Warbotron WB01-B Heavy Noisey

An absolute runaway winner for worst third party figure name, Heavy Noisey is the Warbotron version of Brawl, and is a stunning looking version at that. It’s just, man, that name is so bad.

Heavy Noisey is the slightest of the Warbotron team, establishing early on that it would perpetuate the trend of Brawl being the worst served Combaticon. The Fall of Cybertron line did it; Combiner Wars did it. Now, the third parties are doing it.

Fanshobby Master Builder MB-03B Red Dragon

 Red Dragon is a special version of MB-03 Fei Long, the Fanshobby Masterpiece scaled Doublecross. A general release version of a limited edition figure, Red Dragon is an odd mix up of Beast Wars Transmetal II dragon Megatron, Beast Machines Megatron, and Robots in Disguise/Car Robots Megatron. It's also a special edition figure, a detail which may be hard to determine considering it comes packaged in a literal cardboard box.

Star Wars: The Black Series Chewbacca (Solo: A Star Wars Story)

 

Apparently certified as a flop based on box office returns, this springs’ Solo gives us younger versions of some beloved Star Wars characters, and shows us how they met. Long standing in the EU is the story of how Han and Chewie came to be such a pair, and we get a version of it in the Han origin story. For some reason, Chewbacca was sent to Target as an exclusive while Han and Lando went to general retail, Han at least almost destined to warm the shelves.

Star Wars: The Black Series Grand Admiral Thrawn

 

 Mitth'raw'nuruodo, or Thrawn, is a Chiss who climbs the Imperial ranks, breezing through the various officer levels before eventually becoming the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy, taking the reins of a splintered military following the Imperial defeat at Endor. A fan favorite character, the only thing that can be said about his Black Series figure is, “it’s about time.”

Mastermind Creations Airborne Squadron

In 2006, the third party scene was just beginning to turn into blossom into its current form. Around that time, most third party offerings were things like add on sets for official figures. Very slowly, original pieces were beginning to surface from a smattering of ambitious companies, and the modern day market as we know it, consisting of established characters and full toys, as opposed to the more accurate accessories or embellishment kits, was born.

TFC Toys: Hades

Took way too long to get to this, but finally, let’s take a look at the combined form of TFC Toys’ Hades team, the third party version of Victory’s Liokaiser, composed of Rhadamanthus, Thanatos, Cerberus, Aiakos, Minos, and Hypnos.

The Hades figures show a change in the aesthetics of TFC Toys combiners, moving away from the more cartoonish, Armada/Energon/Cybertron look of teams like Hercules and Ares, towards a more realistic vibe, commensurate with lines like Classics or Generations, or whatever they call that general style of official Transformers at any given time, or, dare I say it, even the live action movie toy lines. Alt modes of the Hades squad would fit in with a movieverse collection, but not the robot modes, as Hades’ members robot modes actually make sense and are pleasing visually, unlike the twisted mass of cans and hoses that the live action movie figures peddle.

TFC Toys Poseidon: Iron Shell

 TFC Toys’ Ares was a big hit at the Coffin. Sure, it has an issue here and there, but overall it is a quality third party Predaking. One of the low points of the Ares experience was the torso figure, Nemean, who is lacking in so much of what makes the set as a whole great. So there is some trepidation heading into Iron Shell, the Snaptrap-themed –or, for Masterforce fans, Turtler-themed -- torso bot of Poseidon. But, most concerns are quickly dispelled after a few minutes of handling.