Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Fortress Maximus vs. Scorponok

After all is said and done, I think the Robot Heroes figures are my all-time favorite Transformers merchandise to collect. They're small (so they don't take up much shelf room), they're cheap (these days you can get four characters for the price of a single Deluxe toy), and they're baby-safe (my 16-month old plays with my extras on a regular basis). A lot of people seem to have trouble getting past the fact that they don't transform—which might be a problem for me if the only thing I liked about Transformers was the gimmick of robots folding up into vehicles. I'm a huge fan of the characters and the mythos they inhabit, though, so whether or not every single piece of Transformers merchandise I own can rearrange itself into a car or a plane is, ultimately, immaterial. I think the people who criticize Robot Heroes for this fact are missing what the toy line is really about.

Probably the biggest Robot Heroes figures we're ever likely to get (unless they do mega-sized figures that Hasbro seemed to be hinting at in one of their recent online Q&A sessions), Fortress Maximus and Scorponok each measure over three inches tall—larger, even, than a lot of the regular Heroes of Cybertron figures, and significantly taller than the comparative behemoths like Darth Vader and Chewbacca from this toy line's cousin, the Star Wars Galactic Heroes. (It's quite possible that the reason the Robot Heroes appear to have been scaled down lately was to make Fort Max and Scorponok look bigger by comparison.) Unlike a lot of pairings that simply don't withstand scrutiny, pairing these two characters together makes perfect sense, given that they were arch foes in both the cartoon universe and the Marvel comic book. (We'll quietly ignore the fact that the original 1987 toys could never have been a match for one another, since Fort Max was easily twice the height of Scorponok.) They come packaged on a standard-sized blister but they're both held down with about eight rubber bands apiece, clearly a preventative effort to keep the sheer weight of the figures from dislodging the bubble from the card. (One oddity of the artwork is that Scorponok appears to have stubby little super-deformed hands, embedded inside his claws. Thankfully, the toy isn't designed this way.) The cross sell on the back of the package includes the G1-themed Wheeljack vs. Decepticon Reflector set, the Beast Machines Optimus Primal vs. Jetstorm set, and the Beast Wars Tigatron vs. Inferno set. This set ships with all of these plus repacks of Snarl vs. Sharkticon and Perceptor vs. Hardshell.

Robot Heroes are supposed to be cute, first and foremost, and Fortress Maximus does not disappoint. There's just something ridiculously fun about robots with huge heads, giant fists and feet, and tiny little bodies that I can't quite put into words. Some obvious concessions had to be made with his design (his head is normally nestled in between the components on his shoulders, so their size had to be reduced to accommodate his huge head), but all in all he made the translation to chibification quite gracefully. As with a lot of Robot Heroes toys, he seems to be based primarily on his original animation model (complete with torso guns that appear to telescope into his body instead of swinging out from either side, since this was the way the toy was designed in the prototype stage) but with a handful of elements taken from the G1 toy. There are lots of little sculpt details that make it clear that somebody was really doing their homework—the folded-up legs and arms of Cerebros are visible on the back of Fort Max's head, and the flip-open panels on his wrists and forearms that originally revealed hidden weapons are in evidence here. He's got articulation at the head and shoulders, though you can't completely rotate his arms around without the ramps mounted on his upper arms scraping against his body. He's got a gigantic Autobot symbol on his pelvis, probably the only spot on the toy that would accommodate such a large tampograph.

It's worth mentioning that the Fortress Maximus figure that was part of the Heroes of Cybertron figure series was originally from Takara's Super Collection Figure series, and as such was designed to resemble the Japanese version of the character, who had an alternate cartoon design and was equipped with a sword that the domestic version of the 1987 toy didn't come with. By contrast, the Robot Heroes version of Fortress Maximus seems to be modeled after the American version of the character—specifically, the Marvel Comics incarnation. While the cartoon version of Fort Max was colored pretty much like the toy, the animators made sure to give him blue optic sensors, as was the tradition for the animated series. In the comics, Fortress Maximus had red eyes, the same color as the consumer-applied eye stickers on the toy. The dead giveaway here, though, is the color of his helmet—only the Marvel Comics version of the character had a purple head (I'm thinking this was meant to represent a shade of grey, or at least the four-color printing process equivalent). It's difficult to say for sure whether this was a deliberate homage or somebody was just using a page from the comic book for reference (it's happened at least once before, when Starscream appeared in Beast Wars sporting his comic book colors), but given that the Transformers Universe version of Ratchet is also firmly grounded in comic book lore, I'd say this was done on purpose. After all, the cartoon incarnation of Fort Max was a lifeless construct—an old, abandoned Nebulon city that was rebuilt by Spike Witwicky—hardly a true Transformer. The Marvel Comics version of the character was far more compelling—to me, he ranks right up there with Blaster and Ratchet as one of the most significant Autobots in the comic book.

Leaving the Japanese PVC figure out of the equation, this is the first new toy sold in America designed to represent the original Scorponok (no, I don't count the Transformers: Energon toy or the 2007 movie toy as representing the same character). The reason for Fortress Maximus's comic book colors now becomes clear—Scorponok, too, is intended to represent the Marvel Comics incarnation of the character. I couldn't be happier with this choice. The cartoon version of Scorponok was just an ancient city on Nebulos that had been rebuilt by the Hive into a battle station—like Fortress Maximus, it wasn't even alive, and could barely be considered a Decepticon in its own right. The comic book character, by contrast, was a compelling, tortured soul, the result of a psychological fusion between the Decepticon tyrant named Scorponok and the comparatively benevolent Lord Zarak. Driven by his desire for power and victory, but tempered by a sincere fondness for peace, Scorponok forged a true friendship with Optimus Prime before meeting his heroic end at the hands of Unicron in what can only be described as one of the most tragic, poetic death scenes in Transformers lore.

Forget those cute and cuddly Robot Heroes Decepticons who want to give you a great big hug—Scorponok just wants to shake your hand! No matter how you pose him, his claws completely dominate the sculpt (I actually struggled with finding a good angle to photograph him from because his claws were blocking the view of everything else). Like Fortress Maximus, the figure has three points of articulation, though due to the sheer weight of his arms, it's difficult to get him to achieve certain poses (they will not, for example, stay pointed forwards for more than a few seconds at a time). I was a little concerned about the arm pegs breaking off because of the strain, and was fully prepared to disassemble him and reinforce them as a preventative measure—until I dipped the figure in hot water and discovered that the pegs are significantly thicker and stronger than those of your average Robot Heroes toy. Longtime readers of my reviews may recall that the original batch of Robot Heroes toys had thick arm pegs with easily-removed arms, which were later changed to thin arm pegs with limbs that were much more difficult to remove (probably so kids didn't lose integral parts of the toys). Scorponok's arm pegs are shaped more like the original thick versions, with gigantic mushroom-shaped knobs on the ends to ensure that the arms remain secured. (Ever after soaking the toy in hot water, though, I had a great deal of difficulty popping the shoulders back in place. I don't advise this type of disassembly.)

Obviously, the sculpt for Scorponok is based heavily on his animation design, but one interesting addition was the clear plastic visor for his face. The original 1987 toy was equipped with such a visor, whose presence helped to mask the fact that Scorponok's helmet was empty when the toy was in scorpion mode and the Lord Zarak figure was inside the toy's chest cockpit. While the alternate animation model used for the Headmasters episodes in Japan played up this feature of the toy quite prominently, it was completely ignored in animation for episodes aired in America. This is an interesting way of striking a balance between the two designs. All the other important design elements are present here—his arm-mounted guns, his back-mounted tail (which was omitted from the character's design by some of the Marvel Comics artists), and a tiny little version of his arm-shield.

Oddly enough, the color scheme for Scorponok doesn't seem to correspond to any existing version of the character. He's predominantly purple and green, but his helmet antennae are red (they should be orange) and his helmet and feet are black (they should be grey, like his chest plate). He's also got numerous paint applications that seem to be based on the consumer-applied decals on the original toy, like the dark blue panels on his pelvis and the blue rectangles on his upper legs, but it makes him look unauthentic. While other Robot Heroes toys are missing vital paint applications that would have gone a long way to help the appearance of the toy, Scorponok has the opposite problem—he's got too many different colors going on. A good color scheme can make or break a toy (and by "good" I mean "accurate"), and it bothers me that they took so many liberties with his paint applications (and by "took liberties" I mean "made mistakes"). Also, his Decepticon symbol obviously wouldn't fit on his chest plate (why they don't just start using smaller tampographs is beyond me), so they did the next best thing and stick it on his back.

Looking at the Robot Heroes toy line as a whole (I've been rather compulsive about collecting the entire series), this is definitely one of the coolest sets to date, despite the color scheme oddities—and considering the size of the toys, you're definitely getting your money's worth. I know that the Transformers Universe series is winding down to a close, and that the Robot Heroes series will be dominated by Revenge of the Fallen characters for the forseeable future, so it's particularly nice that they managed to squeeze in this set at the tail-end of the assortment. In my opinion, you'd be a complete fool not to buy this set.

Zob

Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Arcee vs. Decepticon Rumble

I've been completely broke this week (poor Traffic Stop got plowed into while she was sitting patiently for me in the parking lot at work, so she's been in the shop getting patched up) so instead of gobbling up a bunch of new toys this pay period, I'm sifting through some older toys I've gotten in recent months but never had a chance to write about them. Yes, it's more fun with those adorable Robot Heroes this week, because nothing says "Hasbro loves me!" like tiny little poly-vinyl chloride figurines of beloved Geewun characters!

ARCEE

Arcee is the second-most forsaken of the characters introduced in The Transformers: the Movie, and the only one of the new Autobots introduced in the film who was completely absent from retail shelves in 1986. (The top honors in the missing-in-action category go to the Quintessons, whose movie likenesses have never been produced as merchandise of any kind in an official capacity. No, I don't count the ridiculous Alpha Quintesson toy from the Energon line. But I digress.) Takara did come up with a reasonably decent prototype, back in the day, but the toy never went into production, presumably because (or so the contemporary reasoning went) that Transformers was a toy line for little boys, who wouldn't want to play with female characters. Arcee has been addressed by Hasbro and Takara a handful of times in recent years, sometimes as a reimagining of the character (she was inexplicably turned into a spider when she was issued as a Transmetal Blackarachnia redeco as a BotCon 2001 exclusive; she's also been a motorcycle a couple of times, in the Energon toy line and again for the 2007 movie assortment) and sometimes as a tribute to the original character (the Super Collection Figure/Heroes of Cybertron figurine was a good likeness of her cartoon incarnation but didn't transform; the upcoming, highly-stylized Animated toy is loosely inspired by her original animation design), but so far there has been no transformable toy that represents Arcee as she appeared in G1 (there was a prototype for the Titanium Series that looked promising, but was abruptly cancelled).

With that in mind, Arcee is unique in that she's the only one of the G1-themed Robot Heroes toys who doesn't have a transformable Hasbro counterpart. (Dispensor from the CGI movie assortment falls under this category, too, but I'm sure his lack of a proper toy was due to licensing issues with Mountain Dew.) Curiously, rather than referencing her animation model directly, the sculptors seem to have relied on the appearance of the Heroes of Cybertron figure—assuming, perhaps, that it was accurate enough to use for reference. The dead giveaways here are the Gundam-like ankle cuffs and her shortened silver pistol, which are taken directly from the SCF/HoC sculpt. (Arcee went through a number of different guns in the movie and third season; this compact little weapon was the one she carried in "The Dweller in the Depths.") Even her color scheme seems to be directly borrowed from the PVC figure, which rendered her in pink and white (Arcee was pink with grey in the cartoon).

She's racing forward into battle in a fairly dynamic action pose; she has three points of articulation (both shoulders and her head), but the usefulness of these joints is somewhat limited, since she's either running while looking straight ahead, or running while being distracted by some hot young Autobot with flames on his chest. As with a lot of characters who are standing on one leg (Starscream, Cheetor, et al.), a platform base was included to help her balance properly. In this case, she's jaunting across an irregular-shaped polygonal silver panel which I'm sure is supposed to represent a chunk of planet Cybertron, with a cloud of blue and green energy blasts licking her heels. Actually, if we assume this is Decepticon laser fire, the angle of the blasts suggests she's actually running away from her attackers rather than bravely marching into the fray. Hmm. Well, she's a girl, so I guess we can't expect her to be too courageous, right? Sigh.

Like a lot of Robot Heroes toys, Arcee suffers a little from lack of paint applications (she really does need some pink paint on her face to differentiate it from her helmet; as it happens, her entire head is ghostly white except for her two enormous blue eyes). By far the very best thing about this toy, though, is the fact that—unlike the PVC figure—her shoulder pads don't spontaneously pop off when you look at her funny.

DECEPTICON RUMBLE

Arcee is inexplicably paired with Rumble, a character with whom she never appeared in the same scene, let alone have any actual interaction with (they do both appear at separate times in "Five Faces of Darkness," but that's about as close as it gets). One wonders if they're suggesting that tiny little Rumble would be a close match in physical combat for the weak and female Arcee, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Typically, Hasbro tends to pair together one popular, mainstream character and one second-tier, lesser-known character together, mainly because two obscure characters packaged together is practically a guaranteed sales flop. (This is why they didn't go the obvious route and pair up Optimus Prime with Megatron, for instance.) That said, this set should have been an instant pegwarmer, what with one lesser-known Autobot (and a female at that!) and a second-string Decepticon (Rumble just doesn't have the star power of, say, Starscream or Soundwave). Somebody at Hasbro must have known what they were doing, though, since this set consistently sells very well—it's the Beast Wars Robot Heroes who are the real pegwarmers, truth be told. (Pictured: the G1 Rumble toy that I've repainted into Frenzy's cartoon color scheme.)

Speaking of Hasbro, it seems that they're steadfastly and stubbornly grinding their heels into the dirt with regards to the whole Rumble and Frenzy mess. Despite the fact that Hasbro originally assigned the red-and-black color scheme to Rumble and the blue color scheme to Frenzy, their colors were inadvertently swapped for animation (with Rumble somehow ending up purple in the process). So powerful was the effect of the media experience of the cartoon on the impressionable minds of the target audience that many fans assumed that it was really Hasbro, the toy manufacturer, that had somehow gotten the names of the characters wrong. Subsequent versions of the characters have been reasonably consistent with Hasbro's original vision; the red-and-black Alternators toy was also named Rumble, as is the Robot Heroes toy. Ironically—of the two cassettes to pay tribute to—Hasbro seems to be focusing predominantly on Rumble these days. This in itself is interesting, since Frenzy had a far longer shelf life, and was the only Transformers toy in history to be available at retail for four consecutive years (the Frenzy/Laserbeak 2-pack was sold from 1984-85, and the Frenzy/Ratbat set was in stores for 1986-87). Presumably, Hasbro's paying more attention to Rumble lately due to his prominence in the cartoon (Frenzy had far fewer appearances and wasn't even introduced until midway through the first season), despite the fact that none of the recent Rumble toys actually look like Rumble as he appeared on TV.

As was done with the Alternators toy, the decision was made to give Rumble his trademark pile driver arms, a gimmick he used in the cartoon on a regular basis, despite not actually being a function of the original Hasbro toy. The piledrivers aren't actually pointed towards the ground, suggesting that he's either about to do some serious property damage or he's just finished up—or, perhaps, that he's about to turn his special ability on one of the Autobots. As is typical of the Robot Heroes figures, he's got a big, goofy grin plastered on his face; while this was decidedly out of character for the likes of Ultra Magnus or Perceptor, it works perfectly on this obnoxious little street punk. The only thing about the sculpt that I dislike is the fact that his back-mounted weapons interfere a little with the movement of his piledriver arms; the wings on the guns bend a little when I rotate his arms around.

The shade of red they used for Rumble is a dark burgundy, which matches the Alternators toy, but a brighter, more basic red would have been more in line with the color scheme used in the cartoon and on the original toy. Lately they've been leaning toward gigantic tampographed faction insignias instead of smaller ones that would actually fit in the right spot on their bodies, so instead of having a Decepticon symbol on his chest, he's got one that's nearly as big as his head on one of his piledrivers. He could have used a few more paint applications on his legs, but aside from that he's a solid, good-looking figure. The mold also has enormous and obvious redeco potential; pictured here along with Rumble is my version of Robot Heroes Frenzy.

Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Rhinox vs. Waspinator

Unlike a lot of the G1-themed Robot Heroes two-packs, which pair together unrelated characters, sometimes from different time periods, in a seemingly random fashion (SEE: Sunstreaker vs. Galvatron), the Beast Wars-themed sets have fared considerably better. The cast of Beast Wars was so small that nearly any pairing would potentially make sense, since just about any two characters are bound to have interacted together at some point. That said, the pairing of Rhinox with Waspinator seems particularly appropriate, given that—while other characters were either killed off or given Transmetal upgrades in the name of selling new toys—these are the only two characters in the show who survived all three seasons while still retaining their original bodies (despite the fact that Hasbro produced Transmetal toys for both of them).

RHINOX

The animators at Mainframe did take some creative liberties when designing the look of the characters for computer-generated animation. Where the original Rhinox toy seemed to be designed with a Japanese samurai theme in mind—decorated in ornate armor panels and head gear, complete with a curved katana-like sword—the approach to his CGI incarnation was less elegant, placing more emphasis on his physical bulk. The animation design also omitted the large decorative panels on either side of Rhinox's head that closed together to form the toy's alternate mutant head, a gimmick that was ignored altogether in the cartoon. The open helmet halves have always looked like absurdly large ears, to me, so I'm more than happy that they changed his look. The Rhinox toy was part of the second wave of Beast Wars toys to hit stores in 1996, but despite being an important character on the show, the toy was a pegwarmer, due in part, I suspect, to the different appearance of the toy.

While the Robot Heroes version of Rhinox is mostly consistent with his appearance on TV, a number of details inspired by the original toy were also thrown into the mix. His head was clearly sculpted with the cartoon in mind (and the elephant ears are mercifully absent), but his squared-off shoulders, the circuitry detail on the lower rhinoceros jaw mounted on his chest, and the samurai cod piece are all taken from the Hasbro toy. Rhinox had a number of other design changes that set his CGI model apart, like the way his robot feet appeared to replace his center rhinoceros toenail, and the way the rhino hide completely enveloped his upper arms instead of hanging loosely to the sides. Portions of his front rhino legs were actually split in half on the Robot Heroes toy like separate armor panels attached to his upper and lower arms, which is found neither in the CGI model or the original toy. On the upside, he does have only three fingers per hand, which is fairly typical in the Robot Heroes line but generally not accurate—except in Rhinox's case. He's posed in a semi-crouching position, with his fists clenched tight like he's ready to pummel some hapless Predacon for giving Rattrap a hard time.

His colors are a little bit off, sadly. Rhinox was a muted greyish-brown in the TV series, so when the toy finally came out and was revealed to be a light tan, it looked wrong somehow. The Robot Heroes version corrects this by darkening his main color to almost a mud-colored brown, but they may have gone too far in the other direction because he seems too dark, somehow. The toy is bright green in places where his robot parts are visible, mainly the head and fists and arms, accented with a metallic gold color. While he's wearing the square-shaped shoulder armor from the original toy, it's colored gold as if it were the rounded shoulder pads from the CGI model, so it's an odd bit of juxtaposiiton. In place of the Maximal symbols on either side of his helmet, which admittedly would be nearly microscopic, there's a comparatively gigantic insignia on the top of the rhinoceros head (which also just happens to be on his butt). All in all, it's a decent representation of the character, though I feel they relied too heavily on the original toy for reference, when something more faithful to the animated character would have been more enjoyable.

WASPINATOR

Waspinator began as a fairly unremarkable toy with an eminently silly name (he's referred to in his own tech specs as "The Waspinator"; Hasbro very clearly intended for him to be a Beast Wars version of The Terminator) but was almost instantly propelled to star status due to Scott McNeill's skillful voice performance and the insanely goofy antics in which he was frequently a part. Waspinator took so much abuse during the course of the show that fans began to liken him to Kenny from South Park, knowing full well that by next week's episode he'd end up getting smashed or blasted apart or pulverized somehow. It's ironic that the accident-prone Waspinator would go on to have the greatest longevity among his teammates; while characters like Terrorsaur and Scorponok were quietly written out of the show, and others went through multiple upgrades as Transmetals, Waspinator not only went on to last through all three seasons of the show in his original body, but—not unlike Sky-Byte of Robots in Disguise fame—he was the only of the bad guys to get his own happy ending, remaining on prehistoric Earth and worshipped by the primitive humans, in what can only be described as the ultimate example of art imitating life.

Like Rhinox, the Robot Heroes incarnation of Waspinator takes most of its cues from the CGI model with a little bit of the Hasbro toy thrown in for good measure. Mainframe took the basic details of the original head sculpt and exaggerated them for comic effect, and the Robot Heroes toy is true to that look, featuring enormous segmented bug-eyes, head-mounted antennae, and a segmented jaw that's opened completely the wrong way. If you look closely you can even see tiny little serrated teeth inside his mouth, which might seem like something they threw in there to be cute, but this is actually pretty accurate to Waspinator as he appeared on TV. They remembered other details specific to his CGI design, like the ribbed yellow plating on his legs and his pointy little three-fingered hands. He's sculpted in a fairly menacing pose, with arms poised like he's going to throttle one of the Maximals for stuffing him inside a trash compactor. Like a lot of aerial characters in this toy line, he's actually in mid-flight, suspended by a blue-colored column of indeterminate origin. It could be splashing water or thruster exhaust or some kind of energy propulsion field; whatever the case, it's coming right out of his butt. Make of that what you will.

Unfortuantely, Waspinator's animation model has a lot of color detail to it that may have been too cost-prohibitive to accurately reproduce at this scale and price point. He's got the yellow-and-black stripes on his abdomen, but he's missing them completely on his upper legs and antennae. Also, the circular panel on his left shoulder is painted, but the one on his right shoulder isn't; it's a glaring oversight and one I'm surprised they missed. Some additional color detail that's missing (like his yellow lips or the black rings around his eyes) would have gone a long way towards turning a merely good figure into an exceptional one. Also, the inclusion of design features from the Hasbro toy (like the obtrusive ball-and-socket connections on his wings or the panel on his back that originally allowed him to switch from his robot head to his mutant head) really mars an otherwise dynamic and impressive sculpt. I don't know why the sculptors felt the need to look to the Hasbro toys for inspiration when the Mainframe computer models were practically begging for three-dimensional toys in their likeness. (I shudder to think of what they'll end up doing to Dinobot, if they ever get around to doing a Robot Heroes version of him!)

Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Ironhide vs. Kickback

I've actually had these guys since Christmas, and intended to write a more timely review of them, but there have been so many other great toys coming out lately that I've had a steady supply of new material to write about for several weeks running. This is the first week in a while that I haven't found anything new (aside from some Smurfs figures that I'm sure nobody here wants to hear about), so I'm finally taking the opportunity to write a little bit more about these wonderful little toys.

IRONHIDE

Most of the Robot Heroes based on G1 characters have taken their cues from both their Sunbow animation models as well as the original Hasbro toys, creating an interesting amalgam of design features that still makes the characters recognizable, no matter which medium you may be the most familiar with. This certainly isn't the case with Ironhide, who bears absolutely no influence from his 1984 toy; he's completely the product of Shôhei Kohara's original animation design. Now, it just so happens that Ironhide and Ratchet were two 1984 toys that I never owned as a kid; I simply had no desire to spend my hard-earned allowance money on gimpy, headless robots that looked nothing like the characters from the TV show. I only just barely picked up the Takara encore reissue of both toys last summer, in fact. I'm at a point now where I can look past the inherent un-cartoonishness of the toys and appreciate them for what they are; the early Diaclone designs have a certain charm in and of themselves.

That said, I certainly don't begrudge the fine folks at Hasbro from using the cartoon version of Ironhide as the basis for the Robot Heroes toy; it's a far more recognizable and iconic look for the character. A more toy-inspired Ironhide would have wheels on his arms and feet, which would have ruined the quaint simplicity of his cartoon styling. (While a headless Robot Heroes figure might be an interesting novelty, can you imagine the endless string of complaints from fans?) On the other hand, it would be a little more consistent with the rest of the toys in the series; Ironhide almost looks too plain and lacking in detail when compared with some of the other figures in the line.

Ironhide isn't completely unlike the PVC version available in Japan in the Super Collection Figure line and later through Hasbro under the Heroes of Cybertron banner. The PVC figure actually suffered from a misproportioned sculpt, since I suspect the person who designed the figure was taking the foreshortened human's-eye-view of his model sheet far too literally, resulting in large feet and a disproportionately tiny upper body. The Robot Heroes incarnation of Ironhide, meanwhile, was created this way deliberately, with the characteristic oversized head and gigantic, chunky arms and hands typical from this toy line. He's advancing on one foot, with one fist closed and the other hand open as if he's about to either give a well-deserved high-five to a fellow Autobot, or deliver a smackdown to some unsuspecting super-deformed Decepticon. Whatever it is that he's up to, he's smirking delightedly so he's clearly quite happy about it.

Ironhide's cast entirely in bright red plastic, with the parts that are normally black or grey in animation (his fists, shoulders, and upper legs) depicted here with shiny gunmetal paint. It's not an altogether horrible look for the character, but it's a little different from the way he looked in the original cartoon series. What's really distracting, though, is the placement of his Autobot symbol, which somebody decided would look really good smack-dab in the center of his chest—which is, of course, also his front windshield. I realize that the proper placement for his Autobot badge (between his windshield and his front bumper) may have been too difficult to apply with a tampograph, but the windshield thing really bothers me. It's just a pet peeve of mine. You need to be able to see through that windshield when he's in van mode, and you can't do that when there's a giant red robot face badge blocking your view of the road. What would have been wrong with, say, putting the Autobot symbol on his shoulder instead? In any case, it's only this one flaw that mars an otherwise excellent representation of the character.

KICKBACK

Kickback was the first of the three original Insecticon toys I owned. He's not really my favorite, though. (That distinction belongs to Bombshell, because of his cool cerebro-shell stinger, and the fact that I love all of Michael Bell's voice performances.) It always bothered me how cheatsy Kickback's transformation was, since all you do, essentially, is lay him down on his back and rearrange his limbs a little. It also bugged me how his head was visible even when he was transformed into insect mode—at least until the cartoon came along and depicted him in the exact same manner, thus validating the toy's design in my mind somehow. The Robot Heroes version of him is the first time the character has appeared in any form in many years, ever since he died a fairly ambiguous death in The Transformers: the Movie (and may or may not have returned briefly for "Five Faces of Darkness," depending on how much you want to trust the third-rate Korean animation studios).

The sculpt is a really good likeness, though it's based far more heavily on the 1985 toy than the cartoon design—right down to the rub symbol indent on each of his wings and the screws holding his shoulders and hips together! The most significant change here is that Robot Heroes Kickback actually has hands; the Hasbro version of the character actually had claws (when he transformed, each of his arms split in half to form two of his grasshopper legs). His head sculpt does show some influence from the cartoon model, sporting more conventional square-shaped goggles as opposed to the strange triangular-shaped visor that also appeared on toys like Swoop and Blaster. Where the Robot Heroes incarnation of Shrapnel (aka "Insecticon") had long, prominent antennae on his shoulders, Kickback's grasshopper wings are sadly understated here, giving him almost Action Master style proportions. He's the most dynamically-posed of the three Robot Heroes Insecticons; with his left hand raised, he looks like he's greeting an old friend (and is about to con him out of his lunch money); with his right hand raised to his head, he looks as if he's proclaiming, "Eh? What's that? Can't hear you because I'm too busy screwing you over!" He's got three points of articulation, at both arms and the head; his right leg also looks like it should be able to move (it was cast as a separate piece of plastic in the production mold) but it is firmly glued in place.

Kickback is colored very much like his original toy, with plenty of color applications that are designed to mirror the consumer-applied stickers, as was done with Shrapnel (and Bombshell, aka Hardshell, to a lesser degree). The only major gaffe is the color of the insect legs embedded within the backs of his robot legs, which should be purple instead of silver. Aside from that, his colors are sensible and accurate, and they come very close to matching the hues used on the other Insecticons (though the purple on Bombshell is a little muddier). While Shrapnel and Bombshell have some awkwardness to their sculpts, Kickback is really quite dynamic, making him my favorite of the Robot Heroes Insecticons.

Now, if only Hasbro would get cracking on those Robot Heroes Constructicons!

Zob

Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Cheetor vs. Tankor

It's been a while since I've even thought about Beast Machines, honestly. I continue to enjoy G1 throughout the years even though no more new toys or episodes are being made. With a lot of the other shows, though, I pretty much stop celebrating them after Hasbro moves on to the next new series. That said, I enjoyed the show as a continuation of Beast Wars, even though I disliked the direction in which they took a lot of the characters; I collected all the toys because I was still very much in Completist Mode, despite the rather repugnant designs of many of the Maximals (I like my robots to look like robots) and the utter pointlessness of a few of the toys (I'm thinking mainly here of the Deployers and Beast Riders). In my mind, Beast Machines was the worst Transformers show up to that point, at least until Armada came along and made it look like fine art.

In any event, I was surprised to hear that Hasbro even wanted to acknowledge the existence of Beast Machines, let alone pay tribute to it in the Robot Heroes series. It just seemed too soon, somehow. Nevertheless, Hasbro has stated that the 25th anniversary of Transformers will be a celebration of each of the different toy lines through the years, and to that end, this set commemorates the Beast Machines incarnations of Cheetor and Tankor. (It's worth mentioning that this was almost certainly intended as a 2009 product, since the 25th anniversary doesn't begin until next year, but this certainly wouldn't be the first time next year's product showed up in December.)

CHEETOR

There was a tremendous disparity between the CGI models for the Beast Machines characters as they appeared on TV and the Hasbro toys in their likeness, a juxtapisition particularly evident in the earliest toy releases. Story editor Bob Skir was known for willfully spreading misinformation about the show ("Rhinox is dead. deal with it!"), so I was never totally clear on whether the CGI models were still in early stages of development when Hasbro used them as reference for the toys, or whether the Mainframe artists were just granted tremendous creative liberties for the sake of aesthetics. (Skir's answer to this question would most likely have had something do with sock puppets.) Anyway, none of the Cheetor toys released for the Beast Machines line was completely faithful to his television persona (the Night Slash Cheetor toy probably came the closest, but ironically it was released in all-black deco that did not reflect his color scheme in animation). The Robot Heroes edition of Cheetor would have been the perfect opportunity to create a figure of Cheetor that was true to his computer-animated appearance, but instead it seems that somebody at Hasbro simply used the Supreme Cheetor toy for reference. Supreme Cheetor was the closest in appearances to the CGI model, though, so it was a good choice.

This is a fairly faithful miniaturization of that toy, right down to his single tail-sword (colored silver here) and his feet, which are shaped just like the rubber pads underneath the Supreme Cheetor toy that enabled the ungainly, horse-legged thing to stand up. Probably the best thing this figure has going for it is that, unlike the full-scale version, this one doesn't fall apart if you look at it funny. Cheetor has articulation at the head and shoulders, though the angle at which he's holding his sword does preclude the movement of his left arm somewhat. It's worth mentioning that Cheetor does not have a tampographed Maximal insignia anywhere on his body, which is odd since Hasbro has usually been really good about finding some place to put the faction symbols on these guys.

TANKOR

The original Tankor toy was one of the worst victims of the difference in the Hasbro/Mainframe design philosophy. (Hasbro was spelling it "Tankorr" for a while back during the Beast Machines original run, but evidently they're sticking with the single "r" spelling these days. There have been a handful of other toys with the name, like the Transformers Universe Micromasters train and the new version of Octane, but this is the first time in a while the name has been used for the original character.) They did eventually release a smaller Tank Drone toy late during the toy line that more closely reflected the CGI design, and while it still wasn't a perfect match, it was a much closer attempt to match the character from TV. The Tank Drone toy served as the inspiration for Robot Heroes Tankor, which is readily evident because of the shape of the shoulder armor and claws and head, all of which are a very close match to the Tank Drone toy. Tankor has a swiveling head and arms (they could have probably gotten away with giving him poseable legs, too, but I guess that would have put the toy over the alloted budget). Of course, Tankor actually towered over the Maximals in the television show, even the tall and gangly Cheetor, so these two figures are grossly out of scale with one another (though the actual Tank Drone toy might make a good stand-in).

Some robot designs lend themselves really well to the Robot Heroes chibification process, while others seem to suffer somewhat in the translation. Tankor is just super cute, with a gigantic head and claws that make him look like anything but a diabolical Vehicon death machine. I can only imagine how cuddly and adorable Robot Heroes versions of Jetstorm and Thrust would be! I like this figure a great deal, but I almost wish they'd released two more Beast Wars figures instead, since these two won't make any sense on my display shelf (which is filled with Star Wars Galactic Heroes on the top and Robot Heroes from G1 and Beast Wars on the bottom).

Frankly, I feel like this set is a tremendous waste of potential. Had I been placed in charge of putting together a commemorative Beast Machines set, the first character I'd make sure finally got a toy would have been the Diagnostic Drone, easily the most charismatic and likeable character in the show. The logical character to pair him with would have been Megatron--specifically, a Megatron with a helmet and harness that resembled his CGI model and wasn't tied down by the limitations of either having to transform, or being an oversimplified McDonald's Happy Meal toy, or both. (A good argument could be made for pairing him with Nightscream, too. You know, a super-tiny version to counter the existence of the gigantic version that was once sold in stores.) In any event, a Robot Heroes Diagnostic Drone would pretty much be the right scale to interact with the existing Beast Machines toys, too, and would have finally given physical form to one of my all-time favorite Transformers characters. (Clearly, Hasbro isn't planning on doing too many more Beast Machines sets, if any at all, given that they didn't even bother to modify the mold for the bubble on the front of the card. It still sports the original Maximal and Predacon insignias from Beast Wars; there wouldn't have been much point in creating a bubble with Maximal and Vehicon symbols for a single toy release).

Probably the coolest thing about this set is that they finally came out with a Beast Machines Cheetor toy that's to scale with the G1 toys. Robot Heroes Tankor, meanwhile, could serve as a Tank Drone to the transformable Tank Drone. (I'm envisioning a scenario in which each size of Tank Drone has an even smaller drone at his command, sort of like the way the Cat in the Hat had a smaller Cat "A" hidden under his hat, who in turn had an even smaller Cat "B" hidden, and so on for each letter of the alphabet. Tank Drone Z, besides sounding like a Japanese anime character, would be the size of the period at the end of this sentence.)

Zob

Zob's Thoughts on Perceptor vs. Hardshell

I will never forget when I first stumbled across the description of this set in the Walmart inventory system. I had absolutely no idea who "PERCEPTOR VS HA" could have possibly been referring to, since there were no relevant Decepticons whose names started with those letters, and yet I knew they weren't going to introduce a brand-new character in a line that specifically pays tribute to characters from the past. For some reason, I allowed this mystery to plague me for many weeks until the answer was finally revealed: Bombshell had gotten a new moniker to elude trademark disputes. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense, and I could kick myself for not seeing then what right now seems quite obvious.

PERCEPTOR

Perceptor's enjoyed some decent exposure over the years, due largely in part to his fortuitously landing a featured role in The Transformers: the Movie. Pretty much anybody who factored into the movie was automatically given an extra year's worth of shelf space in 1986, catapulting Perceptor to an important role during the third season (and probably leading to his appearance in Super God Masterforce, in which he and the supposedly-dead Wheeljack play a key role). He's already gotten both a Super Collection Figure and domestic Heroes of Cybertron release, and the Robot Heroes figure seems to be taking its cue from that sculpt, resulting in a very nice, simplified, boxy, cartoony incarnation. He's posed in such a manner that suggests he's really excited about some scientific discovery, with his index finger proudly outstretched and wearing an expression of happy astonishment. ("See? SEE?! I TOLD you there was Decepticon activity in this Oort cloud!") His shoulder cannon is actually on the wrong side to be cartoon-accurate (you can mount it either way on the Hasbro toy, but in the show he always wore it on his left shoulder), but this is a minor consideration.

The color scheme is much closer to the Hasbro toy than his animation model, with a dark cherry red and a greenish turquoise on the arms and legs, rather than the brighter red-and-blue scheme used on TV. (This helps to differentiate him a little from the earlier SCF/HoC versions.) Some paint details were omitted like the focus knob on the top of his shoulder cannon and the glass parts of his lenses. Oddly, Perceptor has extraneous paint applications he doesn't even need; he's got turquoise spots underneath his chest plate and on his pelvis, even though he only needs one of these (this is where the mirror would be located on the Hasbro toy, but the Robot Heroes version doesn't seem to have this component in evidence). He's also got yellow eyes instead of blue, but I'm okay with that. I'm just glad they didn't give him the face mask that the original transforming toy is wearing, because that's the biggest difference between the toy and the cartoon model. (It may not seem like much, but the mouth goes a long way towards making the figure look like Perceptor the alien robot from planet Cybertron, and not Perceptor the seven-inch plastic toy. Even the illustration on the box of the Takara reissue toy showed Perceptor with a mouth, because they knew that's how the character is supposed to look.)

Something I've noticed with the recent Robot Heroes is that a lot of them aren't carrying guns. If the characters weild unique signature weapons like shoulder- or arm-mounted weapons, or unique melee gear like swords, they always seem to be included. If they're supposed to be armed with handheld guns, though, they tend to get left out these days. I wonder why that is?)

BOMBSHELL HARDSHELL

I suspect that good ol' Bombshell got a new name because calling him "Insecticon Bombshell" would have been too confusing, in light of the fact that Shrapnel was already assigned the name "Insecticon." The name doesn't bother me that much, since at least it's an attempt at a creative workaround instead of just trotting out one of the tired, old recycled trademarks like Scavenger or Smokescreen or something else completely inappropriate.

The sculpt is good and menacing looking, though he only has two points of articulation due to the way his head is partly recessed into his body. (Almost none of the early Robot Heroes toys had head articulation, but lately almost all of them do.) As with Shrapnel, the guns on his arms (which more or less functioned as legs in his beetle mode) were painted, calling attention to a design element that was never really played up before now. More than anything else, though, I love this little guy's expression. He's cocking one eyebrow in an expresion of something like evil mockery, and it really suits the character. ("Look, Megatron's in trouble. If I wasn't so hungry, I'd stop to help him out! Nyah hah!")

Something interesting about Bombshell's cartoon model is that even though he's black and purple in insect mode, he actually has a grey chest in robot mode (probably because somebody was working from an unfinished toy whose die-cast parts were unpainted). So, technically this figure is a little closer to the Hasbro toy than the cartoon model. They made his chest compartment gold, which I suppose approximates the color of the translucent yellow Diaclone canopy on the original toy. Also, I think somebody neglected to sculpt the little yellow shoulder connectors (which serve as eyes in beetle mode), but they painted little yellow stripes around the spot where they would have been. So, they get points for using paint applications to make up for a sculpting oversight. (Oddly, Bombshell didn't get bogged down in superfluous paint details designed to resemble the consumer-applied stickers, the way Kickback and Shrapnel did.) Overall, he's a great little figure. Bombshell has always been a favorite character of mine, so I'm pleased to see that his likeness was captured so well.

Now that they've gotten all three Insecticons out of the way (Kickback comes packaged with Ironhide), you know who I want to see as Robot Heroes? The Constructicons. All six of 'em. I don't even care if they get wacky trademark-evading names like Buckethead and Quickmix and Hightower, but I want to see cute, super-deformed green-and-purple Decepticons with gigantic heads and fists and feet. (This toy line could go on forever and I would happily buy up every single Robot Heroes toy produced. They're just that cool.)

Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Snarl vs. Sharkticon

Hasbro's still playing fast-and-loose with the old character trademarks to which they've lost ownership, and there's really no way around it. Either they give the characters non-names (like the Heroes of Cybertron "Autobot Espionage Team" that cleverly sidestepped having to actually identify Bumblebee by name) or they slap another character's name on the package, or they invent completely new names altogether. I generally prefer the new name approach, if only because it prevents confusion and the watering down of existing trademarks.

SNARL

Robot Heroes "Snarl" is just the sort of thing I'm talking about. This is actually Slag, of course, but Hasbro's rights to that name have elapsed, so they did the next best thing and gave him the name of one of the other Dinobots. (At least they didn't call him Triceradon.) So, what happens when the real Snarl gets his turn at chibification? What does he get to be called? I don't like the direction in which this is going. All it took was a handful of red-colored Bumblebee toys for Cliffjumper to completely lose his individual identity. The same thing could easily happen to Slag and Snarl. (Wait, which one is the stegosaurus again? Eh, who cares? Their names are interchangeable!)

Trademark complaints aside, this really is a cute little figure, and it really embodies Slag. Specifically, it's a cute and cuddly version of a really angry Dinobot, and this juxtaposition of concepts is one of the reasons I love buying these things so much. He's articulated at the shoulders and head, and something really interesting is that his entire dinosaur head rotates along with his robot head, including the triceratops horns and head crest. Unfortunately, somebody came up with a completely new color map for him without bothering to consult the previous Grimlock figure for consistency's sake. The Dinobots were all created at the same time out of the same materials, so it just doesn't make sense for them to be different colors from each other. While Robot Heroes Grimlock is a bright silver color, Slag is a murky grey. Slag's red color is also more subdued, and his gold highlights are muddy and greenish compared to those on Grimlock.

There are other design considerations too, like the fact that Grimlock has red eyes (like the toy) but Slag has blue (like the G1 cartoon); Grimlock carries a red sword (toy) but Slag's is silver (cartoon). It really should be either one or the other. Also, I've always found Slag's red face and red helmet from the cartoon to be quite striking, so I find it unfortunate that this most distinctive look wasn't carried over in this case, given that they took their cue from other cartoon details. (The Diaclone version of the toy had a vac-metal sword and horns--which was the version on which Slag's cartoon model was based--but Hasbro replaced those parts with red plastic that was more flexible and less likely to snap in two.)

SHARKTICON


The name "Sharkticon" is a sub-group, not the identity of any character from G1, but in this case I don't find it the least bit offensive since the Sharkticons were mindless animals, not individuals. The appelation "Gnaw" was a Hasbro invention that allowed them to produce a Sharkticon toy and market it as a Decepticon character, even though the Sharkticons from the movie were never affiliated with the Decepticons and never once worked for them. (This toy does have a tiny little Decepticon emblem on his belly. Now, where did I put my paint thinner...?) I do pay attention to the pairings of Robot Heroes characters with one another and try to find some kind of logical reason why the two would be matched up with one another. Slag did encounter the Sharkticons during a brief incursion from The Transformers: the Movie, so at least packaging them together makes some kind of sense.

I love Robot Heroes Sharkticon. He is, by far, one of the very best figures in the line to date. I'm not even a big fan of the Sharkticons, honestly. The original Gnaw figure was a big, chunky, preschool toy, and I really can't get behind big, dumb monsters with no brains. I mean, there are cool armybuilders like Star Wars stormtroopers and TMNT Foot Soldiers. Those are meant to be purchased by the caseload. Then there are lame armybuilders like buying a bunch of G1 Scourge toys and pretending that they're Sweeps. It just doesn't work on the same level. Gnaw fits firmly in the latter category. Despite this, I'm really impressed by this sculpt. It really captures the massive rotundity that characterizes these guys. Its design actually follows the animation model, too--the way the shark's head splits in half a little to accomodate his dorsal fin--instead of being just a miniaturization of the Hasbro toy from 1986. And, of course, he's carrying his own tail as a weapon. (Thank you, Kup, for teaching them that particular trick.)

I think the existence of Robot Heroes Sharkticon does open the door for the possibility of a Robot Heroes Quintesson at some point down the road. I mean, think about it. The twenty-fifth anniversary of Transformers is right around the corner, and the Quintessons are the most prominent villains in the mythos who never got official toys. They also created the Sharkticons in the first place, so it makes perfect sense to get another figure to complement this one. I've said this before, and I'll keep on saying it: A cute, tiny, super-deformed Quintesson Judge would be the coolest thing that a little toy factory in Rhode Island could possibly produce. I'm dead serious.

Zob

Zob's Thoughts on Robot Heroes Autobot Blaster and Thrust

There is a developing tradition in my household in which we sometimes open a handful of Christmas gifts early. This is due to a combination of factors like my two oldest kids only visiting on the weekends (so they don't have much time to play with their new loot) and me typically having to work on both Christmas Eve and December 26th (leaving me with little free time to enjoy the festivities). The end result of this is that each of us opened a present last weekend, which means that I get to review a couple of new toys nearly a full month before the holiday.

Robot Heroes toys are sold in pairs, but the actual matching up of which characters come in which packaging has never made any sense to me. You'd think there'd be some kind of logical matching in effect, like putting together arch enemies like Optimus Prime and Megatron or at least foes who would be fairly evenly-matched in combat, like Bumblebee and Ravage. Autobot Blaster (the default Hasbro workaround to circumvent expired trademarks) has been paired with Thrust, two characters who never interacted together to the best of my knowledge. They both have the benefit of being characters originally introduced in 1985, so at least they both existed during the same era.

Like most of the previous Robot Heroes, Blaster is shaped approximately like his animation model, but also has some details tacked on based on the original Hasbro toy. Blaster has never really gotten a good-looking toy based on his TV likeness, since all the previous versions of him were also based on the toy (the Decoy and the Action Master, specifically; Blaster never got the PVC treatment). His helmet design is very much influenced by the original toy, which featured a fairly cool-looking triangular-shaped visor. (Blaster appeared this way throughout most of the U.S. Marvel Comics stories, one of the few long-running characters from the comic whose character model diverged significantly from his cartoon counterpart.) The Robot Heroes incarnation of Blaster has optic sensors that actually protrude from his visor, making him look terribly bug-eyed. (His packaging portrait mercifully tones down this look.) Some extra details were also added, presumably for the sake of symmetry. He's got a volume knob on each side of his cassette door now (originally he just had one on the right side of his body), and he has a handle grip embedded in the side of each of his legs (on the Hasbro toy, the handle grip folded up into his left leg). Curiously, this figure appears to have been sculpted using a Blaster toy for reference whose cassette door was opened. Maybe somebody was working from a toy whose ejection mechanism was broken?

Blaster has articulation at the head and both arms. The toy is molded entirely in red plastic, which works well enough for everything except the legs, which are painted a shiny metallic silver. The underside of the feet are unpainted, even the bottom of his right foot which remains visible from behind because he's in the middle of taking a step. The handle grips on his legs should be painted black, too, but I recognize that there's a paint application budget when it comes to these things. (Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't more paint applications designed to look like the factory-applied stickers, since that seems to be the trend with other toys in this line). Overall, I like the figure, but he's not as cartoony as some of the other ones on my display shelf, and the bug eyes really, well, bug me.

Thrust is an entirely new sculpt, not a retooled version of Starscream/Thudercracker/Skywarp, so there are points in his favor right there. He's certainly remeniscent of Starscream, the way he's kicking one leg back and hovering on a cloud of exhaust. The main difference is that while Starscream and friends are making good use of the thrusters in their boots to achieve this effect, Thrust's exhaust is, in fact, coming directly out of his butt. This is an artifact of the sculpt that is as unmistakable as it is disturbing.

Some effort was made to make his design different from Starscream; he's got the prerequisite conehead helmet, of course, and he's equipped with the Thrust-specific stabilizer fins on his ankles and VTOL wings on his back, but the rest of his design seems to deviate from the second-season Decepticon jet design rather drastically. The parts of the Diaclone jet toy that translate to Starscream's knees are actually supposed to be Thrust's upper legs, at least in the cartoon, but this version of Thrust overlooks this design element. I think this bothers me even more due to the fact that Takara made this same mistake once already with the SCF version of Thrust (they had just recycled the body mold of the Starscream PVC figure and swapped out the head and wings), so this is the second time the character has been maligned in this manner. His arms and head are poseable; his head is tricky to grasp and actually turn because of its cone shape.

There are some other really odd artifacts of this sculpt that seem to be the result of somebody taking creative liberties with his design. He's turned slightly at the waist, but in order to achieve this pose, the canopy window in his chest was artificially shortened so that it wouldn't interfere with his pelvis. Also, there's a lot of weirdness on his back and wings. He's loaded down with bizarre details that don't correspond to either the Hasbro toy or his animation model, like what seems to be a vestigal cockpit mounted behind his head and some extra components on his wings. (I don't have the BotCon version of Thrust so I guess it's possible they based the Robot Heroes design on that version of the character, but I wouldn't bet cash money on it.) His Decepticon symbol is also on his back, in case you were wondering (I examined him at length in the packaging and I simply could not find it). His back-mounted wings are actually a separate piece that's glued in place (there's quite a bit of white pasty residue on my toy, which is usually a telltale sign I've used too much super glue on a project), which means it should be fairly easy to redo this figure into the inevitable Ramjet and Dirge redeco versions, assuming they can also do something about the very Thrustesque fins on his lower legs.

Thrust's color scheme is asymmetrical and kind of sloppy. He's got one painted bicep and one unpainted one; only one of the components on the fronts of his shins are painted; one side of his pelvis is painted, but not the other; and the fans and tips on his wings are inexplicably painted from the back, but not from the front where they're more visible in the packaging and on a display shelf. It also seems like a lot of paint applications were wasted (the back of his conehead helmet is painted black; the square indentations inside his upper chest are gold for some weird reason) in favor of paint operations that would have made more sense (like the aforementioned missing paint applications).

I had thought that Thrust was a pretty decent figure, overall, until I moved some of the Decepticon Robot Heroes over to make room for him on the display shelf. It was then that I discovered how positively tiny he is compared to the others! He's nearly half the height of Starscream, whose kneecap comes up to Thrust's chest! Everyone's heard of Mini Autobots, of course, but apparently somebody thought that Thrust was part of the elite and heretofore unheard-of Mini Decepticons sub-group. I know that the Transformers toy line has been plagued with scale issues since its inception, but this is a line of non-transforming figurines who don't even have the prerequisite of needing to fit into vehicle cockpits. There's no reason for this kind of grossly misproportioned sculpting, aside from whoever's been working on the 2008 figures not bothering to check to see if they were size-compatible with previous figures in the line.

I am planning to buy a second set of these figures because I have plans in the works to repaint Blaster into one of the many unsung background characters in the Transformers cartoon. I have no idea what I'm going to do with a second Thrust figure, though. (He's got a generic background counterpart, too, but I've already addressed that character in PVC format and I don't want to do a second one.)