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Zob's Thoughts on Titans Return Deluxe-Class Grotusque

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Zobovor

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Jan 12, 2018, 9:47:59 PM1/12/18
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In an age where pretty much every Transformers toy ever produced is unveiled or announced several months in advance of its release (or, conversely, leaked MANY months before its release), the existence of Titans Return Grotusque was a total shock. Originally unveiled to a very surprised New York Comic Con audience, the toy was also available online at HasbroToyShop.com (but sold out within three hours). There were whispers in the wind that he might one day be sold through Toys "R" Us, either in their stores or on their web site (or both), but he was listed on their site for a long time before he was finally made available for sale.

Originally sold in 1987, Grotusque was part of the Monsterbots assortment, Autobots who transformed into creatures with a spark-shooting gimmick in their mouths. Grotusque got a Sunbow animation model, and he would have likely appeared in season four along with the Duocons if any episodes had been produced after "The Rebirth," but sadly it was not to be. He made some technical appearances in Marvel Comics, largely relegated to a background character. Perhaps the most notable fiction was the full-length, entertaining TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE profile written for him by Simon Furman and printed in the back of the comics near the end of its run.

My thinking is that Grotusque, like Arcee, had been planned for one of the two cancelled boxed sets, and would have likely come with Cloudburst or Wingspan along with the die-cast Scorponok head and a couple of other random toys. It's likely Grotusque had already been produced by the time the box sets were cancelled, and so Hasbro explored other venues to sell the toy.

The toy comes in the same style of packaging as Arcee, which is to say a black, largely featureless package with no outward indication of which character is in the box. You have to cut the tape and open the flap to reveal the top flap with the collector cards, and open up either side before you finally get to Grotusque and Scorponok and the very colorful artwork.

Each character gets a biography in the instructions:

GROTUSQUE cracks a joke as easy [sic] as he cracks a mirror. The military strategist is a top-notch fighter who can't help but laugh at everything, including his frightening and repulsive appearance.

When FENGUL unites with GROTUSQUE, he gives him an optics scorch boost that temporarily blinds and disables his enemies. Together they make the perfect pair, scarring bots with their equally revolting appearances.

Cruel and malicious super Titan Master SCORPONOK unleashes a fusion-powered anti-gravity super fireblast boost to leave enemies stranded in despair and isolation beyond the reach of medical assistance. [Zob's notes: This biography is rich in references to G1 Scorponok. The character's motto was "kindness is no virtue, and cruelty is no vice" and he carried an anti-gravity gun. The last part may even be a reference to the way Scorponok died in Marvel Comics, given that he was definitely too far gone for medical assistance after he got melted.]

So, the new toy is a moderate retool of Twinferno, based on G1 Doublecross, the two-headed dragon. Both characters transform into bipedal monsters with wings, so it wasn't a completely terrible idea. The robot legs and guns and wings are the same, but the robot head, body, upper torso, pelvis, and the creature head were completely redone. They don't feel samey in the way that, say, Blurr and Brainstorm do.

The original Grotusque felt like an updated version of Dinobot Snarl, and had a lot of the same design cues and transformation elements. It also had a number of transformation options; its wings were removable so you could change him into a "regular" sabertoothed tiger or a winged one. He was designed to stand on two legs in tiger mode, but you could also put him in a four-legged stance. The new Grotusque doesn't quite have all these options.

Mostly fuschia with off-white and grey and a splash of blue, Grotusque clearly reads as his G1 self. His wings are on his back now, instead of the tops of his shoulders, but the original configuration was always a little ungainly, so it doesn't bother me that this has changed. I think perhaps his deco was not yet finalized when the toy was designed, because the Autobot symbol tampographed on his left shoulder is interrupted by the sculpted details. They should have left that shoulder blank, sort of how they eliminated sculpted details on Combiner Wars Firefly to leave real estate for his Autobot symbol.

The way the two guns connect to form a double-barreled blaster is great, since G1 Grotusque actually carried a rectangular-shaped twin-barreled vaporator gun. There's no reason to ever separate the two, since it works as a dual-barreled gun in both modes. It's made of fuschia plastic, but painted light grey in its entirety, minus the weapon grips, the tabs to connect them together, and the mini-pegs for the Titan Master mini-figure.

Grotusque's partner is named Fengul, which seems to be a mixed-up version of "engulf," I guess. Where Twinferno's partner was modeled after the Battle Beast toy named White Leo, it seems Grotusque's head is designed to look like Sabre Sword Tiger, another such Battle Beast. At least they're being consistent with their Monsterbots. He's molded from dark grey plastic for the body and head, and off-white plastic for the arms and legs, plus fuschia for the upper legs. Despite this, they painted it like the Battle Beast whenever practical, using teal for parts of the arms and lower legs and painting the feline-styled head yellow with adorable white fangs. It's probably the most colorful Titan Master they've ever done.

His transformation is different from Twinferno in that his robot arms serve double duty as his creature arms, and his monster head is worn on his back like a backpack. His robot shoulders have trapdoors in them so that you can rotate them around, using the back of the robot shoulders as the front of the creature shoulders. It isn't strictly necessary, and the trapdoors under his armpits are kind of in the way, but it helps to distinguish the monster-mode arms from the robot-mode ones a little. The front claws have a tendency to pop off. Stock photography of Grotusque on the Toys "R" Us web site shows his jaw detached in creature mode, but this is thankfully mistransformed, and the actual creature mode is much better-looking.

You can attach his guns to his wings in either mode, and there are rectangular slots in his creature head so you can even attach them there if you want. I think they look just fine mounted on his back, though.

Grotusque was officially a sabertoothed tiger during G1, and while it was arguably pretty abstract, this version is even more indistinct. (I asked my five-year-old daughter what kind of animal he was, and she said a dragon, then a bat, then a dinosaur.) You can get him down on all fours to approximate what the G1 toy could do, but you can't change the position of the creature head to compensate for the different angle.

His Titan Master cockpit is the same as Twinferno's, allowing Fengul to ride inside his belly. It's translucent fuschia, so it matches his color scheme but Fengul can still see where he's going.

The Scorponok head has been described as an Andrew Wildman style interpretation of the character, matching his Marvel Comics design more closely than the G1 toy or his appearance in the Japanese cartoon. The head is dark grey with orange eyes and antennas and a silver face. The mini-figure borrows some elements from previous Titan Masters (Fangry, I think). It's colored tan with purple arms and legs, just like the Lord Zarak figure. I haven't really found a body that the Scorponok head works really well on. Tidal Wave, maybe.

This toy would be fairly unremarkable if he'd been released at retail. A more extensive and successful remold than, say, Blurr-into-Brainstorm, certainly. Let's get real, though. The only reason we've been talking about him constantly is because Hasbro teased us mercilessly about whether or not they would ever release the toy to the general masses. They dangled the carrot in front of our noses for so long that we voraciously gobbled it up without stopping to question whether we even liked vegetables. He's rare and special only because they say so. Still, I'm glad to own him.


Zob (worked way too many hours today)

Zobovor

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Feb 5, 2018, 11:23:44 PM2/5/18
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On Friday, January 12, 2018 at 7:47:59 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> I haven't really found a body that the Scorponok head works really well on.
> Tidal Wave, maybe.

Actually, I was fiddling around the other day and the Scorponok head works really, really well on Twinferno. Yeah, the Twinferno body is the wrong allegiance and the wrong colors, but he's got claws-for-hands so he does have a very Scoroponok vibe to him.

You can even transform him into a really ridiculous-looking scorpion mode. (I tend to think that Titan Masters who usurp the bodies of other robots probably still try to transform into whatever they are accustomed to changing into.)


Zob (training my kitten to let me carry him around zipped up inside my sweatshirt like a baby kangaroo)

Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.

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Feb 6, 2018, 2:28:52 AM2/6/18
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On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 10:23:44 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> On Friday, January 12, 2018 at 7:47:59 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>
> > I haven't really found a body that the Scorponok head works really well on.
> > Tidal Wave, maybe.
>
> Actually, I was fiddling around the other day and the Scorponok head works really, really well on Twinferno. Yeah, the Twinferno body is the wrong allegiance and the wrong colors, but he's got claws-for-hands so he does have a very Scoroponok vibe to him.
>
> You can even transform him into a really ridiculous-looking scorpion mode. (I tend to think that Titan Masters who usurp the bodies of other robots probably still try to transform into whatever they are accustomed to changing into.)
>

Ridiculous extra modes used to be a fun hobby of mine, like CW Hotspot totally has a base-mode not in the instructions, TR Nautica has engines folded into other engines in vehicle mode. If you pop out the shoulder joints you get more engines. Thrilling 30 Swerve has a pretty convincing Cybertronian mode if you put his hood up covering the windshield.

I wish they played up the transector hijacking even more than they did in Headmasters and Masterforce.

>
> Zob (training my kitten to let me carry him around zipped up inside my sweatshirt like a baby kangaroo)

Kitten engine Powermaster Zobovor!
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