Clay wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 10:56 pm
Spent some time playing with some older figures. 2010-ish Terradive, Hailstorm, Tomahawk, and Scourge. I had forgotten how fun Tomahawk and Hailstorm are, but I well remembered just how great Scourge and Terradive are.
I rotate up my shelves a ton but Terradive is on a short list of figures that never, ever gets put into storage. Just top notch in every way. Sadly, mine no longer has his trident. It wound up breaking in three or four places over the years and I'm not sure why. Tomahawk and Scourge are good stuff too!
Earlier this week, my Legends Repgunus and Grotusque set came in the mail. And with the reveal of the new Siege Springer, I was inspired to take another look at T30 Springer and his mold-mate Sandstorm. So that got me thinking about my favourite retools, and, well...out came the camera!
The mechs in question! Only Doublecross qualifies as "old" to me, and even then, I only got him three years ago. But at the breakneck pace that we're going through Generations themes these days, that was three whole lines ago and even the new duo feel like a major throwback to better days. The shared parts are pretty evident between Doublecross and Grotusque, and less so with Repugnus. But all three of them cut a unique silhouette in both modes, and they're all good fun.
This mold is just a triumph. So much fun to handle, and both versions of it are amazingly unique. While I like Springer a lot, I
love Sandstorm -- he'd definitely make the top ten if I listed off my favourite Generations molds, and maybe even the top five. I do kind of wish he was Skyhammer instead, though, and I'm afraid that repainting a Triplechanger and having something that was still transformable afterwards is probably beyond my skill.
But you know...I don't disagree with the people who say they're going to replace this with Siege Springer. Because I've said ever since the toy came out that it really doesn't look like Springer at all. Springer's meant to be an angular pile of boxes arranged into a humanoid figure with traditionally heroic proportions, and however many great things I have to say about this mold, it definitely isn't that. If the Siege one gets good reviews I could see it displacing this Springer from my shelves, but I don't think this Sandstorm is going anywhere in the near future. With Siege's design influence being way more rooted in the old character models than the old toys, I don't think any new Sandstorm they might make is going to appeal to me.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! Not the first example of retoolling, not by a long shot, but one of the first to put some serious thought in at the design stage about how they were going to make two distinct characters out of a single figure. It's a less-complex effort than some more modern figures, with only the heads really differing between them, but that's because they designed one body with two distinct, fully-functional robot modes. It gets a lot of flak these days for not being as GEEWUN as MP Sunstreaker or Siege Sideswipe, but I still really appreciate what they were going for and the engineering work that went into it.
Overlord and Black Shadow are an example that really shouldn't have worked, but Hasbro pulled it off really well. It's still really weird to think about, since Black Shadow is traditionally thought of as a retool of a completely different big, bad Decepticon with a completely different gimmick. It's a bit disappointing though that their modern gimmick, which allows for trivial body part swapping, was sort of wasted because their colour schemes clash so strongly with one another.
The TR Targetmaster jets! I have a hard time even talking about these guys without veering into hyperbole, so I'm just going to steer right into it! G1 Misfire was the first Transformer I ever picked out for myself -- I clearly remember my mom trying to talk me out of buying him, both because he was pink and because he was a bad guy. Obviously it didn't work! I never owned a Triggerhappy as a kid but he was one of the toys I drooled over in the toy catalogues the most. The fact that these two not only got new toys, but that they got new toys that are so good that they rank as my two favourite figures from my favourite modern TF line...it boggles the mind. From my perspective, they're easily the best thing to happen since I started collecting Transformers as an adult, and I'm not even sure what Hasbro could do to top that feeling.
Oh, and Slugslinger exists too I suppose.
The engineering for this trio is basically brilliant in every way, building three clear, distinct robot modes up from the same skeleton and not compromising them in any way. They also each have their own unique wrinkles to their transformation, which I adore. The only real critique I could come up with is that they all have Misfire's shins, but that's basically accurate for Slugslinger anyway, and Triggerhappy's jet mode is much-improved with the added tail fins.
I'm wracking my brain for any older figures in my collection that have this degree of retooling, but I'm drawing a blank. The Japanese BW lines had several amazing examples (Sharp Edge from Cybershark being the first that comes to mind) but I've never managed to track any of them down. Can anyone else think of any top-tier retooling jobs that compare well with these?