MakeToys MTCM-03B Celeritas

Celeritas is the second in the line of the MakeToys Technobots, and presents a really different and pretty exciting take on Lightspeed, who was always arguably the lamest and least interesting of the G1 team. In Lightspeeds’ Dreamwave More Than Meets the Eye bio, it is mentioned that Lightspeed dreams of giving up his future space car alt mode in favor of some kind of flying alt mode; see, Lightspeed is so dull that he doesn’t even want to be Lightspeed.

But the MakeToys version is not at all dull. Unlike Blindfire, who presented pretty much a one-to-one match with Strafe, this figure takes some real liberties with the character, and the result is something fairly unique. Off the top, Celeritas in robot mode looks real tiny. In truth, he is right in scale with the other three limb figures, but he is a slight robot with a small torso and that is what causes him to look so little. Robot mode is effected in some pretty standard ways, like the shoulders become the back end of the car and the legs become the front end. The arms contain what feels like a real unnecessary step, as the wrists are jointed and fold downwards, as they will take up the open space at the rear of the car in vehicle mode; but in robot mode the joints allow the hands to fold underneath the forearms. I say “allow” like this is some kind of a good thing, but it’s not. Celeritas’ weapons are not terribly heavy, but they do cause the wrists to sag a little bit if he’s holding them away from his body. The blasters are translucent orange plastic, and have a little tab on the underside that can be used to attach half of the leg-mounted wheels, like an ammo clip. However, the connection is exceptionally loose, at least on this copy, so the wheel halves don’t hold on. Too bad.

The head sculpt bears a resemblance to Cybertron Ransack, in that is looks like a robot wearing a ball cap-type hat. The torso feels cramped, as the shoulders don’t pull away from the torso much at all, giving Celeritas a kind of cramped look up top. His back is also totally open, so it is not recommended that this figure be displayed facing backwards, for anyone that would actually do that. The legs of the figure are really cool. Predictably forming the front end of the car mode, there is a lot of movement involved in getting them there. In robot mode, the legs present the wheels forward, not out to the side as seems to be the almost-standard configuration for figures with car alt modes. They also fold over themselves, so that the headlights are at the knees, pointing upwards; but this is not done via the generic “flip the front end over 180 degrees” method again so common to toys with this vehicle form. Alongside the robot legs run the center portion of the vehicle, split down the middle and then forming pillar-like elements that feel like they should be able to holster the blasters, but do not. They look like the kind of structure that would house a sword or serve as some type of storage option, and even though they ultimately serve no robot mode function, they look interesting and give Celeritas a very unique look. That may be the greatest selling point for the figure, really, it’s truly individual appearance.

It looks unique in robot and alt mode, a truly refreshing figure.

The alt mode is a futuristic-looking car, but more of a race car or spacey dune buggy than the original Lightspeed vehicle mode. The blasters can be attached to the vehicle mode, but the square holes are pretty tight, and the plastic of the blasters is translucent, and the fit is pretty tight, and that’s something that makes me nervous. The blasters just lay on top of the vehicle mode, and don’t look very integrated or good, so the alt mode doesn’t really lose anything aesthetically.

Celeritas is a whole lot of good looks, but he feels rather flimsy. The plastic feels very thin in hand, and securing the vehicle mode is dependent on a lot of tabs, and getting them to plug in securely requires an amount of force. The figure feels very light, and is not possessed of much heft, and generally speaking, this feels like a toy that could be crushed in hand with enough force, like that video of Beast Wars Razorbeast and its Gold Plastic Syndrome. While everything plastic-wise appears good right now, it doesn’t seem misguided to be a little bit concerned about the tabs wearing out over time, or breaking with too much force in the wrong place. This extends to the hinges and joints as well, like they will gradually lose their tightness. If that happens, Celeritas is going to be an incredibly floppy ragdoll of a toy. Also, the entire Quantron set was acquired at an excellent price, but it is real, real hard to look at Celeritas and see whatever his original retail price was. He has been found online for around $50, and that is probably the real ceiling that he is worth; more than that, like if he was ever listed at the third party-standard $99, and there’s no way he fills out that price. The appearance and transformation are way interesting, but not for that price, for a figure of this size that really doesn’t come with any accessories or parts. $50 is fine, but $30-40 is probably ideal.

So Celeritas is a small figure that feels weak and thin, and presents some legitimate concerns for its longevity. But it really does look great, and has an excellent transformation that is fun and pretty unique. Like Blindfire, Celeritas does seem small to serve as a combiner limb, a leg in his specific case, but for now, we just have to wait and see how that ends up turning out. Unlike Blindfire, Celeritas is a real cool reimagining of an old character. For the right price, a good toy, but the price could be a real deal breaker if one was only after the individual figure.