From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Age of the Primes Rant: Deluxe wave 2

Alchemist Prime (Cybertronian SUV)
Combaticon Vortex (Helicopter, Combiner)
Decepticon Crasher (Package refresh, not reviewed)
Sideways (Spaceship)

Permalink: https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/AoP/Deluxe2

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Speedia500 has the Crasher mold review.
Because this is a short wave, especially without Crasher, and because Sideways came in the mail while I was working on this review, I decided to
tack it onto this file. I didn't get Excellion/Exilion/redeco Cybertron Hot Shot, so Sideways would otherwise be a solo review.
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cybertron/Deluxe3 for the original Cybertron Sideways review.


CAPSULES

$25 price point, for now. Sideways is a Walmart exclusive, although as
of the posting of this review in early October 2025 it's still also available on HasbroPulse.com.

Alchemist Prime: A decent design, although mine has some quality control issues which may be design-based, and I'm a bit disappointed that the Lenses aren't magnifying glasses. Recommended.

Combaticon Vortex: The robot mode has some significant issues with the arms, the transformation is okay, and the vehicle mode is passable. But it's likely to stay an arm decoration once Onslaught ships, so for this specific mold the rest is kinda irrelevant. Not sure I'd recommend picking up the almost inevitable Alpha Bravo redeco/retool, though.

Decepticon Crasher: I recommended this back when it was a Speedia 500 shortpack (that ended up kinda a Ross exclusive). I stand by that. Still haven't gotten around to trying a head resculpt on the spare I picked up, though.

Sideways: The original two decades ago was burdened by gimmicks and some really bad stability issues. This one removes most of the gimmicks and improves the stability significantly. Recommended.


RANTS

Packaging: Same as the previous wave. Sideways lacks any indication of exclusivity, but does have the TF:Cybertron logo on it.


THE THIRTEEN: ALCHEMIST PRIME
Assortment: G1026
Altmode: Cybertronian SUV
Transformation Difficulty: 17 steps
Previous Name Use: PotP
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: Aligned

Note, while the only toy before this to be CALLED Alchemist Prime was
the Prime Master with the Submarauder shell, the Cyberverse Maccadam Build-A- Figure is also technically Alchemist Prime. Thus, there's some elements of this toy based on Maccadam, as well as bits taken from the Covenant of Primus and a Fun Pub version.

Packaging: Five ties secure the robot to the tray, while the accessories are in the usual tissue bundle taped to the lower right panel of the inner tray.
The inset box with the artifact on back has "THE LENSES" in
Cybetronian. Not Ze Goggles, which as we all know, do nozink. Also these "lenses" do nothing as they didn't actually mold them to have a focal point. Finding appropriately sized and shaped lenses to modify the accessory seems like way too much work. However, if you are experienced with casting clear resin, you can probably turn these into working lenses (a lens can be flat on one side). Hm, maybe I can cut out some circles from a fresnel lens card.

Robot Mode: Okay, so even if you don't know any of the previous
Alchemist Prime designs that influenced this, the head pretty much screams "Victorian mad scientist" between Ze Goggles and the pointy mustache. Other than that, he's very stocky, not quite a dwarf (fantasy race type) in proportions but definitely big-boned like Maccadam is in Cyberverse. He also has the not-often-seen design element of vehicle wheels on either side of the chest rather than going on the shoulders or hiding inside the torso
entirely. The inner faces of the forearms are more hollow than what's needed to let the fists fold in, but the backs of the boots are not hollow and even have some axle detailing molded on them.
5.5" (13.5cm) tall in mostly shades of gray and dark green plus silver
and a little black. Dark olive green plastic used for the head, the shoulder roots, shoulders, forearms, pelvis, backplate, thighs, and feet. Silvery medium gray on the neck area, chest front, shoulder joints, biceps, hips, ankles, and a strut on the back that holds the windshield. Almost-black plastic is used for the middle layer of the torso, part of the shoulder
roots, the fists, and most of each boot. Clear bright blue plastic is used
for the windshield on the back and The Lenses, but there's no lightpiping for the eyes.
The pecs and the front and inner panels of the boots are painted dark olive green, which is a good match for the plastic under normal lighting but does look a little different under bright or UV-heavy light. Silver on the face, abdomen, kneecaps, and circular shapes on the upper faces of the forearms. A sort of greenish gold is on the kneecap borders, pelvis front, round details on the ribcage area, collar, and the top of the helmet. The windshield rim and goggle frames are painted very dark gunmetal (the goggle frames are a bit sloppy on mine), the mustache and beard are gloss black, and the goggle lenses are bright blue. The Alchemist Prime symbol is printed on one of the Lenses (the one with the molded Ancient Autobot symbol molded in a secondary lens).
The head is on a ball joint with the socket inside the head, plus the transformation hinge of the neck base can let the figure look down a bit
more. Smooth swivel waist. Hinge and swivel shoulders, bicep swivels, hinge elbows, wrists bend inwards for transformation (mostly, see below). Hinge
and swivel hips, thigh swivels, knees that bend 90 degrees, ankles have
instep hinges (the transformation hinges that might otherwise give more range of motion are blocked in this mode, and only wiggle a little).
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of
the forearms, the outer faces of the shoulders, under the toes (you can put
the Lenses on the bottoms of the feet but the figure can't really stand if
you do that), and one in the center of the back. No 3mm sockets.
His "artifact" is The Lenses, a pair of clear blue items that look like very short-bladed daggers with lenses in the hilts. The stubby blades are
how the two pieces connect to each other, but they aren't long enough to
stick out past the fists when attached to the forearms via their side pegs. Each is a little over 2" (5cm) long with a 5mm peg at one end that tapers slightly to prevent that peg from being used for attachment anywhere BUT a through-hole like the fists, and a flat-ended 5mm peg on the backside at the root of the blade. One has a single secondary small lens with the Blentron symbol molded into it, while the other has a secondary lens with the Ancient Autobot Symbol and a tertiary one with a sort of cog molded into it. The second one has the printed Alchemist Prime symbol on the main lens (mostly a bunch of circles in a symmetric pattern with a sort of clock hand pointing up in the middle). When merged, the whole thing is 4.5" (9cm) long with the center to center separation of the main lenses being 1.5" (3.5cm). For comparison, the center to center separation of my eyes is 2.5" (6cm). The robot is capable of holding the combined Lenses in both hands.
This is apparently the first US Mass Market toy to sport a Blentron
symbol (the rest were Japanese lines or eHobby). The Ancient Autobot symbol comes from Five Faces of Darkness, but the only toy to have it as a symbol prior to this was the eHobby Overcharge, who came with a sheet of various symbols including the Blentron one.
I was disappointed that the Lenses aren't working magnifying glasses. I thought maybe I could implant pieces of flat fresnel lens into them to make them work as such, but it turns out that the Lenses have a negative focal length (like the kind used for correcting nearsightedness). Well, a range of them, as the curvature is irregular. But I'm guessing that the average "prescription" of the Lenses is about -3 to -4 Diopters...they let me see a little more clearly than no glasses at all (my own glasses are around -8 Diopters).

Transformation: This is vaguely reminiscent of the Siege-Earthrise-etc Ironhide transformation, with the arms going behind the torso and panels from the boots folding over them, although with different details and challenges
in terms of what stuff needs to be done in which order. For instance, little tabs on the top of the windshield go into slots on the tops of the shoulders, but you need to fold things just right to get the tabs into the slots. I
don't recommend just forcing it, that's a good way to snap the tabs off. In the back window ares, the fists are supposed to fold all the way into the forearms, but neither one will do it properly on my copy. One will stay
down, but with the hinge peg on one side dislocated. The other won't even
stay down with the peg dislocated, and in both of them I now have serious
white stress marks on the forearms.
Officially, the Lens halves store on the roof with the blades pointed forwards, but if you do it with the handles pointed forwards they can pass
for roof-mounted blasters (they're also kinda reminiscent of the Frenzy/
Rumble backpack blasters like this). The spacing of the pegs is a few millimeters too small to let the combine Lenses store on the roof sideways, although you can get them to go on the long way using just one peg.

Altmode: Okay, the hood screams Hummvee, as do the general lines. It's nowhere near close enough to need a license, but they could plausibly do a retooled head and kneecaps to make a Bayverse Ratchet out of this mold.
Yeah, kneecaps, because the big elongated hexagon kneecaps end up on the
sides slightly behind the front doors. There's molded taillights and turn signals, so I guess Al was ahead of his time in being street legal, but other than the headlights none of the lights are painted.
4.75" (12cm long) in mostly dark green and black with clear bright blue windshield. About 1:38 scale if it's meant to be a human-scale Hummvee, but it's probably far bigger. The black plastic is mostly along the lower edges
on the sides and the bumper in front, although in back the fists are rear windows higher up. The medium-dark gray wheels kinda stand out as a result, and they feel like they should have painted glow details or something.
Not a lot of paint in this mode. The kneecaps on the sides, as noted,
and the black gloss border on the windshield. The front lights on the black bumper piece are painted silver, but the proper headlights above them are unpainted. (I might paint mine if I can find a decent match for the green- gold paint shade.)
The only accessible connection points in this mode are on the front end
of the roof, the shoulder-based sockets from robot mode, and they're there
for storing the Lenses. The snap-in wheels are a little higher in friction than I'd like, but they do roll okay.

Overall: Other than the fists, which aren't really necessary to make the altmode look correct (sticking out a bit is fine), it's a competent design
and a solid toy for a character who had previously only gotten a Prime Master teeny figure.


DECEPTICON: COMBATICON VORTEX
Component: Bruticus 1 of 5
Assortment: G1028
Altmode: Helicopter
Transformation Difficulty: 19 steps
Previous Name Use: None with "Combaticon," other recent ones had "Decepticon"
as the make-it-trademarkable addition.
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: G1

Packaging: Three ties hold the robot into the card with the toes pointed down, the rotor blades are folded straight and held to the left edge of the inner tray by one tie and a small corner flap. The usual tissue bundle is taped in the lower right of the inner tray contains the pistol and the two forearm guns.
The right side of the box has art of Bruticus, with Vortex as the
trailing left arm.

Robot Mode: Okay, they really needed to try a little harder with the
arms. The helicopter tail halves just hang loosely from them, the only
secure positions cover the fists. The best I could manage was to put the forearm guns in first, then shove the shells up against them, but even that's not exactly stable. Having them all the way back is worse. They could have put notches in them to line up with the tabs used for storing the arm guns in vehicle mode to let them lock in place, but I guess no one thought of that. Might try doing the modification myself once I finish this review. Arm problems aside, it looks okay and reasonably like the animation model.
5.25" (13cm) tall at the head, and with the rotors in an X configuration on back the total height is just shy of 6" (15cm). Mostly gunmetal gray and medium blue with some black. Medium blue plastic is used for the neck, wheel on the back of the head, shoulder roots, hips, thighs, struts inside the
knees, and the rotor spinny root peg piece. Everything else is slightly metallic medium-dark gray plastic, more or less a gunmetal gray. The
weapons, rotors, and a bit of the tail on the right arm are a slightly less shiny, darker, and warmer shade of gray. The faceplate is silver with a red visor, there's medium blue paint on the central chest and most of the pelvis front, gloss black on the shin fronts. There's also vehicle details painted
on the sides and back (windows, mostly) and silver on the roots of the rotor blades. A purple with no outlines Decepticon symbol is printed on the front
of the left shoulder, and tends to blend in a bit.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket inside the head and a decent amount of sideways range of motion, the waist is a smooth swivel. Hinge and swivel universal joint shoulders, turbojet thrusters on the shoulderpads connected by swivel joints, then there's the usual bicep swivels and hinge elbows. No wrist articulation. Hinge and swivel hips, upper thigh swivels, hinge knees that bend about 90 degrees. The ankles have the usual instep hinges, plus hinges with a little bit of tilt-down range, plus the heels and toes can fold down on transformation hinges. The main rotor on the back and the tail rotor on the right forearm can both spin freely as long as you don't get anything in the way.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of
the inner parts of the forearms and on the elbow-spike-ish parts of the tail section shells on the forearms (the instructions show the left one as an alternate place to mount the rotor blades, but the right side one is mostly blocked by the tail rotor assembly in this mode). 5mm sockets on the undersides of the toes, and a dedicated one on the back for the rotor blades. There's the same octagonal 5mm pegs on the shins that Slingshot has, as well
as the other non-standard slots on the kneecaps and torso used for "arm
candy" mode. There's a 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis, although it's partly blocked by the rotor root piece.
The main rotors have a shared swivel so that the blades can scissor together or spread into a + shape. The overlapped blades seem to be purely
for in-box mode, as none of the other modes call for anything except fully opened up blades. The blade circle diameter is about 5.5" (14.5cm) and each blade has a flap molded onto it about a third of the way in from the tip.
The tail rotor, which is snapped in place, has a diameter of about an inch (23mm) with four fixed blades.
The main pistol has a scope but no stock, and is a little over 1.75" (4.5cm) long. It has a short 5mm peg grip at th eback, and two 4mm by 2mm
tabs sticking out to the sides above it for vehicle mode connection (the box shows it on the left side of the nose, the instructions have it on the left side pointed backwards). The barrel ends in a 3mm stud.
The forearm guns are mirror images of each other, pretty hollow but decently detailed. 33mm (a little over 1.25") long with short 5mm pegs near but not at the backs, 3mm stud barrel tips, and 4mm by 2mm tabs on one side each at the back end (here's where they mirror each other). They're meant to go into the forearm sockets in thie mode. The box back shows them storing under the tail in vehicle mode, the instructions put them both on the right side of vehicle mode. Interestingly, NEITHER of these locations seem to be
the original intent, there's just a lot of 2mm thick slots on the toy.
There's clearly dedicated 4mm by 2mm slots on the underside of the nose so
you can mount both of these guns under the nose.

Transformation: The thighs collapse into the boots and the toes and
heels fold together to make the nose, the arms lift up together over the head to make the tail. The head turns around and is covered by a piece that folds out from inside the torso, with the wheel on the back of the head folding
down to be the rear landing gear.
The root of the rotor can turn sideways, which makes it easier to transform, but as I found the first time, you can still transform the toy without rotating that part. Mostly. The robot face cover is difficulty if
not impossible to deploy without rotating the back piece, and it being stowed makes it a lot harder to get the arms together as the tail.

Altmode: It has guns, but the number of windows on the sides marks it as
a transport helicopter rather than an attack helicopter. TFWiki says that
it's likely supposed to be an unlicensed version of a UH-60 Black Hawk...and
I can see the inspiration, I guess. The UH-60's tail is flush with the
bottom of the hull, whereas Vortex's lines up with the top instead, Vortex
has no indication of a sliding deployment door on the side, and a host of
other small differences, but it's a plausible connection. It's not like
Vortex kept all that close to a single model anyway across appearances.
Not counting guns, it's 6.5" (16.5cm) long, or about 1:90 scale. The rotors are mounted significantly farther back than on the UH-60, not really extending past the tip of the nose, and they're proportionally shorter by a centimeter or so than the UH-60's. The grays dominate this mode more, with almost all of the blue plastic hidden inside (just the root of the main rotor and the rear wheel are visible). The front window is all gloss black, while the four windows on each side are gloss black with silver outlines. A
painted medium blue stripe is on the roof of the cockpit and part of the
nose, but some hinge bits poking up in front of the windshield are
unpainted.
The rotors spin and the rear wheel folds down, that's the only articulation (unlike the animation model, the front wheels are not out on spars, they're just little molded nubs on either side of the front
underside). There's lots of 2mm wide slits on the sides and underside for mounting the guns, plus a 5mm socket on either side of the tail in addition
to the dedicated main rotor socket and the underbody connectors for arm candy mode.

Combiner Mode: Onslaught isn't out yet, so a certain amount of guesswork is going to happen here (other than knowing it needs to split in two as per
the standard arm component), but I definitely intend to see if it'll fit on Superion, since that'd suggest a possible Alpha Bravo redeco. Just at first look, the torso front and shin front connection points match those on Fireflight and Slingshot, so things are promising. And trying it out...
http://www.dvandom.com/images/AlphaVortex.JPG
Yeah, we're getting an Alpha Bravo redeco at some point. Maybe part of
a multi-pack, or a store exclusive, but it's coming. This fruit is too low- hanging to not harvest, and Combiner Wars is almost a decade ago so they can claim nostalgia.
I did check, I can't put Dead End onto Silverbolt's arm, so we're not getting full Scramble City (limited by arms needing to stay arms, legs
staying legs), but Superion and Bruticus may well be able to swap limb decorations beyond just Vortex.

Overall: Robot mode has serious problems around the arms, vehicle mode
is no great shakes, but once Onslaught arrives Vortex is going to be exclusively arm candy ever after so both issues are kinda secondary.


DECEPTICON: SIDEWAYS
Assortment: G1489
Altmode: Spaceship
Transformation Difficulty: 21 steps
Previous Name Use: RiD01, Armada, Cybertron, RotF, Studio (I keep
forgetting that the Siege version only exists as a custom I did)
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: Cybertron

This is a shared exclusive between Walmart and Hasbro Pulse, along with Excillion (another Cybertron-universe toy) which is a redeco of Cybertron Hot Shot. I wasn't much impressed by the Hot Shot mold, so a Hot Rod homage deco of it didn't really grab me. But a new Sideways mold did grab me...could
they do a better job than the original from two decades or so ago? Let's
see! Also, will we get a Noisemaze Mass Production Type in the next store- exclusive four-pack?

Packaging: A bit of a challenge since his chest juts out so far and he
has big feet. The feet are pointed down, and there's a plastic shield held over the chest with one of the five ties that holds the robot to the inner tray. On the left panel of the inner tray are the small Planet X Cyber Key held down by one tie near the top, and the shield/bow/whatever held near th ebottom by two ties. Each wing/sword is held by two ties to the right
panel. No tissue bundle needed this time.
While the package only gives him the Decepticon symbol as part of the
name badge, an inset on the box back shows how he can switch his weapon to showing an Autobot symbol...I don't recall Cybertron Sideways really using
the side-switching gimmick much if at all, unlike Armada Sideways.

Robot Mode: Gangly and something of a harbinger of the live action movie aesthetic (if not quite digitigrade), this bot from Planet X is meant to look alien by the standards of other Cybertronians (and Velocitronians,
Gigantions, etc). Leggy with long knee spikes and big feet, there's a sort
of scarf/cape deal on the back, and a chest that's just the nose end of spaceship mode jutting out as a monoboob. The horned and visored head is a motif that Prime Soundwave would pick up on a decade later. The main weapon
is a sort of shield that can unfold limbs to look like a sort of crossbow, while the detachable wings can be used as sword blades or just left stored on the sides of the boots. Like other recent Cybertron updates it comes with a small Planet Key that doesn't actually trigger any gimmicks. There is no
clear plastic on this toy, so areas that were clear on the original are sort
of faked with a dully-metallic orange paint over black plastic, which is
kinda mediocre in the overall result. I may try chroming those areas and
then applying Tamiya clear orange.
6" (15cm) tall in black, deep orange, and silver, with some gold and metallic orange bits and a few other accent colors. Deep orange plastic is used for the neck, the shoulder roots, upper parts of the upper arms (the
bits tucked inside the shoulderpads), forearms, a strut under the chest, the abdomen, pelvis, hips, ankles, and limbs of the crossbow-ish weapon.
Everything else is black plastic, even the Planet Key.
Silver paint on the upper part of the chest (making it look vaguely skull-like), the kneecaps, the border of the Planet Key, the middles of the "scarf" pieces on the back, and details on the front and back of the shield face. A sort of dully metallic orange paint stands in for clear orange on
the center of the Planet Key front, the visor, and the chest windows. The spikes on the lower shins are painted gloss orange, a bit lighter than the orange plastic. Bronze paint is used extensively on the head, on the
shoulder fronts, the toes, and the tips of the scarf parts. The wing/blade pieces have dark silver paint on their edges. The shield has chartreuse ("Constructicon green") paint on the Key-insertion triangle (a motif all of
the original toys had molded, if not always painted) and a sort of emitter detail near the front end. Inside the shield is a panel that's silver with a printed faction symbol in purple or red as relevant.
The neck is a swivel, although the transformation hinge at the base of
the neck allows for some nodding. Smooth swivel waist. The shoulders are swivels where they meet the torso (the roots are hinged for transformation,
but blocked in this mode), with pinned hinges to lift the arms up within the shoulderpads. Hinge elbows that bend both directions, swivel wrists. Pinned hinge and swivel hips, upper thigh swivels, hinged knees that bend almost double. The tops of the ankles are hinged to bend sideways, while the
bottoms have front-back hinges.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's (somewhat loose) 5mm sockets on the forearms, one on the outer face of each boot, and a 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis.
The Planet X Key is 21mm long and 21mm wide (it looks wider because the connection tab is unpainted) made of black plastic with paint on the front
but not the back. It has three trapezoidal spines on each side and details
at the top reminiscent of the Decepticon symbol's upper part, plus a molded (but not separately painted) Decepticon symbol on the face. It's compatible with the Legacy Cybertron characters such as Cybertron Hot Shot.
The shield weapon turns into something I guess is supposed to evoke an energy crossbow, although with extra limbs behind the main ones. All four limbs fold against the sides, they have to be manually pulled out as the
Planet Key doesn't trigger anything. A 5mm peg folds out from the underside
to go into the forearm sockets, but it's pretty loose on mine. 3" (7.5cm)
long in either configuration without the Planet Key, almost 3.75" (a little over 9cm) with the Key. When the orange spines are deployed, it's 4" (10cm) wide. See below for more about the gimmick. (Looking over my review of
the original, I see this is called the Displacement Cannon, with the fold out bits being Combat Blades.)
The secondary weapon is in the form of the wings, which are detachable
and store on the boots in this mode (although they can be left on the back, they're just a bit low). The official use is to put them both in one hand as
a sort of backwards Bat'leth 5" (12.5cm) long, but they can also be used as individual cleavers half that long. They have 5mm pegs at the wing roots
that are used for vehicle mode attachment as well as being put in the fist. They also have short 5mm pegs on the backs/underside near the roots for attachment to the boots. It's not in the instructions, but you can always
use the back pegs to attach to the forearms as punch blades. (You'd need to store the shield on one of the boots if you do that, though.) Doing this
makes it clear that the right forearm socket on mine is REALLY loose, but the shield peg is also still a bit small.

Shield Gimmick: While putting the Planet Key into the back end of the shield doesn't do anything, there's a tab on the underside you can slide to change which faction symbol is shown in an opening on the face of the shield. This is a nod to how the Armada Sideways played at being on both Autobot and Decepticon sides while actually serving Unicron...the Cybertron version
didn't really play that game as much, in part because Galaxy Force Noisemaze wasn't written to be the same character as Double Face (the Japanese studio wanted it to be a completely separate show, Hasbro wanted it to be a sequel
to Armada and Energon, and the resulting compromises weren't exactly smooth). If you want to emulate the original Key-activated gimmick, have the shield limbs closed and the faction symbol set to Autobot when the Key is absent,
open up the limbs and switch to Decepticon when the Key is plugged in.
(There is no place to put the Key other than in the shield, though. I tried hiding it in the chest, but it doesn't quite fit.)

Transformation: The chest opens up to store the head, which requires a
lot of panel holding. Then the scarf bits lift up and the arms connect
behind the back, which requires rather a lot of fiddling to get things
right. Similarly, the principle behind the leg transformation is pretty straightforwards, but requires a fair amount of fiddling. Fortunately, the tolerances issue that plagued robot mode doesn't cause a problem here,
provided I get everything shoved together firmly. Well, except for the
shield storing on top, which doesn't hold very well.

Altmode: Cybertron was all over the place aesthetically as part of the setting. You had your Earth altmodes, which were often "serial numbers filed off" versions of real vehicles (e.g. Red Alert was basically a Dodge Magnum), Velicitron altmodes that were sci-fi racers, Animatros beast robots, and Gigantion's pure functionality "I suppose that's a vehicle" altmodes.
Sideways, being from the mysterious Planet X, had to not look like ANY of those, and also look sinister because regardless of whether he was the reincarnation of Sideways or the new Noisemaze, he was definitely Bad News.
The basic form is of a "lifting body" style space shuttle (like Sonar, the
hilt of the Star Saber), but with swept-forwards wings and a number of spine sticking out the back like Gundam fin funnels or something. The cockpit is like a robotic beetle or something with the helmet horns of the robot head sticking out like mouthparts. (IIRC the original could have the shield's spines out in this mode, but doing so completely blocks the tabs from connecting up this time.) The ragged blade edges of the melee weapons are
now on the trailing edges of the wings, although you can sort of wedge the wings onto the wrong sides to get a more birdlike appearance with the painted bits in front. Anyway, it succeeds at being hostile and alien and its own aesthetic in a line full of different motifs and themes.
5" (12.5cm) long with a wingspan of 6.25" (16cm), a bit more black in
the overall color balance but otherwise the same colors as robot mode. No
new bits revealed, really just the head and arms got hidden (if you remove
the shield, the forearms and fists remain visible). No new paints, no articulation, and the only accessible connectors are the boot-side 5mm
sockets which are now on the underside near the back.

Overall: It lacks the gimmicks of the original, but that seems to be a good thing since while I complained about the stability of some of the connections the while thing is head and shoulders above the original toy in terms of stability. (Of course, the original toy was ten bucks, which would only have made it to about $17 with overall inflation.) A pity it's a store exclusive, which means it'll be harder to find, because it's a decent update (and simplification) of the character.


Dave Van Domelen, currently repainting Sideways's Planet Key to see if
he can make it look better.



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