mikeszekely

I dunno... he might be in the queue...

Yesterday, when talking about Apache, I mentioned a few times that at the time of its release Saltus and Virtus weren't out, that the only real competition was Big Spring and Allen. Of course, I'd reviewed Big Spring and included him in the photos with Apache. But I still felt like we were missing some context, so silly me, I went and got a copy of Unique Toys Allen. I think you can't talk about Allen without first talking about Unique Toys. They were one of early names in the 3rd party scene, breaking into the market with a collection of Predacons that kind of fit with what Hasbro was doing at the time, but was also not as good as what MMC was doing with their own Predacons. They put out a few more Generations-style figures like the well-regarded Mania King and their Terrorcons, but the market was already changing. Fans Toys had released Quakewave the same year that Unique Toys put out their Predacons, and by the time they completed their Terrorcons Fans Toys had done Bombshell, Perceptor, and several Dinobots, KFC had done their Blaster, MMC put out their first Ocular Max release, X-Transbots had put out Wheelie, Huffer, Scourge, and Megatron, and Badcube had put out their Huffer, Brawn, Warpath, Sunstreaker, and had started on their Insecticons. The market was clearly shifting toward more MP-style releases, and Unique Toys was kind of already dipping their toes into that water under their sister company, DX9, as they'd released a Mirage, Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Astrotrain, and Blitzwing. Those last two are really where I want to focus, because they, along with Unique Toys' versions of Octane and Sandstorm, set the template for Allen. They're all big figures, clearly meant to fit scale with other Masterpiece and MP-style 3P figures, but they're also from an era when the ultra-Sunbow aesthetic hadn't been fully established yet, and Unique Toys/DX9 were offering more stylized designs as in afraid of risking Hasbro or Takara's ire. And we definitely see that in Allen. He's a very bright green, with spots that would be G1 Springer's darker olive coming across as barely a different tone. There are extra flourishes, like yellow stripes on his shoulders, some gunmetal accents added to his abs, shoulders, and forearms, molded vents on his shins that aren't present on the Sunbow sheet, and a bright, clean white used on his thighs, hands, and neck. He also has some weirdly puffy proportions. The thing that's the most out-of-place for me, though, are his bright yellow feet. Looking around his body there are some other things that I'm going to talk about more when we do his alt modes, and some more more gunmetal accents. I want to draw special attention to the piston details on his elbows, though. It's a detail not not on the Sunbow model, but one that UT added that actually serves a purpose beyond simply looking neat. Anyway, like Apache Allen is a little light on accessories. He's just got two, a gun and a sword. The gun as a sculpt that definitely seems Springer-esque, but I'm not sure about it being entirely green save for the white handle. The sword is a bit more stylized than we've seen on other Springers, with a thick blade, round hilt, and prominent pommel. It, at least, has some painted bits and does look pretty cool. Allen's head can look up slightly, but not down, on the hinge in his head, but his neck is on a double joint for transformation that you can also employ to kind of stretch his neck up and forward, improving his upward tilt and giving him actually good downward tilt as well. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and move laterally a little over 90 degrees on ratchets (no Hot Rod shoulders, either). His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is fixed, and his middle, ring, and pinky fingers are molded as a single curled piece with a hinge at the base. His index finger is separate from the other, hinged at the base and an addition middle knuckle. His waist swivels. His hip skirts do NOT move, which unfortunately limits his ratcheted hips to about 45 degrees forward and just under 90 degrees backward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. His feet can tilt up but not down, and a set of double hinges for transformation gives him about 90 degrees of ankle pivot. So, a bit lacking in the hips, but if I'm being fair the hips still have enough range for some dynamic poses and honestly cost him less than Apache's abysmal shoulders. Allen can hold his gun and sword in either hand, using the time-honored method of plugging tabs on their handles into slots on his palms. The large peg on the middle of the sword's hilt can also be plugged into Allen's back, allowing him to store his sword in robot mode. I can't find any storage for the gun, though. Here's where things get fun, and you can see shades of the "turn it inside out" engineering that UT would later use to great effect on their Bayverse figures. You see, the front end and grill? That's not his chest. His chest is under the vehicle, and when it folded down it provided the clearance to pull a whole second version out from the inside of his torso that covered over it and his head. His backpack pulls away, then instead of forming the fenders his arms fold straight out behind his back and the backpack tabs into them to form the top half of the vehicle. The entire top of his body rocks back, then his legs turn inside out. some of it winds up turning, but otherwise staying mostly in place to form the rear with the wheels and fins. But the front of his legs spin around and stretch out, filling in the bottom of the vehicle but also carrying his feet up to the front of the car where they form the fenders and front wheels. It can be a little daunting the first time you do it until you figure out what goes where, but once you learn it it's honestly one of the easier and most fun transformations I've encountered on a Springer toy. And, trust me, by now I've done a lot of Springers. Now, going into this I was aware of the liberties Unique Toys had taken with their Octane. Their Sandstorm traded a dune buggy mode for an enclosed-cabin that was referred to by some as "the Wienermobile". And, given the liberties taken with Allen's robot mode, I think I kind of dismissed him at the time as being too stylized for my collection and just assumed that applied to his alt modes, too. But, actually having Allen in hand, I'm a bit surprised to note that his car mode is fairly Sunbow accurate. I mean, yeah, they added some gunmetal accents to the engines on top, and for whatever reason they cast his fins in green plastic and added some yellow accents when they'd traditionally be as gray as the part they're attached too. But the colors are pretty good, otherwise, and the proportions are more correct than Apache or Big Spring. With the caveat that I like the liberties that MMC took with Saltus, one could argue that Allen's actually the best car mode we've seen so far when it comes to capturing the Sunbow art. Like most of the other MP Springers, Allen's got rolling rubber tires and a cockpit that can open. There's not much to look at in there but the molded suggestion of a seat back, though. The handle on his gun can fold it to reveal a tab, and that tab fits nicely into a slot on either side of the vehicle. As for his sword, you can either plug it into the top of the roof, or the peg on the hilt happens to fit into the rotors outside the rear wheels. Sadly, just like Apache, there's no flip-out headlights. Getting to helicopter mode isn't terribly different than going to car mode. Much of the difference is simply turning his legs further inside out, stretching them into the tail boom, then you twist the bits with the translucent plastic around so that they can tab into the boom instead of the folded stabilizers that were on top of the boom. The fenders slide back into their helicopter position by sliding the shins that they're attached to backward. The front wheels fold down and allow for the wings to fold out from under the fenders. The only trick to remember is that there are bits on sliders that fold out from Allen's robot sides to fill in the gap vacated by the wings under the fenders to keep everything nice and solid. One again, the helicopter is honestly more Sunbow accurate than I gave it credit for. There's some gray on the sides where his shin panel forms the body of the helicopter that's really green on the Sunbow art, but better than then green shins in bot mode, eh? The landing skids don't have quite the right shape, but they're appropriately yellow (with a touch of that gunmetal accent). We could bemoan the fact that the rudder is green instead of gray again, but that's kind of offset by the fact that the entire tail boom and the horizontal stabilizers are green. This is the only Springer I've looked at that that doesn't have some gray on the boom, and that doesn't have gray stabs. Indeed, you've probably seen so many Springer toys with gray on the boom and gray stabs that you might think that's correct, but look at that Sunbow model sheet again. Green is Sunbow accurate! Aside from green on the rudder and a few yellow and gunmetal accents, it's the propellor that has the most liberties taken simply because it's angular, thick, and gray instead of basic thin green rectangular blades. About that, of course the sword forms the rotor, but the transformation is more unique than I'm used to. Rather than splay the blade out and use the handle as the connection, the entire sword splits in half, then one half turns over and you push it back together. This allows you to use the big peg from the hilt as the connection point. Allen's cockpit still opens if that's your thing, and you can still plug the rifle into the side. But Allen's got one more thing to talk about, something none of of the other Springers have had thus far. Actual fold out landing skids! That's right, he's not just resting on his tummy and tail. Green skids are part of the stuff that unfolds with the wings from out of the foot fenders, and a white one is stored under the tail rotor. I have to be honest... I'm not entirely sure what motivated me to buy Apache and Allen. I just sort of realize that I wasn't super familiar with them, despite owning a few other Springer toys, when we were talking about the upcoming Studio Series version. I figured I'd play with them a bit, get that experience, take a few pics and write about them, then sell them off again. I mean, with Apache's articulation issues and Allen's unique aesthetic neither were really a threat to Saltus in my MP display, right? Right. Kinda. I mean, yeah, I told you flat out yesterday that I don't recommend Apache, that Saltus is the better MP Springer. And I will indeed be listing him for sale soon. And yeah, Allen's bot mode is definitely far enough removed from Sunbow G1 to disqualify him from most people's MP displays. Indeed, as a display piece, Apache is a more accurate robot, and it does sort of help to see why so many people jumped on that train at the time. I'm not going to give Allen a recommend. But, I've decided against selling Allen, and that's because Allen brings something to the table that even Siege Springer didn't... Allen is a really fun toy. He's chunky and sturdy. It feels good to move his joints and pose him, and he's actually fun to transform. Saltus gets to stay in my display, but Allen gets to stay on my desk where I can play with him.

So if you also follow the official Transformers thread you might have noticed some discussion about Studio Series 86 Springer, and how he's still missing the horizontal stabilizers on his tail, and how all the 3P Springers pulled it off. And you might have caught the part where I randomly decided to increase my collection of 3P Springers. Now, for the record, I already owned Open & Play's Big Spring, MMC's Saltus, and even Toyworld's Spanner. Feel free to read (or re-read) up on those... and then immediately forget about Spanner, because as much as I really do like that figure he's most definitely not a cartoon-accurate, MP-style figure. Now... is Saltus safe on my shelf? Tonight's competition comes from Fans Toys, and the brand alone is enough to make up the minds of a lot of collectors. This, then, is Apache. I mean, the first impression isn't a bad one, especially given that at the time of Apache's release only Unique Toys' Allen and Big Spring were on the market yet. And right away we do see Fans Toys playing to their strengths. The sculpt is solidly G1 cartoon, but with the slightly more heroic proportions Fans Toys was using at the time before everyone started going a little too hard after those Sunbow three-quarter control drawings. And the materials are solid, with sturdy plastic, lots of diecast, and plenty of paint. I can't find my postage scale, but I'd guess that Apache weighs at least as much as Saltus, and double Big Spring. And if you give him a gentle shake none of his joints even budge. Things get a little messier when you start looking around the sides and back, though. The yellow on the front of his shoulder pads is doubled, because reasons. Tires are prominent on the backs of his forearms. His backpack is fairly accurate, as long as you ignore the butt flap. Likewise, the legs are pretty accurate, and even have details like the fins on the backs of his legs and the rotor and vents at his ankles, but you have to overlook some wheels poking out of his shins and some flaps (his horizontal stabs in copter mode) just chilling against the sides of his legs, not even locked in place. And that's just the gray part! His calves are absolutely dominated by some helicopter bits that certainly aren't present on the animation mode... or Saltus or Big Spring. Let's be honest, though... most of us do pose our figures with their backs to the wall. A butt flap, arm wheels, and some messy calves can be overlooked. Apache, perhaps, offers value elsewhere. Elsewhere probably isn't accessories, though. What we've got here is pretty basic... a rifle, painted silver, and two swords. The swords are nearly identical; the only difference is that one has the blade painted silver, as that seems to be the "standard" way to do Springer's sword, while the other is painted entirely green to better match the green rotors on Sunbow's control art. Seems a bit skimpy... Saltus and Big Spring both came with the catapult missile thing, plus Saltus came with a lance and two alternate heads. That said, I guess a gun and a sword are really all you need. Articulation is a more serious issue. Head's a hinged swivel, which can look up/down about 30 degrees, no sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate. They can also ratchet out about 90 degrees laterally, but here's the kicker- he's got "Hot Rod shoulders." That is, the joint for lateral movement is in his chest, on the wrong side of the rotational joint, so he can't raise his arm and move it laterally at the same time. I get annoyed enough to see that on a Hasbro Voyager, but on a MP-style figure it's pretty inexcusable. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees. While that's what I consider to be the minimum "standard," it's worth pointing out that Saltus and Big Spring both have double-jointed elbows. His wrists swivel, and each finger is individually articulated with a hinged ball joint at the base of the thumb and each finger having a hinged knuckle at the base and middle- better than Big Spring, and slightly more finger articulation than Saltus, though he lacks Saltus' tilting wrists. For whatever reason, he's got a ratcheted waist swivel, but not Saltus' ab crunch. The front of his hip skirts fold up so his hips can ratchet 90 degrees forward, but only a single click backward. Laterally, they get a little under 90 degrees. For those keeping score, that's a bit worse than Big Spring and significantly worse than Saltus. Thighs swivel, and knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets (same range as Big Spring, worse than Saltus. His feet tilt down a bit, arguably slightly up (similar to Big Spring, worse than Saltus). The front of his foot swivels, giving him 90 degrees of faux ankle pivot. That's technically more than Big Spring or Saltus, but (a) their whole feet pivot, not just the toes, and (b), to get the clearance to swivel his feet have to be angled slightly downward. Apache does a good job of holding his weapons, using the standard MP-style handle tabs and palm slots. Maybe the transformation is better? Wait... you guys did remember that this is Fans Toys, right? They're not exactly known for their smooth engineering. Now, to be fair, by Fans Toys' standard this one wasn't too bad. Some of it, like making the tail boom out of most of his legs and collapsing the arms is fairly intuitive. Where everything goes horribly wrong, though, is transforming his torso. At first it seems like it should be easy enough... you lift his chest up, and there's a hatch so that it can get up over his head... but there's no enough clearance. Then you realize the chest is on sliders, and they are insanely tight. I wound up using a silicone lubricant to even get them to budge, and even then I was sure I was going to break it. Ok, I finally get the chest up over his head. Smooth sailing from there, right? Nope. His sides collapse toward his spine, and guess what? Those sliders are also way too tight. After manhandling the thing, afraid of breaking it the entire time, I finally have the torso done. Then I realize I'm connecting the arms to his sides by plugging them into flimsy flaps, swinging his shins and feet around to the underside of the helicopter where some armatures loosely tab into the underside of his arms then wrap around so the "wings" with the landing skids can tab even more loosely into the sides of his arms. At least I can say that the effort was probably worth it, because once you get it there I can't complain about that helicopter mode. Between Apache, Saltus, and Big Spring Apache is the clear winner. The proportions are better than Big Spring with half-sized tail, or Saltus with his just plain wrong tail. The wings with the yellow ends (not just the spike of the landing skid) is correctly yellow, and a good portion of the tail boom is green like the animation. The wings are even angled a bit, the way the cartoon was drawn. Apache's got bigger horizontal stabs than Big Spring or Saltus, and more prominent engines than Saltus. My only real nitpicks are that the back of the engines are entirely yellow, instead of yellow-striped gray, and the vents on the backs of his wings are also yellow instead of green. As is typically the case, the main rotor is Apache's sword, split and splayed down the middle and plugged into a socket to form the main rotor. Once installed, the rotor will spin. As for his gun, you can store in on the helicopter by folding then handle in to reveal a tab that plugs into a slot on the helicopter's chin. Other than that, there's not much to talk about. The canopy does open, but all it reveals is a screw. No seat like Saltus or Big Spring. And Apache is completely lacking the flip-out headlights Saltus and Big Spring have. Transforming Apache to car mode is honestly worse than the helicopter mode. I mean, you still have to deal with the too-stiff sliders in the torso, but then rather than shift the shoulders the way pretty much every other Springer does to slide the fenders up past the nose, Fans Toys thought it'd be better to rotate the arms 180 degrees, then open a flap to turn the 180 degrees the short way around the shoulder joint before closing a similar flap on the other side. Clever, except that there really isn't enough clearance, making that maneuver decidedly uncomfortable. Oh, but that's the easy part! Despite the fact that his legs are mostly just in their robot-mode configuration, you do have to open the sides of his legs to shift some things around to shorten his thighs. But as you're extending the wheels in his shins and folding up his feet, you realize that said feet have to lined up just right so that a tiny peg can fit into a tiny hole. You got that part? Cool, now take the helicopter wing kibble and make sure it's also lined up just right, so it'll lock into the fins. If you finally managed that without popping the feet back out, you then get to tab the legs together at both the inside of the lower legs and the helicopter wing kibble, this time without popping out the feet or the kibble. Once you finally do that (and it'll take you more than one try, trust me) then you can lock the whole thing together by tabbing the butt flap into the backs of his thighs, all the while praying that that doesn't cause the kibble or feet to come undone. Unlike the helicopter mode, it's not even worth it! I mean, it's technically a bit more cartoon accurate than Big Spring's car mode, and a lot more accurate than Saltus', but it's way too stretched out, thick at the front and thin at the back. And it's loaded with out-of-place kibble between the fins. Big Spring's car mode was a bit unfinished at the back. Saltus' car mode wasn't accurate, but in way that was like "the Sunbow car looks kind of dumb, what if we changed it up a bit to make it look more purposefully like a land vehicle?" Fans Toys looks like they were trying to make a Sunbow-accurate car but failed in ways that just emphasize what was bad about the Sunbow car in the first place. Apache's sword has a small peg on one side of the hilt. This peg plugs into a hole under the front of the car, so they blade runs along the length of the bottom. Good storage in theory. In practice, the weight of the figure will cause the rear wheels to slide back into his shins, causing the sword to scrape along the ground and potentially scratch the paint on the blade. Storing the gun is worse. There are long, thin tabs just above the handle. You can use those tabs to sandwich the gun between the yellow helicopter kibble on the back of the car... but to do that, you need to undo the butt flap and spread his legs apart, which you most definitely NOT doing without undoing the copter kibble and and feet. The cockpit still opens, but despite flipping the arms around the headlights don't open on that side, either. There's a part of me that wants to say again that, at the original time of Apache's release, the only other cartoon MP Springers on the market were Unique Toys' Allen and Open and Play's Big Spring. I can't comment on Allen (yet), but I can see why someone would prefer Apache over Big Spring. The head sculpt is far better, and the paint and materials are far better. The helicopter mode is still one of the best. If all you were looking for was a figure that looks excellent in a stoic robot pose for your MP shelf, Apache does that better than Big Spring. However, Big Spring is more poseable and far more fun to transform and play with. But also, it's not like Apache happened in a vacuum. Apache's articulation is pretty sub-par, period. And while they wouldn't come until later, MMC and X-Transbots had both announced their Springers and shown prototypes. Fans Toys could have delayed Apache, maybe try to rework some of the design, to get better articulation and a car mode that wasn't trash. Instead, they rushed to be first and banked on their brand, ultimately delivering a figure that feels very phoned in from a company with their reputation. Do I, in 2024, recommend Apache? Frankly, no. Because today the competition isn't just Big Spring. Today we also have Saltus, and objectively Saltus has equally good paint and materials, better articulation, better transformations, and more accessories. I'd add that I subjectively think Saltus has a better car mode, and quite frankly a better bot mode that more accurately captures the stocky build of the Sunbow art, so even if you just want a good-looking robot and don't care about accessories/articulation/transformation/alt modes Saltus is still king. The only point I can give Apache over Saltus is the helicopter mode; as much as I love Saltus, his helicopter mode is kind of trash while Apache pretty much nailed it. I think that, short of buying multiple figures to display in multiple modes, most collectors care more about the robot than the helicopter, though. So today, my official recommendation is to pass on Apache, go with Saltus. Tomorrow, though...

I'd rather fast food change in response to consumer demand than a wave of bad publicity from a guy trying to pass off his liver damage on McDonald's instead of his serious issues with alcohol, but that's just me. That said, 53 is pretty young, and cancer isn't something I'd wish on much worse people. My condolences to his family and loved ones.

Usually I like to have a few more figures to write about before I do a Repaint Roundup, but my in-laws are coming for the summer next week and the guest room is where I do my photography. Needless to say, I don't know when or how often I'll be writing this summer. For now, here's Legacy Evolution Powerlinx Hot Shot. Truthfully, I wasn't super interested in this repaint. I mean, it's basically the same not-great-but-mostly-ok Hot Shot we already got, just in a color scheme he only used for like the last seven or so episodes and with a few extra accessories. But recently Hasbro had an outlet sale and Powerlinx Hot Shot was down to a more acceptable price, plus the only original Armada toy I own (until buying Prime) was Powerlinx Hot Shot, so I caved. Deco-wise, it's very much what you'd expect... the colors are updated to better reflect the original Powerlinx Hot Shot's deco, but just like the standard release he's lacking painted detail in the shins and in the faux car parts on his arms. On the topic of new accessories, Hot Shot retains his engine gun, but he gets two new rifles. The colors are simply gray plastic, which is a tad unfortunate, but they are designed to look like the rifles Hot Shot used in the episode "Dash." You also get a pair of (yet more) three-sectioned effects parts, and most notably, the Minicon Jolt. Jolt's coptor mode, as seen in the previous picture, is a bit stumpier than the original. This seems to be because the designers prioritized the robot mode really capturing the look of the cartoon. Which means that, instead of being primarily yellow like the Jolt that came with the original Powerlinx Hot Shot, he's primarily orange. He's got no head articulation, ball joints for shoulders that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, no bicep or wrist swivels, elbows that bend 90 degrees, no waist articulation, ball-jointed hips that can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, no thigh swivels, knees that bend over 90 degrees, and no feet. Unlike the original toy and counter to his cartoon appearance, he cannot connect to Hot Shot's engine gun. Hot Shot's new rifles are meant to store on his back, as they did in "Dash." You move his axle out of the way, then you're supposed to use little tabs on them to connect them to cutouts near the hinge on his backpack before moving the axle back into place. The catch is, at least on my copy, one of the rifles fits perfectly, the other will not stay plugged in and pops back off the second you let it go. Meanwhile, Jolt has a 5mm peg that folds out from underneath, so you can plug him onto Hot Shot's back, shoulders, etc... basically anywhere you can find a 5mm port. The exception is the 5mm port that's on his back behind the axle, so he can't attach to Hot Shot's back while he's doing his "Axlezooka." Hot Shot's car mode is, again, pretty much what you'd expect. I have to admit, the primary red color, yellow spoiler, and the yellow flames on the hood are very evocative of G1 Hot Shot, which was surely the intention going all the way back to the original toy. As was the case with the regular Hot Shot release, they painted the grill (correctly) then painted the part of the hood right above the grill (incorrectly) instead of the engine cutout. Attaching Jolt or the engine gun don't activate any spring-loaded gimmicks or anything as they would on the original toy. But I'll note that the engine gun storage is still there, and the bumper can be manually opened. There's room on the spoiler for the new guns, and Jolt actually has a third transformation just so that his nose can plug into the peg between the wings of Hot Shot's spoiler but angle the rest of his body so the propellor faces backward, as in the cartoon. And since there's no actual molded difference between the Hot Shots, you can use Jolt with the regular yellow Hot Shot. Is Powerlinx Hot Shot worth picking up? I mean, most of the geewunners here aren't into Armada in the first place, so a deco that appeared in just seven episodes probably isn't super appealing. At the reduced price I do kind of dig having an updated version of the only deco I actually had of the original, though, and the extra accessories are pretty cool. Jolt is an especially welcome addition; the size and engineering on Jolt (and for that matter, the Whisper Minicon that came with Shattered Glass Sideswipe) aren't quite Core-class figures, but they're a step up from the Siege Micromasters. Instead of constant repaints, though, I think it'd be cool if Hasbro maybe did a few Minicon three-packs... say one with Sparkplug, Leader-1, and Swindle (Prime, Megatron, and Starscream's Minicons), one with the three components of the Star Saber, one with the Skyboom Shield, one with the Requiem Blaster, etc. Or maybe just one big Minicon set akin to the some of the store-exclusive Micromaster sets released during Siege/Earthrise.

I guess, before the flood of Springers I ordered for some reason arrives, I should get this out of the way. Dr Wu has released new versions of Destroy Emperor, his version of Galvatron. Now, I have the original version of Destroy Emperor, as seen on the right. I opted to get the new release in toy/Marvel colors, but it's also available in a lighter Season 3 purple color and a clear purple scanning version. All three versions feature a new a new improved head sculpt, and the first batch is going out with a replacement head for the original release, which I've already installed here. The robot mode is fair enough, but the alt mode was always a bit iffy on this figure. It's hard to hold it against Dr. Wu, though, giving that this was one of the first Extreme Warfare releases, it's tiny, and it's relatively inexpensive. I mean, inexpensive enough that I didn't mind picking up the toy/Marvel colors. Now, it's worth pointing out that the original release of Destroy Emperor came with Dr. Wu's Soundblaster. This time, regardless of the color, you're not getting Soundblaster. Instead, you're getting Destroy Planet. Destroy Planet is Grand Galvatron, a character that never actually existed. In The Headmasters anime, Galvatron came up with a scheme to use the energy the Decepticons had been gathering to turn the entire Earth into a new Unicron-sized body for himself. When Sixshot realized that Galvatron planned to incorporate his lieutenants into that body he left Galvatron alone to fight the Autobots, and Galvatron wound up defeated and buried in ice. Despite never realizing his dream, an image of Grand Galvatron did appear in the series, and I dig having a toy representation of it. The toy itself uses the head, arms, and legs of Destroy Emperor, but attaches them to a new spherical body. Purchasing the toy or translucent versions of Destroy Emperor gets you a Destroy Planet that matches the colors of the original Galvatron release. If you skipped that one and want to get the anime-colored Destroy Emperor don't worry, the purple on that Destroy Planet matches the toy it's packed with. In robot mode, Destroy Planet's articulation is similar to Destroy Emperor's due to using the same limbs. The real difference is the transformation. Actually, the limbs transform fairly similarly, with the arms curling up and the legs folding over the thighs and tabbing into each other. The trick is getting the limbs stuffed inside the new spherical body. The arms are simple enough to fold it, but the legs are attached to a swiveling base that has to be turned just right to get the legs to line up inside the ball. There's also technically no official storage for his cannon, but if you have everything lined up right you have just enough room to toss loose inside Destroy Planet's body. I don't recall that Grand Galvatron had an alt mode... just the one shot of his spherical, Unicron-esque body with his head and limbs dangling off of it. But the Dr. reasonably assumed that if Unicron had a planet mode, so would Grand Galvatron. And, yeah, it's just the spherical body with the limbs and head folded inside, but what else would it be? I dig it, anyway. So, should you pick up Destroy Planet? If you don't have Destroy Emperor, then I'd say yes, I strongly advise picking up the anime-colored version of Emperor and Planet. If you do already have Destroy Emperor, though, Destroy Planet is more of a novelty, and you've also got to be in for either the toy or translucent repaints of Destroy Emperor. For me, I really enjoy the novelty of Destroy Planet, and I'm a sucker for Galvatron in his Megatron-esque toy colors, and at just around $25 this set was an easy purchase for me.

I actually had one ready to check out, but I was very on the fence. I kept getting an error, decided it was a sign, and gave up.

Originally not due for another month or so, this guy showed up over the weekend. It's Legacy United Commander-class Magmatron. Coming off of Beast Wars II, where the villains were decidedly robots very much at home in the Transformers franchise (the fact that many were, in fact, reused Generation 2 and Machine Wars molds might have had something to do with it), Magmatron has a unique look for a Transformer. He almost looks like he's in the wrong anime... I'd go so far as to suggest the ear wings, the fanged mouth, and the way his upper body is lighter and more robotic (that is, "normal") while his legs are a darker color, muscular and bestial with a tail and clawed feet... he kind of reminds me of Devilman. There's some cool mechanical details on the backs of his legs and heels, with little blades poking up between his toes, a dinosaur head on one shoulder, another in his chest, and a third curling around from his back over his other shoulder. It's all pretty accurate, too, although his backpack's a tad big. The one part I'm not super keen on is his waist, though. In the cartoon he's got something of a mechanical belt, and original toy (which actually did release in the States as part of the Beast Machines line, even if Beast Wars Neo never made it over here) did have smallish purple flaps. But here we've got pretty substantial hip skirts that don't even sit all that flush due to the dino arms bumping into his hips- dino arms that were tucked into his torso on the original. For all the backpack, dino heads, and kibble flaps that are on the robot, a surprising amount of his mass isn't. We've got a shield that's clearly like half a dinosaur, and weapon with a lot of purple flaps that you can probably identify as dinosaur "skin". Additionally, a rubbery black blade and two smaller red ones, plus you can't be a Commander-class toy without another run of effect parts. Magmatron's head swivels, but with his huge wings on his ears and dinosaur heads on his shoulders it can be tough to actually find the clearance for that swivel. No tilt. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and move laterally 90 degrees also on ratchets. His biceps swivel. His elbows are double jointed and can curl about 180 degree on softer ratchets. His wrists swivel, and they can also bend outward (more for alt mode). His thumb swivels (again, more for alt mode), and while his fingers are a single part permanently curled they are hinged at the base so he can open his hands. His waist swivels, and using a joint that's really for transformation you can even get a bit of ab crunch. His hips ratchet forward 90 degrees and, theoretically, 90 degrees backward, but his tail gets in the way. His hips friction laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel. His ratcheted knees bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet don't tilt (unless you untab his mechanical heel, then the front of his foot can tilt upward), but his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. All-in-all pretty solid, when he's not getting in his own way. Magmatron's hands have 5mm ports built into them , so he can hold the red blades in either hand. The purple-skinned weapon has a handle on one end and a 5mm port on the other. You can plug the black blade into the 5mm port, then he can hold the handle to make a sword. The original toy actually had two handles, and the blade was a firing missile. While the blade here doesn't actually fire, the handle is hinged so he could hold the weapon like a blaster, and you can use the included effect parts to make it look like the blade is being fired. As for the shield, it has a clip that wraps around his forearm, and a 5mm peg that plugs into a port on said forearm. This is fine! What I don't like about it, though, is that the 5mm port is on the back of his arm, not the side. The shield wind up on the back of his arm, which makes posing him holding the shield in front of his body kind of awkward. Some of his accessories can be stored in robot mode. Not the blast effects, but honestly at this point I've started putting all my blast effects together in a box and couldn't even tell you which ones came with which figures anymore, so that's not a big deal. The two shorter red blades have holes on them that fit into pegs on his wing ears. The longer black blade, meanwhile, tucks into the underside of his tail. Unfortunately, there's no place to put his shield or his weapon, though. Magmatron's unique design necessitates a bit of partsforming to get him into alt mode. His entire back and arms pull off first. Then his head, along with the inside of his torso, collar, and some of his chest, come off, leaving one shoulder pad, some of the front of his torso, and everything below the waist. Rearrange the claws, stretch out the head that was on his chest, and fold the inside of his robot torso up over his face and you've got yourself Skysaurus, a Quetzalcoatlus. Skysaurus has less mass, but is nearly as big as Deluxe-class Terrorsaur. Skysaur's mouth can open. He's got a ball-joint at the top of his neck that allows his head to swivel, look straight up, or look down a bit. A transformation hinge can help him look straight down. His wings have hinges for a flapping motion and hinges near the claws that tuck the wings in or spread them out, but they don't fold. His wing claws are on ball joints, but they don't do much more than swivel. His hips are ball joints for swiveling and some lateral motion, plus he's got hinged knees, a digitigrade ankle hinge, and a hinge at the claws, making Skysaur surprisingly posable. There's no peg in his mouth, though, so he can't use the blast effects. The red swords can stay attached in this mode. Magmatron's lower half transforms into Landsaurus, a Giganotosaurus. Huh... Beast Wars Megatron and Terrorsaur were a purple theropod and red pterosaur, respectively, and two thirds of Magmatron are also a purple theropod and red pterosaur. A lot of the "work" in transforming Landsaurus is tucking the blades on his feet under, folding in his heels, and undoing the mechancial bits ont he backs of his legs and stuffing them into his calves and thighs. Beyond that, you fold his chest down and then twist each side so the front becoems the sides. Undo his waist and shift it forward, lift a panel from his side so that most of the stuff above the waist can swivel 90 degrees, then fold his hip skirts up over his sides. Now, here's where things get a bit different from the original toy. On the original, his robot chest was simply the green belly of Landsaurus, and his weapon plugged into a gap between his head and chest to form most of his neck. Here, he already has a neck filler that unfolds from the base of his jaw. Here, you take the weapon and unfurl it. The handle plugs into a 5mm port at the base of his tail, then wraps over his robot chest and around his sides to form his crotch and belly. Landsaurus can open his mouth, but what you see here is the maximum. His head can tilt up a bit, but doing so will break the sculpt, and can even turn about 45 degrees to either side. His stumpy arms have ball-jointed shoulders for rotation and lateral movement, but that's it. As with his robot mode, he's got the ratcheted hips for rotation and spread, ratcheted knees, and his ankle pivots, but now without the robot heels locking them in place he also enjoyed digitigrade ankles that bend upward. His tail has a hinge near the base that can swing it 45 degrees to either side, and his tail still stores his black blade. I'd say that, overall, Landsaurus is my favorite of Magmatron's component dinosaur modes, but it's because it's my favorite that I'm going to judge its flaws a bit harder. Like Skysaurus, you can't use the blast effects in his mouth, and that's on top of his mouth should really have been able to open wider. I'm also not sure about how his weapon wraps around his undercarriage like that. On the one hand, from the front I think it makes his dinosaur mode seem more cohesive, if less accurate. But from the side, while you can try to hide it with his dino thighs, more dynamic poses will invariably reveal the folded up robot chest and hollow gaps that run right through his body. The Elasmosaurus known as, you guessed it, Seasaurus, is probably my least favorite of the three. Part of that is because, well, what's Seasaurus supposed to do if the battle isn't near some body of water? And maybe part of it is because Seasaurus doesn't have an original Beast Wars analog the way Skysaurus and Landsaurus do (too bad Rampage was a crab instead of a Plesiosaur). But part of that is because of just how much partsforming is involved. Magmatron's shield forms the entire bottom, both limbs, some of the sides, and most of the butt and tail of Seasaurus. Once you have the shield ready, you curl up Magmatron's arm and use a sliding swivel to tuck them into the now-unfurled backpack, mate the top of Seasaurus with the shield, then lock the base of the neck in place. Seasaurus' body doesn't do much. His back flippers and sort of wiggle forward/backward. His front flippers also have that wiggle, but they also have ball joints so they can swivel and flap. That's about it. What he lacks in body articulation he makes up for in the head and neck, though. There are four large round hinges, each capable of about 180 degrees of bend. The thing is, there are swivels on both sides of those hinges, so eight total. On their own, the hinges would give Seasaurus some incredible up/down neck bend, but the swivels allow you to turn some of those neck joints into sideways bends. We cap it all off with one more swivel at the base of the head and jaws that can open (but still can't use the effect parts). The extensive articulation in the neck actually highlights Seasaurus' biggest problem- massive, hollow gaps on one side of each of the three large neck segments. Not super noticeable in robot mode. Not super noticeable if you have his neck straight out in front of him. Super in your face is most dynamic poses, though. I'm already ready for some kind of third-party gap filler for this guy. So, I've never actually watched Beast Wars Neo, but it's my understanding that no model sheets were created for Skysaurus, Landsaurus, and Seasaurus because Magmatron never transforms into them. Magmatron's sole alt mode was the Magmasaurus, a hideous fusion of all three dinosaurs. To get to Magmasaurus mode you have to open Seasaurus up and fold his arms back out. Swivel his biceps, wrists, and thumbs and bend his wrist, fingers, and elbows to make them sort of look like rear legs. Dedicated hooks lock the body at an angle, then you use some dedicated clips that grab onto Landsaurus' tail. With the rest of Seasaurus fully in shield mode, it'll plug over the top of Landsaurus' tail, using two of the large tabs and slots that hold the halves of Seasurus together but also using the shield clip and peg to lock into the top of Landsaurus' tail. Skysaurus doesn't contribute as much. His wings swivel over, then a tab on his tail fits into a slot on Landsauru's back and a peg on Landsaurus' back fits into a screw hole on Skysaurus' back. The flap that normally covers that part of Landsaurus back clips onto a tab on Skysaurus' crotch. Skysaurus' neck runs through a groove in the base of Seasaurus' tail, and for maximum accuracy you can leave Skysaurus' head resting against Seasaurus' belly- there's even a space for it that it can click into. There's enough neck articulation that Skysaurus can still lift his head and look around, if he needs to. In all seriousness, though, who came up with this idea? I don't mean on the Legacy version, I mean on the original toy, as such a part of the original character that it became his sole alt mode in the anime? With four clawed limbs, a long "tail", a big head with carnivorous jaws, and membranous wings you might charitably suggest that Magmasaurus is evocative of a dragon, but I think the best description I can come up with for Magmasaurus is to say he transforms into a dinosaur orgy. At least, with the exception of the blast effects I really don't care about, Magmasaurus is a mode that stores all of his accessories and keeps all three dinosaurus together. Magmasaurus is a good mode for the storage bin. Ultimately, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about Magmatron. I'm not familiar with Beast Wars Neo, so I have no attachment to the character, but he is an update of a toy that was actually released in the States. It's not impossible that kids in the late '90s/early aughts had the original toy and are nostalgic for an updated one. Objectively it's a solid robot that turns into three pretty good dinosaur toys, but subjectively it's a robot with huge ears and an aesthetic that doesn't fit super well with Transformers even by Beast Wars standards. And to top it all off, he's a Commander-class. Now, I'm definitely NOT saying that a modern Magmatron could have been executed properly in anything less than a Commander, and I think fans are getting their money's worth here. But $90 is still a significant chunk of change for most people. That's a price that us Geewunners are willing to pay for fan-favorite characters like Sky Lynx and Jetfire, or the central part of a combiner like Motormaster. It's worth it for Armada fans to get the Optimus Prime they grew up with as a kid. But how well is it going to go over for a character from a show that, to this day, isn't available isn't actually available in outside of Japan (though unofficially you can find fansubs on Youtube)? I guess I'd ultimately conclude that it's a pretty neat toy, and if you think you're interested in it then you'll probably like it. But if you're the kind of collector that needs some fiction to go with it, or even more restrictive, G1-only, then Magmatron might not be for you.

No joke, when I saw him I was thinking "who the heck is this clown that thinks he can just walk in here and play all these Chris Latta parts?" And I was iffy on his Wheeljack, though I could tell he was trying. But he won me over with his Starscream. Arif Kinchen also did Scatman Crothers proud as Jazz. The highlight for me was Frank Welker, though. Actors voices change as they age, and we're talking about these guys reprising roles from 40 years ago. I've often thought when listening to Peter Cullen do Optimus Prime in the Bayverse films and Transformers Prime that he sounds a bit older, and bit more... I dunno, tired (though I thought he sounded just like he did 40 years ago at the table read). I'm thinking, especially with the sheer range of characters he does, that there's no way Welker would be up for all those voices. But, oh man, did he nail it. Now, the table read was fun, and I was super glad to be a part of the 40th anniversary celebration. I can't overstate the impact Transformers has had on me; Transformers, TMNT, and NES pretty much sums up the bulk of my childhood that I can recall. That said... I don't think I enjoyed it as much as the screening of the '86 movie on its anniversary. And what it really boils down to is that the '86 movie is a tightly-paced story that still holds up today, but (while some episodes are better than others) the original cartoon kind of hasn't. Don't get me wrong, the cartoon introduced this colorful cast of characters that sparked my young imagination and are still near and dear to me me, but there's too much that's just hokey watching as an adult. Like when Sparkplug and Bumblebee volunteer to plant the bomb in the mine, Bumblebee transforms and Sparkplug gets in and they drive all of five feet to the mine entrance before switching back to walking. Or how Megatron comes up with this convoluted plan to lure the Autobots into a cave, then traps himself and the Decepticons inside with him, only to easily blast his way back out when he needs to get back to the space bridge. He then re-collapses the entrance, and he's so sure that there's no way the Autobots can get out, even though he literally just blast his own way out. And what happens? The Autobots immediately blaster their way out. My friend that went with me suggested that maybe they should have only done the first three episodes, instead of the first four, since they were a three-parter while "Transport to Oblivion just seemed kind of tacked on." I think he was right. It was a bit much for one sitting. I'm thinking I might continue re-watching G1 Transformers with my DVDs at home, but probably one episode at a time, definitely not four.

I'm going today, too, but I've got the same "Rolling Out for 40 Years" shirt Evan was wearing in the last Pulse stream. EDIT: my local theater didn't get the cup & bucket.😕 I found I could order them online, though.

It's one of those details that I never paid much attention to, because the control art happens to have the main rotor directly over the horizontal stabs. Then I was like, "yeah, but that's a detail that even most of the 3Ps get wrong." But I'm curious, because I have a few 3P Springers. So I grab Open & Play's Big Spring, put him in chopper mode, and no, he's got little ones. MMC Saltus? Small and a bit triangular, but present. Toyworld Spanner? He's got the biggest of the three (similar proportionally to the G1 toy). I started googling the ones I don't have. Unique Toys Allen? Big ones, and green like the animation. Fans Toys Apache? Smaller than Allen's, but bigger than Saltus or Big Spring. XTB Virtus? Gray, but the most cartoon-accurate size and shape. So now I'm wondering how Hasbro not only got away with the missing stabs, but how they gaslighted me into thinking that nobody else else gave their Springer stabs when they everyone but Hasbro included them. Side note, somehow, while researching this topic, I wound up ordering copies of Apache and Virtus, despite owning Saltus, Big Spring, and Spanner already. Think I might hunt for Allen, too, and then do a "which Springer is the definitive one" sort of review in the 3P thread.

Actually, in the cartoon (much like the G1 toy) there's some molded detail (suggestive of the tail rotor?) but only the very bottom of the tire is actually visible. In other words, I agree that I'd have liked his legs remolded a bit to hide them, but they wouldn't even have to rotate to do so. Probably would have been better use of the plastic than the missile or the hammer. (Note the green hubcaps on the front wheels and green rotor blades... cartoon accurate on SS86 Springer). Agree, but at least on SS86 you can swivel the shoulder pads to cover them and look more cartoon accurate in the process.

Yeah, ditto for Cliffjumper. And I do like the brighter yellow on 86 Bee vs. the borderline orange on Netflix Bee. And I think it's worth remembering that Netflix Bee was a store exclusive, and there was a Bumblebee in the Target multipack, but this is technically the first mainline G1-esque Bumblebee since Titans Return. I just have three nitpicks with Bee- 1. The front end is too angular, kind of reminds me of Bumper as much as it does Bumblebee. 2. I wish the tires folded under his feet the way Netflix Bee does. 3. The dark windows. I just have this funny feeling that another version will come in a year or two, maybe as another store-exclusive, with blue windows. Guess you don't want to wait until I have one in-hand and do a review, since I don't have those Vietnamese factory connections. But I'll still hook ya up.

Missing Link Bumblebee and Cliffjumper are available on Hasbro Pulse if you didn't already order them from your importer of choice. $40 each... which is lower than the price for the original G1 toys on the secondary market, so...

Here's an Amazon link for Springer, who's also sold out on Pulse now. And here's one for Steeljaw. Sorry, I got nothing for Skywarp or Generic Decepticon Dude, but I get the feeling you guys can probably do without those.

I get the sentiment, especially with the price increase from Voyager to Leader. But I'm the guy that bought SS86 Blaster and Buzzworthy Cliffjumper that were literally the same figures with slightly more cartoon-accurate decos. And not only does 86 Springer have a more cartoon-accurate deco, they ditched the rotor that was two swords plugged into a useless middle part for one that transforms, and they articulated the shoulder pads so you can have them wrapped around the shoulders like the animation model instead of stuck on top. Mostly minor things, I guess, but that's literally my two biggest gripes with the Siege toy. Toss in a toy-accurate rifle, a handful of other accessories, and more accurate thrusters on his back/roof and I'm honestly pretty content with how it came out, even if it is still 90% Siege again. My only real complaints are that I wish they'd covered the wheels in helicopter mode better and that they did something with his arms to make the helicopter "wings" more accurate.

Dunno what's the thinking behind not putting SS86 Bee on Pulse, but here's the Amazon link. The rest of the reveals are on Pulse, but Steeljaw already sold out. I managed to preorder everything except for the generic Decepticon Soldier.

So how'd you guys like the stream today? I haven't been super interested in the comic book line so far, because I'm not a fan of the weird cel-shaded look, but I did grow up on the comics and I'm actually pretty stoked for Straxus. I had hoped for a bit more from Springer, but I think they changed just enough that I'm in for him, as well as Steeljaw and Bumblebee. I hated Gamer Edition Barricade, though, so a generic Decepticon based on that figure is a huge pass. I'll get BB Skywarp just to complete the BB Seekers. Which kind of segues into the pipeline reveals. Of course, I told you that most of that stuff was coming already so it's not that surprising, but I can't help thinking about how Legacy just keeps going downhill. I bought every mainline release during WFC. I think I even did through Legacy and Evolution, but I just can do it anymore. I've already skipped Legacy Chromia, and I'm telling you now that even with the G1-ifying that goes on in Legacy the Animated aesthetic has never worked for me. Bad enough I bought Prime, Motormaster's a no-go for me. I was disappointed with Core Megatron and lukewarm on Bouldercrash, so I'll be skipping both wave 4 Cores. Soundwave's cool for those that missed the Netflix one, but I didn't so I'm good there (unless he comes with Buzzsaw, then he's a $50 core-class purchase). A new deco isn't going to sell me on another Metalhawk. I'm ambivalent on Armada Galvatron, but I do think I'll end up with him. I wish Slipstream would have been a bit more heavily retooled, but I'm in for her. Am I supposed to be excited for Quake just because he's G1? I think I'm reaching a point where I want the "main" casts completed from other shows before I want late G1 figures that weren't in the cartoon, like say Red Alert, Demolisher, or Cyclonus to round out the initial Armada cast, or X-Brawn or Prowl to go with Sideburn. I'm surprisingly curious about this new Deluxe-class Optimus. Since I first heard about it I was wondering why I'd want a Deluxe-class G1 Optimus when I know SS86 is coming, but the fact that it's based on the G1 toy instead of Sunbow is an interesting spin.

Springer? Although I'm hearing it's a heavy retool of the Siege toy.

Don't forget, fan stream tomorrow. Here's a sneak peak.

You're right, in the sense that there'd have been a lot less controversy, outrage, review bombing, etc. But let's look at it another way- Sony would rather not sell games in those countries than give up on forcing people to use a PSN account on PCs. Why? Because the data they can collect through PSN is worth more to them than those lost game sales? It's still not a good look.

Still planning on getting them if they have them at my theater. That cup especially.

I wound up getting three months of Apple TV+. As a Godzilla fan I had to binge watch Monarch: Legacy of Monsters first, but after that I started watching For All Mankind. I'm only a handful of episodes into it, but so far I think it's quite good.

It's funny, but as I was writing my review for Sword Dancer I kept imagining an MMC version of Slamdance and Squawkbox. I think they'd be pretty epic, but their output has been pretty slow. I think they only put out maybe three new molds in all of 2023. Sadly, we're a long way from an MMC Slamdance... I know that they're still working on Ramhorn and Ratbat, but they seem pretty focused on their combiners right now. And why not? They seem to be pretty big hits for MMC, with Bruticus going through something like three runs. And they're quite good! But I digress. I really liked Steeljaw, but he's not the most recent. Just last fall MMC released their take on Rewind and Eject.

So about that... Here, in the middle, we have Sword Dancer, Dr. Wu's take on Slamdance. My first thought would be that the G1 toy used a darker gray- here it's light enough to mistaken for white, the way Streetwise often is. His face is also a bright metallic pink, where the G1 toy was simple the same shade of red plastic used elsewhere. To be clear, I think Dr. Wu did release Sword Dancer with a darker gray and an unpainted face, but I dragged my feet so long that I was happy enough to find any color available, and frankly, this is close enough. Although, even if I had got the more accurate one, there's still a big difference in that Sword Dancer has gray hips and blue thighs, and the G1 toy was the other way around. On the other hand, his torso is filled out a lot better and he seems less skinny than the G1 toy. And he scales nicely with Dr. Wu's own version of Squawkbox, just a bit taller than Rewind. The back view is a bit less put-together than the front, but to be fair, it's not worse than the G1 toy. And to be totally fair, I should mention that the one flap dangling on the back of his head actually can be folded up, I just forgot to and didn't feel like reshooting these pictures. Sorry! I'm going to say that Sword Dancer comes with these three gun accessories. You could argue that he actually comes with five; the missiles on the sides of his head are just pegged in and can come off. In theory, though, they don't have be removed for transformation while the above three do. Sword Dancer's head is on a ball joint, but due to the shape of it you're not really going to get tilt, just swivel, and even then there can be clearance issues. His shoulders have hinges that give him over 90 degrees of lateral movement. Those hinges are on ball joints, with the socket in his chest. The ball joints give him shoulder swivels and forward butterfly joints. His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No waist swivel. Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. And while he does have some swivel around the ball joints, he's got dedicated thigh swivels just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. His feet are on ball joints, with the socket in the leg instead of the foot. This gives him tremendous upward foot tilt, but nothing really down. It also provides an ankle pivot, but a fairly limited one. Still, I'm not inclined to complain too much when it's all far more articulation than Hasbro gave to any of their cassettes, even the Studio Series Core-class ones. Sword Dancer's hands don't have any way to hold accessories, but the finned guns plug into his forearms. Meanwhile, the other gun has a tab on it that fits into a slot on either shoulder, then the barrel folds over the top of his shoulder. This is fairly similar to how the G1 toy worked. Speaking of how the G1 toy worked, Slamdance was the combined form of two other cassettes, Raindance (a jet) and Grand Slam (a tank). And so, too, is Sword Dancer made up from Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank. Here we're getting a bit more departure from the G1 toy. Traveler Plane is probably the easier to get from legs to jet; bend the legs backward at the knee, then correctly the actual knee. Slide his toes in, turn the feet 180 degrees, and fold them up onto the shins. Turn his legs at the thigh swivels so that the feet are touching, then take the gray chest and swivel it 180 degrees so you can tab it onto his legs. Then you just fold out the wings and stabilizers. The two guns that were on Sword Dancer's arms plug into each other first, then they plug into the top of the jet. Patriot Tank isn't much more difficult. Fold the bulk of his head over his face, then unfold a few flaps from it. You have to twist a few joints in his arms to get the treads all lined up, then you use the ball joints to swing the arms in front of his chest, using one of the flaps from his head to tab everything together. The shoulder cannon slides onto a tab to form the turret and barrel. As I mentioned before, in theory the missiles on the sides of his head don't need to be removed for transformation. In practice, though, they'll pop off the minute you start manipulating him, so it might be better to set them aside and put them back on when you're finished. Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank have a bit more liberties taken than Sword Dancer. Traveler Plane's gray hips mean the intakes are gray instead of blue, and he's got actual vertical stabilizers instead of raised edges on the chest piece. The wings have a white stripe, and there's no cassette holes. The lack of holes means that they're not available for the guns to plug into, so he can't carry one under each wing the way G1 Raindance can. As for Patriot Tank, he's got visible, painted treads along the sides. And where G1 Grand Slam had a raised section with his weapons piled on top of it haphazardly, Patriot Tank's raised section has the turret attached to the front and the missiles on the sides. As @M'kyuun noted, their individual modes are better executed than the Dr. Wu Squawktalk and Beastbox, but I'd go one step further and suggest that they're a bit more coherent than the G1 toys as well. Traveler Plane reminds me a bit of a Gundam Core Fighter, and Patriot Tank looks more like a tank than a pile of boxes with a bunch of guns on top. Going from jet to tape is super easy for Traveler plane. Put his feet back into their robot mode position, but leave the toes pushed in. Instead, flip out some tabs on his heels. Straighten his actual knees, fold in his wings, then make him do a split at the hips. Swing the chest panel back around and it'll latch onto those heel tabs, then just fold the vertical stabs over the chest. Patriot Tank isn't actually more difficult, you just have to take a bit more care to make sure you've lined everything up right. Swing the arms back out to his sides and lift the turret back up halfway, so it's sitting above his face instead of behind it. Rotate both arms 180 degrees at the ball joint. Now, fold his entire head back, and his arms forward at the ball joint. That'll give you the clearance you need to bend the arms 90 degrees at the shoulder hinges, then 90 degrees back at the ball joints. If you did it right, the arms should tab into the guns on the sides of his head, most of the treads lined up on the side with his exposed face. I don't know if there's much a point for me to mention that Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank's "tape" modes don't much resemble G1 Raindance and Grand Slam's. To be fair, I don't think Hasbro's own Siege/Legacy/Studio Series tapes are going to pass for microcassettes, either. The important thing is that, yes, either of them can fit into Kingdom/Studio Series Blaster or Twincast, though only one at a time, of course. Dr Wu is definitely doing us a service here, releasing Siege/Legacy/Studio Series-compatible cassettes for Blaster and Soundwave that Hasbro seem unlikely to ever get to, especially since Slamdance and Squawbox weren't in the cartoon. And Sword Dance is a pretty good value, too- he's made of two tapes, and cost only a little more than two of Hasbro's Studio Series tapes, and better articulation too boot. And, as mentioned, Sword Dancer is a definite improvement over their Squawkbox. If you want a complete set of tapes, I can definitely recommend Sword Dancer as a stand-in for Slamdance. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they feel a bit delicate compared to the official tapes, with a few annoying tolerance issues that I'd find unacceptable in larger, more expensive figures. All-in-all, good enough that I'll definitely pick up Dr Wu's Slugfest and Overkill when they come out, but flawed enough that I'm more excited for the Doctor's other upcoming Micromaster-sized Transformers like Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Bumblebee, and Megatron.