Yay, I have my Frenzy (red guy) again!  I left him in Memphis, and so Alan had to mail him to me.  Also, now I have Laserbeak (and Soundwave).  I had a $5 Rewards coupon at Toys"R"Us and figgered oh what the hell.  Besides, as of the most recent issue of Robots in Disguise, this data disk form is now repurposed as G1 Laserbeak's current body.  Guess he's gonna replace the GDO Skystalker redeco in my display.  It was fun having you around for a few months!

So here's how this thing is supposed to work.  These guys are these little cylinders, right?  And there is a button on the bottom of them that triggers an auto-transform when it's depressed.  And so you cram up to three of these dudes inside Soundwave or Soundblaster's torso, and use a chunk of kibble on his back to push these disks out through the front of his chest like he's taking a front-poop.  One by one, these disks hit the ground and land on their buttons and spring-transform and you're done.

EXCEPT IT KIND OF DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.  Mostly these guys get stuck and then you push and push and push and use excessive force and then when finally one of them gives they all explode out of his chest at the same time, usually hitting you in the face no matter where your face is and then you have a scattering of half-transformed things everywhere.  It would be perfect fun if it worked as advertised, but it really, really doesn't.  Some folks have said sanding down the insides of their Soundwaves helps smooth things over.  I may try that?  But, man, it's hard to accept that these things reached stores with their main gimmickry being dead in the water.

Not helping at all are the instructions, which demonstrate you putting the disks into Soundwave with the activation button facing outwards.  oh jesus guys don't do this ever   I nearly lost a Ratbat by trying this.  They will not come out.  I had to get a screwdriver or something to jam into one of Ratbat's crevices to get some leverage to yank him out.  It is a testament to the plastic they make these guys outta, though.  These guys are fortunately made of sturdy stuff.

The flying guys are my favorite.  Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ratbat all transform fully by having their buttons depressed, and they do this little flip, and it's easy to put them back in disk mode.  Laserbeak and Buzzsaw are obviously redecoes of each other, and Ratbat's a retool.  He's the same engineering, but reskinned to be a bat instead of a bird.

Frenzy and Rumble are middle-of-the-road to me.  They require a few extra steps to get from "hey i've auto transformed" mode into their completed transformation.  You gotta swing down the arms so they're not doing the wave and fold out their feet.  It takes a little extra time to get them back into disk mode, too.  You have to rotate their pelvis around and maneuver their pelvis and legs down and around at the same time.  A little annoying, but not a dealbreaker.

Ravage is infuriating.  He pops out half-transformed, and then you have to open his back and flip out his tail and then set the back down loosely on top of his body and then open up his hind legs and maybe fiddle around with those a little.  And the result is this awful-looking thing.  He's got a longer torso than Mike Turner's Supergirl and an ugly little rat face, with tiny little limbs at both ends.  He is not an attractive thing.  To get him back into disk mode, first you have to let go of the concept of being happy again for the rest of your life.  Then you spend the next several minutes trying to negotiate him back.  Certain parts won't move into place unless certain other parts are in the middle of whatever they're doing.  There's no one-two-three step to him.  It's all at once and also never at once.  If I could explain it, I could do it, and I can't do it.  I mean, I can.  After way too long.  And cursing and threatening to destroy all humanity and probably pushing some things in ways they are not meant to be pushed.  It's not often I am tempted to take a sledgehammer to something I just paid money for.

To add insult to injury is the realization that this toy is this way because of a gimmick that doesn't work properly.

Let that sink in.

Grargh.

In the same box from BigBadToyStore as Artfire was Prime Starquake and Dark Energon Wheeljack.  I keep internally calling it my Super Expensive Box of Entirely Redecoes, but I think that title's taken by BotCon each year.   Skyquake I had on preorder 'cuz, well, he's a tailender, so no guarantee he'll hit stores in great numbers.  Beast Hunters stuff is already coming out, so his time on the shelf is limited.  And I had Dark Energon Wheeljack on preorder 'cuz he's friggin' Slicer.  In fact, he had Decepticon faction symbol Reprolabels stickers on him in about thirty seconds, once I looked up on Transformers Wiki to see whether he had photos taken of him yet.

Because Skyquake has been dead in fiction for years (seriously, he showed up to die in the first episode of Transformers Prime's proper first season), I started to come up with a backstory for him.  He doesn't really have a present- or a future-story, so that's all he gets.  And, hey, look, he came in a box from BBTS with another guy based on a Europe-only release from the early Nineties.  That's right, he and Slicer are now super badass partners-in-evil.  In the past.  Before Skyquake got locked in a closet in a mountain on Earth.  Where Slicer is these days, I dunno.

The last of the Justice League Unlimited three-packs went up last month, and with that I think the JLU toyline is actually over this time, no take-backsies!  And it's not a bad set to go out on, either, as it's got Toyman, Firefly, and Dr. Destiny.  Dr. Destiny is a guy I've wanted forever because his episode rules.  Also, he's the only supervillain who's ever been defeated by Batman singing "Frère Jacques," which is apparently played on Gotham radio stations.  Also also, he's basically Skeletor.

Firefly's not a bad guy to have, either.  He, um, sets things on fire sometimes.  He coasts by on being a Batman villain.

But everyone's draw to this set seems to be Toyman, for obvious reasons.  The DCAU Toyman design is one of those great makeovers that I really think should have caught on in the comics long-term.  (I guess at some point there was Toyboy, who looks to play on those same visuals.)  There's something inherently creepy in DCAU Toyman that some old dude in glasses and a giant bowtie doesn't manage.  It was one of many things that Superman: The Animated Series got amazingly right.

He also finishes up my Superman Revenge Squad, who showed up in the opening act of "Hereafter," aka The One Where Superman Dies But Really He Goes To The Future And Meets Vandal Savage, aka one of the best hours of television of all time, thank you Dwayne McDuffie.  I rewatched "Hereafter" this evening before writing this, and Toyman's inclusion caused something to pop out at me.  I have all of the superhero/supervillains in this episode now except one:  Volcana.  Her three-pack never really reached many stores, and so she's always been super rare, and then Mattel promised she'd hit stores again in a single pack but then she never did and now she costs $300 on eBay.  Man, I remember when she cost $30 on eBay.  Geez, I was stupid.

And now I don't have anybody to make my Firefly feel subtextually sexually inadequate.

Ah well.  Toyman.  He's good!  He's an entirely new sculpt, obviously, which is why it took so long to get to him.  I remember Mattel saying it was either him or Granny Goodness, and I think they chose well.  All of Mattel's new JLU sculpts are great, and Toyman is no exception.

So, hey.  JLU is over now, for reals.

Dammit, I was putting off setting up my huge display until I was done.  So now I have to do it.  This is gonna suck.

Rumble, Ravage, Buzzsaw, Ratbat:Eject

Operation:Diabetes

We've gotten quite a few new Stepper/Ricochets over the years, but never a new toy of his buddy Artfire until now.  The pair exist because Japan didn't want to do Cyclonus and Scourge as Targetmasters, I guess, and so they gave their Targetmaster partners to redecos of the Jazz and Inferno toys.  Redoing white Jazz toys in black as Stepper/Ricochet makes pretty solid retail sense, but redoing the red Inferno as, uh, mostly red Artfire probably seems like a less good idea.  Artfire was never very visually distinct from Inferno, roughly being an Inferno with a white chest, so that's likely why he hasn't shown up until now.  (Also because we get a dozen times more Jazz toys than Infernos.)

But somebody over in Japan was willing to do an Artfire as an exclusive, so here we are.  He's got Inferno's head and  hands and the Grapple retool's crane arm, so he's a parts combination that hasn't been done before.  Artfire also comes with two Targetmasters, one being the fifteen zillionth redeco of Universe Nightstick and the other being a redeco of one of Power Core Combiner Pinpoint.  The former is intended to be Artfire's original partner, Nightstick, whose name causes the Transformers Wiki much grief, and the latter is intended to be Sparks, which was the Marvel Comics name for Firebolt, Hot Rod's Targetmaster partner.

Because Artfire has Grapple's crane and not a ladder, the instructions tell you to peg both of his Targetmaster partners through the crane's hook so it becomes this sort of water cannon thing.  Inventive!

I KIND OF HAVE A LOT OF THIS MOLD.

At least there's three different heads to go between them.  (You'll note the handpainted Hot Spot head I gave to my Pyro.)  There aren't many G1 firetrucks even left to still make this guy into.  There's probably still a Micromaster firetruck, right?  And Hosehead.  Both of whom are probably red and black, so, well, you know.  And, heck, they could probably still get away with making a Hauler, and I would be very happy to buy it.  I say that not only because I don't have an original Hauler (I got my Sunstorm long after he was released and so after the duo had been split up on the secondary market), but because I still really like this toy.  And thank god for that.

Can't find my Frenzy! So pushing back talking about the Data Disk guys once again.

Here's Beast Hunters Bumblebee. I found him and nobody but him when I was out looking for his wave, and as I am weak, I snatched him up. He wasn't on my list or anything, since my place is kind of lousy with Bumblebees already, but after seeing some photos of him in-hand on the Internet, I saw that he was pretty neat-looking. And, hey, Bumblebee with spikes all over him. He reminds me of Johnny Five at the end of Short Circuit 2 where he covers himself in random spikey punk rock shit and then uses his last five minutes alive for spiteful vengeance, as you do.

As you might notice, he is heavily retooled! Not much of the original toy survives, though the engineering and transformation is the same. Let's see, the middle of his upper torso, all of the gray of his middle torso and thighs, and the non-vehicle-y parts of his lower legs, plus his arms from the biceps on down... those are all old parts. The head and pretty much the entirety of the vehicle mode (other than that middle hood section) are new.

He still comes with the two arm-mounted blasters of the original tooling, plus a crossbow-like weapon that mounts on his hood or his arm or in his hand. He comes with a whoppin' six dang missiles, which the crossbow-thing can fire with a spring-loaded mechanism. This dude is armed. He will murder you. If you're a beast, anyway. Or so I think the story goes.

He's pretty hard core.

Instead of finishing up the little Recordicon Data Disk guys, I thought I'd talk about the other toy of the exact same Soundwave I got this past week-or-so.  It's him from the future and/or our present!  And he's lost weight!

Hasbro's new direction for the Transformers Prime toyline is called Beast  Hunters, which was a title that was first used for Beast Machines in its preliminary stages.  The forgotten Predacon race of Transformers dragons has returned!  And the Autobots and Decepticons apparently have covered themselves in spikes and shit to combat them!  I found the new spikey Bumblebee first, and I think he was a pretty successful execution of this concept, but I'll talk about him later.  Soundwave, though, I dunno.

I bought him only for Ravage, as I do, because Ravage is awesome and I ain't not gonna buy a Ravage.  Like the first Soundwave toy's Laserbeak, Ravage does the splits and fits X-shaped into Soundwave's chest.  You can swap him with Laserbeak and vice versa, as I demonstrate in that first photo up there on the left.  And,  yes, Ravage's butthole is placed under Soundwave's nose and Ravage's head is reaching for Soundwave's crotch.  Let's acknowledge this and move on.

Soundwave himself is heavily retooled from the original Transformers Prime Soundwave.  The yellow and dark blue parts on Beast Hunters Soundwave remain from the original tooling, but everything else is new.  The result is kind of a mess, I think.  I'm not really sure what's going on, and it kind of detracts from Soundwave's sleek design.  On the other hand, he does transform into something that now looks less like those things the President uses to kill civilians in other countries!

shit now that's all the comments are going to be about now isn't it oh well

Beast Hunters Soundwave comes with a new grappling claw weapon as well!  It's one of those spring-loaded missile launcher deals but with a string.  It's not pictured because I forgot about it.

So let's sum up: Ravage comes with a Soundwave that's kind of a mess and possibly ultimately forgettable.  He transforms exactly the same way, but he's got more stuff on him.  And he has a grappling hook.  Maybe I'll come around on him later?  Right now, he's just hard to visually resolve.

Hey, guys, Soundwave's got a new toy where little guys fit into his chest and pop out and you can buy a whole army of the little buggers. There've been other Soundwave toys since 1984 where a guy fit into his chest, but this was always a limited enterprise of one or two dudes. This Soundwave's got six so far, not counting the five upcoming Autobots which also utilize the same interaction.

Soundwave's part of the first wave of Voyager Class ($25) Generations figures.  Who does he share that first wave with?  HIMSELF!  One out of every four figures in the case assortment is actually Soundblaster, a same-character redeco of Soundwave based on his black-gold-and-red Headmasters appearance.  That's right, it's "New Soundwave," as regaled by the infamously terrible English dub of those episodes.  Soundwave comes with Laserbeak (red) and Soundblaster comes with Buzzsaw (gold).

I wasn't super keen on either Soundwave or Soundblaster, honestly, but I can't not buy a Buzzsaw toy.  Buzzsaw is awesome.  (Also, turns out I kind of have a growing nigh-complete Recordicons display, and the inclusion of these guys is perhaps mandatory anyhow.)  So when I found Soundwave and Soundblaster buried deep in the Batman stuff while I was in San Diego, I put Soundwave back where he goes and grabbed Soundblaster for myself.   Besides, I already have a toy of Aligned Laserbeak, so this particular iteration of him isn't super-high priority.  He can wait for sales.

I had already found the sets of the other guys (Frumble/Ratbat and Frumble/Ravage), so I knew I was gonna like Buzzsaw.  Ratbat was the best of those guys, and Ratbat's just a reshell of Laserbeak/Buzzsaw.  The reason why he's the best is that he's the simplest and least irritating.  When  he drops in Data Disk mode onto the ground and the button underneath him springloads him into "vulture" mode, that's it.  That's the end of the transformation.  There's no more left to do.  And he's easy to put back in Data Disk mode.

Plus, y'know, he's Buzzsaw, whose predecessor was a frightening friggin' monster who will kill you with his face.

I will talk more about the gimmick itself when I write later about the other Recordicons, but it will suffice to say this now: WHEN THE INSTRUCTIONS TELL YOU TO PUT THE DATA DISK INTO SOUNDBLASTER'S CHEST WITH THE BUTTON FACING OUT, THIS IS A HORRIBLE LIE.  DO NOT DO THIS.  EVER.  PUT THE DISK IN BUTTON-FIRST, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Soundblaster himself is basically a larger version of the Deluxe Class War for Cybertron Soundwave from a few years ago, but now with a chest that flops open when you press a button on his shoulder.  He's got lots of tightly-ratcheted joints, so he's pretty solid.  I dunno if his vehicle mode is particularly inspiring, as it's a box with wheels, but I suppose that's probably better than a box without wheels, which is what Soundwave usually transforms into.

(Comics return on Monday, btw.)

I wanted to talk about these guys last Christmas, but ha ha ha ha ha funny story

no not really

So I really like Community, right?  And I really like toys?  So hell yeah I'm gonna preorder some Community figurines from the NBC/Universal online store.  I preordered these guys in October, with an announced ship date of November/early Decemberish.  It's been a while.  But, you know, before Christmas.  I felt pretty secure in this order!  NBC/Universal is a large company that pays people whose entire job is to mail stuff.  It's like my job minus the actual cartooning and website management and people interaction and convention going.  Just putting stuff in boxes with shipping labels!

Mid December hits, and I'm wondering, okay, where are my preordered figurines.  I check the website.  Oh ho.  These figurines came in two sets.  Well, one set was canceled!  Apparently!  Well, just the order was canceled.  The product still existed on the website and was available for ordering, listed as "in stock."  The other of the two sets was, um, in limbo?  I forget their exact term for "we're thinking of mailing it soon."  EDIT: Oh, right.  "Processing."  Okay.  Well.  That's weird.  I re-order the canceled one and ask about the in-limbo one.  The in-limbo one ships.

The re-ordered set does not.

It goes into the same limbo as the other set.

Christmas passes.

I send an email perhaps once a week, asking if the other set will please ship.  Every time they tell me they will totally tell the shipping people to ship me my stuff.  The second set remains in "processing" status, which is infuriating.

January passes.

So I'm pretty angry by now!  These were supposed to be for Christmas!  Anyway, I throw a fit on Twitter, and my pal Rob who physically works at 30 Rockefeller goes downstairs, buys the three guys I'm missing from the NBC/Universal store, and mails them to me himself.  Because he's awesome.

Of course, they arrive the same day that the online store's set arrived.  Grargh.  It is February.

Anyway, the figurines are all right.  I like them.  I'm never ever ever using the online NBC/Universal store ever again.   Screw those guys.

Rob is fantastic.

Merry Christmas.

You can count the number of (Insecticon) Kickbacks on a Ninja Turtle's hand.  I am imbibing the sauce right now, but I'm fairly certain that Fall of Cybertron Kickback is merely transforming grasshopper Kickback #2.   That's not a lot of toys for a dude who was in the first season of the original cartoon!  He was also a toy I had as a kid, and he starred in one of my favorite Transformers children's storybooks.  You know, the one where Grapple looks like an orange Hook.

I am also super-jonesing for new beast Transformers these days, and Thundertron was kind of a butt.  (Which is a funny thing to call him, since his huge problem is he didn't have one.)  WOULD KICKBACK TURN THIS SHIT AROUND????

Yes and no!  His robot mode is pretty friggin' great.  I mean, look at it.  It's crazy and mean and also crazy.  It's a sharp redesign that loosely interprets the original toy.  He has huge stompy boots and giant claws that reach over his shoulders.  If you want a slightly more G1y look, you can clip his insect wings back onto the shoulder claws, but that inhibits their clawyness.

And his insect mode would be perfect if not for two problems, one of them bad and one of them merely annoying!  The merely annoying problem is that his weapon doesn't store anywhere in insect mode.   It just hangs out.  There ain't no place for it to peg in, even off at a dumb clunky angle.  And it's too bad, because it's based on the Gear Shredder weapon from the Fall of Cybertron game, and so it launches a disc.  Grasshopper with a buzzsaw weapon?  Yes.  But it is not so.

EDIT: Apparently it slots in somehow on the claw/wings?  Whaaaaaaaaaaa

The bad one is how notly his grasshopper hind legs peg into the sides of his beast mode.  They just sorta hang out on the sides, flippy floppy, gettin' in all sorts of annoying trouble.  It makes him amazingly fiddly.  This decreases funness!  And it makes me sad.  If there were only a peg or something in there that held it all together, he'd be the bestest.

But at least his robot mode's frickin' sweet.  C'MON HASBRO I NEED A PERFECT NEW BEAST TOY YOU GUYS

WE'RE TALKING IMMACULATE