Power Of The Primes Abominus
Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:46 am
Name : Abominus
Allegiance: Decepticon
Sub Group: Terrorcons
Function: Warrior
Bio: Abominus transforms into the five Terrorcons. Has overwhelming destructive power. Likes attacking large moving objects, climbing tall buildings and sinking ships. Has no heart or soul and is nothing more than a killing machine. Abominus carries a sonic concussion blaster.
Wow. That reads more like a dating profile than a biography. Nice job, Japan. It's been fun revisiting the old toy bios. Despite how much I like the Terrorcons, their Tech Specs have never stuck with me, so they're still largely blank slates to me. Except for Blot, whom I always remember is the smelly one. As any collector bore will tell you, that bio for Abominus is lifted from the Japanese giftset from 1987, as the Terrorcons weren't blessed with such a thing, which is why it lacks the welly of the US tech specs. No Bob Budiansky. Here we are then. The combined might of the Terrorcons.
Robot Mode: Abominus looks fantastic, like all the Ice Creams stuck together. I love these colours. They're bright, instantly appealing and a tiny bit marvellous. The gestalt itself looks pretty good. From the front at least. The shaping of the torso is really nice, breaking it away from the obvious boxiness the Silverbolt mould has. The headsculpt is good, but I do prefer the original over this more rounded effort. The set connects together neatly, thanks to the well-designed Combiner Wars play pattern (itself just an update of the Scramble City mix 'n' match cross compatibility funtimes). The limbs are satisfyingly bulky and overall, Abominus looks pretty awesome. And then you try and play with him. As a set of retools, the Terrorcons are unfortunately, hilariously wibbly. The arms cannot stay bent at the elbows with any weight placed on them – so it's a good job the figure comes with no weapons – and he does not feel very sturdy standing up, having that awkward Combiner Wars 'sway' that plagued the likes of Menasor, Bruticus, Computron and Defensor. Sadly, the limbs place too much weight at the front of the combined mode, so Abominus always wants to fall forward.
Looking at the shoulders and back of Abominus, you see why this is – although the Silverbolt mould is by far and away the best torso for these modern day gestalts, here it's fairly insubstantial as there's none of the jet mode kibble to add a bit of bracing to the torso, so it's all a bit sketchy and incomplete. I'm surprised that Hasbro didn't make each of the torso 'bots way more solid to carry the weight of the combined form better. It's been my biggest bug-bear for all of these Combiner War style gestalts. Well done on updating them from the 1980s, but shame you didn't allow a bit more of the budget for making these more structurally sound. Hearing the domino clatter of these things toppling over and collapsing in a heap is why I've shifted almost all of them on – it's just no fun.
Speaking of no fun, Abominus also suffers from the Combiner Wars problem of having no proper hands and feet. The hands admittedly aren't so bad, but just what are these tiny feeties about? They're so small and look ridiculous. I do like that Hasbro went to the effort of putting ankle tilts into these, but they're so bloody tight as to be unusable without having to manipulate them yourself if you're trying to pose this guy. Itself a problem, as his balance issues just mean he collapses all over the place. To get him looking a bit more something like, I threw good money after bad and got one of those third party add on kits. It helps, and gives him some guns (which are a bit bloody silly – look at the size of them. More like crutches than cannons), but I'd have preferred Hasbro just gave us the sort of meaty clompers and pounders that the Computron box set had. I don't need everything to tuck away or be useful to the smaller robots.
Marks Out Of Ten For The Following :
Transformation Design: If you own any of the regular Combiner Wars gestalts, you'll know exactly what you're getting. There's no surprises or invention here. 6/10
Durability: The plastics are weak and the joints are awful. Simultaneously loose and tight in all the wrong places conspiring to give you a figure that's nice to look at, but one you dare not touch in case it falls over. Keep on a shelf by itself with no other figures around. 3/10
Articulation: As with the all the Combiner Wars gestalts, he's got loads of articulation- hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, ankles – but can't put any of it to good use because his centre of gravity is four feet away from his body, so the slightest tilt means he's going to take a tumble. It's no good having this stuff if you can't use it. 1/10
Fun: The fun is in the combining and little else. You can't play with him, he flops about, the limbs are too heavy for the torso and he feels like he's missing a spine. 3/10
Price/Value: Having only the retail price to pay for assembling Abominus does take the sting out of this disappointment. 5/10
Overall: My overall feelings for Abominus are the same as they are for all the other Combiner Wars gestalts - a nice idea on paper, but let down by scrimping on materials and - for those arriving later- third generation mould retooling/ reusing which results in a floppy mess. I'm particularly disappointed that the Terrorcons have turned out so poorly, as they're favourites of mine. They look good as individual robots and that's where the excitement ends. Everything else about them has been a huge disappointment. I hope that if Hasbro turns out gestalts again, they think about maybe making them less like Those god-awful Titan Changers and more like the RiD 2001 Combiners. Something solid, durable and capable of supporting it's own weight next time, please. 3/10
Allegiance: Decepticon
Sub Group: Terrorcons
Function: Warrior
Bio: Abominus transforms into the five Terrorcons. Has overwhelming destructive power. Likes attacking large moving objects, climbing tall buildings and sinking ships. Has no heart or soul and is nothing more than a killing machine. Abominus carries a sonic concussion blaster.
Wow. That reads more like a dating profile than a biography. Nice job, Japan. It's been fun revisiting the old toy bios. Despite how much I like the Terrorcons, their Tech Specs have never stuck with me, so they're still largely blank slates to me. Except for Blot, whom I always remember is the smelly one. As any collector bore will tell you, that bio for Abominus is lifted from the Japanese giftset from 1987, as the Terrorcons weren't blessed with such a thing, which is why it lacks the welly of the US tech specs. No Bob Budiansky. Here we are then. The combined might of the Terrorcons.
Robot Mode: Abominus looks fantastic, like all the Ice Creams stuck together. I love these colours. They're bright, instantly appealing and a tiny bit marvellous. The gestalt itself looks pretty good. From the front at least. The shaping of the torso is really nice, breaking it away from the obvious boxiness the Silverbolt mould has. The headsculpt is good, but I do prefer the original over this more rounded effort. The set connects together neatly, thanks to the well-designed Combiner Wars play pattern (itself just an update of the Scramble City mix 'n' match cross compatibility funtimes). The limbs are satisfyingly bulky and overall, Abominus looks pretty awesome. And then you try and play with him. As a set of retools, the Terrorcons are unfortunately, hilariously wibbly. The arms cannot stay bent at the elbows with any weight placed on them – so it's a good job the figure comes with no weapons – and he does not feel very sturdy standing up, having that awkward Combiner Wars 'sway' that plagued the likes of Menasor, Bruticus, Computron and Defensor. Sadly, the limbs place too much weight at the front of the combined mode, so Abominus always wants to fall forward.
Looking at the shoulders and back of Abominus, you see why this is – although the Silverbolt mould is by far and away the best torso for these modern day gestalts, here it's fairly insubstantial as there's none of the jet mode kibble to add a bit of bracing to the torso, so it's all a bit sketchy and incomplete. I'm surprised that Hasbro didn't make each of the torso 'bots way more solid to carry the weight of the combined form better. It's been my biggest bug-bear for all of these Combiner War style gestalts. Well done on updating them from the 1980s, but shame you didn't allow a bit more of the budget for making these more structurally sound. Hearing the domino clatter of these things toppling over and collapsing in a heap is why I've shifted almost all of them on – it's just no fun.
Speaking of no fun, Abominus also suffers from the Combiner Wars problem of having no proper hands and feet. The hands admittedly aren't so bad, but just what are these tiny feeties about? They're so small and look ridiculous. I do like that Hasbro went to the effort of putting ankle tilts into these, but they're so bloody tight as to be unusable without having to manipulate them yourself if you're trying to pose this guy. Itself a problem, as his balance issues just mean he collapses all over the place. To get him looking a bit more something like, I threw good money after bad and got one of those third party add on kits. It helps, and gives him some guns (which are a bit bloody silly – look at the size of them. More like crutches than cannons), but I'd have preferred Hasbro just gave us the sort of meaty clompers and pounders that the Computron box set had. I don't need everything to tuck away or be useful to the smaller robots.
Marks Out Of Ten For The Following :
Transformation Design: If you own any of the regular Combiner Wars gestalts, you'll know exactly what you're getting. There's no surprises or invention here. 6/10
Durability: The plastics are weak and the joints are awful. Simultaneously loose and tight in all the wrong places conspiring to give you a figure that's nice to look at, but one you dare not touch in case it falls over. Keep on a shelf by itself with no other figures around. 3/10
Articulation: As with the all the Combiner Wars gestalts, he's got loads of articulation- hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, ankles – but can't put any of it to good use because his centre of gravity is four feet away from his body, so the slightest tilt means he's going to take a tumble. It's no good having this stuff if you can't use it. 1/10
Fun: The fun is in the combining and little else. You can't play with him, he flops about, the limbs are too heavy for the torso and he feels like he's missing a spine. 3/10
Price/Value: Having only the retail price to pay for assembling Abominus does take the sting out of this disappointment. 5/10
Overall: My overall feelings for Abominus are the same as they are for all the other Combiner Wars gestalts - a nice idea on paper, but let down by scrimping on materials and - for those arriving later- third generation mould retooling/ reusing which results in a floppy mess. I'm particularly disappointed that the Terrorcons have turned out so poorly, as they're favourites of mine. They look good as individual robots and that's where the excitement ends. Everything else about them has been a huge disappointment. I hope that if Hasbro turns out gestalts again, they think about maybe making them less like Those god-awful Titan Changers and more like the RiD 2001 Combiners. Something solid, durable and capable of supporting it's own weight next time, please. 3/10