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. 

Star Wars: The Black Series: FN-2187 (Stormtrooper Finn)

 

A quandary: how does one, devoted solely to collecting Imperial-esque figures, incorporate a non-Imperial character into one’s collection without having to explain why there’s a deviation from the purely Imperial inclusions? 

A resolution: one waits for the Stormtrooper version of said character.

Not really screen accurate, but...

After seeing millions of jacket-wearing Finns plugging up store space for months, I found a Stormtrooper Finn, First Order designation FN-2187. I had to buy it, because he’s a Stormtrooper. This had been my justification since I’d first found out about the toy: I can just keep his helmet on, just like troopers Han and Luke. And, he also adds some context to my Poe, obtained thanks to his inclusion in a two pack. 

 

 

Grave Considerations: Transformers Combiner Wars

It has been known that the Combiner Wars line would be ending at the end of 2015, and that 2016 would see the start of a new toyline. I have written on a lot of the Combiner Wars figures, and while there are still a few coming that will no doubt be covered before things are really over, I wanted to take a bit of time and discuss the line as a whole.

This was a line that gave Transformers fans and collectors an opportunity to get updated versions – quality updated versions – of G1 combiner teams. In many ways, it was a continuation years later of the “Classics” line, that one which has been resurrected on and off if not officially then in spirit for certain, from 2007. Combiner Wars carried that torch by providing representations of G1 characters in as close to G1 as possible of a fashion, and the results were generally terrific. On the whole, figures were posable and detailed, and were very good looking. The Deluxe class worked great for the limb bots and the Voyager size allowed for large, imposing looking combined forms that captured the proportions of a five robot combo so well. 

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.

Star Wars: The Black Series: First Order Flametrooper

It has been said that the day before the start of C2E2 my wife and I visited our local comic shop. The shop carries a lot of figures, and occasionally they get Black Series stuff. This trip, they had some figures from the newest wave, the Jango Fett wave I’ll call it, and I grabbed two of them. The first one was the Frist Order Flametrooper.

Transformers: Combiner Wars Starscream

I’ve already talked about this mold, and I’ve spent a lot of time talking about various Starscream figures, but I want to hit both topics once more here. 

The Leader class Jetfire/Seeker mold is now one that has certainly shouldered its share of reuses. Such is life for any figure that is going to represent any of the main Seeker trio, and there is probably a sigh of relief let go by the mold when the third use is done, knowing that a Conehead can’t easily be made from the same steel plates. “Three uses. . . and now my time is ended,” the mold whispers, before it probably just gets thrown away. This particular mold was used four times, and it was only while taking these pictures that I remembered Jetfire came first. Upon initial news that Jetfire was to be dressed up as Thundercracker, many were skeptical that such a reuse of the figure would be successful, but it really was. The Jetfire and Seeker variants of this seem in places like completely different figures, despite being one of Combiner Wars less intensive reuses.

Transformers: Combiner Wars Shockwave

At C2E2 I found a guy who said he’d bought the inventory of a toy store and had basically set up a booth to sell as much of the merchandise as he could. It must have been a Toys R Us, because he had several of the Toys R Us Masterpiece Bluestreaks on hand. Everything he had was listed at below retail prices, except for things he knew were going to be in demand due to newness, and those things he only marked a few dollars higher than similar items. He had Combiners Wars Scattershot for like $22, while Cyclonus was $18. The booth was a goldmine. . . mainly of toys I already had. But, he had the newest wave of Combiner Wars Legends figures, and from that selection I obtained Chop Shop and Shockwave.

Shockwave is the Legends class partner for Bruticus, and his card bio claims that he created the Combaticons. Lol, no. This egregious blasphemy aside, Shockwave doesn’t have a third mode like the other Legends lil’ buddy figures: his alt mode is his usual and proper space gun form, which then Bruticus wields, just like in that one episode of the G1 cartoon. Bruticus can hold Shockwave in hand, or he can be mounted on Bruticus’ back, but that doesn’t really add anything to the combined figure.