DSC_1091
A warm and fuzzy 2021 to everyone out there.
It's been a busy and chaotic 2021 thus far, coupled with some new fun local restrictions.... any I may or may not be playing Switch games. But, fear not, I'm still around with a pile of stuff to get around to looking at.
The 2021 - 22 timeframe brings us the latest in the Transformers mainline release - Kingdom, which is the third party of the "War for Cybertron" series. Based on photos, this line is very much a mash up of G1 and Beast Wars stuff, with an emphasis on the Beast stuff, which is fine as G1 effectively had 2/3 of the lines and while it's not my favourite thing I understand it's time to move on and completely skip all the Japanese G1 stuff that we never saw here.
Bastards.
OK... got that out of my system... Beast Wars is a series that I never really followed because I honestly never had consistent viewing habits. I was probably 10 years old when it premiered and didn't have the patience to follow a weekly show that, for reasons never aired in order. The characters were interesting and I enjoyed the later Transmetal designs.
So while this wasn't my G1, there were a few things that tickled my fancy from the Kingdom line, though I have to say at this time that my involvement in this line is going to be fairly limited. As mentioned on an earlier post, I ended up getting Black Arachnia and Rattrap from Wave 1. Rattrap because I needed something for free shipping, and Black Arachnia because... well.. boobs.
I think it's fair to say that Black Arachnia borrows some elements from the MP version, though naturally much more simplified. Silhouette is very similar and the transformation scheme itself shares some similarities. I guess unlike with vehicles, there's only so many ways you can bundle up bot parts into a presentable animal of sorts... also, why do your own homework when you can reference other peoples?
The figure comes with her harpoon gun that looks close to its MP counterpart, except with no removable missile. Colour scheme is very reminiscent of her TV counterpart, including her perpetual 5 o'clock shadow look. Backpack is generally minimized, which is a nice touch. She's not as pretty as her MP counterpart, but we've come a long way from the 90s when she was a repaint of Tarantulus. Spider mode is also much more convincing.
She does alright from an articulation perspective, which to summarize, is really just missing the waist. The pelvic plate unfortunately gets in the way of the legs, so forward range of motion is rather limited. She even has a slight amount of lateral shoulder movement. Her pincers are moulded such that any standard weapon should fit into it.
Put another way, she's at least two steps up from Legends Arcee.
Paint is highly limited, as is the mainline Transformers way. It's pretty much the any areas which have patterns on it though to be fair they matched the paint and plastic colours nicely, and the actual paint apps themselves are sharp. There is also a tiny tampo of her Predacon insignia.
Build quality itself is again pretty solid, something that has been consistent since the Unified Product thing. As a nice bonus, while the spider legs cannot be posed individually like other figures, this is the first mainline Black Arachnia that can stand up on it's legs.
Rattrap is a Legends class figure, so he's pretty tiny. Still, he's a fan favourite, being the smart ass of the Maximal crew so I didn't mind adding him to the ranks. Based on what I see, it looks like Rattrap will be the basis for Airrazor, which unfortunately means that Airrazor is gonna have the same issues as Rattrap does.
Rattrap comes with his gun and while he turns into a nice looking mouse, it's only aesthetically better than his 90s counter part as functionally he's still effectively a statue in Beast mode. What's really odd is that during the Legends/Generations run, there was a Rattrap with functional beast mode legs.
At least the thing holds together better than Earthrise Arcee.
Bot mode doesn't look bad, and is more properly proportioned than the Legends/Generations attempt. Articulation wise, not only is he missing a waist, but Rattrap has some really, REALLY wonky shoulders that not only look strange, but have some really peculiar limitations on range of motion.
Paint and Build Quality are, as expected, solid. No major issues to report there.
That, friends, was a quick look at these two figures. From what I've seen, fans of the Beast Era should be having a ball with these releases as these clearly were meant to tickle their Nostalgia rather than us G1ers, though personally I'm keeping my eyes open for discounts on the MPs as clearly some short cuts were taken on these figures to keep the accountants happy.
DSC_1091
A warm and fuzzy 2021 to everyone out there.
It's been a busy and chaotic 2021 thus far, coupled with some new fun local restrictions.... any I may or may not be playing Switch games. But, fear not, I'm still around with a pile of stuff to get around to looking at.
The 2021 - 22 timeframe brings us the latest in the Transformers mainline release - Kingdom, which is the third party of the "War for Cybertron" series. Based on photos, this line is very much a mash up of G1 and Beast Wars stuff, with an emphasis on the Beast stuff, which is fine as G1 effectively had 2/3 of the lines and while it's not my favourite thing I understand it's time to move on and completely skip all the Japanese G1 stuff that we never saw here.
Bastards.
OK... got that out of my system... Beast Wars is a series that I never really followed because I honestly never had consistent viewing habits. I was probably 10 years old when it premiered and didn't have the patience to follow a weekly show that, for reasons never aired in order. The characters were interesting and I enjoyed the later Transmetal designs.
So while this wasn't my G1, there were a few things that tickled my fancy from the Kingdom line, though I have to say at this time that my involvement in this line is going to be fairly limited. As mentioned on an earlier post, I ended up getting Black Arachnia and Rattrap from Wave 1. Rattrap because I needed something for free shipping, and Black Arachnia because... well.. boobs.
I think it's fair to say that Black Arachnia borrows some elements from the MP version, though naturally much more simplified. Silhouette is very similar and the transformation scheme itself shares some similarities. I guess unlike with vehicles, there's only so many ways you can bundle up bot parts into a presentable animal of sorts... also, why do your own homework when you can reference other peoples?
The figure comes with her harpoon gun that looks close to its MP counterpart, except with no removable missile. Colour scheme is very reminiscent of her TV counterpart, including her perpetual 5 o'clock shadow look. Backpack is generally minimized, which is a nice touch. She's not as pretty as her MP counterpart, but we've come a long way from the 90s when she was a repaint of Tarantulus. Spider mode is also much more convincing.
She does alright from an articulation perspective, which to summarize, is really just missing the waist. The pelvic plate unfortunately gets in the way of the legs, so forward range of motion is rather limited. She even has a slight amount of lateral shoulder movement. Her pincers are moulded such that any standard weapon should fit into it.
Put another way, she's at least two steps up from Legends Arcee.
Paint is highly limited, as is the mainline Transformers way. It's pretty much the any areas which have patterns on it though to be fair they matched the paint and plastic colours nicely, and the actual paint apps themselves are sharp. There is also a tiny tampo of her Predacon insignia.
Build quality itself is again pretty solid, something that has been consistent since the Unified Product thing. As a nice bonus, while the spider legs cannot be posed individually like other figures, this is the first mainline Black Arachnia that can stand up on it's legs.
Rattrap is a Legends class figure, so he's pretty tiny. Still, he's a fan favourite, being the smart ass of the Maximal crew so I didn't mind adding him to the ranks. Based on what I see, it looks like Rattrap will be the basis for Airrazor, which unfortunately means that Airrazor is gonna have the same issues as Rattrap does.
Rattrap comes with his gun and while he turns into a nice looking mouse, it's only aesthetically better than his 90s counter part as functionally he's still effectively a statue in Beast mode. What's really odd is that during the Legends/Generations run, there was a Rattrap with functional beast mode legs.
At least the thing holds together better than Earthrise Arcee.
Bot mode doesn't look bad, and is more properly proportioned than the Legends/Generations attempt. Articulation wise, not only is he missing a waist, but Rattrap has some really, REALLY wonky shoulders that not only look strange, but have some really peculiar limitations on range of motion.
Paint and Build Quality are, as expected, solid. No major issues to report there.
That, friends, was a quick look at these two figures. From what I've seen, fans of the Beast Era should be having a ball with these releases as these clearly were meant to tickle their Nostalgia rather than us G1ers, though personally I'm keeping my eyes open for discounts on the MPs as clearly some short cuts were taken on these figures to keep the accountants happy.