So I missed Iguanus when he hit retail in Dublin, saw he was still in-stock on BBTS and planned to get him when my SS86 rumble pre-order came in… and then Forbidden Planet restocked him, so eh, I picked him up local. And he’s a really nice little figure. Like Bomb-Burst his robot mode is a nice blend of the G1 beast shell and robot bits, his transformation has some really nice little touches – while still being shockingly similar to Cy-Kill from the Go-bots. My only real complaint is that there are two square tabs on the legs that jut outwards in robot mode, they’re there to clip into the main body to secure the legs in bike mode (and are kinda hard to line up correctly), and because of how the legs twist around they wind up on the outside in robot mode. Might have been better to have the tabs on the body and slots on the legs? Oh, and the weapon is a bit shit, but that was a cross-wave thing, Iguanus, Hot Rod and Thundercracker came with bits that could combine to form a sword instead of more character-appropriate ones. Oh oh, and the price increase on Core class figures makes me less likely to go in on them, they’re close to what I was paying for a Deluxe 6-odd years ago.
Scraphook is the first of the deluxe Junkion toys, which are Legacy Evolution’s “take them apart to make accessories for other bots” subline. Unlike the various options in War For Cybertron, these bots are meant to be transformable without taking them apart. And that mostly works! Robot mode gives off Ironhide vibes, like if he wound up exiled to Junk instead of Megatron in that one comic with the Livio Ramondelli art. He’s nicely poseable, but the design of the elbows means the forearms are prone to popping off. Transformation is a bit fiddly at the back as well, and sometimes it’s easier to remove the arms and forearms, reconfigure them and then clip everything back into place.
The vehicle mode, a Mad Max-esque tow truck is very cool looking. The collection of accessories is impressive and integrate well into the vehicle mode – a pair of steampunk phaser-looking pistols that become the engine block at the front, a small spiked shield that mounts nicely on the back of the truck like a spare tire. the only accessory that stands out is the towhook and crane, they look good in vehicle mode but are hard to find a place in robot mode, I just hide them round the back usually though
It seems to just be easier to get Decepticon Targetmasters done. Needlenose completes the Double Targetmasters, having been preceded by Quake in Titans Return and Spinister in Siege while the Autobots haven’t even got all the original Targetmasters out there yet. Unlike the prior two Decepticon Double Targetmasters, Needlenose comes with his Targetmaster partners. This turns out to be a mixed blessing, but we’ll get to that. His robot mode is another entry in the modernised version of the G1 original paradigm, with a lot of improvements in terms of poseability, including double-jointed elbows and wrist swivel. In a very nice touch, the wings angle back, and if you rearrange the back kibble, they can fold a full 90 degrees giving a bunch of options for altering his silhouette
Transformation is a bit weird, you lift up the shoulder pads, flip down the chestplate. the head is on a joint that lets it flip around 180 degrees and in a really cool touch – reveal a 3mm port for a display stand. You then fold the arms up at the elbow and then they turn upwards forming a pair of squares either side of the display stand port. the legs are then folded up and around the torso with the edges of the arm assemblies fit into gaps on the backs of the legs. The feet then fold up as well and tab in under the jet mode’s engine and then you fold down the nosecone and wings to finish it off.
Jet mode is very much the standard Transformers thing of looking like an aircraft from above, in this case an F-16XL, and a jumble of folded up robot parts from below. The feet forming a chunk of… stuff sticking out underneath the engine is pretty egregious but isn’t too noticeable from above. The instructions have an alternate configuration where you leave the feet flush to the legs and mount the targetmasters back there like an expanded engine but it looks terrible.
And speaking of looking terrible, there’s the Targetmaster partners. Crosshairs’ partner hews very close to the G1 original, and for some reason Needlenose’s partners hew close to his G1 partners too… and if you’ve never had the pleasure of the Double Targetmasters they’re slabs of plastic with a human shape in relief on one side, and then flip-out gun barrels on the other. They look fine as guns but are doubly uninspiring as little dudes. The other thing here is that one of the suggested ways of combining the guns in the original toy was to fold out the barrel on one, and then put the other one on top backwards with the barrel folded up – but the barrel would be pointing outwards and visible due to how the figure was constructed. But because Zigzag has a big tab at the back of his feet, presumably for balance in his Nebulan form, they also allow him to connect to Needlenose’s engines in plane form as a sort of engine booster effect. As a result you can’t mount Sunbeam on top of Zigzag in this configuration, and Zigzag’s gun barrels are blocked somewhat behind the tabs the other way round. This is a minor quibble overall but still.
As a fan of More Than Meets the Eye, there was no way I was skipping out on Tarn, and he’s a very impressive figure. The robot mode goes for the tall, lanky interpretation of the character design rather than the broad, looming one, and looks fantastic. He’s very poseable and lithe, without much in the way of non-functional kibble. There’s a lot of clear plastic on here but while it’s meant to evoke the glowing panels on his body in the comics, there aren’t sufficient channels through the body to allow for decent light piping.
Transformation has some interesting touches, especially around how the arms unfold into the tank tracks, but at the end of the day it’s just folding him down into a slab that kinda looks like a tank. But it does look like his alt mode in the comics, so I guess it works? Overall this is one of those figures that’s highly popular with fans of the comics, but has enough appeal out of that niche that he’s done well, I guess? I really like him anyway.
Lio Convoy is one of those characters where I have no major emotional attachment. I first became aware of him when Robot Masters figures were being imported and the figure of him in that line looked really cool – but I never got him. I’ve seen a handful of Beast Wars II episodes and read the Furman Beast Wars comics where he’s a character, but nothing made a big impression. Certainly not enough to make me consider tracking down any of his prior toys… But this one just showed up in Smyths and I liked the look of robot mode, so why not?
Like Tarn, this is a tall, slim robot but with a lot of lion bits hanging off him. The most incongruous are the lion forelegs mounted on his forearms. Now, they’re there in the original figure design and they retain the flip-out blades here but they do stand out. the other weapons are a quartet of small guns which hide quite neatly away, but can be mounted in the hands, on flip-out panels in the arms or panels in the lion head – again like the original toy. He’s also got an opening compartment on his chest revealing his Energon Matrix, but unlike various Autobot Matrices of Leadership we’ve gotten recently, it’s not removable.
Transformation is really cool, doing a lot more to shift and move parts around, conceal robot components and the like… But as Martin noted the head in lion mode doesn’t look great with the lifeless gold eyes. The original and Robot Masters toys have painted eyes, and the Masterpiece’s head actually transforms from an angular head to a smoother anime-looking one, but whether it was a budget or design choice it doesn’t look good.
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