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: 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. 

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. 

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.

Transformers Universe: Stormcloud

 The repaint is an integral part of most major toylines. Here’s the boring reason: each toy is made through an expensive process of design and steel molds and boredom, apparently. The repaint is the companies’ opportunity to make extra profit on the existing mold(s) by reusing them. Since the initial investment has been made, theoretically all the money made on repaints should be profit. Repaints are usually different characters of similar type to the original. The Transformers brand has counted the repaint as part of its backbone dating all the way back to 1984 and the first wave of toys. The Seekers, the Autobot Datsuns, Ironhide and Ratchet, Soundwave’s cassettes. Later waves would bring the Coneheads, and retools like Hoist and Grapple, modified versions of the existing Trailbreaker and Inferno. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars (and Generations) Trailbreaker(s)

  

Damn it Combiner Wars, stop making me buy you.

The second set of Autobot repaints yielded two good figures and two boring figures. Smokescreen and Trailbreaker are colorful and interesting looking toys; Wheeljack and Hound are boring as all get out. I knew from the moment I saw Trailbreaker in a store that I would be waging a war against myself until I bought him, and I think I did a good job of holding out for a while. Had I not bought him now, I’d have picked him up on the secondary market at some point.

Ghosts of Christmas' Past: Transformers: Henkei! Ghost Starscream

Of all the wealth of characters in the Transformers universe, my favorite is and always has been Starscream, the treacherous lieutenant of Megatron and commander of the Seekers, the elite air commandos. In Transformers The Movie, the 1986 animated feature and still only watchable big screen Transformers venture, Starscream is blasted by Galvatron and later, in Season 3 of the G1 cartoon, comes back as a ghost and causes hijinks. This spectral Starscream winds up being kind of a thing, appearing in an episode of Beast Wars in 1996 as well. 

Every so often, Takara in Japan puts out a Starscream figure in translucent plastic as a special Ghost of Starscream, and every year, there is a Christmas. My wife has made a habit of getting me a Ghost of Starscream for Christmas and, as Christmas is once again approaching, I thought I’d take some time here on the Coffin to take a look at these interesting and fairly unique entries in the Transformers toy catalog, compliments of my wife. About a month ago, I won an eBay auction for the first such figure, an eHobby exclusive G1 Starscream; but it is thanks to my wife that I have any of these, really.

The first Ghost of Starscream figure I got was the Henkei! version, a translucent Classics Starscream. The Classics Seeker first appeared in 2007,  and by now I don’t think there’s a Transformers fan alive that hasn’t handled one. There will probably be a more thorough write up on this general figure coming in the future, so I’m going to keep this focused on this specific one.