TFC Toys: Poseidon

 A full Third Party combiner team reviewed in a single calendar year? Seems kinda amazing, but it’s about to be true. Mentarazor debuted the TFC Toys Seacons back in March, and Thousandkills rounded out the individual figures in August, and after a hiatus, the great god of the seas himself is here in November to finish out the series.  Poseidon is the mammoth combined form of Mentarazor, Cyberjaw, Big Bite, Iron Shell, Deathclaw, and Thousandkills, and it is a combined mode that literally dwarfs other figures.

And man, is Poseidon big. Big enough that he can wield one of his number as a blaster. The G1 lore would generally put either Cyberjaw or Deathclaw in this position, but any of the five limb figures are and were capable of doing so. I want to say that I thought long and hard about which member was going to be serving as a weapon, but the reality is the decision was reached pretty quickly, and Cyberjaw took his somewhat-canonical place as Poseidon’s jawbreaker cannon, a nod to the original Overbite. Aesthetically, this also makes the best sense, as there are two limb figures that share a color scheme, and then two others that share a different color scheme, and then one who sort of has a third color scheme, and so in order to balance the look of Poseidon, as all things should be, the third color scheme member wound up being wielded in hand. I’d begun piecing Poseidon together in late June, and in truth, Cyberjaw was the first member converted to combined mode, and sat in a detolf as a blaster for like a week before the others began to join him as body parts. But in terms of overall size, Poseidon is big, both in terms of height and in terms of bulk. Roughly the same height as the other TFC Toys combiners, Poseidon is super thick. Iron Shell has an entire set of panels inside his midsection that fold out for torso mode and connect the front of the torso with the rear of it, to hold it together and create a waist, granting some very necessary stability to the figure, which thanks to its weight, it really, really needs. In a departure from the more standard TFC Toys combiner model, Poseidon is front heavy instead of back heavy, so he does lean slightly forward. Holding Cyberjaw or his comically huge sword only makes this lean worse, so for prolonged periods of standing on display, it’s best to angle Cyberjaw down and forward a bit, so that offers a slight tripod leg.

Additional waist panels

The connecting joints are rock solid, something that I honestly do feel cheesy writing, but given the weight of the limb figures, the joints need to be strong in order to lift the arms or hold the weapons. Yes, Poseidon CAN point Cyberjaw forward, and CAN hold that giant composite sword out in front of his body. The connecting joints are new this time, not the to-this-point standard Energon combiner styled hexagons; here, they are square pegs that slide in to square ports, and hold very firmly. The square ports on the limb figures are clearly visible, and are generally obfuscated in robot mode by the heads of the individual figures. The only issue occurs in the wrists, as they are simple mushroom pegs and they swivel quite a bit, so holding weapons for longer than a few seconds will result in their weight twisting the hands inward. The hands are giant with poseable fingers, and a large rectangular slot in the palm allows the weapon to plug in via a large rectangular peg before the fingers wrap around. The fists have the (I guess) trademark protrusion that Piranhacon fists have, molded in a slightly jagged fashion that hearkens to a spear or fish hook. The feet are gigantic, with moveable toes to help balance the incredible weight of the figure.

Seriously. Picking Poseidon up actually counts for bicep reps in your workout routine.

The cannons on the back can be extended over the shoulders, but they don’t look great simply extended up into the air. The way they are configured in these photographs, they are pushed all the way down into their cavities on Iron Shell’s back, and they look just fine from the front. The head is pretty awesome, maybe being the most G1 accurate TFC Toys combiner head around, but it sits a little far back on the body. This is mainly visible if Poseidon is viewed from the top down, which is not a real common viewing angle.

Cyberjaw in blaster mode

 

As usual, the sword is ridiculous, and is formed by combining the multiple melee weapons each individual figure comes with. There is the option of this gigantic sword, like a weapon one would find in Dark Souls, or configuring two smaller and more sensible swords from the various parts, as most of them come in doubles. This gives Poseidon the option of dual wielding melee weapons, and the ability to hold them and pose with them more sturdily, but then the swords don’t look as good as the singular version.

If we have to lodge a complaint, it would have to be the waist. Poseidon’s waist is very slender in comparison to the rest of his body, so much so that it makes his hips look super wide. If the waist is not the issue, it would be the hips, which would then be too large to fit with the rest of the body. If the chest and waist were wider, the torso profile would be practically perfect. As with the head being further back on the body, this hips/waist issue is invisible depending on the viewing angle, and it really is the one thing that I can really think of that is a weakness for the combined mode.

There have been two repaint versions of Poseidon to be released in the last year: an all black “noir” mode version, and a slightly less black and translucent purple stealth version. At last months’ TFCon Chicago, a sample of the black and translucent purple set was on display, and as much of a fan as I am of these six figures, I don’t see any reason or need for these black repaints. For some context, I am a super big fan of the Beaststructor repaint set of Fans Project Ryu-Oh, now released as the Western G1 Monstructor, and will eventually come to have it in my collection. So, a repainted set of 3P combiner figures is not something I have an issue with. My gripe with these black Poseidon repaints is that TFC Toys missed the totally obvious repaint, that being Beast Wars II God Neptune. God Neptune was made up of actual characters in the Japan-only Beast Wars sequel series, and is even shown in some installments of the pack in comic that came with these Seacons. Why would they not release the set, if they really felt a need to do so, as God Neptune? I know that there is no Nautilator in Japan, and thus no Deathclaw, but they could have either excluded Deathclaw or turned him in to some new character for the Beast Wars II team. I would have bought a God Neptune repaint. Eventually, like when it was on a deep sale or something, like I plan on doing with Beaststructor, but I would have bought it. The black versions don’t really even look that nice, and I don’t understand what they are supposed to be references to. And, they are practically the same. So, what the hell.

Poseidon seems to be the last stop on the Third Party combiner train, or at least this iteration of it, as the roster of combiners now seems complete if you don’t mind mixing companies. TFC Toys has plans for an Abominus, although little about it is known, and there is already an existent Third Party Abominus (that is now in the Coffin’s possession, and should start being featured before the end of this year. –mr), and the new direction of 3P combiners seems to be going bigger, releasing actual Masterpiece scaled figures that will result in titanic combined forms. Surely a thinkpiece on this matter is forthcoming, but I’m not sure that the Coffin collection needs or wants Masterpiece sized combiners. This is not the end of the combiner line for the Coffin, as there are still a load of 3P combiner figures in the pipeline here, but Poseidon could be the last of the line for combiners in this size. If that is true, TFC Toys surely has gone out with a bang, as Poseidon is really a crowning accomplishment in design and engineering.