Transformers: Titans Return Astrotrain

 

 

Now that the semester is finally over, I can get caught up on some toys. I have had things sitting around for months now, and just had never had the opportunity to take pictures of them. Every review posted between the start of November and the Star Wars figures yesterday were all done from pictures I took one day in October, when my wife and I called off sick from work. I spent an entire day taking pictures, and still didn’t finish everything I had at the time; and then, as happens, new toys were added, and my list was really starting to get out of control. I took some new pictures earlier this week, and now have new old things I can finally write on. And oh man, do I have some brand new stuff, which will all be old by the time I finally get it on here.

The first of these old new toys is Voyager class Astrotrain. This is only my second dip into the Titans Return Voyager class, as I passed on the “original” use of this mold, the blazing orange Sentinel Prime, and laughed my way right past that hideous Alpha Trion. Astrotrain is a good figure that has some real strengths and some real weaknesses.

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Deathtrooper Specialist, Captain Cassian Andor and Sergeant Jyn Erso

One more set of Rogue One figures before I go see the movie. It is currently 3.24 pm in Chicago, and we’ve got 7.30 tickets. 

This trio of figures is the Target exclusive for the movie, and, just as last years’ Target exclusive pack did, contains a Trooper and some actual characters. Two this time, both of whom in this present moment we still know little to nothing about: Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso, who has always been the main character of the movie, from the very first second of the very first teaser. And again, a slightly modified Trooper, so that the ‘battle in a box’ format is maintained. It should come as no surprise that my interest in the set was the Deathtrooper, but, just as was the case last year, I’m sure that once I’ve seen the movie, the other figures will become more significant to me. 

Star Wars: The Black Series Scarif Trooper Commander, Scarif Stormtrooper and Imperial Hovertank Pilot

 Oh boy! The day has finally arrived! Tonight, we are going to see Rogue One, the first Star Wars spinoff or standalone movie, after over a year of waiting and hype! What better way that to kick off the big day than with a review of some Rogue One figures?

This trio of figures is getting a single review because, aside from some paint, belts and helmets, they are the exact same toy. Two of them are store exclusives, while the one that would have made the most sense to be a store exclusive is the mass retail release.

Transformers: Titans Return Weirdwolf

 

 

Weirdwolf is a character and toy that will always, always have a real special place in my heart. Originally characterized as just a strange dude who spoke in bizarre, rhythmic phrases and as a result was disliked by comrades, Dreamwave’s stellar More Than Meets The Eye guidebooks established Weirdwolf as a poet back in the old days on Cybertron. He has always been a strange, offbeat characterization, although never much of a character. I think the last fiction he appeared in was the Botcon comic from 2007, because a Botcon Weirdwolf was one of the “Games of Deception” set add-on figures. I remember, in 2006 or 2007, when the G1 Decepticon Headmasters were the figures I was actively hunting for, Weirdwolf was the last one I acquired, and was super excited to have finally done so.  Titans Return Weirdwolf, or “Wolfwire” as they have now branded him, was an anticipated figure here at the Coffin, and is maybe the one figure from Wave 2 that is good and fun and exciting from start to finish.

Transformers: Titans Return Brainstorm

 Brainstorm is a Walgreens exclusive. That just never sounds right to me. 

A reworking of the totally outstanding Titans Return Blur, Brainstorm is a really gorgeous figure that does all the same things well that Blur does well. The face sculpt is terrific, the remolded front end piece for the vehicle mode is great, the overall appearance is great. 

Original and mint flavored.

Transformers: Titans Return Highbrow

 Highbrow is the second use of the basic concept of the Scourge mold. The two share a general transformation pattern, although it is pretty hard to tell that just by looking at the two of them. The main similarities end up being the extending waist part and the general way the arms connect to the side of the body for transformation.

Aside from that, the two figures are pretty different, and that is good on some ends nad not so good on another. Let’s start with the good things.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise Starscream

My general unfamiliarity with this line makes me uncertain how to title this entry. I’m pretty sure the toyline is called Robots in Disguise, but I could be mistaken. The line is connected to the current cartoon, which by most accounts is good if you can find a way to view it. This toyline gets a lot of love on the fan boards, but it isn’t much of an interest to me. I bought this figure because it is a Starscream, and a pretty darn good one. So, without any strong attachments to the line or the fiction it represents, how do we feel about this Robots in Disguise Starscream?

Star Wars: The Black Series Boba Fett (Prototype)

 Not many Star Wars fans need any introduction to Boba Fett, Exhibit A in any argument that deals with the development of an utter icon that began its life as a throwaway. 

So, now that that introduction is out of the way, the design for Boba Fett was originally supposed to serve as armor for some kind of super Stormtrooper, a commando of sorts. Designed by total legend Ralph McQuarrie, Boba Fett underwent some design changes and ended up as the cool, silent bounty hunter everyone loves, and then later was saddled with backstory that was unnecessary by the prequel movie Episode II: Attack of the Clones. This figure, one of the ever-puzzling Walgreens exclusives of recent years, is a representation of Boba Fett in that prototype Stormtrooper-ish armor.

Star Wars: The Black Series Death Trooper

Here we are again, all of this familiar territory. It is December. The semester is ending. A new Star Wars movie is coming in three short weeks – Rogue One, the first of the standalone, anthology movies – which means that while my students are frantically trying to appeal to me with harrowing tales of why they were slacking for the first fifteen weeks of a sixteen week semester and thus, deserve some mercy, my mind is drifting ahead to a new adventure in a galaxy far, far away. Toys for Rogue One began showing up over a month ago, and I made a preliminary foray into writing about them, but decided to hold off with the rest until December came and the movie was closer at hand. That way, I’d get to spend some time right before the movie releases focusing my hype attention on the new movie. 

Rogue One is set before A New Hope, and so for the first time in forever we have a generally known quantity going in. We know that this will be a story of the Empire vs. the Rebellion, and that means one very important thing: new Stormtroopers.

Coffin Shaker: Metallica – Hardwired…To Self Destruct

Here we go again with Metallica. Once such a cornerstone outfit in heavy metal music, Metallica has certainly undergone their mutations over the last twenty six years. While a lot of this was covered in my review ofSt. Anger, I find it necessary to revisit for their newest offering, Hardwired…To Self Destruct, an album I greeted with great caution and am so far immensely puzzled by. I can’t help but feel confused by this album as a whole, all twelve songs of the two-disc arrangement. Unlike fuller, more oppressive two-disc albums like Iron Maiden’s Book of Souls, Hardwired isn’t more than 80 minutes long, but rather is a 77 minute affair purposely broken up onto two discs, an odd move in the current time where music can be digitally acquired and stored, which makes the two discs, even if done for some kind of thematic reason, totally unnecessary. This isn’t the days of tapes, where too long a tape was more prone to breakage over time, and there is absolutely not enough content here for two CDs, which hold 80 minutes of music apiece. So, what the fuck, Metallica? 

Transformers: Titans Return Mindwipe

Let’s take things back to a simpler, happier time: a few weeks ago, before the world went crazy, and I attended the gathering of love and frivolity known as TFCon Chicago. At that time, I was in full on hunt mode for Wave 2 of the Titans Return Deluxe figures, and had obtained all of them except for a certain vampire hypnotist Decepticon. 

Transformers: Titans Return Chromedome

Wave 2 of Titans Return Deluxes kicks off with the mnemosurgeon IDW made famous, Chromedome, or what is perhaps his more accurate name, Headmaster Dead End. This figure is basically the same as Combiner Wars Dead End, only with the Headmaster gimmick taking the place of the combining one. The transformations schemes are the exact same; the arms and legs are the exact same; the car hood backpack is the exact same. Loyal readers will remember my extensive writing on the Dead End mold, so I should like the slightly different version, right?

Well, yeah, I do. But Chromedome here is not without things to complain about. But first . . . 

Transformers: Unite Warriors Computron

Right now, I’m unsure about a lot of things. Things aren’t making sense the way they should. I don’t know what to do, or where to start doing things I that I know I need to do.

So I figure Unite Warriors Computron might be a good review to work on. This review is long overdue, as this isn’t even a new release any more, having been in my possession since September. I don’t know, even as I sit down to write this, how I want to proceed: should I do individual figures; should I just do the whole thing as a whole? I didn’t know; I don’t know even as I sit to start working on it. I think I’m just going to wing it. I'm just going to sit down and try, because that is how I figure things out.

Unite Warriors Computron is another entry in the long list of toys in the “That Figure Will Never Happen” Hall of Fame. Like two years ago, a Combiner Wars Scattorshot was announced at SDCC, and the idea immediately took hold that Combiner Wars Technobots were on the way. By Botcon of that year, Hasbro had denied this idea, citing the ever accurate, iron clad “No Plans At the Moment” defense. Naturally, a portion of the fandom took this to mean Never. Of course, there are two Computrons on the market currently.

Transformers: Titans Return Scourge

  

Rounding out Wave 1 of Titans Return is Scourge, another toy I was initially avoiding for reasons listed in my write up on Blur. A few weekends ago, my wife and I went to IKEA and bought new bookcases, and then stopped at a couple stores before heading home. One of them was a Toys R Us, and I grabbed both Blur and Scourge.

Transformers: Titans Return Blur

 

There is so much stacked against Titans Return Blur for me that it’s not even funny. Not traditionally a Headmaster character, not a character I have much connection to, not a toy that I was particularly enthused about when news of it first surfaced. Seems like a largely needless injection of a gimmick into an update of a G1 character.

Then why does Blur wind up being so terrific?

Star Wars: The Black Series K2-S0

Well, here we go again. A new Star Wars movie is on the horizon, the first of the standalone films, Rogue One, arriving this December. Once again, a new cast of characters will be making its debut, and with them, a slate of action figures depicting them, clamoring for us to buy them despite not knowing anything about them right now other than small bits of information gleaned from teasers and trailers and whatever prose there exists to serve as a vague introduction before the events of the movie transpire. Last year, I bought a figure I liked, and banked on the notion that, being a figure in one of the first two waves of The Force Awakens merchandise, it must be a Somebody. It wasn’t. 

Transformers: Generations Armada Starscream

 

 Ah, Generations. The continuation of the ever changing to meet the needs of the brand Universe line. 

At several points in the history of the moniker new toys have been released, figures designed and produced as 100% originals, rather than the straight up repaints of old figures which were the hallmark of the line from its origins until 2008. Between about 2011 and 2014 the Generations line took up the mantle of being the ‘collector focused’ line, and a slew of G1 updates were released in its packaging. With the success of Transformers comics on the upswing in the 2012-2013 cycle, Generations also became the toy line attached, either in part or in whole, to releasing figure versions of characters featuring in the comics. But here is a sort of grey area for some: was Generations the umbrella under which comic characters got new toys, or were comic characters getting more comic attention because they were getting new toys in the Generations line? The dreaded ‘to sell toys’ argument was reborn again, as it is with every Transformers fictional iteration. 

Grave Considerations: TFCon Chicago 2016

On Saturday, October 26^th, my wife and I went to TFCon Chicago. Over the years, I’ve never gone to a Botcon, despite a few of them having been in the Chicago area, and I missed TFCon in 2014 when it was in Chicago as well. We’ve been going to C2E2 for the last few years, so the two of us are no newcomers to the convention scene, but this was our first trek to a property exclusive convention.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Child Sized Coffin!

Transformers: Titans Return Hardhead

 

Hardhead was the second Deluxe class figure from the Titans Return line I picked up, largely as an impulse/”I haven’t bought a new toy in weeks” purchase. Initially, my feelings on the line were not too favorable, and I was only interested in a few figures. But after handling Skullcruncher and Galvatron, I warmed up to the entire series very fast. In the beginning, I was not at all planning on going in for the Autobot Headmasters, but Hardhead may be the figure that changed that.

Transformers: Titans Return Rewind

  

By now, I’ve gathered up a couple of Titans Return figures of various size classes. A few Deluxes, a Voyager in Galvatron. And I’ve even wandered into the Scout or Legends class with Rewind here. My sole motivation for purchasing Rewind was to pair him up with Chromedome, when I eventually get him, because, thanks to a More Than Meets the Eye/My Chemical Romance mash up t-shirt from Ript Apparel, my wife is now super amused by the conjunx endura.

That concept is one that has many, many conversational miles on it by now, and truthfully, you’re either a fan of it or you really, truly hate it, a middle position apparently not possible. I myself wasn’t sold on it initially, but eventually came to like it. But, in my own defense, I have never understood the need for Cybertronians to engage in things that approximate human romance-based relationships. That may be more of a topic for a future post, but to cut to the chase, after some time of mainly disinterest as opposed to displeasure, dislike or distaste, I came around to the conjunx endura, and actually find it pretty charming. I am, after all, a romantic at heart, and Chromedome and Rewind seem so genuine, so . . . cute together.

Let me not beat around bushes any longer: I do not like Rewind at all.

Star Wars: Elite Series Darth Vader

The Elite Series purports to be a high end collection of Star Wars figures, aimed at collectors. These are not toys, and are not action figures in the normal sense of the term. Sold at Disney Stores and limited to a handful of characters, the Elite Series seems to be mainly movie tie in merchandise, and is perhaps Disney’s first original entry into the vast Star Wars merchandise universe.

Transformers: Titans Return Galvatron

So, for Titans Return everyone is a Headmaster. While the original *-masters figures contained different types –Targetmaster, Powermasters and Headmasters – the 2016 version boils everything down to a transforming robot who becomes the head of the larger, established Cybertronian. That’s fine, as the *-master gimmick is pretty dopey in general, and streamlining it to only one type broadens the play pattern for the entire line, rather than having it separated by incompatible types. Sure, a Headmaster figure could wield a Targetmaster weapon partner; but if you’re a Powermaster engine, pfft. Get to steppin’. The wide reach of this gimmick is a little concerning, as it spreads to characters like Galvatron who have no history of being *-masters, AND specifically in the case of Galvatron in the IDW comics, really, really hate this kind of augmented Cybertronian, viewing them as abominations trying to compensate for some weakness that needs to be purged from the Cybertronian race. Man, Galvatron was so much nicer when he was just a crazed Megatron upgrade: when they try to make him a totally separate and distinct character, they just focus on the crazy.

Mass Burial – Vomitory, Opus Mortis VIII

The last hurrah for Swedish death metal other guys Vomitory, Opus Mortis VIII, their eighth album if you didn’t know, was released in 2011. Apparently, the band had known ahead of time that this would be their last work, so a fair question winds up being whether or not they were going to leave anything undone in their careers: would this album be more of their standard, or would we see some new ideas since, with the band ending, the risk of alienating listeners would be pretty low.

Mass Burial – Vomitory, Carnage Euphoria

The penultimate Vomitory album feels like, in some ways, a return to the early Vomitory albums: Carnage Euphoria takes a few songs to get going, as the fourth track “Ripe Cadavers” is the first one that really gets my attention. “A Lesson in Virulence” is a good third song, a usual Vomitory trait, but this time, it’s a slower tune that appears in that slot and that for whatever reason keeps the album from taking off. “Rage of Honor,” “Deadlock” and closer “Great Deceiver” are also quality tunes.

Mass Burial – Vomitory, Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize

Five albums in, I think it’s safe to make some general statements on the career of the band. Vomitory plays death metal. Vomitory plays death metal very, very well. They have the brutality of the American scene and the melody and guitar work of their native Sweden. Lyrically, they cover a lot of the standard death metal bases of gore, violence and murder, and killing and demons, and war, not content to stick to one content approach like many other bands do. Truly, Vomitory is a smorgasbord of death metal, with something for everyone because everyone likes something.

Mass Burial –Vomitory, Primal Massacre

Album number five for the Swedish death metal machine that was Vomitory. Back in the old days of the early 2000s, I would stop at a local record store every single payday. I would get out of work, deposit my check (in the dark ages before we all had Direct Deposit, miracle that that is….) and head to the same store, regardless of where I was working. Maybe I’d put off my trip until I was on my way out for the evening, but regardless: like clockwork, every other Friday took me record shopping. I would walk around this store and look at practically any and every release that even appeared to be metal related. And every single trip would culminate with me buying a stack of new CDs, often times about one hundred dollars’ worth of new music at a time.

Mass Burial – Vomitory, Blood Rapture

Long, long ago, I owned two Vomitory records: this, from 2002, and its 2004 follow up Primal Massacre. I knew them both as quality death metal records, but was not at all familiar with the band as a unit.

Mass Burial – Vomitory, Revelation Nausea

Oh, 2001. A new millennium was upon us, but we had the same old Vomitory. Whatever that may mean to you, understand that I mean it in a positive way.

Revelation Nausea would feature another new vocalist, this time Erik Rundqvist, who would deliver the growls for the remaining Vomitory albums. His is a good, strong, satisfying death metal growl, closer to the style of Raped in Their Own Blood than Redemption.

Mass Burial –Vomitory, Redemption

The second record by Sweden’s Vomitory, “Redemption” was released in 1999.

Differences from Raped in Their Own Blood are noticeable immediately: the cover art has shifted over to the painted skeleton-in-a-crypt motif, away from the actual picture used for the first album. The music is a bit thrashier than the previous album, and oh, man, a new vocalist. Jussi Linna handles the vocal duties here, and I can’t find out much about him. It actually seems like a brief stint with Vomitory was his only real contribution to the metal scene.

Mass Burial – Vomitory, Raped in Their Own Blood

The first ever Child Sized Coffin discography project is dedicated to Swedish death metal band Vomitory. I have a little bit of familiarity with the band, having heard two of their albums a number of years ago,

Vomitory’s first album, 1996’s Raped in Their Own Blood, is a solid piece of mid-90s death metal. Everything about this album says ‘solid death metal’: the cover art is some fairly generic murder scene photo, the kind of thing that in 1996 would have been extreme and all, but looks pretty cheesy today. Ten songs of brutal, straightforward death metal, with the standard titles as well.

Coffin Shaker –Mass Burial Announcement

Hello again, Coffin friends,

About a week ago, I made a post announcing some new features I was hoping to add to the Child Sized Coffin; one of them was a fairly ambitious music project wherein I’d take on an entire discography by a single band. After some deliberation, I am pleased to make the following announcement:

A new feature is coming to the Coffin! Entitled the MASS BURIAL, this new column will focus on reviewing an entire discography from a single band. 

Transformers: Titans Return Skullcruncher

So, here it is: the first Titans Return review on the Coffin. Reports on these toys have been showing up for two months now, so this is hardly a breaking story; but, as I hope to show this weekend, I’ve gotten a bunch of new things in September, but work has kept me from doing anything fun.

For those who would object to my referring to the figure as his G1 name of Skullcruncher instead of the neologism SkullSMASHER, my condolences and deep, deep apathy.

Grave Considerations – Future Events, Because the Future is Where You and I Will Spend the Rest of Our Lives, In the Fture

Hello, Coffin fans.

It’s been a busy few weeks over here, again, and as a result, again, Child Sized Coffin has suffered for content, despite my actually having some things to discuss at present. I’m working on new material, pretty much as fast as I can, but I’ve also been mulling some new directions for the blog.

For starters, if you’ve been following the Coffin for its year of existence, you know that things have been  changing around here from pretty much post #1 onward. It’s taken me awhile to get this project 

Grave Considerations: Transformers Titans Return Pre-Thoughts

I have finally found some of the new Titans Return figures. Before spending time with them, let me give my thoughts on the line as a general idea.

The central gimmick of Titans Return is that Headmaster: a small robot that transforms into the head of a full-sized one. Storywise, this concept is slightly complicated by the point of origin for the story one chooses: in the American G1 continuity, the small robots were inhabitants of the planet Nebulous, where a civil war had broken out, not unlike that of Cybertrons’ past. Halves of the conflict ally themselves with either Cybertronian faction, acting as a second head being better than only one. Thus, heads and robots remain distinct entities, separate characters who more or less work together to do the things that the Cybertronian had been perfectly capable of doing on their own up until now. In Japan, the small robot WAS the character, with the larger body being an exosuit-type thing. Titans Return is predictably sticking with the American version, and so each Headmaster is a separate character . . . to whatever extent you consider a small robot who bends over to be an actual character.

Grave Considerations – Build A Figures

About a week ago, my wife and I were at a party, and a friend and I started talking about Marvel Legends figures. The conversation ranged all across the topic, from upcoming figures to the current pricing to what has to be one of the truly daunting conundrums of our times: the Build A Figure.

Transformers: Combiner Wars G2 box sets

 

Theoretically, we are deep into the first wave or two of the new Titans Return toyline at this date in late August. Theoretically. I have yet to see anything more than the $5 head robots in stores, and I’m certainly not buying those; although, the single time I did see them in store, I legitimately gave a relieved exhale that they were priced at the low price they are, and not attempting to masquerade as $10 toys, in this day where Deluxes are trying as hard as they can to stay under $17: and by ‘trying to stay under,’ I mean the $16.99 I saw them listed for at Target. Anyway, we are supposed to be well on our way into the new line, but I’ve not seen them at all in stores. So, I’m choosing to stick with happier, more plentiful times and lines, and am going to retreat once more (at least) into Combiner Wars.

Transformers: Masterpiece Ramjet

If you’ve read my Ghosts of Christmas Presents series of reviews from last December, you’re probably aware of the tendency my wife has to buy me really awesome and occasionally really rare Transformers figures. My birthday was a few weekends ago, and I turned a spry 38 years old. My wife got me a really excellent two part gift: the first part is the Takara Mall exclusive Masterpiece Ramjet.

Ramjet is the first (we now know) of the Coneheads released in the Masterpiece line. Starting from the MP-11 Starscream body, Ramjet is a heavy modification that makes a lot of improvements to that figure, and has one of the most satisfying transformation steps that I’ve come across in some time. I took a picture of it, so don’t worry. Just try to process your excitement, and we’ll get to it soon enough. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars Sky Lynx

Here we are in July, the summer in full swing. Initial sightings of the new Titans Return line are popping up on the various fan sites, so I thought this would be a good time to finally get a review done for a figure that, like the aforementioned Titans Return toys, I have not yet seen at retail.

Back in April, Combiner Wars Sky Lynx was starting to show up randomly in the wild across the country. Reports that people were finding it at random Targets or Toys R Us’ gave hope to what at the time was a spreading belief that Sky Lynx was going to be that end of a line toy that no one ever found, following in the footsteps of so many really cool figures that are released in the dying light of a series that never makes it to shelves because the new series is being rolled out. At C2E2 I found one vendor with a Sky Lynx, but at the chuckle inducing price of $45. 

Coffin Shakers: Metallica – St. Anger

There is a moment in the making of video for The Phantom Menace where, considering young actors to portray childhood Anakin Skywalker, George Lucas decides on a particular youngster that I am not going to rag on here, but was clearly not the best choice. After making this proclamation, yes man Rick McCallum opens his mouth and a stream of congratulations and agreements pour out, while a

Transformers: Generations Brainstorm

  

With the imminent arrival of the Titans Return line which will focus exclusively on the Headmaster gimmick, I thought this might be a good time to write up Generations Brainstorm, the first in the new generation of Headmaster.

In case anyone doesn’t know, the Headmasters are one of the stranger G1 concepts. Speaking only for the American branch of the fiction, the *-masters were full-fledged Cybertronians who took on a symbiotic partnership with residents of the planet Nebulous, whose indigenous Nebulons were engaged in a generations-long civil war themselves. For some reason, certain Nebulons offered their services to the Cybertronians, becoming tiny exosuit wearing partners that transformed into the heads (Headmasters), weapons (Targetmasters), or most puzzlingingly later on, engines (Powermasters) for the larger robots, approximating the “two heads are better than one” approach to life. With this development coming post-’86 movie, the robots had sleeker, more futuristic and abstract vehicle modes, and somehow that kind of made this wacky concept work. The Autobots entries in these three categories were generally cars, while the Decepticons got a boost to their air force as well as an assortment of animals.

Transformers: Collectors Club Depth Charge

In 2006, Botcon had a pre-Beast Wars focus, imagining the crews of the Axalon and Darksyde prior to their rough landing on prehistoric Earth. The resulting boxset, the generally highly regarded Dawn of Future Past, gave five takes on Cybertron-mode Beast Wars characters. The core Maximal cast of Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Cheetor and Rattrap, along with then-Predacon Dinobot, were all repainted from Cybertron toys, complete with Cyberkeys painted like the Golden Disks. This pre-Beast Wars  idea, like the similarly excellent Shattered Glass storyline, became a concept that FunPub and the Transformers Collectors Club would return to seemingly whenever they had no strong idea for the coming convention or subscription service, producing some winners and total duds along the way. So, if you’re really invested in this concept, there are Tigatrons and Airrazors and Waspinators and a fantastic Megatron and multiple Tarantulus’ among others to help fill out your displays.

Transformers: Unite Warriors Grand Galvatron

  

Here’s something that’s pretty interesting.

Unite Warriors is the Takara version of Combiner Wars, and is responsible for bringing us in the US the left out combiner team members like Slingshot, Wildrider and Groove. Essentially, Unite Warriors is only releasing box sets of full combiner teams, generally with improved or ‘more accurate’ paint schemes. The general release schedule has been following the US releases or announcements of teams, so there is something of a 1 to 1 ratio between Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors. Hasbro does Superion; Takara does Superion. Hasbro does Defensor; Takara does Defensor. Hasbro released a seemingly random and superfluous Cyclonus, serving as the torso of a limbless, teamless combiner called “Galvatronous”; Takara releases….Grand Galvatron, the Cybertronian Haunt Commander.

What?

Transformers: Combiner Wars Defensor and Protectobots

Heavily armed to protect the shit out of you.

This set has been a long time coming. Two days before my wedding almost one year ago, I bought Streetwise and Blades. One of the only times I saw Hot Spot in a store was last August on my honeymoon, in Germany. I don’t remember when I got First Aid, and didn’t find Rook until September. Groove – real Groove, Deluxe Groove- arrived Tuesday. So it took a year, but I’m finally making time to talk about Combiner Wars Defensor. He’s been on my to-do list, but I kept putting him off for reasons unknown, and then when preorders for Groove went up, I figured I’d wait until he came in, so I could do an overall Defensor entry. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars Groove

"Never."

 

One thing that I absolutely love about toy-based fandoms is the quickness with which some members rush to yell from the highest mountains that a figure will never, ever be released because the producing company says that they aren’t releasing one right now. As an unrelated reminder, there is still plenty of time to decide which of the two Combiner Wars Computrons you want, and . . . . wait, is that a Deluxe class Combiner Wars Groove? As in, original G1 Protectobot Groove?

It certainly is. Preorders for it went up like a month ago, all from overseas dealers, as Groove is some kind of Asian exlcusive. Then, not long after that, news leaked that Hasbro would be releasing Groove domestically at some point in May, but orders for that have yet to go up online.

Transformers: Reveal the Shield Special Ops Jazz

Here’s another figure I never saw in stores, and wound up tracking down on eBay.

Reveal the Shield was an effort to restart the Generations or Universe 2.0 line after the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, releasing Classics styled toys with the ol’ Generation 1 rubsigns. The line overall was comprised of a number of smaller toys, Legends essentially but pretty simple and cheap. A few of these toys were clearly Classics versions of characters, and so we got excellent toys like Tracks.

Transformers: Generations Drift

 

I know that I’ve been writing on some older toys recently, but these are mainly focusing on figures that are somehow new to me: either I’ve never experienced the mold before, or it’s a new character to me, or something like that. 

Drift is from 2010 I think, and this is/was the very first figure he ever had. Drift was introduced in the (I think) excellent “All Hail Megatron” miniseries that IDW Comics ran in 2008. He was introduced to much auto-disdain: Drift is a street race car armed with a very samurai sword and shows up to eradicate a swarm of Insecticons that had been running rough shod all over Cybertron, besting the ragtag group of Autobots (actually comprised of some heavyweights. . . ), basically instantly establishing himself as a Marty Stu (right? That’s what you kids are calling a male Mary Sue character these days, right?). 

Transformers: Adventures Roadblock

Adventures is the Japanese name for the current Robots in Disguise line, and includes some of those figures alongside repaints of older toys. One such repaint is Roadblock, a repaint of Generations Scoop and a reference to the G2 toy of the same name.