Zob's Thoughts on Titans Return Crashbash, Loudmouth, Nightbeat, and Terri-Bull

[Zobovor]

I've actually had Nightbeat for many months, now. Indeed, he was my very first Titan Masters toy, literally the only one they had at Target. I figured I'd find the rest eventually, but when the second wave of toys popped up, I started to get worried and found an auction for the other three. A few days later, naturally, I saw them all at Smith's Marketplace. (I am not thrilled about this eBay purchase. I paid for them on October 3rd and barely got them in the mail today. Also, Terri-Bull's package had been so badly smashed that a piece of the toy was actually broken inside the bubble. Sigh.)

Oddly, all four of these toys have the cheap pop-off legs rather than the pins holding them in place, which blows holes in my theory that only the Decepticon toys got the cost-cutting measure.

CRASHBASH

This is kind of a weird toy, since the Titan Master mini-figure is modeled after Headmaster Squeezeplay from 1988, but his accessory vehicle isn't a crab monster, but rather a T. rex, making him more of a Snapdragon homage.

I don't have a lot to say about this toy that I haven't already said about Clobber, the Grimlock-inspired redeco version of this toy, which I actually got first. Except perhaps to say that his dragon transformation strongly reminds me of the "Ass Blaster" creatures from the Tremors film anthology.

LOUDMOUTH

Even though he's named Loudmouth, the Titan Master is meant as an homage to the Headmaster Siren toy from 1988. It's even sculpted to include the styling of the detachable helmet that fit over his transformed head, which helped to bulk it up a bit (the Decepticon Headmasters from 1988 didn't get helmets). His arms, which end up on either side of the head, are even sculpted to look like the guns that mounted on either side of the helmet (it would have worked even better if the arms had been molded in black plastic).

Of course, the head designs for Nightbeat and Siren were actually swapped for their portrayal in Marvel Comics (and the animated segments of their 1988 toy commercial), so this head looks more like the Nightbeat character as he appears in media. I would absolutely love it if we actually got a full-sized transformable Nightbeat toy that used this head. (I can't really tell if his humanoid mode is more closely modeled after Muzzle or Quig. I guess it doesn't matter much.)

His vehicle is a space-age rocket car that converts into a flying gun pod. Of course, it also turns into a silly handheld gun for one of the larger Titan Masters toys.

NIGHTBEAT

The head is mostly accurate to the original Nightbeat toy, but it looks so wrong to me because this is comic book Siren's face. The head-and-helmet combo isn't as prominent or obvious, but it's still present. He's also one of the few Transformers toys whose mouth is permanently open, like he's shouting, a face sculpt that would be more appropriate for Siren than Nightbeat. He's got teeth, too. (Remember when all the Beast Wars toys had TMNT-style toothy scowls?)

His vehicle is a fairly cool-looking drill tank that swaps out its drill nose for a jet nose, and has some perfunctory fold-out wings that would in no shape or form allow this thing to fly. I think I actually do like the weapon mode because, perhaps due to the drill nose and the boxy shape, reminds me of Quickswitch's gun mode. This would be a great accessory to give to the new Powermaster Optimus Prime.

TERRI-BULL

It's unfathomable to me that some other company somewhere actually gobbled up the name Horri-Bull. Maybe this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that his so-called bull mode actually looks like a Terror Dog from Ghostbusters.

The head mode is a good match for the original Horri-Bull, but the transformed Titan Master mini-figure does not look anything like Kreb. (I read somewhere that he was originally designed as an all-new character, and not sculpted to be a G1 tribute at all.)

I first experienced this toy as Skytread, but the vehicle still works pretty well in its own right, even when it's not a Flywheels homage. Surely there must have been other Decepticon tanks they could have paid tribute to? That's the problem with a toy line that's so Geewun-centric as this one... even when they innovate and come up with new ideas, I've been conditioned to look for a connection to G1 even when none exists.

Overall, these are cute little toys. While I do like the interchangeable aspect of the Titan Masters, it bothers me that these little guys don't have any larger bodies to call their own. Maybe one day?


Zob (come on, third party people!)