Yeah, yeah, I know, Transformers: Kingdom is where Beast Wars is making its big return, and yet Kingdom Inferno isn't the Predacon fire ant.  It seems awry!  Well, it seems a little less awry when you remember Inferno (and Transmetal Scavenger) shelfwarmed so hard you could still find him five years later.   Reportedly Polar Claw was in the cards in the early days, but they moved up Tigatron out of Deluxetown to take up his Voyager spot, so even when Hasbro had more Beast Wars spots available, they'd dragged out Polar Claw instead of Inferno!  They went to a non-cartoon guy!  That's how bad Inferno shelfwarmed.

(additionally, BW Inferno can't take the spot of G1 Inferno, as G1 Inferno is a simple Grapple retool, and BW Inferno would be all new, and so their budgets are not equal)

they'll probably get to him eventually if Kingdom does well

ANYWAY, here's boring ol' Kingdom (G1) Inferno!  So boring he's got a boyfriend in every continuity!  He Princess Carries Red Alert around in the cartoon, and snuggles up with Smokescreen in the Marvel UK stuff.  And he's got a girlfriend, too!  Everybody wants a piece of Inferno!   He's clearly got something going on.  Look how long his ladder is!

Inferno's a retool of Earthrise Grapple (another shelfwarmer), but he's the superior version for a handful of reasons.  One, he's a fire truck, and fire trucks are rad.  Two, love those wings on the sides of his head.  Three, little hoses on his legs!  And four, and most importantly, his retooling includes modified pegs that attach his headbox to his soles in vehicle mode.  That broke a lot on Grapple if you yanked too hard, but now the pegs are shorter and more strongly attached to the headbox.  That's miles better just there.  

Also he's got more boyfriends than Grapple.  Has Grapple had any boyfriends?  I don't think so.  Checkmate.

This is the last of my six new guys from my Giant Box Of Awesomeness.  He was the only retool of a toy I already had of the bunch, so of course he was the least interesting to talk about, and that's why he's bringing up the rear.  His name...

...is Solar Storm Grappel.

Yes, that's right.  "Grappel."  Misspelled for some reason.  It can't be for trademark purposes, since, well, trademark doesn't really work that way.  Hasbro couldn't sell a toy named "Batmanne."  And usually the name prefixes like "Solar Storm" are appended onto common nouns that are hard for Hasbro to defend ownership of, like with "Special Ops Jazz" or "Turbo Tracks."  But "Grappel" isn't a word, much less a common one.  Except maybe, I guess, amongst drunken people.

So I assume this was the worst kind of typo.  Even if it wasn't, it's still horrible.

But, at least, this means I can start calling the guy who used to be simply "Grapple" the distinguished name of "Grah-PELL."  Y'know, pronounced all French-like or something.  Like "GRA-pell" was his commoner name and now that he's a famous arteeeest, he's known in the galleries as "Grahh-PELLLLLL."   This amuses me.

Grahpell is an extensive retool of Inferno, the fire truck.  They shared a toy back in 1985, and they do so again in 2011.  And by extensive, I mean they changed wayyy more than the water cannon, which would have been sufficient.  Grahpell has a new crane hook arm, obviously, since a crane is what he's supposed to be, but he also has a new head based on the original cartoon's character model for him.  He also has new forearms, new hands, and new feet.  The new hands are sculpted into an open position, but not the kind that still allows for him to hold 5mm peg weapons.  No, they're just open to look pretty.  They don't rotate at the wrist, either.  The new forearms do away with the previous version of the mold's ability to rotate the vehicle kibble higher up onto the arm and out of the way of the hands.  It's all one solid piece here.

The crane hook arm can extend in either mode, but it's kind of unwieldy in robot mode.  Since the wrists don't rotate, it always has to be slung under his arm, meaning the crane hook arm's hook has to always be hanging, uh, upwards, unless you want his arm to look broken.

A plus for this version of the toy is that it holds together much better in vehicle mode than either of the older versions I have.  The arm panels lock into his legs more securely.   This might be because of the loss of rotating arm panels or it might be plain ol' plastic tolerances, who knows.

And finally, because Grahpell's not gonna be left out, the little rungs on the tops of his shoulders have been widened so that they can interact with the whole C joint clip system that all the other current toys are a part of.  This, my friends, is sweet ass.