WFC: Kingdom Autobot Tracks

Hey, it’s been a minute since my last blog post, and I am sorry about that. I just couldn’t come up with any ideas for this one plus my free time was lacking this past week and any free time I had, I was just exhausted. As a result this one might not be my best work but I want to get it done so I can move on. This time I am looking at a figure that a lot of people really hate for one reason in particular. I understand it, but the fix is straightforward and so I find the hate overblown. Anyway I am looking at Kingdom Tracks.

As I stated, Tracks here gets a lot of hate for his legs, which I can partially understand since he has a misassembly that makes his legs really loose and floppy. Now there are multiple fixes for the legs (this is the one I used) and all of them are pretty easy. He has a few other minor issues but I will cover them when I get there, but I think he is on par with figures like ER Trailbreaker and Siege Sideswipe. I guess now is as good a time as any to get in to why.

His head is the best Tracks head we have ever gotten on a mainline figure of the character. The stark white helmet makes all the details visible and I love that the head crest feeds directly into the side spike slopes. The red face is present as it is iconic to the characters design and is looking as good as ever. It is very round and smooth compared to the rest of the head but it works well. The eyes are a nice lavender blue but I would have gone with a brighter blue so they stand out more. Head articulation is pretty limited because of the shape of the head and collar so it can only move about 40 degrees left or right.

The torso is pretty wide but not unproportionately so. He does have a faux chest which works really well and I think if it wasn’t fake he would be way out of scale with the rest of the WFC gang. The fake windows are painted in a nice metallic sand blue and he has his traditional yellow badge block in the center of his chest. Now the torsos itself is pretty two-dimensional because of transformation but you can really only tell from certain angles. He does have quite a large backpack which is almost entirely clear plastic since it is the entire top and back of the car, but this doesn’t bug me. His design requires him to have a backpack and it doesn't get in the way of any articulation at all.

Moving on to Tracks’ arms which are pretty nice. His shoulders have both the wings and wheels on them, and similarly to ER Trailbreaker, the wings are attached to the shoulders but they are not nearly as awkward looking as those panels. I do really like the red and yellow details on his forearms as they bring some much-needed color. Articulation here is pretty standard; shoulder rotation, outward shoulder movement, bicep swivel, and 90 degree elbow. Nothing in the wrist unfortunately, but he does have a bit of a backwards butterfly joint thanks to transformation.

Finally we are onto the legs, and while I have already covered the rampant QC issue with them, they have some other issues besides that and most of it has to do with the articulation and joints used. The actual design and shape of the legs is pretty good. I do think they could use some more colors as they are primarily grey and black with only the blue side panels to break it up. Now lets move onto articulation and I will point out my issues as we get to each one. Starting at the top with the waist which has a full rotation despite the large backpack. These hips have soft ratchets for outward movement which is a choice but not a big deal. The issue I have with them is the the back and forth movement are mushroom pegs, which aren’t the most stable. Thigh swivels and knees are what you have probably come to expect from a modern day figure. The ankles are my other main issue and while the range of motion they have is excellent, they are ball jointed so they could end up becoming loose over time. On top of that they are attached to the side panel not the actual main leg, which means if you haven’t done the fix it is very hard for him to stand.

His Weapons are pretty simple, just his gun and his missile pods. Tracks gun is a reference to his gun in the original cartoon and it looks good even if it is just a detailed cone. Of course it can be plugged into either hand or any of the other various 5mm ports around him. The missile pod is neat and, like the gun, is based more off the show appearance than the original toy. The main difference is obviously the smaller missiles but also detail wise they are much more akin to the animation model. The missiles are obviously meant to plug into the top of the backpack so they rest right above his head but they can of course be plugged in anywhere.

Transformation is neat and for the most part pretty simple. The only confusing part can be the legs, but the engineering is actually really cool, you just need to make sure everything is lined up correctly while doing it. The corvette mode itself is beautiful, the blue is stunning and I love the flame detail on the hood even if it is a bit basic. I also appreciate that the rims are painted silver, it really brings the whole thing together. Tracks is famous for his flying car mode which is incredibly stupid looking, but also extremely fun and lovable and of course this toy can do it. It is just as dumb as every other time it has been done but pulls it off almost as convincingly as the Masterpiece figure. Both the weapons can be stored in these modes, just plug them together and plug them onto the back. I think my only issue with this figure is the lack of a flight stand port in vehicle mode, seems like an oversight not to include one on a figure with a flying alt mode

So that is Kingdom Tracks in his full glory. Once I fixed the legs I really started to enjoy this figure and his engineering. Like I said in the beginning he is just as good as Earthrise Trailbreaker and Siege Sideswipe so it should come as no surprise that he gets the same rating. 6.5/10.

I know this post took way too long to do, especially for how short it is. I just had a lack of time and energy to write these past couple weeks. Unfortunately that may continue into the new year, or at very least the next month or so. I will try and get a new Gallery up every week as they are pretty easy to do and I have a bunch of figures I want to sell off or know I won't do reviews on and that way I am still updating the website every week. On the topic of galleries, Tracks gallery has already been up for a about a week so check that out. With that all said, I will see you all when I see you.

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.

War for Cybertron Mirage Mayhem

I am not going to beat around the bush this time, if you read last week's blog all the way to the end you know that this week I am looking at Kingdom Mirage. This is because he comes packed with Grimlock in the first Battle Across Time Set. Now I did say that there would be a twist this week as well, and it came about while I was talking to a friend. I realized I had an opportunity to do a couple figures in my backlog and while it did triple my workload as far as pictures go, but I am really happy with how everything turned out. So not only am I doing Kingdom Mirage this week but I am also looking at Siege Mirage and Siege Holo Mirage.

If you recall, a while back I did a full review of WFC Trilogy Decepticon Mirage, and because of that I won’t be doing full reviews of any of these figures just to make sure I don’t repeat myself. I will for sure be skipping the articulation and transformation unless it is something I forgot to go over before or in Kingdom Mirage’s case new articulation entirely. I am also going to be skipping the weapons as they all have the same ones just in different colors. With all that out of the way let’s get right into it starting with…

Siege Mirage

Siege Mirage here was the only retail release of the mold, and is done up in his standard colors of white, blue and silver with some black and red accents. This color scheme is absolutely gorgeous on this figure. The head sculpt looks flawless in this royal blue and silver but I wish the eyes stood out more. The stark white chest with the fake car front looks quite nice and is broken up by the giant Auto-badge and silver front wing. Something I did forget to mention on my previous look at this mold, is that thanks to transformation he does have some forward butterfly joints, but they can look a bit wonky depending on how far out you move them. Not much going on in the arms, but the black and silver are a nice break from the white and blue of the rest of the figure. I know a lot of people worry about his legs since his shins are made of translucent plastic but I really like them. I think the clear blue on top of the white plastic just looks really nice, as it adds some nice depth and color variation. Vehicle mode also looks incredible in these colors and I especially love the cybertronian writing on the sides of the car. Luckily this version does not have the paint chipping issue Con Mirage does but he also doesn’t have nearly as much paint though.

Siege Holo Mirage

Moving on to Holo Mirage, who was released via the Amazon exclusive Fan Vote 3 Pack, which came with him, a Decepticon version of Impactor and Aragon, a character that NO ONE saw getting a new toy. Usually I would review multi-packs together but I sold the Impactor right away and since Aragon is just a Cog repaint I think splitting them up like this is just easier. Clear Mirage deco’s have become a staple of Mirage molds since they are pretty easy and make sense since his canon ability in the original cartoon was invisibility. This one is notable as it is done up in translucent blue instead of the smokey translucent plastic they have used on the others. Interestingly it is actually a different blue than the one used on the retail release as it is slightly lighter, also they used a solid light blue plastic for most of the joints which I think is smart as it should prevent breakage. The major difference here is the toy accurate head which has yet to be used on any other figure and that is a shame as it is incredible looking. He does have clear tampographs in various places, such as the chest and spoiler, but they are hard to make out unless they are in the right lighting. I should mention that the shoulder ports on my copy have both cracked just from putting the launcher in, I am not expecting any more cracks there as the launcher fits quite well now. Nothing too spectacular in car mode, just a two-tone blue space race car.

Kingdom Mirage

Finally we reached the main event, Kingdom Mirage. This figure is actually quite a bit different from the Siege mold but still uses a lot of the same engineering and, if my counting is correct, the two molds share about 20 parts. The one part I can’t tell if it is remolded or not is the head, as it looks slightly thinner, which would make sense considering the new chest transformation but it might just be the brighter blue used making it look that way. His chest is significantly thinner, leading to a better proportioned robot mode. He does still have the fake chest but this time in an Earth mode flavoring, and thanks to transformation this figure has an ab crunch which is SUCH a fantastic addition. The arms are probably the most changed, specifically the shoulders since they are a big part of the new transformation scheme mentioned above. Not only are the spoiler shoulder pads (spoiler pads) in the new Earth aesthetic, you can untab the shoulders from the torso to give him more fluid looking butterfly joints that go in both directions. This does come with a caveat though, because of these new joints, he no longer has any shoulder ports for his launcher, but he does have some ports on the back of his shoulders and I actually don’t mind this look. The legs aren’t that much different. A substantial amount of the parts are new but they all function the same. The first thing you will probably notice is that the lower legs are no longer made of clear plastic, they are solid blue. While it is a nice shade of blue they feel kind off plain and I think they could have done from some more paint such as the silver on the knee pads. Overall I don’t have a lot of complaints about this robot mode. My 2 main ones would be the 5mm port on his back is too big to hold anything, but that might just be my copy. My other one is more of a long term concern, as this figure has a lot of paint, specifically the chest, forearms and thighs are all white paint on blue plastic. I have already chipped some off the fake spoiler when I first transformed him, but it doesn’t seem or feel as fragile as the paint on Decepticon Mirage. Transformation is the same as far as the legs go, but the arms are the main difference, even though they end up in essentially the same spot. Vehicle mode is very nice, the back is much cleaner and thinner than the Siege version. The colors are very nice in this mode too but like in robot mode I find the blue kinda barren. You have probably already noticed that the autobot tampograph on the front of the car is off center, which is unfortunate but easily fixable. You can plug the guns in this mode, they go on the sides of the car now which I actually like a lot better than on top of the spoiler.

Overall I think that Siege Mirage has the better colors but Kingdom Mirage is the better figure overall. And Holo Mirage exists if that is more your style. That being said though all of these are good figures so take your pick of any of these and I am sure you will be happy. As for ratings, base Siege Mirage gets a 6.5 from me, Holo Mirage gets a 6, and Kingdom Mirage gets a 7. As far as this Battle Through Time set with Grimlock and Mirage the score averages out to a 6.5/10 which is pretty fair, nothing too special going on but the figures are good.  And with that I have covered every version of the Siege Mirage mold, as well as done galleries for all of them. If you want to check those out then you can click here, here and here for the 3 I covered today and here for the Con Mirage Gallery I did back in May. As for next week it is the first Commander Class figure I have bought and I am having a hell of a time with him. I hope you are all looking forward to it and I will see you all next week

WFC: Kingdom Maximal Grimlock

Welcome back, this week is the beginning of my first ever 2-part review. This means that I will be taking a look at a single set of figures with each one getting its own blog post. This review is also kicking off Kingdom Month (and a half), where each week I will be looking at a different Kingdom figure, in some capacity, and provided they all come on time. Last week I promised we would be “continuing on the dinobot train” and that is exactly what I am going to do. So without further adieu let’s kick this off and look at Kingdom Maximal Grimlock.

This figure comes from the first of 2 Amazon exclusive box sets for Kingdom. They got the name the Battle Across Time Collection, as each one came with a repaint/remold of a Beast Wars Kingdom figure and an earth mode version of a G1 character we got in Siege. This specific set came with Maximal Grimlock and Autobot Mirage and the other set features Maximal Skywarp and Autobot Sideswipe. Grimlock here is a repaint of the Kingdom Dinobot mold with a new head, which makes sense as that is what his original toy was. This figure got a lot of backlash when it was revealed as it has some questionable paint choices. I will detail all of them as I get to each section, but I liked that they tried combining the 2 BW Grimlock decos that got released(The original Beast Wars version and the Dinobots subline version). It is an interesting idea that could have been executed better, but enough talking about this figure's history, let’s get into it and you’ll see what I mean.

As always we look at the head and I would be lying if I said this isn’t one of my favorite head sculpts I have ever seen. Just absolutely stunning. The helmet is cast in this beautiful black plastic, on either side you have these spade shaped panels that have diamond shaped panels on top of them that wave molded vents on them. In the middle is this giant mohawk that goes all the way across the head and even continues down the back a bit. On the front it has this vertical drop off that actually tiers inward slightly as to not fully connect with his angled brow. His face plate is painted in this fantastic shade of grey plus it has his titular chin spike. Interestingly on the original toy his face plate was white and the Dinobots one was red. I find the fact that it is grey here kind of odd but I am not going to let that distract me from how good it looks. To top it all off are the bright green eyes that pierce through both of the dark colors. They are set in more than I might like but they can end up looking pretty dramatic thanks to the head articulation. Speaking of which, the head is on a ball joint and there is nothing around to hinder its movement so you end up with a pretty full range of movement

The torso is a pretty basic block despite his animalistic alt mode. The chest is odd to say the least. So it is supposed to be the Dinosaur head but slightly flattened thanks to Dinobot(the character)’s show model. You can see the top of the actual Dino mode head in the middle but the area around it makes no effort to match it. It is our first instance of “missing” paint as at the very least I think that the fake dino eyes should have been painted green. I am unsure about the rest of the fake head as the original never had this much black it was just spotted, but I think the added black would have looked nice and broken up the primarily white chest. The back isn’t too bad as it is just dino parts that condense down nicely, nothing too special here.

Moving onto the arms, which are the design’s traditional raptor leg arms. There isn’t a lot going on here other than lots of articulation and some very nice texturing, which is present throughout the entire figure. Like I said these arms have tons of articulation; double upward shoulder joints, full shoulder rotation, full bicep swivel, 90 degree elbow, full wrist rotation, back and forth wrist movement and the hands can open up thanks to the hinges on both finger sections. You may have noticed that the shoulders are white but the forearms and hands are grey and this is what I was talking about when I said this toy takes inspiration from both BW Grimlock decos. The original toy had fully white arms but the Dinobots one had the hands all the way up to the biceps grey similarly to this one, albeit this one stops at the elbow.

Now we get to the legs and you can probably already tell they are a kind of a mess, visually at least. All the articulation you would expect for a modern figure is here; ankle tilt both inward and backwards, 90 degree knees, full, but rather tight, thigh swivels, full range of motion in the hips, but the back movement is a bit restricted by the shape of the back of the crotch piece, and a waist rotation but it is off center so going too far in either direction makes it look wonky. Now onto the visuals of the legs and this vertical white and bronze split really isn’t working. I get the idea cause anything in white is visible in dino mode so they wanted it to match with the rest. The least they could have done is painted or molded the other halves in white so they match.

As for accessories, the raptor tail opens up and becomes two. You get this sword which can plug into either hand but because of how it is designed it can’t be used by other figures. The rest of the tail can also be plugged into either hand as a sort of rotating shield. I don’t really get it but it looks kinda cool and it can rotate thanks to the full wrist rotation. You can combine both accessories together to get this large wrist sword/lance/bow and arrow thing. Again looks cool but that is about it. The tail weapon can be stored on his back and obviously the sword can be stored inside the tail.

Transformation is kinda interesting but at the same time, nothing special. It is cool how the entire back of the dino unfolds from the torso, but it is so simplistically designed that after the first time it becomes boring. As for the Velociraptor mode itself it looks cool but that is about it.  The colors are a neat combo especially for a raptor, and you can really tell they took this design from the Dinobots version. The original Beast Wars Grimlock was just white with black spots so it makes sense to liven up the design a bit more, I do wish there were more spots throughout the whole dino mode though. There are a few spots on the neck and they stop right before the thighs but I do think they could have gone further with them. He doesn’t have anything in the way of features and his articulation in this mode is limited. His head can look down, his jaw can open, the shoulders are on universal joints, the elbows go about 90 degrees and the hands are on ball joints but are molded in this downward position. The knees can bend forward a bit and the feet have all the same articulation as the robot hands, since that is what they are.

I think that is pretty much it for Kingdom Grimlock, he is oddly boring as a figure and tries to make up for it with looks but doesn’t quite go hard enough to pull it off, 6/10. I am still not quite sure what to do with this guy, but I am thinking I might keep him and make him my first big custom project to see if I can make him reach his full potential. As always gallery for this guy is up and next week I am obviously going to be looking at the second part of this set, Kingdom Mirage, but I still have a couple surprises in store, so see you all then.

Studio Series 86.07 Slug w/Daniel Witwicky

Hi, welcome back to MythicTF’s. Over the past few months since I have started this blog all the figures I have done haven’t really been brand new, with the exception of Eris:Kultur obviously. Not to say most of these toys are old, most have come out within the past 3-4 years, but today’s figure is brand new as of writing this, so new that he has barely started showing up in most countries. I wasn’t even expecting to get this guy till October, but I got lucky with a listing on Walmart.ca and was able to get him early, or at least early by my standards, but enough beating around the bush let’s get prehistoric and look at Studio Series 86.07 Slag, I mean Slug.

Slug here is actually the second Dinobot to be released in the Studio Series 86 sub-line, the first being Grimlock, who I am sure we will get to eventually. Before we actually move on to the figure I feel like I should address the name issue here between Slag and Slug and why it was switched. Slag is his original name and to numerous people that is this character's name as that is what they grew up with but, as time went on, it was discovered that “slag” is a derogatory word in the UK and Europe, so Hasbro decided to change the name of the character to Slug. Some people may get unnecessarily mad at this name change, but it isn’t really that big of an issue, at least to me, because it is not like Slag was a major character with a lot of history and even if he was it is not like the name is that much different, they just switched a letter. Anyways let’s take a look at the figure shall we.

Starting as always with the head as always, and honestly I like it much more than I thought I would based on all the pictures I saw beforehand. I am still not the biggest fan of the fully red head and would have preferred a black head with a red or silver face, but this head is accurate to the G1 cartoon and that is the point of the SS86 toyline, but like I said I like the red more than I thought. I think that there are a substantial amount of details here that would have gotten lost had they used black instead. The only non red parts on the entire face are the rather large metallic blue eyes which really stand out. The head itself is not actually a full head because of how he transforms, it is more of a face with a slope on the back, which is fine since you don’t really see the back of the head thanks to his iconic dino head hood. Speaking of the hood, it does make it a little difficult to maneuver the head but there is sufficient space to get your fingers in there to move it around. You can actually move the head quite a bit thanks to the ball joint it’s on, plus the neck panel can move for some extra up and down action, although the downside of that is that that panel doesn’t lock in so you can up can end up sinking his head into his chest a little without noticing.

Slug here has a rather wide torso, or at the very least it is visually wide. There are multiple factors to this and not all of them are chest related, but since we're here we might as well look at the chest. To start off we have this big grey centerpiece which, on the original toy was the lower jaw of the dino. Here it is clearly a faux part but it stands out REALLY nicely against the primarily red torso, and reversely the Auto-badge stands out really well against the grey. Moving on outwards to the shoulders sections. They are these large red cylindrical chunks, which is one of the main reasons he looks so wide, another one being the slopes tapering to the waist not going out far enough so it looks like the torso stops perpendicular to them and then the shoulder starts, there is even an indent in the molding that helps sells that “illusion”. Speaking of molded details, it all looks very nice and stands out pretty well against the red plastic, and most, if not all, of it is based on the details from the G1 toy which is a nice touch, and blends the cartoon and toy styles very well. I especially love all the details on the inside of the back wings. Since we're talking about the back wings, let's talk about the backpack as a whole cause there is a lot here, but all things considered, it is very compact. It does have the whole dino tail hanging off his back but it looks a lot better and compacts much more than the initial pictures made it appear. It does have a few gaps you can see from the side, nothing major though and it is all very secure.

Moving on to the arms, which are the other main reason he seems wide. They are very good with all the right articulation; Hand rotation, double hinge elbow, full bicep rotation, 90 degree outward movement and full shoulder rotation(the ratchets of which are incredible). I feel like the arms themselves should be both slightly longer and bulkier. When fully straightened the arms just barely make it a third of the way down the thigh, and I think if you made them bulkier they would stand out more from the body instead of extensions in a different color. Luckily these complaints are only really visible when his arms are straight, if you pose them they aren’t really noticeable.

Now let's look at the legs, which are super chunky in multiple ways. The waist is this large brick with a rotation, and full outward, forward and backwards movement in the hips, and while the tail does interfere slightly, it is not as much as you might think and it can be moved out of the way pretty easily. Thighs are a bit short but in comparison to the rest of the legs but not enough where it is a flaw, and I do really love the blue and green on the knees, keeping with the toy inspired details. Surprisingly, thanks to transformation, Slug has double-jointed knees and both joints are ratcheted, although this does cause a minor issue of the thighs not lining up to the lower legs correctly, but again minor issue. Now we get to the main event, these chunky knee-high boots with gold painted toes and mechanical detail galore, but the best part about these has to be the rear dino mode legs that collapse in on themselves and fold around to fill in the inner leg. The engineering here actually allows you to fold them out so you can homage the G1 toy even more, obviously this brings the downside of hollowness on the inside of the legs. He does have some exceptional ankle tilt, going fully 90 degrees, but that isn’t something we haven’t seen before, especially over the last 2-3 years.

Obviously before looking at the transformation and Dino mode, we have to look at his accessories, of which there are two. First up is his gun, which is a pretty nice single barreled rifle painted in the same light grey as the chestplate, and it can be held in either hand, or stored on the back, or oddly enough plugged into the shoulder. Our second accessory can also be plugged into the shoulder, but this one plugs into the top instead of the side. Yep, it is time to look at the weirdest accessory for this guy to come with, Daniel Witwicky in his exo-suit. Daniel here is very well detailed and looks like he did in the 86 film, with the exception of anything actually telling us this is Daniel other than name. For all we know this could be Spike or just an empty exo-suit and either option would make just as much sense coming with Slug as Daniel. The only articulation on this figure is the ball joints at the shoulders and hips, the latter being pretty pointless thanks to the legs being permanently bent 90 degrees. To the point where it makes him hard to stand up on his own. Like I mentioned he can plug into the top of Slug’s shoulder and ride up there if you would like, and that is pretty much it for integration at least for robot mode.

Transformation is neat, especially the legs, since they collapse together to become the entire back end of the dino and the way the chest opens up to reveal the lower jaw is extremely satisfying. This mode is overflowing with molded detail and while we saw most of it in robot mode it is all concentrated together now into this giant mechanical mass. I especially love the faux feet on his back to give him his classic look without sacrificing anything in the legs overall design. Taking a quick look at the head, and it is your classic triceratops head with the spake mane, forehead horns and singular nose spike, all with some mid 80’s mechanical flair. The head itself is done up in a nice brilliant gold and, just like the robot head, the metallic blue eyes really capture your attention from almost every visible angle. The lower jaw can open up and there is even a blast effect port in the mouth so you can make him breath fire(I unfortunately don’t have good enough effect parts to replicate this, so I did the best I could). Because of how the dino head is engineered he can’t look up at all so he just breathe fire at what is on the floor directly in front of him. Actually he doesn’t have much going on the way of articulation in this mode, the front legs obviously have everything the arms had, since that is what they are, but the back legs really only have hip movement. I mean you can use the knee and ankle joint there thanks to the transformation joints but they don’t look all that convincing. Both of the accessories can be used in this mode, the gun actually stores in the tail, giving him a properly tapered tail. Meanwhile Daniel/Spike/the Exo-suit can ride Slug thanks to the two tabs just behind the spike mane.

Overall I think SS86 Slug is an EXCELLENT figure with a couple flaws that keep him from being as good as he could have been. I am thinking he gets a very respectable 8/10. I think that is everything covered with Slug here, I do hope I can get to SS86 Grimlock sooner rather than later but with a lot of stuff releasing and arriving in the next couple months I am not quite sure that will happen, only time will tell. As always with every blog post the accompanying photo gallery is up so check it out if you would like and next week we keep the dinobot theme but probably not in the way you're thinking. See you then.

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.

Generation 1 Devastator

It has been a bit since I posted a blog of some sort and I apologize, life kinda got in the way but hopefully before long i will get back to my weekly schedule. This week is special cause it is review #10 so to celebrate I am doing my first group review. I have a couple of these planned but to start off I decided to do something pretty simple but also surprisingly enjoyable. This toy single-handedly convinced me to get every G1 combiner, and it is G1 Devastator. 

The original G1 Devastator was released in 1985, the second year of the Transformers, as both a gift set and individually packed Constructicons. Now i would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this specific set is the “Vintage G1” Walmart Reissue from 2018/2019, so there are some slight differences between this and the original release, most notably the tighter tolerances on the joints and tabs, the plastic color having a more yellowish hue, the removed springs from all the launchers and the stickers being slightly different. Enough with all this though, let’s jump right into the figures starting with the character who is both the top and bottom of this team.

Scrapper

Scrapper is traditionally the leader of the team, and is also the most simplistic in terms of the toys. His face is just molded onto a black panel, with only the face plate and headlamp picked out in silver paint. The chest is a large slab of purple plastic detailed with various tampographs and stickers (if any are off-center I apologize, I am bad at applying stickers) that have a bunch of early 80s style techno detailing, which I love. His back is pretty much the entire front half of his vehicle mode including the drivers canopy and his iconic shovel behind the head look. His arms are essentially just hollow posts with very minimal detailing and holes to represent his hands, I do enjoy the large wheel shoulders however. His legs are just as simple with his thighs being silver sticks that lead into these bright green boot blocks with next to nothing in the detail department. He does have a gun of his own which is a very nice sci-fi pistol with the oddly long barrel and various molded details. Transformation is incredibly simple and when it is finished you get this nice looking front-end loader. Not much in the way of features he can roll well, the bucket can move up and down and you can plug the combined modes chest piece into the back for a sort of attack or flight mode.

Mixmaster 

Moving onto the other leg and my personal favorite character of the bunch, Mixmaster. Arguably simpler than Scrapper in terms of basic design, Mixmaster has such a unique design. Like Scrapper the head is just a black and silver face on an immovable black panel, but he has his eyes picked out in silver as well as the face plate and headlamp. Before moving down to the chest I should talk about his signature overhead launcher. Sadly this version of the toy has the actual launching gimmick removed so you can’t actually use it as a missile launcher but you can still put any of the “missiles” in the slot for some display options. You can have either a single missile, his signature double missiles or even either of Devastator’s drill missiles. As will become a recurring theme with most of the Constructicons, Mixmaster's chest is just a purple slab which relies on his unique detailing and stickers to help differentiate him. His back is just the entire mixing barrel from alt mode, lucky despite its size it doesn’t make him back heavy at all. Nothing special about the arms as they are just the alt modes back wheels with some fist detailing and holes. The legs are silver slabs that lead into purple slabs, I do enjoy the feet being the upside down cab of the alt mode. His gun seems like some sort of submachine gun considering the more compact body. Transformation is just as easy as Scrapper’s and you end up with a very nice light green cement mixer, complete with a silver grill, purple windshield and free spinning mixing barrel. You can plug his gon into the cab of the mixer for some weapon storage but you can also plug in Devastator’s gun in as well for even more armament

Long Haul

Up next is the middle man himself Long Haul. Long Haul’s design is one of the more unique of the Constructicons if only because he uses the front of his altmode as his chest and the back for the legs, which isn’t even that unique of a design as it is essentially the same thing as characters like Prowl or Jazz. He has the usual face flap but his face is a bit different as he has no head lamp/crest, just a silver visor that takes up a good 40% of the entire face. Like I mentioned, the chest is the entire front of the altmode, which means it sticks out quite a bit. On top of that his back is completely barren save for the flap that rests on his back. His arms are nice because they actually look like arms and the hands are actual hands and not just holes in on the underside of a vehicle mode section. Now his legs can be slightly problematic. They are made up of the entire truck bed, while a neat effect, does cause some balance issues due to the lack of proper feet and the fact that they are slightly in front of the thighs. Long Haul is one of the few figures to have a green gun instead of a black one and it looks like a pretty standard assault rifle albeit a bit small. His transformation is EXTREMELY satisfying with everything folding in the same direction, but unfortunately the bed is only held in by friction which isn’t a big deal if it is just sitting on a table. Otherwise truck mode itself is very nice and I like that the back wheels are double wide. Not much in the way of features but you can plug the entire waist connector piece for the larger robot onto his truck bed for a type of battle mode.

Hook

Hook is probably my second favorite based on just design alone. He is very similar to Mixmaster in a lot of ways, especially in general design layout but because of the differences in vehicle mode shape he ends up with a very unique look. His head is one of the most defined ones of the group and that is due to his face being fully painted. I really like all of the early 80’s techno detailing on the chest and the big green shoulder pads made up of the rear of the vehicle mode. His back is the entire crane which can be rotated for some variation and can also be extended to help give him some extra support if needed. Not much I can say about the arms that I haven’t said already since they are essentially Mixmaster’s minus the back panel. Hook’s legs actually look like regular legs since they aren’t attached together and the thighs are separate parts from the lower legs. I do really like the asymmetricality of the legs, it just makes his design that much more interesting. His gun is probably my favorite of the bunch; it just looks fully kitted out with a grip, scope and possible muzzle, not that any of those can be used properly. Transformation is just as simple as the rest but has the added step of sliding the legs out before folding them up. Vehicle mode is very nice and has the most playability out of the whole gang, with the crane arm being able to fully rotate, move up and down and extend, plus the hook can even move a bit. For the combined mode part storage/battle mode you can plug the whole head piece into the center area and his gun into the front.

Scavenger

Second to last of the smaller bots is Scavenger, probably my least favorite of the bunch, at least in terms of toys. His face is neat because it goes for a more standard look with eyes and a mouth, he even has a silver goatee and the silver headlamp/head crest returns. The torso is a large chunk of green but instead of relying on stickers to fill in the details, he has this silver centerpiece instead that sets him apart from the others. While it may not be that noticeable, he is wearing his entire alt mode on his back, but the only part that is really noticeable is the scoop arm which can both hinder and improve his robot mode balance depending on th position His arms are your standard sticks with fist holes, they don’t even have any interesting features either, they are just sticks. Scavenger’s legs are pretty similar seeing as they are made entirely out of the alt mode treads, because of this they are not nearly as twig-like as the arms. He is one of the only figures in this set to have actual feet though and not just alt mode sections where his feet should be. His gun is really simple, just a long barreled pistol of sorts. Transformation is like 4 steps and then adjusting the scoop however you would like. Excavator mode is pretty adorable, the arm can move at 2 places and he can spin around but it is off center so it looks kinda funky if you turn it too far. For his obligatory battle mode you can plug his gun into his cockpit area and this launcher piece onto the other side, while just like Mixmaster the gimmick has been removed, you can still plug in either drill or the fist.

Bonecrusher

Last but certainly not least is Bonecrusher, who actually surprised me with how good of a toy he is. First thing you will notice about this figure is that he doesn’t really have a face, he looks like some sort of drone, which is very odd considering he is the only one that looks like this. Moving on to his chest which is very wide thanks to it being almost entirely made up of the vehicle mode plow. I do love the fake grill and the chest sticker that makes his chest look like the inside of a PC, which is probably pretty accurate. Nothing special going on around the back, just his vehicle canopy hanging out. His arms are really cool, they stick out a bit far thanks to his wide chest but it isn’t too bad as they end up giving him some extra articulation. I do really like the corner shoulder pillars that encase the arms, plus he has actual molded fists which is nice. His legs are pretty much the exact same as Scavenger’s but now they are green and the treads actually become the feet instead of them being separate parts. Bonecrusher’s gun is even more simple than Scavenger’s, as it is just a green spike held sideways with a scope on it. Transformation is incredibly fun but also simple at the same time, especially the arms folding in to become the front two thirds of the bulldozer. On the topic of the bulldozer mode, it is honestly pretty static, the bucket can tilt but that is about it. You can plug the other launcher into the front just like on Scavenger, and all the exact same pieces can be inserted.

Before we get to the big guy you may have noticed that I left out articulation in all the individual bot reviews and that is because the all have the same articulation, which is a full rotation at the shoulder. Any other articulation they might seem to have is pointless as they don’t have any other parts of articulation to support them using it. Moving onto combination it is pretty easy just plug everyone into their predetermined spots, the trickiest part is connecting the waist piece to Long Haul as it requires an unnecessary amount of force the first time you do it.

Devastator

Now it is time for the main event. Devastator. Man does this guy have a presence, just a giant lime green and purple gestalt made out of construction vehicles. The head his really nice, the silver face and head crest really pop against the black plastic. He has these giant yellow eyes which while they aren’t everyone's preferred preference they do look really nice. Now interestingly he has this green gun attached to the side of his head which is only ever used on this toy, which i really like the look of but it is kind of odd. His torso is just Hook and Long Haul connected together with Scrapper’s wing pack thrown on, becoming the chest piece. The arms are Scavenger and Bonecrusher with their respective launchers attached to become the forearms. This does mean he can have either the fists or the drills attached depending on your mood. Either hand can hold his large gun. I usually choose the right hand, as it is my go to arm for weapons and it also has the most clearance for articulation. Speaking of articulation, both his arms have shoulders and elbows which is pretty impressive for the time. Moving down to the legs, they are very static but Mixmaster and Scrapper do the job of holding everything upright. Devy here may not do much in this mode but he doesn’t really have to, he has this certain magic to him for lack of a better term, the entire team does to be honest. I don’t really know how to describe it, it is just something that every TF fan should experience. The simplicity of everything, the unified colors, the satisfying nature of the combination and all the transformations, it all creates for an all around enjoyable experience, and something I hope I can replicate if I ever get my hands on any more of the G1 combiner teams. 8.5 out of 10.

So yeah that was G1 Devastator, my first multi-bot review. Bit of a different style but I am really happy with it, even if it did take me a week longer than I had wanted, and as always the galleries for Devastator and all of the individual Constructicons are up and you can find them all here. I do hope to do more G1 figures in the future, if I can get my hand on any, reissues or not. But now that my two largest reviews are out of the way, I would like to get back to my weekly schedule and since this was also my tenth review I have reset everything behind the scenes when it comes to picking figures, so there might end up being some weeks where I end up doing figures from the same line back to back. The one thing I plan on doing is reviewing any figures I get as I get them and then on “off weeks” go through my backlog, which should keep me going for quite a while. See you all, next week hopefully.

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 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.

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 War for Cybertron: Earthrise Trailbreaker

New week, new blog, and after looking at older figures over the past couple of weeks we’re headed back to modern times with today’s figure. Now if you haven followed me for a while, you might know I used to do Transformers reviews on YouTube, I didn't do very many, they were a lot of time and effort that i didn’t think was worth it in the long run. One of the figures I reviewed was Earthrise Hoist, and while that is not today’s subject he is VERY similar so apologies for those that have seen that video, this review might sound a bit similar. So let’s take a look at War for Cybertron Earthrise Trailbreaker.

Trailbreaker is interesting because I feel like he is one of the more forgotten members of the original cast, even though he did show up in the beginning of the original 1984 show quite a bit. He would just kinda show up, use his force field ability and then leave for like 3 episodes before showing back up. His design is somehow both unique and uninteresting, I really don’t know how to describe it so I guess I should just jump right in and look at the figure in detail.

As always, let’s start with the head, which is primarily a block like helmet with facial features and a visor. The helmet itself is fine, it has got some simple details and lines to give it some definition and from the top you can tell it has a subtle roundness. On either side you have these trapezoidal ear sections as well as some small helmet mutton chops. The face has some good definition to it, allowing to make out the nose and mouth and his expression is pretty standard for Trailbreaker I feel, a stern neutral combination. The head is on a ball joint meaning you have a full rotation as well as some rocking left and right and back and forth. Not a lot due to the shape of the head but enough. 

The torso is his usual brand of uniqueness, with the windshield mono-pectoral, and the truck hood gut. His back is pretty simple, just the canopy cover for the truck mode. He does have his 2 back mounted contraptions, on the left you have a simple missile/gun and on the right you have his famous radar scanner, or as the show depicted it, his force field generator. Now you may have noticed, that while his torso looks the part from the outside, the inside is very hollow and everything is connected via a single support beam which is a third translucent plastic, which doesn’t bode well for this toy's longevity. 

The arms are detailed blocks connected via the various articulation points, and I know I have used this analogy before in the Deep Cover review but it still rings true here. Full rotation at the hand well over 90 degrees in the elbow, and a full bicep rotation. Now we get to the shoulders which are… odd. First thing you notice is that they are on an angle because of the wheel wells in his torso, which is fine honestly, the shoulders can move down to sit straight. Speaking of shoulder movement, the outward movement is really good, able to go a full 180 despite the joint being odd. As for back and forth movement it is unhindered and can go a full 360, but the panel that sits behind his arm is attached at the same joint meaning it comes with the arm when you move it. Most of the time it doesn’t look too bad but at certain angles and poses it looks awkward and unappealing. 

Legs are just as, if not more, chunky than the arms. The molded details here are really nice and none get lost in the paint or plastic, which is always a bonus, and the silver paint on his shins really pops. I do appreciate the red knee caps and the red in the hips as a way to homage the original toy. He has your standard modern day articulation in the legs, with a few surprises; around 80 degree ankle tilt, double hinge knees, full thigh swivel, full outward hip movement as well as full forward hip movement. The back movement on the hips is limited by the design of the waist, but you get a good 30 degrees, and speaking of the waist it also has a full rotation. 

As for accessories he technically has two. First off is this gun/missile piece, It looks really good with the silver section paying homage to the OG toys missiles. On the topic of homage the gun is designed to fit over his hand to again reference the original toy, where you could replace its hands with missiles. This piece can go over either hand, although the cartoon did give him a cannon hand on his left arm, so that is the go too spot for most people. The other accessory is his canopy. It can be removed from his back, and attached to either arm as a sort of shield, but because of it’s design it limits articulation and it has to go on the arm opposite the gun. You can attach it to the shoulder as well but again, severely limits articulation.

Transformation is very simple, the only part that sometimes catches me up is the arms, but that is mainly my own fault for forgetting to rotate them around before bringing them down. Also make sure you rotate the fists so the thumb is facing up, otherwise they will drag across the ground. The vehicle itself is a very nice black pick-up truck. I really like the silver stripe that goes across the side as well as the yellow, orange and red accents to help break up the black. The front bumper is also fully painted silver and has translucent blue headlights, although I don't know if they were worth having the entire hood section be molded translucent plastic, but who knows maybe it couldn’t be helped. Now you may have noticed that the color matching in this mode is off, and that is because the plastic color they use is closer to a very dark brown then it is black, like the paint. It is not the most egregious job of color matching they have done in the whole of WFC, and I find it much more noticeable here in truck mode than robot mode. He rolls well in this mode and you can plug the gun into the canopy as a sort of weapon storage.  

All in all Earthrise Trailbreaker is a very solid deluxe, he has a couple of flaws but nothing I can’t get over. Robot mode is fun, transformation is simple and truck mode looks nice, can’t really ask for much else. 6.5/10. As always the gallery is up as well if you want to check that out, while you're there feel free to check out any of the other galleries that are up if they interest you or feel free to go back and read any of my previous reviews. Next week is a figure I am not a fan of, and he will probably be my lowest ranking figure for a very long time, 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. 

Transformers War for Cybertron: Siege Springer

I hope you all enjoyed last week's review, it was a bit of a departure for me in all honesty but I thought it turned out rather well. Enough about that, let’s move onto this week's subject matter, which was decided with the help of some friends, Transformers War for Cybertron: Siege WFC-S38 Springer. Don’t forget to check out the full gallery afterwards for 126 pictures of Springer in all his glory.

For as much of a prominent character Springer was in the 1986 movie and third season of the G1 cartoon he hasn’t really gotten as many toys as one might expect and when he did reappear in the late 2000’s he was stripped of his main gimmick, which was triple changing, and he was relegated to be just a green repaint of existing figures that had similar alt-modes to one of his. Of course that all changed in 2013 with the Thrilling 30 figure, and as good as that toy looks, it is not the one I am covering today, even though I am sure I will eventually.

Siege Springer here is a one of a kind figure in multiple ways, he is the first G1 cartoon accurate Springer figure we have ever had and he is the only use of this mold, which seems very rare for Transformers figures nowadays, with most figures getting at least one repaint at some point. With that being said though, his design is pretty unique and doesn’t really share a lot of traits with other characters and his colors haven’t really changed all that drastically either so I can understand why the mold hasn’t been used again. 

On the topic of unique, Springer’s head sculpt is one of the most unique parts of his design and this toy absolutely NAILS IT. From the head crest that continues back to form the sides, to the thin mohawk-like section on top, to the cheek vents being a darker green than the rest of the head (plus the insides are even painted yellow). The face is done up in a very nice pale green that really separates it from the rest of the head. The sculpting here is very nice as well but I find that the mouth gets lost in the paint a bit and the eyebrows get lost underneath the helmet, at least it is not the eyes getting lost this time as they are done up in a nice royal blue, making them really standout from the rest of the head. The head is on a ball joint but because of the head shape and the length and size of the neck plate you don’t get a lot of back and forth or side to side movement.

His chest is technically the standard hood chest, but his is much more compact and angular looking than most, thanks to his very mid 80’s space age-esque alt-modes. It obviously has some of the almost universally disliked “ Siege battle damage” and you guys can have your own opinions about it, but I personally really enjoy it as I think it gives some character to the figures without going too overboard. Springer here is no exception and I think he is one of the better examples of it as it is in places that makes sense for the figure. Moving to the back which has one of my bigger issues with the figure, and that is the backpack. It doesn’t really like to sit still, the main section just kinda flops around as it doesn’t tab in anywhere and it can cause the hinge that is keeping it upright to untab. Other than that though it looks very nice and has storage for all of his weapons/accessories. Not much in the way of articulation here other than the waist swivel but even that is limited from going a full 360 by a transformation hinge, although it is enough to get some decent poses with. Before moving onto the arms I would like to mention that you should be weary attaching the arm struts to the back, as the panel they attach to is made entirely of translucent plastic and one of my tabs has sheared off. Luckily this doesn’t affect stability, as the arms also clip in at the top but figured it was something worth mentioning.

The arms don’t have a lot going on other than some rather good articulation including full wrist and bicep swivels and elbows that go slightly over 90 degrees. The shoulders are where they get a bit limited, the shoulder rotation is hindered by the arms transformation struts, but they can rotate 90 degrees in either direction which is good enough in my opinion and his signature shoulder pads stop the shoulders outward movement just shy of 90 degrees. While we are on the topic of the shoulder pads I know some people take issue with them as they can not rotate outwards to be fully cartoon accurate, and while I understand that complaint I don’t think it could have been done justice without sacrificing stability or some of the more necessary engineering already in the shoulders. 

The legs don’t feel quite as hindered as the arms in terms of articulation. He has full hip articulation and the engineering used for the hips is the best they have ever done, and I am very happy they carried it over through both the Earthrise and Kingdom lines. There is a full thigh rotation and I do believe the thighs are cast in green plastic entirely painted in the same pale green as the face but it is quite hard to tell, they may very well be cast in a pale green plastic. The knees bend just over 90 but are stopped due to the molding on both the thighs and lower legs. This is where another one of my bigger issues lie, which is that the shins like to untab from the strut the knee joint is on, while not the biggest deal it can get pretty annoying when trying to pose the figure. The shins themselves look very nice in the sand blue plastic with a couple of silver paint apps and battle damage, as well as the black from the wheels to help break it up. Now here is where we get to a section of the figure a lot of people seem to have issues with which is the ankles. Now supposedly Springer here can have loose ankle joints, which I can see why that might take away some enjoyment, but I guess I got lucky cause I don’t have those issues at all and he is extremely stable. He has incredible ankle tilt both forwards and to the side and it is a shame that some people can’t really experience that.

Last thing I am going to cover before transformation to the car mode is the weapons and accessories. He comes with two identical swords, two distinct looking guns and the rotor blade housing for helicopter mode. Now all the weapons have INCREDIBLY dumb yet great names, cause that was a thing they decided to do during Siege I guess. You have the “W-10 Airslice Chopper Blades” which are obviously the swords, the “JF-10 Warp Blaster” which is the more greebly looking gun with the tabs and 5mm port on the back, and the “C-10 EM Void Blast Capacitor” which is the other smoother looking gun. You can put any of these weapons wherever there are 5mm ports and like I said before you can plug everything on the back for storage, the swords even tab into the sides but it isn’t the greatest connection. The weapons can also plug together in all sorts of ways for a variety of larger rifles or swords. 

Transformation to car mode from robot mode isn’t too tricky. Your main issues are going to be flipping the chest piece up over the head especially since that entire apparatus is attached to clear plastic and that joint seems unnecessarily stiff, at least on my copy, and then getting the entire waist assembly shifted forward. This step is necessary to get arms and legs in the right positions otherwise you will end up with a lackluster and unsecure car. Oh and don’t forget to take the back fins out of the legs, while not necessary it is important for the accuracy and aesthetic. If you have gotten all those steps down, you should end up with a very solid, hefty and relatively accurate car mode. This car mode looks like one hell of a bruiser but also looks like it could break the sound barrier if needed. All of the newly revealed details are what really sell that look with the armoured plating around the cockpit area and the thrusters and fins at the back, not to mention the blast effect ports on the back to really help sell the illusion that this thing can cruise. As for functionality, it rolls well enough and it has all the same ports from robot mode so you can equip the weapons however you like.

Onto the final mode, the helicopter mode. Getting to this mode from car mode isn’t too hard and mainly involves extending the legs out to create the tail section, which is one of my favorite parts of Springer’s engineering, and of course creating the rotor using the swords and the housing. There isn’t a lot of visual difference between this mode and the car mode seeing as the main section doesn’t really move. The legs extend and the arms move back slightly, you do get some sort of wings/stabilizers from the forearm panels and obviously the main rotor section. Despite that you end up with is another solid mode, although there are quite a few small gaps especially in the back. This mode does have a free spinning main rotor which is EXTREMELY nice and the back rotor spins pretty well too, but then again they are just the back wheels, so that is kind of expected. You can also plug the guns in in almost all the same spots as car mode, the exception to that being the ones under the rotor as they can stop the rotor from spinning. To counteract this, you can now use the ones from the robot mode forearms, and attach the guns to the side of the helicopter, and while this is the official way to display them in this mode I prefer them on the front beside the cockpit. I totally didn’t forget they were supposed to go there for helicopter mode till after I took all the pictures. 

I think that is it, I think I covered everything, Springer has a quite lot more going on than Deep Cover so apologies if I missed anything, not to mention I feel like I went much more in depth on him but at the same time this will probably be my only time looking at the mold so i guess it makes sense. He is a really good figure and a great representation of the G1 character if that is what you're looking for. Speaking of looking, have a look through the gallery if you have the time, you might find a picture you really like.

Now for something new, well new for this place. If you know me, you will know I love to rank things so i figure I would give each figure a rating out of 10, and maybe rank each figure in a given toy line against one another, not sold on that one yet though, plus I should probably wait till I review more than one figure per line to start that. Getting back on track I give Springer here a solid 7.5/10, he is a very fun figure with some great engineering and play value, he just has a couple things that bring him down. I guess I should retroactively give Deep Cover a ranking too, so I will update his post to give him his, so check it out if you're curious. Anyways, that is all for now, see you all next week.

Transformers Generations Selects Deep Cover

Welcome all to my first official MythicTF.ca blog review, I do hope you enjoy and don’t forget to check out the figures gallery afterwards. Now without further adieu let’s get to it and take a look at one of my favorite figures I have gotten this year, Transformers Generations Selects WFC-GS23 Deep Cover. 

Now this toy is based on the original Deep Cover toy which was a E-Hobby repaint of the G1 Sideswipe mold that was released in 2003. As soon as I learned about this guy he has been one of my favorites, from his colors to his ability to shrink like a transformers version of Ant-Man. I just wish he got put in some Transformers media so we would have more to go off of personality wise than just his OG toy’s bio-card.

Getting back to the figure at hand, he is obviously a repaint of the Siege Sideswipe mold, the 7th use of the mold to be exact(well 8th if you count Gigawatt) so he has every positive and negative that mold has, plus quite a few more positives. That being said he is closer to the Covert Clone Sideswipe use of the mold with the color layout being the same, just swap the red for a deep blue and some red accents to help break it all up. 

The head is you standard Sideswipe affair cast in this glorious deep blue, with the trapezoidal prism triangle making up the general face shape with the small horns/fins/ears on the sides and the head crest on top, for which he is the only one out of all the mold uses to have it painted and in silver no less. On the topic of silver, his face is done up in it and it looks really nice, my only gripe with this face sculpt would have to be the eyes, more specifically the color used. The color they used is a metallic, almost pearlescent blue, which while nice, but they just kinda get lost cause it doesn’t really stand out enough from the blue or silver surrounding it. At least the head is on a very nice ball joint, meaning you can get some good poses out of it. 

The chest is your standard hood chest carbot variant, that being said I do like the shape of the chest with the subtle curves at the bottom and sides, but then the top has these nice angles so that the head is visible, while also giving a sort of jacket vibe, especially with how the wheels end up hidden and the white sections beside his head giving off a collar like vibe. The back is just the entire windshield of the car but that is par for the course for Sideswipe’s design, But because of how wide it is it is visible from the front or at least partially. Like most kibble on transformers this doesn’t really bug me as it gives the character/mold a unique look and feel, plus it doesn’t get in the way of the wait swivel, or any of the other articulation for that matter, or make him back heavy.

The arms are your pretty standard affair, just a series of boxes attached via a multitude of joints, including full shoulder movement, bicep swivel, and a 90 degree elbow. No wrist articulation unfortunately, due to transformation. There is quite a bit of detail present on the forearms and because of the white plastic used none of it really gets lost which is always nice. The legs are in a similar boat to the arms, just boxes connected via joints; Full hip movement, thigh swivels(slightly limited by their design) 90 degree knees and a decent amount of ankle tilt. All this articulation means he can pull off quite a few good poses and he has decent enough balance to pull off a high kick and a running pose of sorts. 

I guess the final thing to address in robot mode would be the accessories. Deep Cover comes with the Sideswipe missile launcher parts, both molded in black, the launcher section has silver trim on one side while the missile is fully painted white. He also comes with the “Red Alert Gun'' this time painted in silver. It is just a standard rifle but it does have a 5mm hole on the back for you to plug the launcher into if you so choose. Seeing as this was a Siege toy to begin with you can plug the weapons into any of the 5mm ports available or you can plug the missile launcher into either side of the shoulder for a more traditional look, but personally i chose to either store the launcher on his back or attach it to the side of his arm as a sort wrist mounted rocket or a drill. 

Transformation is a pretty simple affair, nothing complicated at all but nothing super inventive either. That being said, I constantly forget to keep the side panels folded up to give the legs the clearance they need. Now the vehicle mode is a sort of cybertronian supercar, similar to what a space age Lamborghini might look like, and probably the best looking out of all the uses of this mold. The slight glossiness of the black and the blue highlights (that are mainly just remnants from robot mode) really compliment each other, and the added accents like the golden badge tampographs, and painted rims, headlights and taillights really bring this everything together. You can of course plug the weapons into either side of the car or the roof if you would like.

I think that about covers everything I have to say about this figure. I just really love his whole vibe from the car mode to the bomb ass colors to the excellent articulation he is all around just a very fun figure and the best looking version of a mold that has been used many times over. Now if only we could get his brother Clampdown for the final use of the mold, but until then I will make due.

I hope you all enjoyed my first actual blog post review, and are looking forward to more, hoping for these to be weekly but that is dependent on my work schedule so if some are late or possibly early, blame that and don’t forget to check out the full gallery of pictures for Deep Cover (click here) before heading out. I will be adding pictures to pre-existing galleries down the road when I use said figure again for comparison with other figures, so look forward to that. Figured I should add that at the end before I forgot, even though it doesn’t really apply quite yet. Anyways, that is all for now, see you all next week.

(Edit)May 16th,2021
With my Siege Springer review, I have started giving figures a rating out of 10, so I am retroactively adding one for Deep Cover. I give Deep Cover a 8.5/10 mainly based on his colors and simplicity but the ability to just pick him up and mess with him without really worrying about anything, and my love of the character does factor into that score as well.