Thoughts on a few things I’ve bought recently.
Transformers Legacy Metalhawk
I’ve been on the fence for this for ages. I like the character, but never felt compelled to pick this up. Then it got recoloured with nicer greys and I still didn’t pick it up. Both versions have been hanging around on mild clearance for a while and I needed to suggest something I’d want for my birthday.
And I picked the “wrong” one. I’ve got the one with the lighter greys rather than the charcoal ones and… look, it’s fine. I’m not sure that darker grey would actually be better, but there’s something about this lighter shade of grey that just makes it feel like it’s unpainted. Maybe it’s all the resin I’m printing in the exact same colour.
That colour scheme is mainly a problem in alt mode. I don’t think the colour design for that works at all really, as you get a blue jet with red highlights and then just random grey panels. It’s far less of an issue in robot mode and Metalhawk is a cool figure. I’d forgotten that he’s a retool of Kingdom Cyclonus and that’s a good base to work from.
So yeah, it’s nice, it just feels a like some metallic paint/plastic would have boosted it.
Transformers Age of Primes Quickstrike
Another one I was on the fence about because from pictures it doesn’t look that different from the original Beast Wars one. Which obviously not everyone is going to have, but I do, so did I really need the upgrade?
Well I went for and I’m glad I did because it’s awesome. It’s bigger than the BW original (which was a basic class figure), about twice the size and with that a lot sturdier. It is the same basic transformation pattern, just with ~30 years of improvements in design. It’s replaced the translucent plastic of the original with a nice shade of goldy-yellow that gives the impression of being metallic without actually being metallic (except when paint on the chest).
It looks absolutely look the character did on the show and there’s a variety of blast effect and 5mm ports (not that I have much of any to put in them), replacing the water squirting element from the original. A really great figure.
TMNT 88 Remastered 6 Pack
Last year, possibly 2024, Playmates released four “remastered” 88 Turtles, a bit like Transformers Missing Link. These were recreations of the original Turtles figures, but with better articulation. They also gave them nice stands and, for some reason, horrible textured skin. I passed (easy to do given, as with so much of Playmates stuff, it wasn’t available in the UK).
Late last year they revealed this 6 pack. It’s the four Turtles figures again but with smooth skin and joined by Splinter and Shredder. I found a place importing the set (a Target exclusive in the US, I think) for £50, so went for it. And then waited several months while it kept getting delayed, only to turn up almost out of the blue.
The Turtles themselves are pretty great. They really look the part as the original 88 figures (which I’ve bought most of in the last year or so – just missing a Raphael) but with nicer articulation. The originals had swivel joints at the neck, shoulder, elbow and then a more flexible one at the hip. These have ball joints or rotating hinge joints at the neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee and ankle. They’ve all got the same body with different heads, which is fair enough. The belts have been redesigned a bit, so that they’re not connecting on the buckle. Their signature weapons are all included, now in accurate colours (with colour coded handles) rather than uniform orange-brown. No stands, but given they’ve all got flat feet now (rather than a mix of flat feet and tip-toes) and more articulation, they’re not too hard to get to stand (although weirdly I’m finding it harder to get Don nicely posed on the legs than the others, which is weird given they’ve got the same bodies).
I did have to get a heat gun out to reform most of the hands (softer plastic than the originals) so they’d hold their weapons properly, mind.
And then there’s Splinter and Shredder, who are… weird.
Splinter is really cool. Vinyl kimono rather than the original cloth. Has his stick sword and bow and arrow (no paint apps on the bow and arrow, but it’s a really nice sculpt with a surprising amount of flexibility). Really great head sculpt too. What it isn’t though, is anything to do with the original figure. Completely different mould entirely. And as I said, it’s not a bad mould, but it’s not really a “remastered 88” one. It’s just a completely new figure in the style of the early card art, maybe the cartoon.
It’s the same with Shredder, just with worse results. The new Shredder figure fixes some of the problems with the originals – brim of the helmet painted correctly and not as his forehead? Check! Able to stand upright rather than in a persistent back-breaking hunch? Check! But it’s not great. It just feels really weedy. The paint apps on the face are weak and bland (just eyebrows and black dot eyes on white, but there’s no expression there). As with Splinter, the original cloth cape is replaced with a big heavy, wide vinyl one, which mainly serves to highlight how thin the body feels. Oh but they did keep the weirdly posed left hand that looks like it should be for holding a shuriken but doesn’t really hold them well.
It’s just an odd choice. 88 Shredder is, I think, the one figure that would most benefit from a Missing Link style remaster. Proper paint apps on the helmet, a hinge joint in the chest and some knee joints, so he stand up straight for once. But instead, there’s just this entirely new, bland stand-in. Maybe it was a scale thing? I imagine straightened out 88 Shredder would tower over everyone else, even later human figures from the original line, but still. Just feels an odd choice.
Shredder comes with a couple of swords (and I had to heat his hands too). The set also has one each of that weird pizza looking stabby thing in the above picture (which I always thought was a bit of pizza, as a kid), one of the bigger punch daggers (which I always thought was some kind of pie slice for pizzas), a five pointed shuriken and a four pointed shuriken. And that’s it. Feels slightly miserly for six figures, but honestly, who is ever going to display a Turt holding those if they’ve got the signature weapons? It feels like a required formality. The proper punch dagger is much smaller than the original though.
Overall, £50 for four really good Turtles, a nice “imposter” Splinter and a so-so “imposter” Shredder isn’t bad. I’d be interested in more of these (Rocksteady and Bebop, April, Usagi – basically the ones I’ve bought originals of recently) but I guess that won’t be happening given Playmates have (despite literally everyone else on the planet having one) lost their Turtles license from 2027 on.
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Martin Smith.
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