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Zob's Retro Review: G1 Targetmaster Spinister (1988) and Targetmaster Quake (1988)
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Zobovor
Dec 28, 2019, 1:44:33 PM12/28/19
to
I've got a list of around 100 toys from the G1 era that I plan on buying in the next few years. As it happens, the same guy who was selling Pointblank also had Spinister and Quake available for sale, and it made sense to buy them all at once and save a little money on shipping.
I used to own Spinister until I sold him off in the 1990's; I have an oversized knockoff of Quake around here somewhere, but I've never owned an authentic version of him before.
SPINISTER
In the pages of Marvel Comics, Spinister was part of Thunderwing's forces during the early Simon Furman stories; he was one of the only Decepticons to vocally express his concerns about Thunderwing's obsession with acquiring the Creation Matrix, finally speaking up to Thunderwing only to get blasted in the chest for his troubles.
I really feel very strongly that Spinister's vehicle mode was based directly upon the Diaclone-era double-change helicopter, which came from the same assortment as Blitzwing but was never used for the Transformers line by Hasbro. (It changed from a robot to a helicopter to a plane, but the plane mode was decidedly more abstract than most Diaclone vehicles tended to be.) I could be totally wrong, but the size of both toys and the helicopter styling are virtually identical.
Following the success of the Headmasters and Targetmasters from 1987, Hasbro continued the gimmick in 1988, but downscaled the Nebulan partners with respect to the ones from the previous year. While Takara took this to mean the Nebulans themselves were children and marketed them in fiction as the Headmaster Juniors, Marvel Comics treated the 1988 Nebulans as normal-sized and did not address the size disparity at all. Making the Nebulans smaller meant that the vehicle cockpit for the Headmasters didn't have to be quite so large and bulky, and it also meant it was now affordable to produce double Targetmasters: Transformers who were partnered with not one, but two Nebulans who turned into guns.
In vehicle mode, Spinister is an AH-64 Apache helicopter. (He's actually the same model of vehicle as Battletrap's helicopter component, but Battletrap was significantly chibified. G2 Powerdive also got this vehicle mode.) I love his color scheme; it's mostly magenta with some purple parts and a teal forward section. He rolls easily on three wheels, and he's one of the few aerial vehicles in the Transformers line with zero kibble hanging off his undercarriage. His main rotor and tail rotors spin freely.
His two Targetmaster partners, Singe and Hairsplitter, have remarkably simple transformations. They each stand at 1 3/8" in height, and all you do is unfold the gun barrels behind their feet or head. Depending upon the orientation of the gun barrels, the weapon peg either ends up poking out of their chest or poking out of their lower legs. Also, these guys aren't articulated at all. Singe is the black one, and he's sculpted to look like he's got a Soundwave-style shoulder cannon. Hairsplitter is the purple one, and he's sculpted to look like he's carrying a rifle. (All the 1988 Decepticon Targetmasters had a black gun and a purple gun; the Autobots got blue and yellow.) In vehicle mode, the guns mount to the underside of Spinister's canards.
To transform him, the cockpit unfolds to become the robot legs, which are fused together as a single piece. Rotating the waist means the helicopter blades end up on his back, while the top of the vehicle forms the robot chest. The tail sections folds down and ends up on his back, and the robot arms swing out from the undercarriage. There's a real elegance to how neatly and perfectly everything tucks away for vehicle mode. The fists flip out, and the helicopter engine rotates to reveal the robot face.
As a robot, he's about four and a half inches tall. He's very spindly in design, with long, skinny stilt-like upper legs, and lower legs that would probably be very skinny as well if they could actually separate from each other. The robot arms are very flat, too, almost like Battlechargers or Throttlebots. There are little notches to help lock the arms in place in either a resting position or when posing him with his weapons drawn and pointed. He can equip each of his gun individually, or they can combine together to form a super-weapon.
I haven't owned Spinister for about 20 years now, but in some ways it feels like he never left. I have fond memories of this toy and I'm glad to own him again, especially in light of the recent Siege update to the character. I won't be selling this one off any time soon.
QUAKE
For some reason, Quake wasn't present with Spinister and Needlenose as part of Thunderwing's forces in Marvel Comics; he didn't appear until issue #74, right before the modern-day Unicron arrived and attacked Cybertron. Quake was one of the only Transformers to be assaulted by Unicron and survive; Marvel Comics editors corrected one reader's tally of the destroyed Transformers during the battle, specifically noting that Quake survived because he was "made of sturdy stuff."
in vehicle mode, Quake is a German-made Leopard 2 tank. He's maroon with a grey turret and treads, and has . Like most tank Transformers, his treads don't actually operate, but he has four hidden rolling wheels underneath them. Weirdly, he's the only one of the small Targetmasters who has a third weapon that isn't a Nebulan partner. Specifically, it's the black barrel for his tank turret. This piece isn't strictly necessary, since either (or both) of his Targetmaster partners can form the main gun for his tank mode (the slot where the barrel attaches is perfectly Targetmaster-sized). I suppose there might have been some concern that his tank mode would be worthless if you lost his Targetmaster guns, but couldn't the same be easily said of the removable, non-transforming barrel?
His partners are Tiptop (purple) and Heater (black). Heater is molded to look like he's got Starscream-style arm-mounted guns, while Tiptop has shoulder blasters. Where Heater has short dual gun barrels (like Singe and Hairsplitter), Tiptop has a great, big long gun barrel, which suggests to me that he was, at one stage, initially intended to be the main turret gun for Quake's tank mode. Quake only has one additional spot to mount a gun, on top of the turret, so in order to equip both his Targetmasters, either you need to double up his partners and mount them together, or remove the gun barrel.
To transform the toy, the rear sections of the tank unlock and swing all the way around to the front of the tank to form the robot legs. The halves of the tank turret split in half to form the robot arms, like G2 Megatron. In this mode, he has a blue-colored chest and torso that wasn't visible in tank mode.
As a robot, he stands significantly taller than Spinister, nearly five and a half inches. His legs are kind of a weird shape, since they're much wider at the base than they are at the hips. He's wearing robotic bell bottoms. His shoulders are on spring-loaded ratchets, and his head swivels, and I guess he can do the splits, but that's about it for the articulation department. One of the peg holes ends up on his back, so you can store his extra gun barrel there if you don't want him to carry it. Again, he can carry his Targetmasters separately or they can connect together to form a single, super-powered weapon.
Quake got a modern-era update for Titans Return, of course, but it was a reuse of the Hardhead toy and not really suitable for the character (they got his color scheme right, but that's about it). With the advent of Spinister getting a proper neo-G1 toy, and the notion of Needlenose soon joining him, I'm hopeful that Quake will get a proper modern update before too long. For now, though, I'm delighted to add the original edition to my collection.
Zob (G1 Needlenose has both a detachable tail fin and a removable helmet, so he's going to be harder to find complete...)
I used to own Spinister until I sold him off in the 1990's; I have an oversized knockoff of Quake around here somewhere, but I've never owned an authentic version of him before.
SPINISTER
In the pages of Marvel Comics, Spinister was part of Thunderwing's forces during the early Simon Furman stories; he was one of the only Decepticons to vocally express his concerns about Thunderwing's obsession with acquiring the Creation Matrix, finally speaking up to Thunderwing only to get blasted in the chest for his troubles.
I really feel very strongly that Spinister's vehicle mode was based directly upon the Diaclone-era double-change helicopter, which came from the same assortment as Blitzwing but was never used for the Transformers line by Hasbro. (It changed from a robot to a helicopter to a plane, but the plane mode was decidedly more abstract than most Diaclone vehicles tended to be.) I could be totally wrong, but the size of both toys and the helicopter styling are virtually identical.
Following the success of the Headmasters and Targetmasters from 1987, Hasbro continued the gimmick in 1988, but downscaled the Nebulan partners with respect to the ones from the previous year. While Takara took this to mean the Nebulans themselves were children and marketed them in fiction as the Headmaster Juniors, Marvel Comics treated the 1988 Nebulans as normal-sized and did not address the size disparity at all. Making the Nebulans smaller meant that the vehicle cockpit for the Headmasters didn't have to be quite so large and bulky, and it also meant it was now affordable to produce double Targetmasters: Transformers who were partnered with not one, but two Nebulans who turned into guns.
In vehicle mode, Spinister is an AH-64 Apache helicopter. (He's actually the same model of vehicle as Battletrap's helicopter component, but Battletrap was significantly chibified. G2 Powerdive also got this vehicle mode.) I love his color scheme; it's mostly magenta with some purple parts and a teal forward section. He rolls easily on three wheels, and he's one of the few aerial vehicles in the Transformers line with zero kibble hanging off his undercarriage. His main rotor and tail rotors spin freely.
His two Targetmaster partners, Singe and Hairsplitter, have remarkably simple transformations. They each stand at 1 3/8" in height, and all you do is unfold the gun barrels behind their feet or head. Depending upon the orientation of the gun barrels, the weapon peg either ends up poking out of their chest or poking out of their lower legs. Also, these guys aren't articulated at all. Singe is the black one, and he's sculpted to look like he's got a Soundwave-style shoulder cannon. Hairsplitter is the purple one, and he's sculpted to look like he's carrying a rifle. (All the 1988 Decepticon Targetmasters had a black gun and a purple gun; the Autobots got blue and yellow.) In vehicle mode, the guns mount to the underside of Spinister's canards.
To transform him, the cockpit unfolds to become the robot legs, which are fused together as a single piece. Rotating the waist means the helicopter blades end up on his back, while the top of the vehicle forms the robot chest. The tail sections folds down and ends up on his back, and the robot arms swing out from the undercarriage. There's a real elegance to how neatly and perfectly everything tucks away for vehicle mode. The fists flip out, and the helicopter engine rotates to reveal the robot face.
As a robot, he's about four and a half inches tall. He's very spindly in design, with long, skinny stilt-like upper legs, and lower legs that would probably be very skinny as well if they could actually separate from each other. The robot arms are very flat, too, almost like Battlechargers or Throttlebots. There are little notches to help lock the arms in place in either a resting position or when posing him with his weapons drawn and pointed. He can equip each of his gun individually, or they can combine together to form a super-weapon.
I haven't owned Spinister for about 20 years now, but in some ways it feels like he never left. I have fond memories of this toy and I'm glad to own him again, especially in light of the recent Siege update to the character. I won't be selling this one off any time soon.
QUAKE
For some reason, Quake wasn't present with Spinister and Needlenose as part of Thunderwing's forces in Marvel Comics; he didn't appear until issue #74, right before the modern-day Unicron arrived and attacked Cybertron. Quake was one of the only Transformers to be assaulted by Unicron and survive; Marvel Comics editors corrected one reader's tally of the destroyed Transformers during the battle, specifically noting that Quake survived because he was "made of sturdy stuff."
in vehicle mode, Quake is a German-made Leopard 2 tank. He's maroon with a grey turret and treads, and has . Like most tank Transformers, his treads don't actually operate, but he has four hidden rolling wheels underneath them. Weirdly, he's the only one of the small Targetmasters who has a third weapon that isn't a Nebulan partner. Specifically, it's the black barrel for his tank turret. This piece isn't strictly necessary, since either (or both) of his Targetmaster partners can form the main gun for his tank mode (the slot where the barrel attaches is perfectly Targetmaster-sized). I suppose there might have been some concern that his tank mode would be worthless if you lost his Targetmaster guns, but couldn't the same be easily said of the removable, non-transforming barrel?
His partners are Tiptop (purple) and Heater (black). Heater is molded to look like he's got Starscream-style arm-mounted guns, while Tiptop has shoulder blasters. Where Heater has short dual gun barrels (like Singe and Hairsplitter), Tiptop has a great, big long gun barrel, which suggests to me that he was, at one stage, initially intended to be the main turret gun for Quake's tank mode. Quake only has one additional spot to mount a gun, on top of the turret, so in order to equip both his Targetmasters, either you need to double up his partners and mount them together, or remove the gun barrel.
To transform the toy, the rear sections of the tank unlock and swing all the way around to the front of the tank to form the robot legs. The halves of the tank turret split in half to form the robot arms, like G2 Megatron. In this mode, he has a blue-colored chest and torso that wasn't visible in tank mode.
As a robot, he stands significantly taller than Spinister, nearly five and a half inches. His legs are kind of a weird shape, since they're much wider at the base than they are at the hips. He's wearing robotic bell bottoms. His shoulders are on spring-loaded ratchets, and his head swivels, and I guess he can do the splits, but that's about it for the articulation department. One of the peg holes ends up on his back, so you can store his extra gun barrel there if you don't want him to carry it. Again, he can carry his Targetmasters separately or they can connect together to form a single, super-powered weapon.
Quake got a modern-era update for Titans Return, of course, but it was a reuse of the Hardhead toy and not really suitable for the character (they got his color scheme right, but that's about it). With the advent of Spinister getting a proper neo-G1 toy, and the notion of Needlenose soon joining him, I'm hopeful that Quake will get a proper modern update before too long. For now, though, I'm delighted to add the original edition to my collection.
Zob (G1 Needlenose has both a detachable tail fin and a removable helmet, so he's going to be harder to find complete...)
Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.
Dec 28, 2019, 9:17:57 PM12/28/19
to
On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 12:44:33 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> I've got a list of around 100 toys from the G1 era that I plan on buying in the next few years. As it happens, the same guy who was selling Pointblank also had Spinister and Quake available for sale, and it made sense to buy them all at once and save a little money on shipping.
>
> I used to own Spinister until I sold him off in the 1990's; I have an oversized knockoff of Quake around here somewhere, but I've never owned an authentic version of him before.
>
> SPINISTER
>
> In the pages of Marvel Comics, Spinister was part of Thunderwing's forces during the early Simon Furman stories; he was one of the only Decepticons to vocally express his concerns about Thunderwing's obsession with acquiring the Creation Matrix, finally speaking up to Thunderwing only to get blasted in the chest for his troubles.
>
> I really feel very strongly that Spinister's vehicle mode was based directly upon the Diaclone-era double-change helicopter, which came from the same assortment as Blitzwing but was never used for the Transformers line by Hasbro. (It changed from a robot to a helicopter to a plane, but the plane mode was decidedly more abstract than most Diaclone vehicles tended to be.) I could be totally wrong, but the size of both toys and the helicopter styling are virtually identical.
>
> Following the success of the Headmasters and Targetmasters from 1987, Hasbro continued the gimmick in 1988, but downscaled the Nebulan partners with respect to the ones from the previous year. While Takara took this to mean the Nebulans themselves were children and marketed them in fiction as the Headmaster Juniors, Marvel Comics treated the 1988 Nebulans as normal-sized and did not address the size disparity at all. Making the Nebulans smaller meant that the vehicle cockpit for the Headmasters didn't have to be quite so large and bulky, and it also meant it was now affordable to produce double Targetmasters: Transformers who were partnered with not one, but two Nebulans who turned into guns.
>
> In vehicle mode, Spinister is an AH-64 Apache helicopter. (He's actually the same model of vehicle as Battletrap's helicopter component, but Battletrap was significantly chibified. G2 Powerdive also got this vehicle mode.) I love his color scheme; it's mostly magenta with some purple parts and a teal forward section. He rolls easily on three wheels, and he's one of the few aerial vehicles in the Transformers line with zero kibble hanging off his undercarriage. His main rotor and tail rotors spin freely.
>
> His two Targetmaster partners, Singe and Hairsplitter, have remarkably simple transformations. They each stand at 1 3/8" in height, and all you do is unfold the gun barrels behind their feet or head. Depending upon the orientation of the gun barrels, the weapon peg either ends up poking out of their chest or poking out of their lower legs. Also, these guys aren't articulated at all. Singe is the black one, and he's sculpted to look like he's got a Soundwave-style shoulder cannon. Hairsplitter is the purple one, and he's sculpted to look like he's carrying a rifle. (All the 1988 Decepticon Targetmasters had a black gun and a purple gun; the Autobots got blue and yellow.) In vehicle mode, the guns mount to the underside of Spinister's canards.
>
> To transform him, the cockpit unfolds to become the robot legs, which are fused together as a single piece. Rotating the waist means the helicopter blades end up on his back, while the top of the vehicle forms the robot chest. The tail sections folds down and ends up on his back, and the robot arms swing out from the undercarriage. There's a real elegance to how neatly and perfectly everything tucks away for vehicle mode. The fists flip out, and the helicopter engine rotates to reveal the robot face.
>
> As a robot, he's about four and a half inches tall. He's very spindly in design, with long, skinny stilt-like upper legs, and lower legs that would probably be very skinny as well if they could actually separate from each other. The robot arms are very flat, too, almost like Battlechargers or Throttlebots. There are little notches to help lock the arms in place in either a resting position or when posing him with his weapons drawn and pointed. He can equip each of his gun individually, or they can combine together to form a super-weapon.
>
> I haven't owned Spinister for about 20 years now, but in some ways it feels like he never left. I have fond memories of this toy and I'm glad to own him again, especially in light of the recent Siege update to the character. I won't be selling this one off any time soon.
>
Spinister's colors were always a mystery to me, he's like the Seacon's step-brother. I always found it more interesting on the Seacons though.
> I've got a list of around 100 toys from the G1 era that I plan on buying in the next few years. As it happens, the same guy who was selling Pointblank also had Spinister and Quake available for sale, and it made sense to buy them all at once and save a little money on shipping.
>
> I used to own Spinister until I sold him off in the 1990's; I have an oversized knockoff of Quake around here somewhere, but I've never owned an authentic version of him before.
>
> SPINISTER
>
> In the pages of Marvel Comics, Spinister was part of Thunderwing's forces during the early Simon Furman stories; he was one of the only Decepticons to vocally express his concerns about Thunderwing's obsession with acquiring the Creation Matrix, finally speaking up to Thunderwing only to get blasted in the chest for his troubles.
>
> I really feel very strongly that Spinister's vehicle mode was based directly upon the Diaclone-era double-change helicopter, which came from the same assortment as Blitzwing but was never used for the Transformers line by Hasbro. (It changed from a robot to a helicopter to a plane, but the plane mode was decidedly more abstract than most Diaclone vehicles tended to be.) I could be totally wrong, but the size of both toys and the helicopter styling are virtually identical.
>
> Following the success of the Headmasters and Targetmasters from 1987, Hasbro continued the gimmick in 1988, but downscaled the Nebulan partners with respect to the ones from the previous year. While Takara took this to mean the Nebulans themselves were children and marketed them in fiction as the Headmaster Juniors, Marvel Comics treated the 1988 Nebulans as normal-sized and did not address the size disparity at all. Making the Nebulans smaller meant that the vehicle cockpit for the Headmasters didn't have to be quite so large and bulky, and it also meant it was now affordable to produce double Targetmasters: Transformers who were partnered with not one, but two Nebulans who turned into guns.
>
> In vehicle mode, Spinister is an AH-64 Apache helicopter. (He's actually the same model of vehicle as Battletrap's helicopter component, but Battletrap was significantly chibified. G2 Powerdive also got this vehicle mode.) I love his color scheme; it's mostly magenta with some purple parts and a teal forward section. He rolls easily on three wheels, and he's one of the few aerial vehicles in the Transformers line with zero kibble hanging off his undercarriage. His main rotor and tail rotors spin freely.
>
> His two Targetmaster partners, Singe and Hairsplitter, have remarkably simple transformations. They each stand at 1 3/8" in height, and all you do is unfold the gun barrels behind their feet or head. Depending upon the orientation of the gun barrels, the weapon peg either ends up poking out of their chest or poking out of their lower legs. Also, these guys aren't articulated at all. Singe is the black one, and he's sculpted to look like he's got a Soundwave-style shoulder cannon. Hairsplitter is the purple one, and he's sculpted to look like he's carrying a rifle. (All the 1988 Decepticon Targetmasters had a black gun and a purple gun; the Autobots got blue and yellow.) In vehicle mode, the guns mount to the underside of Spinister's canards.
>
> To transform him, the cockpit unfolds to become the robot legs, which are fused together as a single piece. Rotating the waist means the helicopter blades end up on his back, while the top of the vehicle forms the robot chest. The tail sections folds down and ends up on his back, and the robot arms swing out from the undercarriage. There's a real elegance to how neatly and perfectly everything tucks away for vehicle mode. The fists flip out, and the helicopter engine rotates to reveal the robot face.
>
> As a robot, he's about four and a half inches tall. He's very spindly in design, with long, skinny stilt-like upper legs, and lower legs that would probably be very skinny as well if they could actually separate from each other. The robot arms are very flat, too, almost like Battlechargers or Throttlebots. There are little notches to help lock the arms in place in either a resting position or when posing him with his weapons drawn and pointed. He can equip each of his gun individually, or they can combine together to form a super-weapon.
>
> I haven't owned Spinister for about 20 years now, but in some ways it feels like he never left. I have fond memories of this toy and I'm glad to own him again, especially in light of the recent Siege update to the character. I won't be selling this one off any time soon.
>
I've been looking at Siege Spinister but the proportions on the robot mode just don't look right compared to his G1 self. It's like accepting Machine Wars Sandstorm as G1 Sandstorm. It just feels wrong.
> QUAKE
>
> For some reason, Quake wasn't present with Spinister and Needlenose as part of Thunderwing's forces in Marvel Comics; he didn't appear until issue #74, right before the modern-day Unicron arrived and attacked Cybertron. Quake was one of the only Transformers to be assaulted by Unicron and survive; Marvel Comics editors corrected one reader's tally of the destroyed Transformers during the battle, specifically noting that Quake survived because he was "made of sturdy stuff."
>
> in vehicle mode, Quake is a German-made Leopard 2 tank. He's maroon with a grey turret and treads, and has . Like most tank Transformers, his treads don't actually operate, but he has four hidden rolling wheels underneath them. Weirdly, he's the only one of the small Targetmasters who has a third weapon that isn't a Nebulan partner. Specifically, it's the black barrel for his tank turret. This piece isn't strictly necessary, since either (or both) of his Targetmaster partners can form the main gun for his tank mode (the slot where the barrel attaches is perfectly Targetmaster-sized). I suppose there might have been some concern that his tank mode would be worthless if you lost his Targetmaster guns, but couldn't the same be easily said of the removable, non-transforming barrel?
>
> His partners are Tiptop (purple) and Heater (black). Heater is molded to look like he's got Starscream-style arm-mounted guns, while Tiptop has shoulder blasters. Where Heater has short dual gun barrels (like Singe and Hairsplitter), Tiptop has a great, big long gun barrel, which suggests to me that he was, at one stage, initially intended to be the main turret gun for Quake's tank mode. Quake only has one additional spot to mount a gun, on top of the turret, so in order to equip both his Targetmasters, either you need to double up his partners and mount them together, or remove the gun barrel.
>
> To transform the toy, the rear sections of the tank unlock and swing all the way around to the front of the tank to form the robot legs. The halves of the tank turret split in half to form the robot arms, like G2 Megatron. In this mode, he has a blue-colored chest and torso that wasn't visible in tank mode.
>
> As a robot, he stands significantly taller than Spinister, nearly five and a half inches. His legs are kind of a weird shape, since they're much wider at the base than they are at the hips. He's wearing robotic bell bottoms. His shoulders are on spring-loaded ratchets, and his head swivels, and I guess he can do the splits, but that's about it for the articulation department. One of the peg holes ends up on his back, so you can store his extra gun barrel there if you don't want him to carry it. Again, he can carry his Targetmasters separately or they can connect together to form a single, super-powered weapon.
>
> Quake got a modern-era update for Titans Return, of course, but it was a reuse of the Hardhead toy and not really suitable for the character (they got his color scheme right, but that's about it). With the advent of Spinister getting a proper neo-G1 toy, and the notion of Needlenose soon joining him, I'm hopeful that Quake will get a proper modern update before too long. For now, though, I'm delighted to add the original edition to my collection.
>
>
> Zob (G1 Needlenose has both a detachable tail fin and a removable helmet, so he's going to be harder to find complete...)
Joseph Bardsley
Dec 28, 2019, 11:44:58 PM12/28/19
to
I'm loving your retro reviews, Zob! You have a way of picking very cool specific toys (and characters) to focus on. Thanks, as ever, for taking the time to create these.
I am similarly a Spinister fan, but - funnily enough - my affection for the character comes from his portrayal in Rob Jung's various fanfics back in the day. :)
JB
I am similarly a Spinister fan, but - funnily enough - my affection for the character comes from his portrayal in Rob Jung's various fanfics back in the day. :)
JB
Zobovor
Dec 29, 2019, 12:22:55 PM12/29/19
to
On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 7:17:57 PM UTC-7, Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People. wrote:
> Spinister's colors were always a mystery to me, he's like the Seacon's step-
brother. I always found it more interesting on the Seacons though.
Yeah, you definitely get a Seacon vibe when looking at him. Actually, I've got my 1987-88 characters together on a shelf right now, and when compared to the 1984-85 crowd, they don't even look like they're from the same toy line. Diaclone tended to stick to primary colors (lots of red and yellow) and used plenty of white and black as a secondary color. The Diaclone-era shelf looks like a bunch of industrial machines and the 1987-88 shelf looks like a bunch of cartoon characters.
> Spinister's colors were always a mystery to me, he's like the Seacon's step-
brother. I always found it more interesting on the Seacons though.
> I've been looking at Siege Spinister but the proportions on the robot mode just don't look right compared to his G1 self. It's like accepting Machine Wars Sandstorm as G1 Sandstorm. It just feels wrong.
> I was excited and disappointed buy TR Quake. G1 Quake was probably the best tank character. He looked like a real tank and wasn't annoying like Warpath. Brawl never really got much characterization. I was willing to accept a Headmaster Quake, but then when it's just recolored Hardhead I couldn't accept that as Quake. I even passed on him at $4.
> I didn't know Needlenose's Helmet was detachable without a lot of force. The tailfin sure, but I didn't think people would remove his helmet. I've never seen one helmetless.
Zob (is taking an emergency crash course in G1 accessories and sticker placement)
Zobovor
Dec 29, 2019, 12:26:38 PM12/29/19
to
On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 9:44:58 PM UTC-7, Joseph Bardsley wrote:
> I'm loving your retro reviews, Zob! You have a way of picking very cool specific toys (and characters) to focus on. Thanks, as ever, for taking the time to create these.
I was worried people would begin to get annoyed that I've been spamming the newsgroup with them. So, it's good to know you're enjoying them so far.
> I'm loving your retro reviews, Zob! You have a way of picking very cool specific toys (and characters) to focus on. Thanks, as ever, for taking the time to create these.
I honestly don't really have a plan. I've just been seeking out some toys that tickle my fancy, so it's been a combination of what shows up in the mail first and what I can find on eBay that's complete with good-looking stickers. The character selection may or may not continue to interest you. Fingers crossed!
Zob (and there's stuff that likely will never get reviewed, like the handful of extra Zhong Jin Sharkticons...)
Gustavo Wombat
Dec 30, 2019, 5:21:03 AM12/30/19
to
Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 7:17:57 PM UTC-7, Irrellius Spamticon
> of the Potato People. wrote:
>
>> I was excited and disappointed buy TR Quake. G1 Quake was probably the
>> best tank character. He looked like a real tank and wasn't annoying like
>> Warpath. Brawl never really got much characterization. I was willing to
>> accept a Headmaster Quake, but then when it's just recolored Hardhead I
>> couldn't accept that as Quake. I even passed on him at $4.
>
> There just weren't a lot of things they could have done with the Titans
> Return Hardhead toy that would have made sense. Action Master
> Gutcruncher would have been a better tribute than Quake, given the toy's design.
Given that Broadside was a remold of Alpha Trion, I think there was a lot
> On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 7:17:57 PM UTC-7, Irrellius Spamticon
> of the Potato People. wrote:
>
>> I was excited and disappointed buy TR Quake. G1 Quake was probably the
>> best tank character. He looked like a real tank and wasn't annoying like
>> Warpath. Brawl never really got much characterization. I was willing to
>> accept a Headmaster Quake, but then when it's just recolored Hardhead I
>> couldn't accept that as Quake. I even passed on him at $4.
>
> There just weren't a lot of things they could have done with the Titans
> Return Hardhead toy that would have made sense. Action Master
> Gutcruncher would have been a better tribute than Quake, given the toy's design.
they could have done to change up this toy.
A few remolds and we could have gotten Machine Wars Soundwave (or whoever
he was based on), or Tankor.
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