TFC Toys Hercules

 

  (Just for reference, a lot of thought went in to making Hercules the focus of the first third party combiner article. But because it was the first full set collected, and in deference to Devastator’s status as the first combiner, here he is. –mr)

It has taken a long time to get here, the final and completed form of Hercules, TFC Toys’ Devastator, and one of the first Third Party Devastators to hit the market. It took a little over a year, in fact, as the complete set was acquired early last January as a set, and then very slowly rolled out, figure at a time, months after the fact in accordance with the often glacial pace of life at the Coffin. By now, the Transformers community is general accustomed to the 3Ps offering full combiner teams, or some other such complete figure, but at the time of Hercules’ announcement, 3Ps were generally still producing figure add on sets or parts, or were producing what can only be described as altered knockoffs, like the iGear Coneheads: clearly bootlegged Takara Masterpiece Seekers with the necessary alterations to become at-the-time-unavailable Masterpiece-compatible versions of Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge. Seemingly out of nowhere, competing Constructicon sets began to surface, and the real third party market, the one we still currently inhabit, began in earnest.

Blurry, but this is the default, non-add-on configuration.

The six not-Constructicons merge pretty deftly into Hercules, who at 12” tall is a very solid representation of Devastator. All of the pictures of Hercules presented here include the add on Rage of Hercules set: so new what the 3P combiner experiment that TFC Toys released a separate add on package for this and their next combiner, Uranos, because as individual figures were being produced and released, the overall design of the unified form was being tweaked. And boy, was this a good move. The Rage of Hercules set adds shoulder augmentations, which allows Neckbreaker and Exgraver to be transformed differently, and adds a whole lot of size to Hercules. Without these shoulder parts, the treads on the previously mentioned figures are folded down to serve as the forearms of the combined mode; this causes the shoulders, Exgraver’s scoop and Neckbreaker’s shovel, to sit much lower in relation to the shoulders of Hercules. All that exists as evidence for this in the Coffin archives is a single, blurry iPhone picture. With the shoulder blocks in place, the vehicle treads don’t have to fold up, which makes the upper arms to become thicker, and also stick out further from the torso, making a wider profile. The Rage add on set also contains a pair of solid, dedicated forearms that are substantially more imposing than the vehicle treads version, and overall, Hercules takes on a much larger, much more powerful look for these two modifications. Also included in the set is a solid blaster, to take the place of the six part adequate but not really satisfying blaster(s), which came in both purple and translucent red, and was packaged piece by piece with the six individual figures.

Hercules is predictably top heavy, and does rock back and forth a very slight amount. It’s pretty simple to chalk this up to the great majority of the mass of the figure being in the upper body, and the two-part torso. Maybe a single figure torso would have addressed the wobble, but for their parts, Structor and Mad Blender serve as great and sturdy legs. The side to side torso joint in each of those figures serve as high ankle rockers for Hercules, allowing it to take wider, A stances, which a figure of this size and weight really needs to be able to do. Other leg arrangements are basically possible, but limited. Heavy Labor’s legs and the jointed combiner ports on Structor and Mad Blender create a sort of knee joint, but the legs lack forward and backward ankle joints, so knee bending poses don’t really work out. There is no waist joint, as the waist is the meeting place of Heavy Labor and Dr.Crank, but the arms have a pretty good range of movement, aided by the Rage add on shoulders, which allows more outward movement from the torso.

The face presents a few options, as the Rage of Hercules set comes with different face plates, displaying different expressions, and a red plastic visor allows for choices among two eyed and visored Hercules. While this is a neat feature, and a cool option for collectors who would want to alter the expressions of their figures, it doesn’t get much play around these parts. Several 3P figures have come packed with different faces, and the general pattern is that the one best liked is chosen, applied, and then left that way. Much like with the original Masterpiece Seeker mold, the face changing gimmick is generally a thing seems awesome, but doesn’t make enough of an impression to get overly excited about.

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is clear better.

The weapons for Hercules are pretty cool. Again, the Rage set provides a solid blaster, much better than the composite ones that Hercules has access to. This build-a-weapon scheme will be more and more common with third party combiners as time goes along, and it is a cool idea. But, sometimes, the end result doesn’t quite work out that well. Generally speaking though, the individual pieces look like pieces of plastic, while the combined form will at least be a passable blaster. In Hercules’ case though, neither of these things will be true. The composite weapon looks like a bunch of smaller parts stuck together and then imagined to be a blaster, and the translucent red version is not much better.

The other weapon option is the crane arm that is part of Dr.Crank. It can be mounted on the upper torso of Hercules, pointing backwards over the shoulder, or, it can be removed, extended, and held in hand. Mounting the crane on the torso also causes the head to be situated over to the right, instead of in the middle of the body. In this extended melee form, the crane arm becomes a giant hammer, similar to that of Animated Ultra Magnus’, and just like with the composite blaster, needs a bit of squinting in order to see. However, unlike the blaster, once you read this crane alteration as “hammer,” it’s pretty awesome. The hands don’t offer enough friction to hold it up and in place, and there is not option to peg the hammer in to the hands, so holding it requires some balance and understanding that it will slip and fall many, many times. But man, does it look cool, much better than the over the shoulder configuration that really just upsets the silhouette of Hercules. 

 

Aesthetically, just like the individual figures, Hercules looks like it fits more among Armada/Energon/Cybtertron style figures than the general “Classics” style, although given the vast range of figures, styles, and lines that fall under that “Classics” banner, Hercules doesn’t stick out so badly. It certainly works better than the actual “Classics” Devastator, that Energon repaint that only has five members and is Devastator in nameslap only. Hercules in hand looks nicer than Combiner Wars Devastator does in pictures, and while one of those has only been seen two or three times in person, it is hard to imagine it being better than this version. Plus, given the age of Hercules, entire sets of MISB figures can be had for about $200, not too far a ways off from the Combiner Wars  or Unite Warriors official products. Despite the more animated appearance of Hercules, there is no way to look at this and not recognize it as Devastator: this isn’t an inspired by Devastator, or based on Devastator affair. It’s not a stylized version, like that official “Classics” figure, or a ‘decent enough’ version, like the Universe repaint of the Build Team from RID a number of years back. No, this is clearly an effective Devastator. It has been stated before, in some Grave Consideration on the future direction of my collection, that as soon as I obtained Hercules, I knew my collection had found its Devastator, and any efforts to add another one immediately stopped.

Hercules does have its limitations, as all things do, and his are sometimes things that are characteristic of the fledgling 3P combiner market. While the Rage of Hercules set does address most of them, there is something ironic about a figure that originates in a scene that originates producing add ons for official figures so as to improve them or address problems needing an add on set to improve it or fix its problems. Hercules is also not really poseable, as most combiners are not, but is limited even in his spread legged stance by the helpful but themselves limited ankle joints. And aside from the indispensable shoulder blocks, the Rage set basically only addresses cosmetic issues, but boy, is it good that they were addressed. Again, the next TFC Toys combiner, Uranos, also required an add on set to shore up issues, but the third, Ares, didn’t, and more recent teams like Hades and Poseidon are also fine as they are. Clearly, lessons were learned from Hercules, and adjustments were made.

 

In the end, Hercules is pretty terrific. The A/E/C aesthetic may not be for everyone, but if it is for you, then these figures do not disappoint. The complexity is pretty low, as later, more advanced combiner figures vastly outstrip these as toys. But, as it has gone six individual figures without being said, the Hercules team members are about as complicated in terms of transformation pattern as official Hasbro products are these days, with a figure like Structor being basically the same as Combiner Wars Onslaught, really. And there is something very fitting about a third party Devastator being improved upon and largely outclassed by later combiners, as it mirrors the “Real life” journey of actual Devastator: the first, but largely the blueprint for the combiner and a starting line from which all subsequent combiners can be created and improved.