Transformers Studio Series Shadow Raider

It is that time again and this time we are returning to a toyline I have already done a figure from, which is Studio Series, but unfortunately for Studio Series it is another figure I am not super thrilled with(I promise there are figures in this toyline I enjoy). I do think this one is an improvement from ROTF Megatron in multiple ways, especially since I don’t hate this design from the get go. So let’s take a look at one of the few seemingly toy only characters in the entire toyline, Studio Series #17 Shadow Raider.

I know, I know technically Shadow Raider did appear in the movies. He is a representation of the background Mercenaries on Lockdown’s ship in Age of Extinction but like is he really? Those models look nothing like this toy except for maybe the feet and arms plus they were never named in the movie, they were just credited with “Mercenaries”. This toy was just an excuse for Hasbro to reuse this mold in a new color and as far as I am concerned it is a new toy only character.

Looking more closely at the actual figure, and of course starting with the head, we can see that this is a very simple head as he has no real facial features to speak of. He just has a full face visor/mask/helmet which actually is closer in design to Lockdown’s than it is to the actual background mercs. It does have quite a few molded details all over the head which looks really nice but I find the ones in the front half get lost a lot more and that is because the front half of the head is black painted clear plastic. The other issue this clear plastic brings up is that you can see all the, what I assume to be, connection points for said piece in the green plastic behind and it looks awful, just random holes all over the place. Quickly looking at articulation before moving on, the head is on a ball joint and he has a neck hinge meaning he has a lot of upwards movement but because of the shape of his head and collar his side to side movement is limited and downward movement is non-existent.  

The torso is very simple in the grand scheme of things, just a black block with tons of molded detail. For real the detail here is insane and it is all super visible thanks to the black plastic, but I think my favorite part is the chest piece which is picked out in grey and orange and really helps draw attention to the chest. The back on the other hand is just the entire top half of his car mode folded up into a somewhat cohesive looking backpack. It isn’t the worst backpack I have seen on a figure, especially since it doesn’t make him back heavy and, for the most part, doesn't hinder the articulation. But it would have been nice if they did something more creative with it, but I understand that this line is all about movie accuracy and since this mold was originally Lockdown, and he had hardly any car parts in robot mode it makes sense.

Moving onto the arms which are made up of the sides of the car mode, and they are fine. They are very orange compared to the rest of the figure but they do have sections on the shoulder and bicep, which look like ammo pouches with some relatively large bullets, and the entire forearms are black as well. Articulation here is kinda lacking, and what is there gets hindered. Shoulders are on ball joints but are hindered going back because of the backpack and going upward because of the shape of the shoulder. He does have a bicep swivel but it gets stopped by the wheel that is in his inner arm, but you get enough range out of it for it to be useful. Just below that you have the elbow which is on a ball joint, so there is also a swivel there if you need some more range there, unfortunately the elbow itself only goes 90 degrees and, on my copy at least, these ball joints like to pop out which can be slightly annoying. Before moving onto the legs I should mention that there is a fairly common QC issue with this mold in general, and it should come at no surprise to you that it has to do with clear plastic. Shadow Raiders shoulders sections are cast in clear plastic, so that means both the shoulder joint and bicep swivel are affected. This clear plastic has been known to shatter especially at the bicep, since that is a transformation joint and is rotated the wrong way. I have found that rotating it clockwise without holding the wheel has given me the best results so far. 

These legs have all sorts of little issues that just add up to a not great experience. First off the waist and hips are both hindered by the shape of the hips. The waist can only move about 15 degrees in either direction, and the hips can only go out about 60 degrees, before being stopped. Other than that though the hips are also hindered going backwards by the backpack and they can only go 90 degrees forward, which is more than enough. He does have a full thigh swivel but because it is used for transformation, it is slightly off center so it looks awkward when used. His knees only go about 90 degrees, which is workable and his feet actually have about 90 degrees of movement up thanks to transformation so he can do a pretty convincing crouch. On the topic of his feet let’s talk about them for a minute and how I am a dense human being. So for the longest time, essentially since I got the figure till right now as of me writing this, I never realized that the bumper sections on his heels are on a double hinge, meaning they can be pulled out slightly allowing them to sit higher up and more importantly they let the foot sit perpendicular to the rest of the leg, meaning he can stand up straight and not lean forward at a 45 degree angle. 

Before moving onto transformation and vehicle mode he does come with this gun accessory that fits over his left hand. I do really like all the details on this gun with the 3 canisters on top, the tri-spikes at the front and just all the little molded details it has. Unfortunately, like I stated before this gun can only go in his left hand because of how it is designed. If you really want to put it on the other arm you can use the vehicle mode ports and plug it into the outside of either arm but it will be upside down on the right arm, not that that really matters. 

Speaking of vehicle mode, this vehicle mode looks absolutely amazing but getting here is the ABSOLUTE WORST. Everything has a hard time lining up, certain sections will catch on other sections and just pop off, but the real pain comes from getting the entire sides of the car lined up. Trying to fold the hands under the small panels that are attached to the backpack is truly infuriating and requires an uncomfortable amount of pressure. It gets to a point where you wonder if the transformation is really worth the trouble. Onto the car mode itself it is really nice, it is an officially licensed Lamborghini Aventador, and the orange is actually a stock color for the car. It rolls well enough and you can store the gun on the side of the car but it looks pretty ridiculous. I don’t know what else to say about this mode other than it looks cool. You may have noticed that I have indeed “painted” the rims on him, just like on TR Hot Rod, and honestly I think it really completes the look here

And just like that we are at the end of another review, Shadow Raider looks so cool but doesn’t really have the engineering needed to back it up, and combine that with the transformation he comes out at a very mediocre 5.5/10. As always the gallery for Shadow Raider is up as well if you want to look through that.

Now that all of that is over and done with I would like to point out a couple new things on the website; First off I added a Search button in the header and added a search bar at the top of the blog page(replacing the blog title), just in case you need some help finding something, Secondly you will notice the page thumbnail for the Studio Series page as well as the banner on said page has changed from Megatron to Shadow Raider, which was always the plan just to keep things fresh. Expect a couple more minor changes to the site as the weeks go on, gonna be tweaking stuff till I find something I like. Speaking of tweaking I did tweak my watermark in my pictures, and I do like it a lot better. I think i still need to adjust the sizing a bit but it works well enough for this week. Going forward I do have the next 6-7 weeks planned out, provided figures arrive on time, and it is all newer stuff too, so look forward to that and I will see you all then.

Ocular Max IF-01 Eris: Kultur

Welcome back to MythicTFs, it has been a couple weeks but i wanted to do this one right because, boy am I excited for this one. This is a figure I have been waiting for since it was revealed and I pretty much preordered her on the spot and it is the first 3rd party Transformer I have bought brand new and I have no regrets. I almost did this review in place of Titans Return Hot Rod last week but I was really busy and Hot Rod is a much more simple figure so I pushed her to this week cause I really want to do this one right. This review is going to be a little different since this is the first foray into 3rd Party Transformers on the website and there is just so much to cover, but without further adieu, let's take a look at MMC Ocular Max IF-01 Eris: Kultur. 

I feel like there is a lot of background to cover with this figure so let’s just jump right in. As far as I know this figure wasn’t teased or revealed before the first official reveal so it just came out of nowhere and it is such a unique idea too. Within the canon that Ocular Max is building Eris had the ability to mimic any combatant but then Psyaxus(their version of Jhiaxus) experimented on her and enhanced her ability so now she can transmogrify her exo-skeleton to mimic the appearance of any combatant as well as copy their skill set. This makes me wonder if we will end up with more Eris figures down the line, each one mimicking a different character. On the topic of mimicry, this version of Eris is mimicking MMC’s Kultur or as he is better known, Tarn the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division from the IDW comics. I know a lot of people bought this figure because she looks cool(which she does) but I bought her for a slightly different reason. For a long time, probably close to 10 years at this point, I have been working on an AU(Alternate Universe) of my own creation and in it I switched Tarn’s gender to female, mainly because I could and I wanted more female characters in my story. This figure just so happened to line up with what I was creating that I felt obligated to grab it. 

We are starting off as always with the head and it is incredible. Just to get it out of the way, she does come with a mask that homages Tarn’s own Decepticon badge mask and it just fits over top. The face is a nice pale lavender with some pink painted lips and large red eyes. There is also a second set of eyes placed right above the large lavender unibrow, and in between the second set there is a large golden headcrest with a hot pink gem in the middle, which leads into a whole golden faux hawk. The rest of the head is cast in a nice black plastic with a good amount of molded detail none of which gets lost in the plastic. You may have noticed that she even has little kitty ears which is actually an homage to VERY obscure Japanese G1 character Esmeral but we have do idea if Eris is Ocular Max’s version of Esmeral. Head articulation is very good with a ball jointed head with tons of clearance both up and down plus there is a neck hinge for even more downward articulation.

Her torso is a very slender and well built bod, but not oversexualized like most 3rd Party female transformers are these days. The chest is just a condensed version of Tarn’s, capturing all the important details, like the mine catcher chestplate, the silver cylinders underneath it and all the bio light sections picked out in a hot pink, all condensed to fit onto this form fitting chest plate. The back is not quite as interesting, well at least not on the detail front, the main attraction are the giant tank tread sections. They are on these support beams and they do slot in to stay straight but it isn’t a very strong connection and they are on quite a few hinges so you have a lot of options when posing them. I personally like to keep them at an angle as I find them more visually appealing that way. Torsos usually don’t have much in terms of articulation but Eris here has quite a bit. I am pretty sure her waist is ball jointed, giving her a slight ab crunch and the ability to rock in any direction as well as a full waist rotation. She also has forward butterfly joints for her arms, which is an EXTREMELY nice addition and gives her so much more character and posing options.

On the topic of her arms, they are very nice looking but they feel a little lacking in places. Starting with the shoulders they are these large tread chunks, but these ones are only single tread wide instead of Tarn’s iconic double tread shoulders. The treads themselves are free moving and are surrounded by this nice purple plastic, which I kinda wish we saw more of from the front, but we get enough of it to help break up the greys and blacks. The forearms are rather small comparatively but still look rather nice. I really like that the black looks like a small arm gauntlet she is wearing on top of her silver exoskeleton to help reinforce her lore. Now we get to the hands and these hands are insane. Including the ball joint and hinge at the base of the wrist there are 21 joints in EACH ONE of her hands. All the fingers are individually articulated with 3 joints in each as well as a joint where they connect to the palm allowing them to be splayed out.  The thumb is slightly different as it only has 2 hinges and is connected via a ball joint. As for the rest of the arms articulation Eris has full 360 rotation at the shoulder, 90 degree outward shoulder movement, full bicep rotation and a double jointed elbow that is so well engineered and hidden I didn’t know it existed until doing this review 

Continuing downwards to look at the legs and man are they great. The thighs are nice and chunky, cast in this dull silver with lavender accents so break it up. They are actually attached to the waist at an angle giving her a much more natural stance. The articulation here is really good as well with a full rotation at the thigh, a double hinge for outward movement and two thigh rotations; one inside the upper thigh and one right above the knee. Speaking of knees, Eris has some insanely deep knee bends. They go as close to 180 degrees as you can get and it is all one joint. The shins are really nice black pillars with some nice golden knee pads, which are on a double hinge for some extra posability action and diecast metal making up the entire back and sides of them. Finishing up with the feet which are considerably small but are packed with articulation. The toe has a 90 downward movement, the foot itself can go up and down at 2 different joints, the heel can hinge up and down, and there are 2 ankle tilts, one at the ankle itself and one just below the shin. This can be a bit annoying as the lower one is tighter than the upper one and that one can make her leg look broken. I should also mention that the main part of the foot is diecast and I think part of the rounded section is too. 

For accessories Eris only comes with two. The face mask which I have already covered and her arm cannons. Now these cannons are pretty cool, they are obviously Tarn’s signature asymmetrical double cannons but obviously scaled down to fit with Eris. You can plug the entire thing into either arm but traditionally it goes on the right arm. The cannons themselves can rotate separately if that interests you, but they are also removable from the centerpiece and can be plugged into either arm separately to give her dual arm cannons.

This transformation to tank mode is extremely unique and not super challenging or panel heavy which is a change of pace. The way the backpack becomes the front half of the tank is neat but the main surprise is the legs folding up to become the tank turret, which is such a cool design and not one I have seen done before, at least never to this extent. The cannon assembly just plugs into the inside of each leg and the back of the crotch piece so it is very secure. Tank mode is incredible, it seems to be some sort of future tech/cybertronian double barreled stealth or speed tank. I love the primarily purple body accented with lots of lavender on the sides plus little bits of gold and silver to liven things up. The cockpit is situated right in the middle of the turret picked out by a nice magenta that really pops against the black. Speaking of the turret it can do a full 360 and even aim up a little and you can increase that range slightly if you untab the turret from the center piece. All of the treads roll freely, better than most wheels on official transformers, although they are plastic meaning they don’t work great on most hard surfaces.

I guess that is about it for Eris here, I was expecting this review to be a lot longer but I guess I covered everything I wanted to cover in a concise manner. Overall final thoughts, Eris is a fantastic figure, who is extremely expressive thanks to all the articulation she has and on top of that she is a very unique figure especially for the world of 3rd party transformers which is mainly dominated by G1 cartoon accurate Masterpiece or Legends scale figures, and while she is technically scaled with MP figures, she is about the same height as a modern leader class figure so she fits right in with the rest of my CHUG collection. She is an easy 9.5/10 for me and probably my figure of the year, I know we are only half way through but she is gonna be tough to beat.

The next review is review #10 and so I am doing something special. It is my first group review so it might take a bit longer to do and combine that with the fact that I am in the process of redoing my room, it might take 2 weeks as well but I promise after that we will be back to weekly reviews. I hope you all enjoyed this one and don’t forget to check out the gallery for Eris as at the time of posting this it is only around 70 images but I plan on adding more sometime later in the week, seems time got away from me. I will make a post on my Twitter(@Mythic_Gears) when I do add the pictures, while you're waiting for that feel free to check out the other galleries and blog posts and share them around if you like them. See you all next time.  

Transformers Studio Series ROTF Megatron

Welcome back, I hope you enjoyed last week's review on Earthrise Trailbreaker. I thought it turned out really well, but you're not here for last week's review, you're here for this week’s and I’ll be real for a minute, I have not been looking forward to this one. I know some people like this figure but I really don’t, so if this review seems partially negatively biased I apologize and if I am going to be fully honest, my disdain for it mainly comes from the design of this version of the character, but that doesn’t mean the toy itself doesn’t have issues of it’s own. I guess I should stop beating around the bush and just get on with it, so here is a look at Transformers Studio Series #13 Revenge of the Fallen Megatron. 

Like I said I am not a big fan of this design, and I was not originally going to get this figure because of that, but I ended up getting it as a gift so I figured I would give it a shot and man I am not impressed. It has some neat ideas going on but his color pallet is extremely dull and he is generally not fun to mess with. I can’t say I am super surprised though because out of all the live action Megatron designs we have gotten over the years, this one is definitely one of the weakest, at least to me.

Getting right into it with the head, it is your standard Bayverse Megatron head and it is one of the only parts I don’t dislike on this figure. The general design is pretty neat, with the permanently angry head crest unibrow, the spikey half mohawk and the metal shard mutton chops that go so far back they seem to turn into some type of horn. As for facial features, his mouth is set into the head a bit, which ends up pronouncing the chin, the teeth are painted gold but his facial expression is somehow anger, disbelief and disgust all rolled into one, which is kind of impressive. It isn’t helped by the beady solid red eyes that are very likely to stare into your soul. Articulation is actually really good because the ball joint is positioned at the back of the head, giving him a lot of clearance and range of movement. 

The torso is very static and very dull and that is about it. Ok, that may be an oversimplification but it is accurate nonetheless. The chest has all the right details and is accurate for the most part. The Bronze paint does help break up the grey but not enough to really pop and make a huge difference. He also has some holes in and around the lower half of his torso which are unnecessary and just bring attention to the fact that the entire torso is hollow, like completely hollow. Unlike Trailbreaker who, if you remember from last week, also had a hollow inner torso, the emptiness is visible from every angle in one way or another. The back is a bit better than the front just from a design standpoint, but it still has the same issues as the front. I really enjoy the gunmetal paint apps and the large thrusters, not to mention the movable back cannons, which unfortunately are not modern blast effect compatible. 

Megatron’s arms are unique since they’re asymmetrical. His left arm is very spindly and thin, even the shoulder is more rounded with a layered look. This arm has pretty standard articulation; full shoulder rotation, outward movement over 90 degrees, full bicep rotation, and a 90 degree elbow. The fingers are articulated as well, they’re separated into two different sections with each one able to move separately, unfortunately they don’t really look good when you do that. Now the right arm is where all the action is. This entire arm is one big cannon, and is considerably more beefy than the other one,  the shoulder has this cool trio of metal spikes. That aesthetic continues to the rest of the arm with a rather large spike protruding from the top of the cannon and he has an even bigger spike/blade that can be flipped out from its hiding place of the entire forearm. Doing this pretty much doubles the entire length of the forearm. Articulation in this arm is pretty much the same as the other one with the exceptions of the elbow going slightly more than 90 degrees and the shoulder going slightly less. Obviously since there isn’t a hand on the arm there isn’t much in the way of hand articulation, other than the single finger on the inside of the cannon and is in my opinion the most pointless thing on this figure.

Now then let's get onto what is probably my least favorite part of this figure, the legs. My hate for them stems from both the design and function, seeing as I very much dislike the digitigrade leg style on pretty much anything, this figure included obviously. As for function, let's get all of my issues out of the way right off the bat, starting with the panels. The upper leg/thigh panels, while not horrible, don’t like to tab in and if they do, they don’t like to stay that way, they can also pop off from time to time. On the subject of “popping off panels” the ones on the back of the knee I'm convinced don’t want to live there because they will come off with next to no force. My other big issue lies in the feet, and how unstable they feel. The feet are made up of a section of tank treads folded at an angle, with the front splitting to help with balance, in theory anyway. In reality the feet don’t get a chance to actually be feet because of two panels, one is there for extra support since the foot are oddly shaped so I am not going to give that on too much slack other than being slightly too tall so they end up being the only thing the toy is balancing on, but the panels on the inside of the feet do absolutely nothing for the figure other than mess with his balance since they sit too far down and mess with his balance since they are constantly at an angle. As for the legs as a whole, I do like the idea of the entirety of the treds becoming the legs and feet, even if I am not a fan of the execution, and the dark grey plastic really helps the bronze, silver and grey paint shine. Articulation is fine, full range of movement in the hips, full bicep swivel, knees go about 90 and the ankles tilt about 45 degrees inward.This would be the point where I would move on to talk about the features and accessories this toy comes with, but he doesn’t do or come with anything, so i guess I will just move onto transformation an vehicle mode. 

Transformation is pretty simple but the legs always confuse me, they never look right until I plug them into the main body. You will also be hard pressed to transform this guy and not have any of the leg panels fall off in the process. Megatron’s vehicle mode is this cybertronian tank, but it looks more like a pile of scrap metal with treads and guns attached, although that can be used to describe most bayverse designs. There aren’t really any new details here aside from the main cannon section, everything else we saw in robot mode. That being said it is all still very good, and almost works better in this mode. You may have noticed that this altmode is not very clean and you can see quite a few robot bits, from the back you can see the hands and you can very clearly see the head from the front, now this one is accurate but it doesn’t excuse how dumb and lazy it is. For features in this mode he can roll but it isn’t great as it is just on 4 small plastic wheels, the main cannon cannon can look down but not up at all, but the smaller back cannons have the same amount of articulation as in bot mode. 

And just like that we are done with Studio Series Revenge of the Fallen Megatron. As you could tell i really don’t like this figure but as modern figures go he is pretty standard with decent articulation, very good film accuracy and a simple transformation. It is the design itself that bugs me more than the toy. All that being said though, I am still going to give this guy a 5/10. I get little enjoyment from him as a whole and so I don’t think he deserves being ranked any higher. As always the gallery for this guy is up, it is a bit smaller than the others but that is because I didn’t have a lot of time this week and all the poses I put him in looked the same so I had trouble finding good poses for him. Next week is going to be a figure that was fairly well received at the time but now makes it very clear of how far we have come in 5 years. See you all then.  

Transformers 2007 Wreckage

This week's review is going to be quite interesting, I can already tell. Like I said last week this is an older figure, at least in the grand scheme of things. I wanted him far a very long time since he looked so cool and interesting yet when I did end up getting him I was kinda disappointed, and I have yet to figure out why, so maybe this will help me with that. Anyways let’s take a look at Transformers 2007 Wreckage.

Wreckage was one of the few, if not only, deluxes in the 2007 film’s toyline that was not in the movie, or accompanying video game, in any capacity, although we did get concept art for him under the temporary name of Stryker. I just find it really interesting that he still got a toy, in the first wave no less, despite being cut from the film entirely. He is also one of the most uniquely designed figures in the entire line, and I will get more into the specifics of that as I get to those sections, speaking of which…

Wrekage’s head is interesting and not in a good way. The design of the head is pretty neat, lots of various shapes and angles to make up all the molded details. While the head, half of it anyways, is cast in a rather boring pale grey but that is broken up with some very nice gold paint apps the head crest and cheeks as well as the face being done up in silver. The face itself looks pretty nice with the thin red lightpiped eyes and the massive underbite. Articulation is pretty limited despite being on a ball joint. He can look left and right well enough with some downward movement, but you may have noticed that he is always looking down and that is because of the panel his head sits on and the automorph in his chest. It is pretty unfortunate especially since the rest of him is pretty well articulated. 

The torso is focused on this pristine white pillar, on the front there is the center section of the alt mode, which is not a totally uncommon design when it comes to transformers but what makes this section unique is the fact that it is clearly not the front of a car, not to mention the translucent red naval cannon sitting underneath. Now you may notice that the chest piece doesn’t sit flush with the rest of the torso, so I am thinking that, since it is part of his main auto-morph gimmick, one of the gears is misaligned. While not the end of the word in terms of issues it is kind of annoying. Like I said, the chest is only the center front section of the alt mode, the sides rotate up becoming shoulder pylons, akin to a seeker design, albeit much smaller. I do really like this, since these sections don’t fully rotate back they give him a more unique and visually interesting look. Moving around to the back, and this is where my major problems with the figure lie. The idea behind it is cool, with the angled backpack and it connecting to the pylons, but they only connect via friction which seems to work, but it doesn’t feel strong. Below that you have a few of leftover vehicle parts, which seem harmless for the most part, but the hinge right at the bottom of it unfortunately hinders the waist swivel to the point where he should not even have one. 

These arms are probably my favorite part of this figure, because of both the aesthetics and articulation. Aesthetically the arms are very simple but incredibly effective, the panels on the shoulders give an armored look and while they can get in the way of articulation at certain angles you definitely work around them. The forearms are super cool too with each one sporting a pair of wheels and nothing else, you know what they say, less is more. The hands are molded in a slightly open position but do still have a 5mm port to hold weapons, unfortunately they have a similar issue to the waist where ther have the ability to rotate but are pretty much unable to because of an overhanging panel. Speaking of articulation, that is where the arms shine. Ball jointed shoulders and double hinged elbows do a lot of the heavy lifting, especially since there is no bicep swivel and neutered hand rotation, but to make up for that, he has forward butterfly joints which really help take posing to the next level. 

Moving onto the legs and they are pretty standard. Ball jointed hips, 90 degree knees, he does have ball joints at the feet which was pretty rare back then. Oddly enough, because of transformation, the knees have more articulation going the wrong way. Visually they are pretty neat, the more alt mode armour this time looking similar to a waist cape. Similarly to the forearms the lower legs each sport a pair of wheels. Other points of interest would be the knee spikes and gold stripe down the front of the foot. 

For weapons Wreckage comes with these 2 odd looking guns which are identical mirrored copies of each other. You can plug them into either his hands, the ports on the underside of his arms or any of his wheels, you can also store them in the waist cape if you so choose. Unfortunately the only peg on the guns is on the side rather than the bottom. One of the 2 major features with these guns is that they can convert into swords with the flip of a switch, literally. While you can still plug them into all the same places, the only place the blades work well is under his arms. The other feature is that you can take both swords and combine them together to make a double bladed sword, and attaching it to either of the arm wheels gives it the ability to spin freely.

Transformation is pretty easy, just collapse everything up and in, then cover the legs with the backpack. I do appreciate the weapon storage in this mode since it incorporates the guns right in. Wreckage transformers into an M1126 Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle, albeit unlicenced. It is decked out in a basic arctic camo of primarily white with grey splotches decorating most of it. Besides the weapon storage, he has what looks like a 50. Calibur machine gun sitting on top, but other than that there isn’t really any other important details to talk about, I mean all the wheels roll but that is everything. 

That is all folks, that is Transformers 2007 Wreckage in a nutshell. He is cool looking and has some decent articulation and decent ideas but otherwise he is kinda underwhelming. This could very well be a case of over hype for a 14 year old figure and it not living up to said hype, or maybe it just hasn’t aged as well as most people think so he gets a solid 6/10 from me. Anyways check out the gallery if you feel so inclined, next week we take the trail back to the present day and take a look at a fairly new figure. See you all next week.

Transformers Reveal the Shield Lugnut

I teased this one slightly at the end of last week's blog, but this is a figure I have been wanting to get for a VERY long time, and I definitely wasn’t expecting to write about it pretty much as soon as I got it, so forgive me if I sound more biased than usual. Without further adieu, It is time to look at what I believe to be one of the most well received figures, even by today’s standards, in a decade, let’s look at Reveal the Shield Lugnut. 

This is such a unique figure. I know I said that before with Springer, but I really mean it this time. This is a main line Generations figure of an essentially brand new character, Lugnut was introduced in Transformers Animated, only 3 years prior to this toy's initial release in 2010. To put that into perspective, his Autobot counterpart Bulkhead, who was also essentially a brand new character at the time still hasn’t gotten a Generations update. (He did end up being in Transformers Prime though, but that isn’t really the same). The only characters I have found with a shorter turnaround from first appearance to Generations toy are comic characters like Drift and Windblade, but I don’t really count those cause Generations is the only toyline they can go in. 

Enough about other characters, let’s get back to Lugnut here and as always let’s start with the head. It should be very obvious that this is not your standard head in both shape and design. It is obvious his main feature is his large cycloptic red eye, which is quite unique all on it’s own but he also has 2 smaller eyes on either side of his head, for a total of 5 eyes, which is even more unique. His other main feature is his large jaw, which is actually moveable. It isn’t a lot of movement but enough to get the point across, unfortunately the jaw does hinder the rest of the head's articulation, meaning you can only really open it when he is facing straight ahead. Speaking of articulation the head is on a ball joint giving him a bit of up and down and side to side, but even without the open jaw the articulation is limited by the shape of the head, but he has enough to get by. Since he is the first figure I have reviewed to have it, I obviously need to mention his light piping. All of his eyes and the inside of his mouth are all light piped but it doesn’t really work the greatest. The main eye gets most of it and that is about it, luckily he doesn’t have “dead eye syndrome” like most figures that use light piping, and I am assuming that is because of the plastic used. 

The torso is a very interesting shape, as he has a hunchback like appearance with the head being sunken into the chest and the shoulders being positioned both above and behind it. The chest is primarily this thin purple pillar and on either side you have these cockpit halves that help fill out the chest, each one of those cockpit panels has a small turret that is fully rotatable and can fit blast effects on them. These sections are spring loaded and because of that they have a tendency to slide back from their proper positions, it makes the chest a bit wider and a bit more dynamic now that the windows are on an angle, it isn’t really a bad look, so I can completely understand if someone might prefer it over the regular configuration. He does seem to have quite a long torso because of his stature which almost seamlessly goes into his backpack which is just the entire tail section of the plane mode. It does end up going pretty far down his back meaning it can hinder leg articulation but it is on a rail and a hinge so it can be moved out of the way pretty easily. 

Moving on up to the arms, or well more specifically the shoulders. The large section right behind the head is where the shoulders connect, now this part doesn’t connect super well and tends to wobble a bit. The shoulders themselves are made up of the main turbines which is both accurate to the character and super cool, what is even better is that the entire middle section of the turbine is ratcheted allowing for outward arm movement. As for forward and back movement, that’s where it gets kind of weird, because of how the shoulder rotation is designed he doesn’t have any at the shoulder propper, but they did add a joint right beneath the turbine that is both a bicep swivel and a hinge that gives him some semblance of shoulder movement even if it is only 90 degrees of forward movement. Almost right below that joint is his elbow joint, which goes just under 90 degrees, and right after that you have his massive hands. Lugnut’s hands are quite spectacular and that is all because the fingers are articulated, the thumb is on it’s own separate hinge then, one for the whole palm and then the fingers are individually articulated. The main section of the hand is also on a rotation but that is mainly for transformation. 

The legs don’t have a lot going on, full waist rotation, hip ratchets and thigh swivels, knees go well beyond 90 thanks to a double hinge and a lot of clearance. The lower legs are considerably chunky but that shouldn’t be a surprise considering the rest of the figure. I think the feet are the most interesting part of his legs because of how much articulation they have, albeit most of it is left over from transformation, the heels and toes can move inward almost like bird claws, the ankles are on ball joints as well as a separate hinge for more forward movement, although that one is critical to his balance. 

Lugnut doesn’t come with any accessories, but he does have quite a few features and gimmicks. First off is the spring loaded missile launcher that hides in the plane's tail and is the main reason the tail doesn’t fold away better. Now I got this figure second hand, and he didn’t end up coming with the missile, which is fine by me as it does not hinder my enjoyment of this figure in the least, but I can still deploy the launcher as ridiculous looking as it is. Next up is the plethora of 3mm brackets, in just the shoulders and arms he has 10, 16 if you move a couple panels out of the way, plus the 1 on the missile launcher and the 2 on each leg. This guy can be a walking armoury if you have the resources, which I unfortunately don’t. Finally both of his fists are spring loaded to simulate his famous P.O.K.E, or Punch Of Kill Everything, attack. This unfortunately only works on one of my fists because I had to take the spring out of the other one as it was misaligned and was keeping the arm from transforming properly. Oh and before I forget since Lugnut was released in Reveal the Shield, he has a rubsign on his left hand which reveals he is of course a Decepticon when heat is applied. 

This transformation is pretty rad, with the way the main torso extends out, the arms unfolding into the wings and the legs collapsing up to form the bomb bay and leave essentially no undercarriage, which is usually a big problem with jet formers. The jet mode itself is absolutely FANTASTIC, it is an amalgamation of a few different WWII Bombers, mainly the B-25 Mitchell, B-24 Liberator, and B-17 Flying Fortress plus some more modern technological updates like having turbines instead of propellers. There are so many little things on this plane mode that really put it above the rest. The translucent red cockpit windows, the fully rotatable guns, the shark teeth pattern, the caution stripes on the turbines, the leetspeak version of his name on the wings and tail fin as well as the little molded gunner section at the very back. As for features in the is mode the launcher can still function just as well as it could before and he still has almost all of his 3mm brackets available to use at your desire. Oddly enough though he can actually roll, and rather well i might add, thanks to 4 tiny wheels on his underside. 

There was a lot to cover with this figure but I think I have covered pretty much all of it. I absolutely love this figure and am SO glad he is finally a part of my collection as incomplete and “broken” he may be, none of those things really hinder my enjoyment at all. This could very well be the last Lugnut figure we ever get and I would be ok with that. He is a decade old figure that stands right alongside modern day figures in terms of quality and general playability, not to mention size. Reveal the Shield Lugnut is an easy 9/10 and can really only be described in one word. Glorious. 

Hope you all enjoyed that one, and feel free to check out Lugnut’s photo gallery for more pictures, you won’t be disappointed. Next week we are going older than this weeks with a figure that I think is pretty cool and holds up almost as well as Lugnut but has a few flaws holding him back, so see you guys then.

Transformers War for Cybertron Trilogy: Decepticon Mirage

Another week, another review, and I think I might finally be getting the hang of this whole blog thing. This week's subject is War for Cybertron Trilogy Decepticon Mirage, which is a very unique figure. As always check out the gallery after you're done reading.

Before we start on the figure, the War for Cybertron Trilogy toy line is kind of a weird one. It is entirely based around the War for Cybertron show on Netflix and includes characters and decos that are supposed to be accurate to the show, but it is rather hit or miss if they actually are though. This line was supposed to come out the same day as the show on Netflix, but when the first season of the show got delayed, the toy line didn’t so the entire first wave just kinda came out months earlier than the show and i am pretty sure a lot of these toys just kinda showed up at retailers before being officially announced, but I might be wrong about that part.

Like I said this is a very unique figure as when it first was revealed, spoilers for the War for Cybertron: Siege Netflix show, as everyone thought it was a spoiler for Mirage getting brainwashed into becoming a Decepticon at some point during the show, but that was not the case and it was just a disguise Mirage uses in one episode to discreetly get some information out of some Decepticons, which is honestly a really unique take on Mirage’s powers. 

Mirage’s head is his classic sphinx-like dome with the tall trapezoidal side vents and the half mohawk head crest, but it is all painted up in a nice dark lavender. The paint allows for all the molded details to be extremely visible, all of which are very nice. The face is done in a very nice gunmetal silver making all of the minutiae on the face very defined but the stand out part of the face is for sure those stunning yellow eyes that just stare into your soul. 

The chest is very interesting as it is clearly a fake chest but it has all the right details and molding so it ends up working really well even if it is considerably wide. The colors are very nice with the primarily sand blue torso that gradients into the same dark metallic grey as the face on the centerpiece. He does have a nice semi circle of dark lavender that homages the original toy’s cockpit section and a rather large Decepticon badge right smack dab in the middle. Both of these really help break up the rest of the colors. One of my main issues with this figure is that it is pretty much entirely painted, anything not black or a solid shade of grey is painted on and while that is not inherently a bad thing, the paint isn’t sealed at all so it tends to chip and scratch fairly easily. I have quite a few chips and scratches on the chest section just from messing around and transforming him. His back isn’t too interesting, just some wheels and a support beam.

The arms are actually pretty interesting as they aren’t quite what you might expect. I mean the articulation is pretty standard for a modern day deluxe, 90 degree outward movement, full shoulder and bicep rotation, and a 90 degree elbow, it’s everything around the joints that is interesting. Starting up at the shoulder, he has half of the vehicle mode spoiler as a sort of shoulder pad, which is quite different from the standard Mirage design, but it works really well for a Cybertronian version of the character, plus it is on a separate hinge than the shoulder so it can move out of the way for posing. The forearms are pretty interesting too as they aren’t your standard rectangle, they are very curved and oddly shaped, not only that they also have a 5mm port on the bottom instead of the side like most figures. This allows for under slung weaponry which gives him a very unique look when it comes to posing and weapon placement. Unfortunately the forearms are probably the most scratched up when it comes to paint scratches and again these are just from normal play, but at least in this instance the add to the look as it is a  battle damaged deco

The legs aren’t really as interesting as the arms. Full hip movement in the hips, a decent thigh swivel, 90 degree knees and the feet can move inward and back and forth, as well as a full waist swivel which I think I forgot to mention earlier. The shins are done up similarly to the head with the dark lavender and gun metal gray, with some dark grey peaking through, but it can be a little hard to distinguish from the gun metal at certain times. Turning him around and you can see that the backs of his legs are weird. They look both hollow and not hollow at the same time. I mean it is pretty clear that the front of the car mode is folded up back there and while I don't hate it, the wheel struts just kinda hang there and don’t tab in well so they tend to flop around a bit. 

Obviously I am going to quickly mention the weapons before moving onto vehicle mode. First off is the rifle, which looks very cool and is pretty accurate to what his G1 toy’s rifle looked like but with some added fins on the back, which is a neat addition that gives it some uniqueness. Moving onto the launcher, which is made up of two parts; the missile itself and the actual launcher base. Both parts are very nicely molded and can be used as separate accessories if that is what you want, but obviously they are meant to be combined together, but they are a little bland since both are molded in a standard grey plastic. It should go without saying that both of these weapons can be plugged into any of the 5mm ports that are scattered over the figure. 

Transformation is very cool. The two torso halves are connected by a single beam that allows each section to be transformed separately and then be connected back together in a different way. The legs end up becoming like ¾ of the car mode just by acordianing out, meanwhile the torso just flips around becoming the back end, while the arms tab together to form the spoiler and air scoop. Vehicle mode itself looks really nice for the most part with the big exposed wheels and general F1 car body shape, although not the most aerodynamic considering the large blocks that sit behind the shoulder. While he is pretty solid in car mode not everything likes to tab together or stay that way or at the very least the tabs don’t go in all the way giving him some pretty small gaps that are honestly pretty unnoticeable. You can plug the weapons in in this mode but only on top of the spoiler as all the other ports have been hidden by transformation.

I think that is everything I want to cover about this figure, I don’t know why this one got hard to write at times, guess I was just having trouble finding the right words. I do like this figure a lot and he is a great figure to repurpose, I personally plan on using him as Shattered Glass Mirage, I know quite a few people that are, but I have seen others use him as a modern take on Deluge from the G2 line or even just a random goon to fill out the Decepticon ranks. With that being said he also has a lot of faults and minor annoyances that keep him from reaching his full potential so I give him a solid 6/10

Apologies for this one being a little late, this week was pretty busy and this just ended up being pushed due to time constraints. Hopefully the next one will be up on Sunday but it is quite a glorious figure so there is a lot to cover. Here is the link to the gallery if you fancy a gander and I will see you all sometime within the next week.