sometimes ones that have felt better than entries in the Deluxe class. And while some recognition is warranted, figures like the DX9 Seekers show that third parties are beating Hasbro even areas that the official brand had been doing objectively well in. This size class may have peaked during Prime, when it was labeled as Cyberverse and delivered a whole other level of quality and complexity than what was expected from the cheapest price point. And some of the figures in this scale have been good, while others were the smallest members of combiner teams during Combiner Wars, and were good ideas that never really worked out as well as they were hoped to. The biggest drawback to third party figures in this scale is their price, as single figures generally go for over $30 at online stores, while this three pack was $60, but it is the same toy three times. At $30 each, figures like the DX9 Seekers are pricey, but they absolutely are of quality. If you look at figures like Minos or Phobos, or even some Masterpiece figures, and say, “that is a figure that costs $100,” and then look at one of these Seekers and say, “this is a $30 figure,” it can be hard to really justify the price, regardless of quality.  

No comments:

Post a Comment