A few weeks ago there
was a huge reveal of future Iron Factory releases, and once again, they seemed
to catch some part of my interest in a way that probably does need to be
addressed. Sure, I’ve pondered changing collection gears to more of these
Legends scaled figures, already owning a couple and honestly liking pretty much
every one that I see. But we’ve talked about this before, you and I, and
something about making such a huge (lol) shift in my collecting slightly
frightens me; I don’t want to add another line, for lack of a better word here,
to my shopping list, but I am growing more and more of an interest in these
figures. This is certain to be a thing that will drag out for quite some time
until it is finally resolved, and in the meantime, here’s Iron Factory’s
Amethyst, a purple repaint of Clone, which is itself a repaint of their
Starscream.
Amethyst does everything that Clone does, in terms of transformation
and poseability and everything. In true Seeker fashion, all that’s changed is
the paint, and here it is a lovely purple that is slightly darker on the torso
than the rest of the body. It’s not entirely clear if this is intended to be ‘generic
Decepticon Air Warrior,’ as the early days of G1 and then sporadic other
fictions would show us, or if this is supposed to be the purple Rainmaker since
a yellow and a green version currently exist, with a blue one, the final
Rainmaker, due out this spring. Either way, Amethyst is a good way to add some
extra muscle to the small scaled Decepticon/Seeker ranks, and that’s always
welcome. The limbs are all mounted on ball joints, allowing for a lot of
movement and such, and the transformation is simple and good. By “good,” I mean
it’s easy and makes sense, but it’s also a quality transformation scheme for a
figure of this size. Not as great as the scheme of the DX9 Seeker mold, but we’ll
talk about the two molds in a minute. A pair of detachable null rays peg onto
the arms, as well as under the wings in alt mode.
In terms of these being Third Party Rainmakers: I currently
own the DX9 Seekers and Coneheads, along with Clone and Amethyst. I think it’s
a good idea to approach these as the Rainmakers, as they are different looking
than their DX9 counterparts, perhaps more Cybertron-ish in their alt modes, so
the existence of this figures from two companies with two distinct looks allows
for some imagination to take hold. Sure, these techier looking jets are
characters who remained on Cybertron while the Seekers and Coneheads came to
earth and scanned earth alt modes. That works, right? It is a cool jet mode
still, slightly stumpy and not as graceful looking as the other kind, but
powerful and rugged nonetheless.
The purple looks very good on this figure, less strikingly
bold than the yellow of Clone, as Clone does tend to be a little bit bright. The
solid color nature of the Rainmakers seems to sap some of the interest from
their look, almost like they’re not as good looking as they are because they
are a solid block of color. The black forearms help to distinguish the figure
by at least providing some other element to draw the eye, breaking up the
purple assault, a great decision in the layout.
Something that has been a possible concern with this mold is
the way the legs transform, and whether or not repeatedly doing so would cause
the friction joints within to wear down. So far, there have been no issues with
this, even after repeated transformations of both Amethyst and Clone, so it may
be much ado about nothing in the long run. But, such wear and tear on a
critical joint is not unheard of, or even so unusual or rare that the mind
totally rejects it. We’ve probably all had that experience where a fresh out of
the package figure has such joint problems, so some concern here is not
completely unwarranted.
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| I didn't realize how blurry Amethyst ended up being in this picture until I was getting ready to post this . . . |
Just last evening I took a stroll around my apartment and
stopped to look at all of the toy displaying elements in it, and began
thinking. Over the course of this year, I am anticipating the arrival of some
fairly large figures. MakeToys Coneheads are coming, along with Mastermind Creations’
Inventa, along with anything else that pops up that didn’t pop into my head
last evening. As I looked at toy displays, I realized that I was going to begin
encountering space issues pretty quickly. If I were a collector of these Legends
figures, a single detolf shelf would be sufficient display space for a pretty
large group of them. Not at all trying to portray my situation as being one
where an entire two bedroom apartment (for which we just renewed our lease, and
I am much happier about than I probably should be . . . ) has been maximized in
terms of its storage ability, but there is going to be a space crunch coming if
I don’t address it. That, and the general simplicity of mindless conversion
while sitting on the couch or something, as opposed to needing to hold a figure
with two hands due to size or bulk, really make these figures appealing to me. But
at this point, that’s a thinking-aloud bit that has been done a few times, so I
suppose conclusion will come whenever it finally does. But these figures
continue to be interesting and intriguing, even if they are not super high on
the priority shopping list. 
nice.
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