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There's a rumor among younger Autobots that Sergeant Kup is laserproof. He has a habit of calmly walking through even the thickest crossfire to deliver advice and encouragement to raw recruits cowering under cover. The 'bots that serve under him think he might have a screw loose somewhere, but they'd still gladly follow him anywhere.

Well, this is a strange toy. Though it was designed to be a Primey version of Movie Ironhide right down to the alt-mode and the cannons, it was never released in those colours. Takara put the mold out as Ironhide, but in G1 red, which sort of misses the point of the design. Hasbro didn't release it as Ironhide at all, instead making the head-scratcher of a decision to colour it teal and release it as Prime Kup. They're both old-guy pickup trucks, so I suppose that works to some extent. But the mold is so distinctly "Ironhide"-looking that it comes off as a really weird choice.

To be honest, I'm not sold on the toy as Kup and only bought it on sale as kitbash fodder. However, after unpackaging it I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

Alternate Mode: Kup's alternate mode is, as you would expect, a teal pickup truck. He has some silver detailing on his front end and roof lights, splashes of bright green on his hood and doors and black details on his tailgate and rear bumper. I'm not a huge fan of these colours, honestly, but the mold is very detailed and looks pretty cool in spite of them.

The vehicle mode is surprisingly small, especially for a pickup truck. He's dwarfed by every Deluxe car I can think of, even tiny Classics Bumblebee, and even looks too small next to some Scouts -- he's meant to be a big, heavy-duty crew-cab work truck judging by the scale of his molded details, but compared to Hubcap or Windcharger he looks like a compact pickup like an S-10. So while it's a nice-looking truck on it's own, Kup looks pretty strange driving alongside pretty much any other Autobot I own.

Kup's truck bed is the one place where the illusion of him being a vehicle falls apart. It has no floor, and it's full of robot legs. A larger toy (a bigger Deluxe or even a Voyager) could probably have pulled off a more convincing bed, but truth be told Transformer pickups almost never get this part of the vehicle right. Most of them settle for disguising the problem by putting a cap or something over the bed, and Kup is no different. His twin cannons can plug into the truck bed and hide the robot bits from most angles, though if you look at him from overhead it's still pretty clear that he's got a huge, unsightly hole. The cannons themselves aren't particularly useful unless Kup wants to blow up his own passenger compartment, since they can't be aimed without un-transforming the rear of the truck somewhat and exposing some robot bits (though to be fair, if he's cannon-blasting stuff he's probably done worrying about disguise).

Overall Kup is a pretty good little truck, but the small size and colour scheme keep me from liking it as much as I could have.

Robot Mode: Kup's robot mode introduces a bit more variety colour-wise than the truck had. There's still quite a bit of teal, but his upper arms and legs along with much of his torso are a dark bluish grey. On the other hand, the bright green, silver and black details are much less evident than they were in vehicle mode. The end result is a robot who looks very different from his alt-mode, which is always a good thing in my books when it can be pulled off.

Like in robot mode, Kup is very undersized for a Deluxe. Classics Bumblebee is once again his closest comparable, which is a bit disturbing because when Bumblebee came out seven (!) years earlier he had a gigantic water ski thing as an accessory to use up all the extra plastic. While I do understand the reasoning behind shrinking toys, it still doesn't make Kup look any less strange, even alongside fellow Prime figures like Bulkhead or Wheeljack.

Size aside he's a neat figure, though. He's got great proportions and all the usual range of motion you'd expect on a Transformer of his size. He's also got great balance, which means he's very poseable. The only real exception to that is his head, which is a bit hard to reach and pose if you've got big fingers like me, because of the funny collar of truck hood parts that he wears.

The head problem can be remedied, though, if you use an alternate transformation that seems to be fairly common in the fandom. Instead of folding the hood down over his head, leave the entire upper vehicle shell hanging off of Kup's back. The resulting robot mode seems a bit less bulky, but the trade-off is that he's got much easier-to-use head articulation. It also gives him a very unique look, which would help differentiate Kup here from Takara's Ironhide if you own both. It also mitigates the issue that I have with the remaining section of Kup's hood, which just hangs awkwardly off of his back and tends to fall off with the least little provocation. The joint is poorly-designed, something which also manifests itself in the form of paint rubbing that is eating away at the bright green on Kup's hood.

Unfortunately that doesn't do anything about the head's other problem -- it looks exactly like Ironhide and nothing like Kup. A new head really wouldn't have been too much to ask for here, but I suppose Hasbro didn't want to spend the money when they weren't planning on using the first one.

The toy comes with two guns that are based on Movie Ironhide's two gigantic cannons. They can be forearm-mounted, but that only serves to emphasize the toy's Ironhideyness so I usually have Kup wield them as handheld blasters. They can also be combined into a single gigantic gun that looks more like a bazooka than a rifle (though unfortunately, Kup can't hold it like a bazooka. In this day and age it's nice for a toy to have two substantial accessories like that, but it doesn't make up for his tiny size in my books.

Overall though, Kup is a pretty nice toy.

Transformation Design: I was surprised by how simple the toy's transformation is. Kup here would be something a kid would enjoy playing with, rather than the over-complicated mess that a lot of modern Transformers have become. But in spite of the simple conversion, both modes work and it's a lot of fun to switch him from one mode to the next. 9/10

Durability: I worry about the troublesome hood joint that I mentioned above. But other than that Kup is very solid. 8/10

Fun: Kup brings a lot to the table here. He's lots of fun to play around with. But he doesn't fit well with many other Transformers, and that hurts his score. 7/10

Aesthetics: He's a runt Ironhide with ugly colours, unfortunately. Not even the potential to vary his robot-mode look is enough to swing the scales back in the positive direction. 4/10

Articulation: Lots of joints, good range of motion and good poseability. Kup's no slouch in this department. 8/10

Price: I bought him on sale, and my understanding is that it's not uncommon to find him at clearance outlets these days. For those prices, he's a bargain. 10/10

Overall: I'll be honest, I'm surprised by how much I like this toy. In spite of not looking like Kup, and in spite of being a tiny, tiny Deluxe, he's a lot of fun. I don't know that I'd hunt for him on the secondary market, but if he's available at retail for cheap in your area I'd strongly recommend him. 7.5/10

Grand review!

I realise I have still not got round to writibg mine after claiming ages ago (work and personal life stuff has got in the way of me doing things like TF reviews for the last while unfortunately, but I hope to be able to do a few in a month or two). But your review is great, and covers anything I would anyway.

One tip - I pop the hood flap off and reattach backwards in robot mode which allows it to fold neatly over the truck cab. This allows excellent access to the head and gets rid of that unsightly flap sticking out. If they had put a swivel joint there the figure would have been greatly improved, but it does come off and reattach easily at least.

His size is the biggest issue. He is tiny! I love the detail though, and I like the colour scheme, but it is daft. He'd be better off with an original name, or being called Iron Hide (as he clearly is!) and painting red or black. It is a perfect amalgamated homage to G1 and Movie Iron Hide and really it makes no sense to colour him greenish and call him Kup! (Especially as we already have a green 4x4 in Prime - namely the key character Bulkhead!) Anyhoo, I do really like the mould, despite the size and bizarre colour scheme.

Hasbro did release this toy as ironhide-albeit at cyberverse scale. The cyberverse toy is pretty much identical to the deluxe version of the mold too,except being black and red actually looks like ironhide. The aesthetics of the toy are (in both scales) wrong for the prime line,imo.

Nice review.

Always thought that the Ironhide design (and the early non-show Ultra Magnus one that was turned into a toy) was too... 'Animated with greebles stamped in' rather than a blend of the G1, Movie and Animated aesthetics like the rest of the Prime designs. But that's just me, I suppose.

I actually think Kup works find for RID Prime, and if anything is the best combo of movie and Animated in my opinion. I wouldn't liken him in style to the non-show Ultra Magnus design at all - Ultra Magnus definitely leans more towards the Animated aesthetic, whereas Kup is more angular and detailed like movie figures. (That said, I actually love Ultra Magnus - it's more the mix of Animated and G1 features that wins for me on him!)

For the toyline, yeah, I agree with Numbat... but I can't really imagine the Kupronhide design walking in the show itself without some adjustments made to it. But that's just me.

I guess my views are entirely based on the toyline, having never seen the Prime TV show.

When I see this many replies to my review in one night, it makes we worry I said something really stupid.

numbat wrote:I realise I have still not got round to writibg mine after claiming ages ago (work and personal life stuff has got in the way of me doing things like TF reviews for the last while unfortunately, but I hope to be able to do a few in a month or two). But your review is great, and covers anything I would anyway.

I didn't even realize you'd claimed him. By all means, you should write one of your own as well if you still feel like it when you have time.

numbat wrote:One tip - I pop the hood flap off and reattach backwards in robot mode which allows it to fold neatly over the truck cab. This allows excellent access to the head and gets rid of that unsightly flap sticking out. If they had put a swivel joint there the figure would have been greatly improved, but it does come off and reattach easily at least.

I could see that working really well, actually. My only concern would be that the joint really isn't designed to be popped off and on again all the time, but it does that by accident anyway so it's not too big of a deal.

Skyquake87 wrote:Hasbro did release this toy as ironhide-albeit at cyberverse scale. The cyberverse toy is pretty much identical to the deluxe version of the mold too,except being black and red actually looks like ironhide. The aesthetics of the toy are (in both scales) wrong for the prime line,imo.

I really don't get why Hasbro made this design in two size classes, especially when they didn't use the larger mold as the character it was intended to be. It just seems like a waste of money to me. I know Ironhide was meant to be a part of the TF:P cast early on in the development of the show, but I really doubt that got far enough for toy development to start.

Just seems like a really bad choice when show characters like Breakdown and Hardshell didn't even get full-sized toys.

Blackjack wrote:Always thought that the Ironhide design (and the early non-show Ultra Magnus one that was turned into a toy) was too... 'Animated with greebles stamped in' rather than a blend of the G1, Movie and Animated aesthetics like the rest of the Prime designs. But that's just me, I suppose.

Eh. I don't see any Animated in it at all, to be honest. It's not nearly stylized enough. Maybe the head a little bit, with the big chin? But honestly it feels more like a Generations design to me than Animated or Prime.

Warcry wrote:Eh. I don't see any Animated in it at all, to be honest. It's not nearly stylized enough. Maybe the head a little bit, with the big chin? But honestly it feels more like a Generations design to me than Animated or Prime.

Durrr, must be half asleep. Meant that Kup looked like he's a 'G1 with greebles stamped in'. Head does have a bit of an Animated feel to it, though.

Magnus is the 'Animated with greebles stamped in', although I don't think I'm being fair by slapping aesthetic labels arbitrarily like this. (Plus I don't own either and am probably being too harsh just because) Both just don't have the 'feel' of the Prime show model aesthetic... thing... oh well.