The second Transformers Collectors' Club exclusive this year was Shattered Glass Drift.  I was not expecting him to sell out nearly as fast as Runabout, but he sure did.  I mean, he's Drift, who most folks seem to hate, and he's Shattered Glass, which is kind of a marginalized universe.  Folks like their a) G1 characters who they b) remember from their childhoods, and Drift was neither of those things.  Yet he went in a couple of days.

It's possible it's because his toy kicks that much ass.  It really does.  Despite your feelings on the character, the toy itself is amazing.  It has all these swords and they can stow everywhere and everything about it feels top notch.  SG Drift even comes with extra weapons, the pair of smaller guns that his retool, Blurr, came with.  They can't fit in the hip storage in the Drift version of the mold, but there they are just the same.

(Some Drifts were packed with two of the same gun rather than one of the "right" guns and one of the "left" guns.  It doesn't really matter if you have a mismatched pair since it's not the Blurr version of the mold, 'cuz there's no large gun for them to attach to and no way to store them, but that's a problem some folks have noticed.  I got a correct set of small guns.)

Drift's colors are striking, but I think I'd find them more striking if he didn't arrive in the same shipment as Runabout, who's also red and black.  Red and black are pretty safe colors to use.  I wish they'd been a little more bold with them.

I also wish they'd been a little less weird with the symbol they put on his hood.  Apparently it's a character that can mean "decided," in that "your fate is already decided," in that "he has already killed you."  They only arrived at this character after wanting to put a character that means "a doom" on his hood, but that didn't exist, and so apparently "decided" was the closest match?  I don't know.  It's just... I dunno.

He also has Arashikage stripes on each of his swords.  You know.  Snake-Eyes stuff.  Huh.

But what really attracts me to him is his function.  I couldn't care less if he's supposed to be "Transformers Deadpool" or not.  I just like that his job is hunting down folks who cross universes.  If you've been paying attention to this blog for any amount of time, you know I'm big into Transformers multiversal stuff.  And so I imagine he's probably out there looking for Cliffjumper, who's a G1 guy stuck in the Shattered Glass universe.  And probably also now SG Ravage, who we know because of certain comics drawn by certain people has been to a Marvel Comics universe, is on his list.  And judging by this year's BotCon box set theme, imminently a buttload of other folks as well!

Yay, more guys for SG Ravage to play with.  And/or avoid being assassinated by.

A Reprolabels "upgrade" set for Drift is one of those things I didn't know I wanted until I learned of its existence.  I'd never considered that Drift's toy might be missing some deco from Guido's original design.  And some of that deco is actually pretty nice, like the red that ran along the skirt of the car and, to a lesser extent, on his spoiler and hood.  Plus there's all the tiny bits of gold tucked away in his torso and face.

Oh, right, and those sculpted windows in the back corners, maybe they could use some color.

So, yeah, I'm happy this set exists.  Adding some color to the robot mode greebles behind his roof-kibble chest also helps, and bringing out the details around his exhaust pipes is appreciated.

Though it's not all gravy.  The set provides three potential stickers to line all his swords.  Problem is, his swords are very rubbery plastic, and on the super long "must only use this sword in the most dire of circumstances" sword, that rubberiness is very evident.

Stickering this sword is not a good idea.

Well, you could probably manage it if you never stow the sword ever.  If you keep it either in one of his fists or kept to the side, nothing will ever go wrong.  But once you try to stow the thing, it inevitably bends in on itself, and then the thing wrinkles up like it's been badly shrinkwrapped.  Yikes.  I will probably remove the long sword's stickers, now that I've photographed them.

Also the long-sword stickers are like a quarter of an inch too short for the blade anyway, so oh well.

If you want to see Drift pre-stickers, here's a link to my original review.

Oh,  hello, Blurr.  I remember you.  You're that speed-talkin' Micro Machines guy.  You know what my favorite Blurr moment was?  When  Hardhead forcibly shut you up by smothering you.  That was pretty great.

And, sure, there were times when you didn't have the speed-talking gimmick.  There were your few pre-Furman Marvel comics speaking roles.  There was, uh, All Hail Megatron.  The sad thing that I learned is that Blurr needs his speed-talking gimmick.  He's super boring and unexceptional without it.  It's all he has.  Blurr's problem is what makes him remarkable is also what makes him annoying.  He's an incredibly superficial character.

Which is why (gasp) I am going to go out on a limb and say that I like Drift's character more than Blurr's.  So, yes, you might believe that Drift is the worst kind of Marty Stu, being some kind of magical sword guy who shows up just to be righter about everything than everyone else, with a dark, scandalous past and godlike training from a secret Mary Suetopia which he discovered...  but at least he's not That Guy Who Talks Fast.  It's way more fun to hate Drift than it is to love Blurr.

Thus part of my problem ranking Blurr's toy versus Drift's.  As you can see, one is a retool of the other.  Blurr has a new head (based on his IDW comics design), a large gun and two handguns instead of a large sword and two ... handswords?, and a different spoiler.  And despite being a less interesting character to me, he's much, much, muuuuuch prettier.  Drift's colors are pretty boring.  He's solid white and dark gray, with some tiny bits of red.  Blurr, instead of being solid white, has this vivid range of blues.  The only non-blue non-black color on him is the red for his knees and his chest symbol.  He's not solid blue.  He's multi-blue.  And they're very good blues.

I probably stared at Blurr the most of all the toys in Hasbro's BotCon 2010 display cases.

Blurr's guns work real hard to out-cool Drift's swords.  Blurr has a huge gun, of course, just like Drift had the huge sword, and it's a huger gun than Drift's sword.  It also has a fold-out peg in the middle of the barrel so that Blurr can hold the gun two-handed.  What you can do with Blurr's two handguns is pretty neat.  Yeah, they still store in the hip holsters, just like Drift's mini-swords did, and Blurr can run around carrying them individually while the big gun's snapped onto his back... but you can also clip them onto the end of the barrel of the larger gun.  If you face them barrel-forward, you end up with a three-pronged supergun.  If you face them barrel backwards, you end up with a tripod for the larger gun.  A tripod!  You know, for all your crouching and waiting snipery needs.

And yet is it cooler than swords?  I dunno.  That's a tough call.  Sure, lots of  characters come with bunches of guns, but who the heck comes with a veritable golf bag of blades?  However, these blades don't combine like Blurr's guns do.  And Blurr is prettier than Drift, hands down, but Blurr-the-character just isn't that interesting to me.  You can't even ironically own Blurr's toy like you can ironically own Drift's toy.

People ask, which of the two should they get?  I answer... fuck me if I know!

So, hey, Transformers: Drift #2 came out today. Last week, I made fun of Issue 1 for casually killing off G2 guys with reckless abandon, and Issue 2 does it one better! In the second and third panels of the first page, we see both Hot Shot and Shattered Glass Ravage all endeadened.  Well, that's conspicuous, isn't it?  The character I famously have a shrine of and the character I created?

And it's not just a coincidence.  Artist Alex Milne writes on the IDW forums:

when i started issue 2 i had a battle scene between the autobots and decepticons and i asked a few of my friends who to draw in there. a few of them said i should draw hot shot, and i was like hot shot??? why the hell do i want to draw him??? i'm not the biggest fan of armada anyways. then one of them said it was Walky's favourite, but i still don't know if that's true or not, and i laughed, and i said, if you want me to put him in, i will. personally i don't care. so at first i asked my friends what characters to add, they gave me a few choices and when i then wanted to know the reason behind there choice they told me, and i got a laugh out of it.

so, no lie here. no favourite characters of anyone who i hardly know in issue one. in issue 2, there is. did i do it because that guy upsets me. no. i don't really care what he says. i did it because my friends thought it was be funny and it's a character not in the G1-G2 line that will be used. oh, and i'm not the biggest fan of armada, so theres that too.

Sweet!  So basically, Alex Milne has a friend who not only hates me, but also has incredible control over what he draws in his comics for Hasbro.  I'm genuinely flattered!  I'm serious.  I made a difference in someone's life.  And I can't really throw a fit or anything.  I make fun of IDW's comics plenty.  I have little room for outrage.  I'm mostly happy they (or their friends) know who I am.

I like attention.

The only thing that really bothered me about this whole affair was Editor Denton Tipton's response to people being upset that their favorite characters were being casually offed in the backgrounds.

I have no control over what Milne says (outside of this forum). Just like he doesn't have any control over what characters live or die. For the record: All those characters are generics. This wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for the fascination with "canon."

"Fascination with canon"?  Really?  You're going to condescend to us for caring about the stories you sell to us for $3.99?  If we see characters dying and we get upset, it's our fault for caring?  Great.

And if Milne really doesn't have any control over who lives and who dies, maybe you should tell him not to draw characters dying. Because from where I'm looking, he sure does seem to be determining who lives and who dies.  Or are we to disregard what we see in the comics we're reading?

Comic books are still a partially visual medium, right?  Or did I miss a memo?

So this is Drift, the character everybody loves to hate.  He used to be a Decepticon, but then he fell in with a mysterious third faction of Transformers that taught him how to be zen, and now he's joined the Autobots so he can tell them how much better he is than they are!  And he has three swords.  One of them he only uses in the most dire of circumstances, which is all the time.

On that sword, it says that he's better than you.

(I'm serious.  "Peerless under heaven" is written in Japanese across the blade.)

So, yeah, for some reason people hate Drift.  But people somehow hate him with an intensity greater than his suckage, and it's not like he ever really did anything beyond being given a hilariously overwrought backstory, so it's hard to hate him too much.

And his toy is fucking awesome.

I'm serious!  The toy somehow manages to come with all three swords and allow them to store.  He's got the two smaller blades tucked into scabbards on his hips.  The third, "special" sword stores on his back.  And, sure, he's got three swords, big whoop, but he's also got enough articulation to use them.  He can grip the special sword with both hands!  I don't think I can begin to list all the points of articulation on his arms and in his shoulders.  He's one of the few Transformers that can almost cross his arms over his chest.

His leg articulation is a little less awesome.  It needs better (meaning any) heel articulation, but is otherwise pretty good.  I forgive this because the way his lower legs transform is nifty.  I don't know how to even begin describing the process.  I guess the car parts sorta rotate separately from the upper robot shin parts, while the feet and ankles sort of fold up and around and...

I also like how neatly and easily it is to fold his arms up into the underside of the hood.  In some Transformers, this is an ordeal, especially the ones like Drift who have wheels somewhere on their arms.  With him, it's pretty straight-forward.  Just fold them up into the shoulders, easy-cheesy.

Now, some genuine problems.  First of all, he clips together really well in car mode.  So well that it's a little scary trying to pull him back apart.  When I say "clips together," I mean it.  In some spots he doesn't just peg together.  At the front and at the back, there are some legitimate irregular-shape in irregular-slot deals.  You basically have to pull them apart with excessive force because there's no room at that stage to slide one side out of the other.

Oh, and one of my shorter-swords was missing the pin that goes through the hinge between the blade and the hilt.  I cut a tiny bit off of a rubber-coated paper clip (so it was thick enough) and shoved that in there.  Seems to be fine now, but still kinda annoying.

Maggie saw him on the coffee table this evening and said he was beautiful.  Then I told her his backstory and she changed her mind.  Can't wait for that Drift comic book miniseries this fall!