Dave's Universe Classics Rant: Deluxe Wave 1
Sunstreaker - S****tscar
Prowl - Police pursuit car
Tankor - Trans****t airplane and tanker truck
Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/UDeluxe1
I've decided to "file" Universe Classics under Classics for now, any
non-Classics-label Universe recolors under the old Universe directory, and
if
the Universe line spreads further I'll decide where to go from there. :)
I
may or may not put 25th Anniversary toys (which are also Universe) into
Classics.
Case assortment on this seems to be three each of Sunstreaker and
Prowl,
two of Tankor. Tankor is basically Classics Octane, but they lost
"Octane"
on its own ages ago, and either also lost Mega-Octane, or felt Tankor was
a
name more worth protecting. Common fan-names include Tankane and
Octankor.
CAPSULES
Sunstreaker: Fairly impressive design, but some execution issues
bring
it down to merely Recommended rather than Strongly Recommended. $9.99 at
Target.
Prowl: Vehicle mode suffers from dodgy paint work and the gun won't
stay
stored. Good variant on the G1 Prowl transformation, very nice robot
mode.
Recommended. $9.99 at Target.
Tankor: Neither vehicle mode is that good, but I like that the
airplane
is a prop-driven type and not yet another jet. Fun transformations, so-so
robot mode, decent fanmode potential. On the low side of Recommended.
$9.96
at Wal-Mart.
RANTS
Packaging: Blister cards, as usual for Deluxes. The card is 12"
(30.5cm) tall and 7.5" (19cm) wide. Both top corners are truncated: the
upper right by maybe a centimeter, the upper left a little more than an
inch. A shallow isoceles trapezoidal notch is cut out of the left side
near
the bottom, and a right triangular notch is cut out of the right side at
the
top right corner of the blister.
The card front has the Transformers Universe logo at the top, with a
large faction symbol in the upper right. The left top edge has a piece of
painted character art...very static pose, and the expressions look kinda
dead. I've seen it called "zombie face" or "dull surprise" (the latter in
reference to Kathy Ireland's range of emotions in the movie "Alien From
L.A.). The background of the card has a sort of starscape fading from
black
to white through reds and oranges, with a glowing spacetime grid pattern
laid
over it and implying a wormhole behind the U in "Universe".
The card back also uses the starfield/grid background. The TFU logo
is
in the upper left, with the transformation difficulty ("Advanced
Conversion"
for 3) at the very top left. Another copy of the dead-face art is in the
upper right under a faction logo. The middle left is dominated by a photo
of
the robot mode with one or more call-outs. The middle right has the name,
"Classic Series", the bio note and the techspecs. The lower left has
co-sells of the other two Deluxes, and the lower right shows the vehicle
mode. Tankor is an exception, showing his ground mode instead of the
co-sell, and the flight mode in the lower right. There's no motto or
function listed.
The blister is 7.5" (19cm) wide, 7.5" (19cm) tall and 3" (7.5cm)
deep.
The front face is curved convexly. The upper left is truncated by about
2"
while the upper right is truncated by 2cm. There's a raised part along
the
bottom, where the cardstock insert is, as well as various molded tech-y
details. The truncated upper left corner has the figure's relevant
faction
symbol molded into it, and a smaller faction symbol is molded into the
right
side. There's a rather large amount of tape holding the side flaps to the
card back, the top and bottom are glued down.
The blister front has a corroded metal pattern in the cardstock
insert
along the bottom with the name, a call-out, faction symbol and "ROBOTS IN
DISGUISE", plus a choking warning. The cardstock goes up the right edge
of
the front and declares the figure's faction there. The cardstock on the
right side of the blister has the faction symbol (under the molded symbol)
and a bit of the character art. The bottom has legalese (except for
Tankor,
who also has the co-sells for the other two figures here), the left side
has
"DELUXE CLASS" and some vent patterning (and molding).
Additionally, Tankor's blister has a "TRIPLE CHANGER" sticker on the
front.
The instructions are loose at the bottom of the blister, and a
catalog
may or may not come with them (I got Tankor from a different store than
the
other two, and it had no catalog, so probably a running change thing).
Mottos and functions are my creations. And just a reminder, when I
list
previous name or mold use, I only mean U.S. mass market...I leave out
Japanese and convention-exclusive releases.
AUTOBOT: SUNSTREAKER
Altmode: Race Car
Function: Warrior
Weapon: Electron Pulse Blaster
Previous Name Use: G1, Alt
Previous Mold Use: None
Motto: "Live fast, die young, leave a good looking wreck...I just prefer
the
wreck be yours."
SUNSTREAKER is a fighter for a cause, and that cause is SUNSTREAKER.
If
it's in his best interest (and not too threatening to his paint job),
he'll
take out anyone he needs too [sic], no matter where he is. Still, he'd
rather be back home, kicking back, poli****ng his chrome and preparing for
a
good, old-fa****oned arena fight, rather than hunting DECEPTICON assault
squads across deep space.
STR 5 INT 6 SPD 7 END 8 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 7 SKL 6 Avg 6.375
I should note that there are plans to use this mold for Sideswipe,
with
a head swap and some tweaking. Where Sunstreaker uses the roof for his
chest, Sideswipe will have the roof as his back, and will have fists on
the
opposite arms. So you can get some idea what Sideswipe will look like by
swapping fists, turning the head and legs around, and adjusting other
kibble
to suit. This has also led to numerous Punch/Counterpunch kitbashes using
this mold. :) Seriously, I've already seen three just on the AllSpark
boards.
Packaging: 2 twist-ties hold the vehicle into the blister, his gun is
held in the blister separately. One rubber band holds the rear together
as
well.
Vehicle Mode: Sunstreaker is a Lamborghini hybrid. No, not a fuel
system hybrid, I mean he has a Murcielago front end, Countach rear. Of
course, no Lamborghini model these days has that weird supercharger intake
characteristic of G1 Sunstreaker (Lambos have rear-mounted engines), so
they
just sort of tack one onto the rear roof. At 5" (13cm) long, it's roughly
1:36 scale.
The gun pegs onto the underside, becoming the exhaust pipe and
holding
the rear halves together. It stays in place VERY well, in contrast to
Prowl's. The supercharger is a bit more loosely connected. You can pull
the
rear bumper sections apart to more fully reveal the gun, a sort of
"discourage tailgaters" feature.
Most of the toy is a bright yellow plastic. The wheels and the body
of
the supercharger are black plastic, as is a small tab at the front that
makes
up the grille. The intakes of the supercharger and the gun/exhaust pipes
are
light gray plastic. The roof section is a very dark smoky plastic, so
dark I
had to use a laser to be sure it's transparent. Clear colorless plastic
is
used for the headlights.
The roof is painted with bright yellow paint that's a poor match for
the
yellow plastic, and has a pattern of parallel grooves as well as a few
rectangular notches (used for attaching the supercharger in robot mode).
A
dark red Autobot symbol is painted on the roof. Orange-red paint with a
strong UV glow is used for the turn signal lights and the tail lights.
Hubcaps and details on the supercharger are painted silver, most of the
rear
side is painted gunmetal. A white-painted rear license plate has "WE R
84"
printed on it in black.
Other than the supercharger tending to pop off fairly easily and the
rear section folding apart easily, the car mode holds together solidly.
It
rolls well on the wheels, and the gun doesn't come off.
Transformation: Remove gun and supercharger. The rear half becomes
legs, the arms fold out from the sides, the roof becomes the chest.
Fairly
standard. Except...you twist the roof around to make the head
automatically
pop up, which is nifty. And the "ears" of the helmet are on springs and
pop
out automatically once the head is up.
The back is supposed to snap into place, with the front grille area
folded up to let the bumper slide around the waist. But at least on mine,
it
won't stay securely together.
There's several interlocking tabs on the door panels which can be a
bit
tricky to get all back together when going back to car mode.
Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall and pretty well pro****tioned. A little
kibbly, with car doors on his forearms and the rear chunks of his vehicle
mode acting as big kneecaps.
A pretty good mix of plastics here, including, oddly, clear colorless
plastic on some of the internal torso bits. Black plastic: head, internal
torso bits, upper arms, elbows, fists, door-holding struts, pelvis, hips,
knees, feet. Yellow plastic: shoulders, car kibble on back, boots,
forearms. Light gray plastic: forearms, thighs, gun, internal torso bits.
And, for some odd reason, clear teal plastic inserts on the thigh fronts.
The smoky plastic isn't just on the chest, there's a little piece of it
bolted onto each door, so that there's a little bit of a notch at the top
of
the chest to avoid shoulder interference.
The roof is now the chest, putting the Autobot symbol front and
center.
There's yellow paint details in his horns, silver face and bright medium
blue
eyes. No lightpiping. The orange-red dayglow paint from the taillights
is
used on shoulder stripes and a panel line in the pelvis. Gunmetal paint
is
used on some mechy details on the backs of the legs, although it doesn't
fully distract from the big gaps in the backs of the legs. Still, I
appreciate the effort put into painting parts invisible in vehicle mode
and
marginally visible in robot mode.
The head is on a ball joint, and while the waist has a swivel joint
it
can't really turn without dislodging bits. I think it's really just there
to
let Sideswipe turn the legs around for his version of the toy. Ball joint
shoulders with a transformation strut that allows a little bit of
shrugging.
The upper arm swivels are actually disc-peg things that can be snapped
out.
Double hinge elbows, disc-peg swivel wrists. The arms are fully
reversible,
so if you want you can try out the Sideswipe configuration with the roof
as
the back (and the hands can be easily swapped). Ball joint hips, a non-
poppable swivel above each knee, hinge knees, and sideways transformation
joints just below the knees. The ankles are floppy ball joints on the end
of
struts, a bit of superglue (and then moving the joint around until the
glue
dries) stiffened them up.
The door panels don't peg or otherwise really lock into place, and
easily slide out of place. The gun is held a little loosely in either
hand.
The supercharger is pretty much just a backpack detail, it can't be
repurposed as a hand weapon or ****eld. You can clip the supercharger
around
the gun to make a bigger cannon, but it's not always stable (some re****t
it
holds together really well, others that it falls apart). The idea is to
fold
the gray bits on the supercharger around the sides of the gun, then mount
it
on a shoulder (the gun handle has a narrowed bit at the bottom to fit into
one of the holes on the collarbone area). Mine doesn't hold together well
enough to bother.
Overall: A good vehicle mode with a fairly nifty transformation
gimmick,
not to mention impressive engineering that renders this effectively a two-
robot-mode triple-changer and lets them remold this into Sideswipe with
only
tiny changes for a big difference. Clones inverted (G1 Clones had
"identical" robot modes but different altmodes). Unfortunately, it has a
few
annoying little flaws in execution, and the paint match on the roof is
pretty
bad.
AUTOBOT: PROWL
Altmode: Police Car
Function: Military Administration
Weapons: Shoulder-Mounted Acid Blasters, pistol (unnamed)
Previous Name Use: G1, BW, MW, BMac, RiD, Universe, Armada, Energon,
Alternators.
Previous Mold Use: None
Motto: "Logic is the ultimate weapon."
As the right hand man to OPTIMUS PRIME, PROWL is right at home in the
thick of the battle against the new DECEPTICON armies. Confused AUTOBOTS
are
scattered across the universe, easy pickings for the gangs of organized
DECEPTICONS. As a dedicated administrator and logician, PROWL feels it is
his duty to whip them into shape, and get them ready for a fight. It's
only
a matter of time until the DECEPTICONS get themselves a real leader, and
the
AUTOBOTS need to be ready.
STR 7 INT 9 SPD 7 END 9 RNK 9 COUR 9 FRB 4 SKL 9 Avg 7.875
So, Classics Megatron doesn't count as a real leader? Heh.
Warning: there have been re****ts of the paint on Prowl's clear
plastic
parts being sticky and sloughing off easily. This seems to have been only
a
problem in very early examples, so is likely something they've fixed, but
keep an eye out for it. On mine it feels a little odd, but isn't rubbing
off
easily or anything.
Packaging: 2 twist-ties hold the vehicle mode into the blister, his
unnamed pistol is held into the blister without ties.
Vehicle Mode: Just as the original Prowl was more or less a Datsun
Z280,
this update is kinda-sorta a Nissan 350Z, which is the modern successor to
the Z280. In addition to fairly minor trademark-skirting changes (shape
of
headlights, changing the wheel hubs from six spokes to five, different
tailpipes), a chevron- shaped lightbar is added to the roof and a big
spoiler
is riced onto the back. The fact that the lightbar is on top of a molded
sunroof/moonroof panel detail suggests that we will be getting a
Bluestreak/Silverstreak redeco of this mold.
At 5" (13cm) long, it's about 1:33 scale for a 350Z. The doors are
separate panels, but do not open...there's no action features here other
than
rolling on the wheels. Although I suppose you could count "gun pops out
from
under the hood at random" as a feature rather than a bug.
The hood and the rear third of the body shell are white plastic with
a
strong UV glow. The roof, doors and front fenders are clear colorless
plastic, with a frosted texture on the window parts. The headlights are
also
clear colorless plastic (the outer cover is part of the fenders, the bulb
inside is a separate piece attached to the hood). The wheels are black
plastic. The lightbar and the taillights are made of clear red plastic.
But
it's not the usual gemlike clear plastic, it's more like gummy bear visual
consistency...cloudy translucent and soft.
There's extensive black and white paint on the clear parts. The roof
is
more of a gloss white, but the white along the sides is matte and doesn't
match well with the gloss or with the white plastic. The black paint
feels a
little tacky, but isn't actually sticky on mine. Black paint forms a
border
about a centimeter high around the entire bottom edge of the car (with
that
Prowl peak at the front, a la the Japanese Federal Highway Police), with
the
top being mostly white. A sort of brownish wash is used on the clear
windows, and a ****ny purplish brown painted on the opaque rear windows. A
red Autobot symbol is on the hood, but no blue ****eld (a regular part of
the
Prowl deco scheme). A bit of silver is on top of the lightbar, and
there's a
tiny bit of red on the turn signals. "HIGHWAY PATROL" is printed in black
on
the white part of each door, and "POLICE" in white on the black part. The
main problem I have with the paint job aside from the bad white matching
is
that the black paint doesn't go into the seams, so you have these bright
white lines breaking up the black parts of the car.
Amusingly, you can pop the robot head out without transforming
anything
else, for a sort of hood ornament.
Other than the gun falling out, it's very stable in this mode.
Transformation: In broad outlines, it's the G1 Prowl transformation
(hood as chest, doors as wings, rear section as legs, roof on back),
although
with the arms to the sides of the car, not folded up under the hood.
There's
more of those triple tabs on the doors like with Sunstreaker, key to
stability in car mode, but also kinda hard to get back together when
transforming TO car mode. Note that the feet pull down, and it takes a
bit
of force to manage. Also, you need long nails or a pry tool to get the
heel
spurs to flip out.
The front fender/door panels pop off incredibly easily, it's hard to
transform either way without them coming off, although easier to get them
into robot configuration without popping off than the reverse.
Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall and wearing a black cravat. The
shoulder
launchers fold out from under the roof on struts rather than being
removable
pieces as in G1.
The upper arms, fists, head, shoulder launchers (non-firing) and
thighs
are white plastic. The forearms, gun, cravat, abdomen, pelvis, hip
joints,
knees, boot insides and feet are black plastic. There's a nice bit of
detail
on the abdomen piece that's not even visible in this mode, it's only
visible
in vehicle mode, oddly. There's light blue lightpiping on the head.
Silver paint is found on the face and some "belt" details. The
helmet
horns are painted the same red-orange as the turn signals (non-dayglow).
There's red paint on the pelvis that's either darker red, or a thin enough
layer that the black plastic underneath makes it look darker. Yeah, not a
lot of paint apps unique to robot mode, they kinda used up the budget on
the
vehicle mode. Mind you, it doesn't really need a lot more paint, although
silver on the "missile" tips of the launchers would be good.
Head and waist both turn. The shoulders are universal joints on a
transformation strut that adds a little more range of motion. The upper
arm
swivels are the same sort of disc-peg as Sunstreaker's, as are the wrists.
The elbows are single-hinged, since they don't need to be able to go
backwards for an alternate transformation (Bluestreak needs to look more
or
less the same in robot mode, after all). Ball joint hips, hinge knees,
disc-peg swivels below the knees (no hip swivels). The ankles have
forward-
back hinges with a decent range of motion, and side to side hinges with a
little range. The launchers can elevate on their hinges.
The gun is a bit of an oddity. It unfolds for use at a central
hinge,
but it has a carry handle on what becomes the underside of the barrel in
deployed mode. I guess it's supposed to be carried by that handle in
folded
mode, but it looks upside-down when unfolded.
Overall: The paint job causes some appearance issues in vehicle mode
(and be careful of sticky black paint), and the gun just doesn't want to
stay
in place. But robot mode is quite good.
DECEPTICON: TANKOR
Homage: G1 Octane
Altmodes: Tanker Truck, Trans****t Plane
Function: Fuel Carrier
Weapons: Blasters that combine to form Quad Laser, Melee Blade
Previous Name Use: BMac, Universe (twice), Cybertron (Mini-Con two-packs)
Previous Mold Use: None
Motto: "For you, I'll knock ten percent off the price. Cash up front,
please."
Other DECEPTICONS would call TANKOR a dirtbag, if it wasn't for the
high-octane fuel he supplies to them. He's a sleazy liar who will steal
[from] or manipulate anyone, so long as it helps him get his way. As
such,
he fits right into the most dangerous battlegrounds across the universe,
where survival depends on maintaining an advantage. The only reason other
DECEPTICONS will have anything to do with him is that he always seems to
have
a supply of fuel when everyone else is tapped out.
STR 8 INT 6 SPD 8 END 9 RNK 3 COUR 4 FRB 8 SKL 5 Avg 6.375
Yeah, the bio note is pretty much Octane. And it looks like Tankor
gets
his weapons from the Mooninites.
Packaging: 3 twist-ties hold the airplane mode into the blister. No
separate bits, the guns are attached to the wings.
Airplane Mode: A four-propellor cargo plane. The sacrifices made in
order to let it be a triple-changer make it hard to peg an exact
influence,
but it looks like a Chinese Harbin Y-8 with the wings of a Lockheed C-130.
Mind you, even the Harbin has a larger wingspan than its length (38m span,
34m long), and the C-130 is more of a 4:3 ratio in span:length...Tankor
has
stubbular wings by comparison, being 6.75" (17cm) long with a wingspan of
6"
(15cm). The rotors are about the right place, pro****tionally speaking,
but
it needs at least another two centimeters of wing on either side to be
even
remotely plausible aerodynamically speaking. And the wings could stand to
be
longer front-to-back as well. Of course, then they wouldn't fit inside
the
truck mode.
The nose section, rear fuselage, wings and horizontal tail parts are
very light gray plastic. The propellors, underwing guns, middle fuselage
(most of it, anyway) and wheels are black plastic. The obvious truck bits
at
the tail end and some barely visible bits in the middle are very dark blue
plastic. The whole thing sort of rests on a bellyplate made of light gray
plastic (that's noticeably darker than the nose section plastic) with a
joining piece made of dark blue plastic painted entirely silver.
Some of the cockpit windows are painted dark blue, but only the 8
panes
that are fully on the pieces that become the robot hands. The other ten
cockpit windows, either fully or partially on other pieces of the nose
section, are unpainted. The tops of the wings are painted mostly dark
blue
with a violet stripe along the front of the pattern, but the border around
the edge of the wing is unpainted all around. The vertical tail section
is
dark blue plastic, but mostly painted very light gray (a good match, but a
visible "seam" along the joint) with dark blue in the middle and a
trailing
violet stripe. There's some other paint visible, but it's meant for other
modes, so I'll discuss it there.
It almost looks better without the folded up blade baseplate, and
still
rolls fine thanks to the truck wheels along the centerline. But the gappy
nature of the midsection is even more obvious without the baseplate.
The rotors spin freely, and have four blade each. There's twin-
barrelled blasters pegged at the roots of the wings. The wings are geared
together so that if you raise one, the other goes up too.
A mysterious tab sticks up out of the top of the nose section, and
serves no purpose in this mode. However, it's part of securing the
baseplate
unit to the truck mode.
This mode looks okay from above or the front, kinda weak from the
sides,
and totally bad from underneath.
Truck Mode: 6" (15.5cm) long, it vaguely looks like a tanker truck
with
an angular "futuristic" (but based on real vehicles) cab and 8 wheels (6
of
which actually roll). The cab is all dark blue, the baseplate piece more
or
less looks like the top of a tank. Otherwise, though, there's just a lot
of
obvious inverted airplane pieces all over the place. And the second to
last
pair of wheels doesn't roll, being the robot shoulders. It is, at least,
pretty stable once you get it all pegged together.
The windows and front grille on the cab are painted silver, as are
some
tech greebles behind the cab. There's an unpainted lightbar on the top,
suggesting this is modeled after an air****t fuel truck (they can use
lightbars for runway visibility) or maybe even an air****t safety foam
truck.
There's some violet paint on the sides, but that's robot mode detailing.
If you get it all just right, the six wheels will all roll together,
although the propellors on the underside give it almost zero clearance.
Transformations: As a triple-changer, there's three possible
transformations. Go ahead and remove the baseplate and reattach it when
transforming, while it's theoretically possible to leave it on for the
Airplane/Truck change, it'll come off unless you're unreasonably careful.
After all, it's meant to detach as a weapon in robot mode.
Airplane/Truck: Fold the wings together, but be careful to make sure
the
propellors intermesh properly, or they'll get in the way later. Remove
the
guns. The nose splits apart and the halves rotate down so that they come
back together in line with the wings. The tail splits apart, the halves
rotate 180 degrees to turn inside out, and the back bits fold up into
truck
cab formation. The halves then lock around the wings. Finally, cover up
all
the mess by attaching the baseplate unit as a tank top. Officially,
attach
the guns in the visible robot fists on the side rear in an attempt to
cover
up more kibble, but that's pretty much a lost cause. Better to put the
guns
on the sides of the cab as smokestacks (in fact, I can't find any other
reason for those holes, so the instructions-writer may have simply missed
a
beat). Oh, and make sure to push the cab section down a bit once you're
done, to help the wheels all meet on the table.
Airplane/Robot: The tail end transforms similarly to the Airplane to
Truck version, but don't swing the pieces up to clamp around wings.
Instead,
just fold out toes from the cab fronts and pull the legs down to telescope
the thighs out. Similarly, you stop partway on the nose halves, instead
turning them into arms. Pu****ng up a chest armor piece brings the head
into
view and the armor pieces lock around the shoulder roots. Officially, the
blue shoulder root pieces should be pushed in all the way so that the
shoulderpads are flush against the sides, but I prefer folding them
forward
about 45 degrees to bring the arms out a bit. It also makes the head look
a
little higher up, which helps (it could stand to rise a little more than
it
does, and some have fixed this by opening the whole thing up and loosening
the screw holding the head on).
Truck/Robot: Pull the rear half apart after removing the tank cover,
swing the pelvis piece down and transform legs as above. Arms pretty much
the same, only starting from the other side of the halfway position. :)
And,
of course, the head transforms the same way. Generally a quicker
transform
than the Airplane/Robot one, since the legs are already most of the way
there. The guns can combine into one gun, go in the two hands, or peg
onto
the smokestack position holes. The baseplate can open up as a claw or
serrated staff and be held in one hand, turn into secondary wings (see
Alternate Melee Blade Storage below), or be left together as a skateboard.
Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, 7" (18cm) tall at the
shoulderpad tips. Yeah, he's got Armada Megatron shoulder action going
on.
Pro****tions are a bit off, with short upper arms and short thighs,
oversized
hands (molded into the inside of the cockpit pieces) and huge boots. The
clip for the melee blade piece forms a weird belt buckle sort of thing...
fortunately it's too high up to look like he's extremely happy to see you
and
your friend.
The torso, thighs and upper arms are black plastic. The head is all
dark blue plastic, but the "lightpiping" chunk is only painted at the
front
to give red eyes, while the rest of the head is completely covered in
paint.
Kinda weird. The shoulderpads, forearms, fists and boot tops are very
light
gray plastic, the bottom part of the feet is dark blue plastic.
The main part of the head is painted in violet with silver face,
enough
paint that you can't see any of the original plastic color unless you take
things apart. The violet paint is also on the shoulderpads and the
forearms. A very light gray paint is on the abdomen flanks, belt and
pelvis. The pectoral windows are painted silver, and a purple and white
Decepticon symbol is printed on the center of the chest.
The head turns, the waist does not. The shoulderpads are on
restricted
ball joints, which gives the arms a bit more range of motion, but looks
kinda
weird. The actual shoulders, which are fake wheels, are on restricted
ball
joints. The elbows are ball joints, the wrists are swivels. Ball joint
hips
with swivels just below the hips. The knees are hinges that only bend
60-70
degrees, and he has a bit of the Road Rocket Syndrome going on with leg
pro****tions in general. You get some ankle articulation from the truck
cab
transformation hinge.
In terms of visual appeal, the quad laser hasn't got much. It looks
okay as two double-barrelled blasters, but the staggered way in which they
connect looks about as bad as some of those combined Double Targetmaster
weapons (i.e. Spinister). Plus, of course, while the quad laser fires a
huge
blast, it moves so slowly that anyone can dodge it. ;)
The melee blade can open up into a single sawtoothed blade/staff
thing
7.5" (19cm) long, although the grip is a bit awkward. It's more meant to
be
a jaw weapon held pistol-style. Alternately, leave it folded up and he
can
ride it like a skateboard or peg it onto one of his forearms (the truck
mode
connection tabs) as a ****eld.
Alternate Melee Blade Storage: This isn't in the instructions, and is
likely not an intended trick, but you can use the wings and "buttflap"
piece
to hold the melee blade in place as a second set of wings. You can see
this
at http://www.dvandom.com/images/tankorfix1.JPG
and
http://www.dvandom.com/images/tankorfix1.JPG
Overall: Well, a triple-changer has to get at least some points for
trying, especially since the three modes were picked in advance (i.e. they
could probably have made a better triple-changer if not specifically
trying
to reproduce Octane). But the vehicle modes aren't as good as
Astrotrain's,
and all told I'd say the robot mode is about tied with the older Classics
triple-changer. On the plus side, there's a bit more fanmode potential
here,
and I do like that they took a risk on a prop plane instead of Yet Another
Jet.
Dave Van Domelen, finally put away all his movie Bumblebees (there's
a
lot of them, and he had them all on one shelf) to make room for Classics
2.0.
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