TF Views

TF ROTF Knock-Out - not a knock out. "Eh" toy and needs a few customizations, plus it's assembled slightly wrong in a way that'll be incredibly difficult to fix. C

TF:ROTF Sideways - very cool, gets better the more you mess with it. B+

TF:ROTF Voyager-class Megatron - mediocre. Looks cool at first but fails after a little time.

Mattel Star Trek Klingon Bird-of-Prey - decent for the price, but still fairly toyetic and cheap in sculpt and deco compared to DST or Corgi. Wing movement is so-so, clicks into 3 stops but "up" is too high.

Dominic wrote:Okay, please, no Belvedere references. I watched it as a kid as well, and am properly ashamed. Now, can we please move on.....

No way, Mr Belvedere was a fine show, it starred Bob Uecker, for god's sake. He's awesome!

Saw the movie! It was pretty good. Will not see again, but lived up to my expectations. I somehow loved the hell out of the twins, but it may have been that I went with a group of friends who also laughed at everything I laughed at--so, not awkward at all. "I finally got over my panic attack back there." "That's 'cuz you a pussy." We laughed for ten minutes there.

So. Toys! I got my birthday checks cashed on Friday. $110. And I promptly spent...more than that.

-Prime. 86 said to pass, I didn't listen, because I Want Prime.
-Rampage. Sucks! Do not buy! There are no redeeming qualities to this toy! Don't even wait for a repaint! You might be able to salvage him if you do some crazy kitbashing, but really, it's not worth it.
-Mudflap and Skids! I haven't opened them yet. Decided not to try and get the Human Alliance ones since they're likely to be 'spensive in the long run. I got these even before I saw the movie, on the offchance that even if they were horrible onscreen, the toys could salvage them.
-Demolishor! 86 said to go ahead and do it, and he looks like he'll be interesting to fiddle with anyway, so what the hell?
-Mixmaster! Does anyone else here have him yet? ...Is he even really out yet? I dunno!

Also, found Pokemon Adventures vol. 1. It reads right to left! And is complete! Yay, manga!

I've seen Mixmaster around, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, haven't gotten him. And after seeing the movie myself, I think it's likely that I won't be getting very many more of the toys. Scalpel and Ejector for sure, Rollbar, Knock Out, and Ravage maybe. Maybe Dune Runner, too, he looks cool. And isn't in the movie, so y'know, bonus.

So, uh, I got some comics!

Incredible Hercules #130, which rocks. Herc's father is placed on trial in the underworld. Unlike the usual Marvel take on the gods as just "Incredibly powerful beings that may be mystical", this book goes ahead and assumes that all the myths are true, and that Zeus did literally make the world out of his dead father's remains. So this amounts to God being put on trial. Great book, and a hell of a lot of fun to read, as always. This whole series I'd highly recommend for people that like comics, mythology, fun, and things that are awesome.

Batman: Brave and the Bold #6 Much as I love the show, I haven't picked up the comic yet. But I had to have this issue for having Kid Eternity as the guest star. Kid Eternity's one of those odd characters, a kid that can summon any hero from history or mythology by saying the word "Eternity", and in this version of him, that means he can summon DC's historical characters like Viking Prince, Shining Knight, or G.I. Robot. So yeah, put G.I. Robot and Kid Eternity on a cover, and I'm in.

Wolverine: First Class #16 Y'know who else you can put on a cover to get my attention? Dazzler in her disco costume. Usually I wouldn't buy a Wolverine book, but when I flipped through this one after seeing the cover, I saw that Gurihiru drew the thing. Sold.

Astonishing X-Men #30 Not much to say here, except that Ellis' X-Men are almost as cool as Morrison's, and that Simone Bianchi's artwork is just stunning. Bonus points for use of Forge.

Found a lone Scalpel at Wal-Mart last night, and despite the fact that I *really* need to curb my spending for the next couple weeks, I went ahead and sprung for him. He's awesome. His mouth opens, his antennae move, his legs are all poseable (but could stand to be able to splay out a bit more), he looks awesome. One thing: while the transformation is amazing in how much size-changing he does, it's one of the first times I have found a transformation to just be No Fun. I think it's mainly all the manipulation you have to do of the legs, very tedious. It'd also be nice if the shell pieces on his base locked down somehow, it's too easy for them to get moved out of place with the legs under there. And it's far too small to work as a Real Gear, boo. But the awesomeness of his robot mode make up for these flaws, just because he was such an entertaining fellow in the movie. "We need ze brain on ze table!"

Onslaught Six wrote:-Prime. 86 said to pass, I didn't listen, because I Want Prime.
-Rampage. Sucks! Do not buy! There are no redeeming qualities to this toy! Don't even wait for a repaint! You might be able to salvage him if you do some crazy kitbashing, but really, it's not worth it.
-Mudflap and Skids! I haven't opened them yet. Decided not to try and get the Human Alliance ones since they're likely to be 'spensive in the long run. I got these even before I saw the movie, on the offchance that even if they were horrible onscreen, the toys could salvage them.
-Demolishor! 86 said to go ahead and do it, and he looks like he'll be interesting to fiddle with anyway, so what the hell?
-Mixmaster! Does anyone else here have him yet? ...Is he even really out yet? I dunno!

The twins were not That Funny, your friends suck. Heh. The tight t-shirt joke, now 'that' was funny.

Prime is still meh after a few weeks, he's just sat there, don't really feel like messing with him because he's a pain in the ass to transform.
Rampage grew on me a lot, I rather like him. Will have to discuss the various decent poses with you, he's very Spider Mastermind when done right. I even like the shitty rubber treadwhips.
Demmy's still fun to mess with.
I want Mixmaster badly.

Found a lone Scalpel at Wal-Mart last night, and despite the fact that I *really* need to curb my spending for the next couple weeks, I went ahead and sprung for him. He's awesome. His mouth opens, his antennae move, his legs are all poseable (but could stand to be able to splay out a bit more), he looks awesome. One thing: while the transformation is amazing in how much size-changing he does, it's one of the first times I have found a transformation to just be No Fun. I think it's mainly all the manipulation you have to do of the legs, very tedious. It'd also be nice if the shell pieces on his base locked down somehow, it's too easy for them to get moved out of place with the legs under there. And it's far too small to work as a Real Gear, boo. But the awesomeness of his robot mode make up for these flaws, just because he was such an entertaining fellow in the movie. "We need ze brain on ze table!"

I like the transformation a lot, it took about four or five times for me to 'get' it. Does not help at ALL that he is heinously mistransformed to get him in the packaging, I've not seen else anything that badly mangled that I can remember. Had to squint at the instruction robot pic to figure out how he was supposed to work. The toy could be criticised for not being very intuitive at all, but I blame that more on the movie model's abstract nature and not having any reference pics of the movie model to compare it with.

Man, I'll say it now, I WANT CONCEPT ART for ALL the movie characters NOW. So we know how to transform the toys correctly. Can we ask Hasbro for that? Bah.

Anyway, I love Scalpel. He's great in both modes. Articulation leaves a bit to be desired, terrible ball joint range, yet he's small and very complex, and also very clever. If there's one thing I could change, it's that his glasses don't flip up, and so should.

In case it wasn't obvious, I got Scalpel.

Also got Reverb.

Better joint tolerances than Knock Out, and a better shade of grey, but still kinda meh. I blame the suck ankles and the fall-off kibble. Kibble wings do nothing for me, so I screwed the leg kibble on, helps a bit. Also found that I prefer to raise the chest halves to either side of his head to free up the field of vision a bit and give the shoulders more room to move, I feel this helps give the figure a more balanced robot mode, he was too pudgy for a sleek bike-bot otherwise. Shame it removes his cleverest feature, one that O6 sold me on - the vehicle mode has the number 97 printed on it three times, the transformation makes this upside down on the robot chest, and the font used for the numbers makes it look like it's actually the number 26.

onslaught86 wrote:I like the transformation a lot, it took about four or five times for me to 'get' it. Does not help at ALL that he is heinously mistransformed to get him in the packaging, I've not seen else anything that badly mangled that I can remember.

Oh God, tell me about it. I was looking at the box pics, and squinting at the instructions, and trying different positions for his parts, and looking, and squinting, and trying, and looking, and squinting, and trying for TWENTY MINUTES before I got to the proper arrangement of everything, and during that entire span I was *this* close to just chucking him aside and declaring the toy a failure. Fortunately, I hit upon the right robot mode just in time (Well not exactly right, I only this morning discovered that you can slide his back shell pieces back to give his abdomen more clearance to lock into position). They shoud've just bit the bullet and packaged him in microscope mode.

I hear tell there are antennae-variants running with this mold. What do yours look like, '86? The antennae on mine are about half an inch long.

My Scalpel's antennae were misassembled, they're clearly supposed to curve forward for transformation, yet were packaged curling back. The antennae chunk falls out with ease when moved, which bugs me, I fear losing it. If they fix that I may buy another, he's worth owning one of in each mode. Note also that the little hooks on the robot legs are supposed to be on the tops of the legs to allow the end sections a little more range, it's not obvious yet helps a lot with stability. I love how expressive the figure is, his tiny arms and opening mouth make him very entertaining.

"Eet's ALLLLLIVE!"

GI Joe 25A Interrogator (customized)

Dom
=posted pics of that, and some custom TFs at the blog.

onslaught86 wrote:My Scalpel's antennae were misassembled, they're clearly supposed to curve forward for transformation, yet were packaged curling back. The antennae chunk falls out with ease when moved, which bugs me, I fear losing it. If they fix that I may buy another, he's worth owning one of in each mode. Note also that the little hooks on the robot legs are supposed to be on the tops of the legs to allow the end sections a little more range, it's not obvious yet helps a lot with stability. I love how expressive the figure is, his tiny arms and opening mouth make him very entertaining.

"Eet's ALLLLLIVE!"

Yeah, I figured out the legs a while ago. They could still do with a bit more range. The antennae on mine don't curve back or forward, they're just splayed out to the sides a little. And I didn't even notice that the chunk could be popped out until you mentioned it. Sounds like I got the superior variant! Point: Me!

Hey, his little goggles don't flip up, but they can be removed! This has potential...

Could not find Scalpel, so I shelled out a couple bucks more and got Animated Waspinator instead.

Very simple kinda figure, but looks great, especially in robot mode. Could have stood to be bigger, but screw it, paired off against, say, Activator Bumblebee, he'd be intimidating enough.