WFC: Kingdom Rodimus Prime

If you read last week's blog, this week's subject should have been obvious since it continues this Kingdom train we have been on and it is also Commander Class. Since there is only one Commander class per toyline, I am reviewing Kingdom Commander Class Rodimus Prime, who is probably the most controversial of all the commanders so far but what he lacks in height he makes up for in playability.

As I have stated previously, Rodimus is my first Commander Class figure. I skipped both Siege Jetfire and Earthrise Sky Lynx as I wasn’t interested in them. I have T30 Jetfire which is the perfect Jetfire for me and I just don’t care for Sky Lynx both as a design and character. To be honest, I actually wasn’t planning to get Rodimus either for pretty much the same reasons, I have SS86 Hot Rod already and no real attachment to the character. Although the closer we got to his Rodimus’ release and the more in hand shots we got of him the more convinced I became that I should experience this figure. He ended up being my most expensive impulse buy, probably, and I have yet to regret it. Let’s get right into it and take a close look at why I think this guy is well worth the price of admission.

As always we look at the head and this head is absolutely INCREDIBLE, and I know I have probably said that before but I really mean it this time. The red duo tone helmet gives off big gladiator vibes, especially with the cheek guards and mohawk. The face is excellent with this stern aged look and it is all done up in this flat silver that really brings out all the angles and details. The eyes look nice painted in a metallic blue but I think they could have been a bit brighter as they tend to get lost at certain angles. Articulation is great as the head is on a ball joint and the neck can actually rock back and forth to allow for more up and down movement.

The torso is a very dense chunk of plastic parts all compacted quite nicely. His chest is his traditional flame decaled hood, which really pops thanks to the black outline around the flame itself. He also has his iconic collar which doesn’t affect the head articulation as much as you might think. You can actually open up his chest and find the matrix tucked away inside. Turning him around you will see he doesn’t have much of a backpack, just his windshield and the back section of the car mode including his absolutely ENORMOUS spoiler. This back panel gives me a bit of trouble where it can come untabbed pretty easily but it stays put for the most part.

Visually these arms are pretty simple but there is a lot going on mechanically. The shoulders have some slight butterfly joints in both directions which makes his poses much more dynamic. They also have your standard shoulder articulation, which can be a little limited by the spoiler but not enough where it is a real problem. My favorite part of the shoulders is actually the wheel because they slide into the arms slightly with the fronts hinging up and tab into the shoulders. The forearms are just as good as the shoulders with double hinge elbows and full bicep rotation and on the aesthetic side he has his iconic long exhaust pipe arm blasters. His hands are probably his main attraction as not only do they have some inward movement but his fingers are articulated. And I mean Masterpiece articulated, with the trigger finger being individually articulated, and the other 3 being one piece. Each section actually has 2 points of articulation, one where they connect to the palm and another at the first knuckle.

Legs aren’t anything special, just lots of joints connecting the larger chunks. The waist and hips have full range of motion except for backwards movement due to the shape of the shape of the parts and the waist is hindered by the backpack but like the shoulder, it is not enough to complain about really. He has full thigh swivels and double-jointed knees and his ankles have excellent forward and inward tilt but essentially nothing in either of the other directions. That is pretty much it for the legs, they look good but there just isn’t a lot going on with them.

Alright then with the robot mode all finished up, let’s take a look at all the accessories this guy comes with, cause there is A LOT. First off, just to get them out of the way, is all the blast effects he comes with. He comes with 10 total; 2 smoke effects, 1 matrix effect, 3 identical gun blast effects and 4 modular gun blast effects that are all different shapes and sizes. You can combine these 4 effect parts together in a variety of ways such as 1 large blast effect or 2 asymmetrical smaller blasts effects or any combination you can come up with. Since we have already touched on it, he does have a Matrix of Leadership which is hidden in his chest. It can be removed and he can even hold it like in the film. Next up is probably my favorite accessory which is the Sword of Primus. It just looks super cool and fits in his hand really well, plus it has a flip out peg allowing it to be stored on his back. The only unfortunate thing is that because of how it is designed it can only be held by figures who have opening hands, and at the moment that is only 3 figures, including Rodimus Prime himself. He also comes with his classic rifle the “Photon Eliminator”. It is quite long, coming up to about 2 thirds of Rodimus’ height and he can hold it with both hands. If you don’t want him holding it, it can fold up and store on his back.

Onto the two large accessories, the turret and the trailer. Starting with the turret as it is the simplest of the two. The turret head can rotate around fully and aim up and down. Rodimus can hold onto both of the handles and man the turret, just like his G1 toy and of course the blast effects can be plugged into either of the two main cannons. If you don’t want the cannon deployed, you can collapse it down and store it in the trailer or interestingly, in what seems to be an undocumented feature, you can actually plug the turret onto Rodimus’ back as a sort of backpack gun emplacement. Moving onto the trailer which can clearly unfurl into a makeshift base. This thing is absolutely loaded with 5mm ports; having 36 on the inside, 4 on the back, 3 on each side, right in between the wheels, and 1 on each of the side walls plus the one that is center aligned in trailer mode making for a total of 49. It also has an AIRLOCK connector so you can add it to any of your cityscapes, if that is of interest to you. Turning this thing into a trailer is really simple, unfortunately there seems to be a running issue where the trailer won’t hold together properly as there is not enough friction in one of the tabs. From what I have heard it is an easy fix and I do plan on doing it, I just figured I should do it after I put it up here. Like I stated before the turret can be stored here or you can attach it to the roof for some extra firepower in this mode. Instead of the turret you can fit one of the modern autobot car molds in there. A couple of last things about the trailer, he has this compartment in the front that I am uncertain what it is for, you can store some of the thinner blast effects in here though. Speaking of hidden compartments he actually has a storage compartment for the matrix and smoke effects that just slides out from the underside of the trailer. It also has a couple of 5mm ports both inside and out.

Well that took longer than expected to cover but let us wrap this review up by looking at the transformation and vehicle mode. Transformations a super interesting and intuitive with lots of different rotations, collapsing and extending joints and I enjoy 90% of it. When we get to the legs it is scary because of the amount of force you need to apply to get the wheels in the right positions, both going to and from the robot mode. Overall I enjoy it but I understand why others don’t. Now the car mode itself I absolutely LOVE. Just this bulky, offroad version of Hot Rods sleek car mode. The wheels raise the car up, giving him lots of clearance underneath, and allowing him to roll incredibly well. The clearance allows you to store the sword underneath the car mode, but you have to angle the foot up if you don’t want the hilt to drag on the ground. Speaking of storing weapons, you can also store the gun in this mode. Just fold it in half and plug it into the side of the car. You can kind of attach the smoke effects to the exhaust pipes but they don’t stay on very well thanks to how close the attachment points are to the car. The main function in this mode is of course connecting to the trailer for the full space-age Winnebago experience. You can attach the smoke effects to the exhaust pipes on the trailer which is clearly where they are supposed to go. You can also attach a couple of effects to the rear as some extra thrusters.

Ok I think that is everything, if I did miss something please feel free to let me know either in the comment section below or on Twitter, @Mythic_Gears. Overall I absolutely love this figure, he is so much fun to mess with and pose. All the accessories he comes with really just add to the enjoyment. Except that leg transformation and the QC issues, he is easily one of my favorite figures I have gotten this year and VERY worthy of the Commander Class title. 9/10 easily. This one took longer than expected, but luckily the one I had wanted to do next did show up when anticipated so it allowed me to take some extra time on this one, so I hope you all appreciate this gallery. Next week we look at one of the most mediocrely received figures in all of Kingdom. SO see you all next week.

Transformers Titans Return Hot Rod

Hello there, and welcome back to MythicTF’s for another review. Before we begin I would like to mention that I updated all of galleries to have the size class within the banner along side all the other general information. Anyways, I am weirdly excited about this one and I don’t really know why. He was a pretty basic but enjoyable figure from Titans Return and an extremely basic one by today's standards. It is weird to think that it has been 4 1/2 - 5 years since he came out cause it doesn’t feel like that long ago but I guess it is a testament to how far we have come since then, especially in terms of engineering. With all that said he still has a lot of character and charm to him so let’s look at Titans Return Hot Rod.

First thing I am going to mention right out of the gate is that I have customized this guy slightly. I took a Silver Paint Sharpie to his rims to help them stand out a bit more. I was planning to take it off before doing this but I couldn't find anything on hand that took it off easily, and I didn't have a lot of free time to go and buy something that would take it off so I decided to just leave it. I think it looks good and doesn’t really take anything away from him as a whole. Anyways let’s just get on with it. 

Starting with the head means that we start this review off looking at Hot Rod Titan Master partner Firedrive. For those who are knowledgeable about TF lore, Hot Rod never had a Titan Master, or Headmaster as they were originally called, he got a Targetmaster named Firebolt. For legal reasons they cant use the name Firebolt so they renamed him to Firedrive and since Hot Rod needed to incorporate the Titan Master gimmick, so they gave his new headmaster the name of his old targetmaster, pretty simple. Like all Titanmasters in Titans Return, Firedrive has a unique power that he gives to any larger robot he is attached to, in this case he gives Hot Rod and I quote “an electrostatic that disables the systems of enemy targets...”. As for looks, there isn't much, he is cast entirely in grey plastic and has no paint, which sucks but since you will probably keep him attached to the main body, i don’t see it as much of a loss. You can make out most of the details on him with the exception being the head as I feel like there isn’t enough definition on them and as a result some of them get lost. For articulation he really only has arms that go forward and the head can do a full 360. the legs are molded together so you can’t really get any poses from them. Finally we can get onto Hot Rod’s face, which is good enough for the most part, although the headcrest fins get lost a lot of the time giving him an off look but it works well enough, especially once connected to the rest of the body.

Speaking of, the torso is pretty simple, your standard hood chest with Hot Rod’s usual flare of engine block and flame decal. It does have a chunk missing at the bottom of it to allow for some ab detail but otherwise there isn’t much happening on the front. The back is what you would expect for a Hot Rod, the windshield/cockpit area and the spoiler section. THe spoiler doesn’t sit quite far enough up so it ends up getting blocked by the shoulders most of the time, which is unfortunate since that is a main part of his silhouette.

The arms seem very rudimentary, i mean the necessary articulation is there; the ball jointed shoulders, the bicep swivel and the 90 degree elbow, but they very much look like two large rectangles attached by a small hinge. They have all the right details too, like the shoulder wheels and his triple barreled forearm exhaust pipes. Oddly his hands are orange instead of the more cartoon accurate grey, but this figure is mope so based on the original toy and not the cartoon as one would expect, so it works. 

The legs feel more articulate and less blocky than the arms even if they really aren’t. I think that is mainly because of his ability to have double jointed knees, you just need to move the kibble out of the way. As for other articulation he has a waist rotation, ball jointed hips and a full thigh rotation. The detailing here isn’t bad, I especially like the vent knee caps and silver shins. His feet don’t move at all but they are molded at an angle so he has a more natural stance when he is just standing. 

For accessories, we already covered the head Titanmaster but he also comes with a pair of rifles. I can’t really tell what these guns are based on, if they even are, the closest I could come up with is maybe the G1 Rodimus Prime rifle but even that is a stretch. Otherwise they fit in his hands well enough and can also be plugged into the shoulder ports if that is something you want to do. You can combine the rifles together to form a double barreled gun of sorts but he has to hold it by the side so it ends up looking awkward and overly large. 

Transformation is simple, nothing too involved or interesting, just make sure you remove the head first. AND HOLY COW this car mode is STUNNING. There are no robot parts at all, everything lines up really well to make this super smooth and clean looking car. The dark translucent blue windshield is great and helps break up all the red and of course he has his classic flame hood and engine block. The orange could stand to be a bit deeper to really help the yellow stand out better, but it is pretty good as is. For weapon storage you can plug the guns into either of the side holes and there is just barely enough clearance to allow him to still roll, you can also combine them together and plug them into the engine block which is a classic feature with almost all Hot Rod toys. When the guns are combined together you can actually fit Firedrive in the middle so he can use it like a manned turret or you can open the windshield and seat him in the car so he can drive it. The last feature I want to mention is the little pegs right in front of the spoiler. They are for titanmasters to stand on so he can give some extra guys a lift or just have Firedrive stand on the car.

So that is Titans Return Hot Rod, while he may be kinda basic and obsolete by today’s standards he is still pretty fun and the car mode stands toe to toe with his newer counterpart’s. For me he is a solid 6.5/10. I don’t really have much else that needs to be said about him, I think I covered everything I wanted too, so feel free to check out the gallery. Next week is going to be a BIG ONE, probably going to have the most amount of pictures in a gallery so don’t be surprised if I end up taking an extra week on it. It isn’t the one I had initially planned to be next but I honestly couldn’t wait and to be honest I almost did her this week instead of Hot Rod but figured I would wait to form a better opinion. Hope to see you all then.