Zob's Thoughts on the Unlicensed "Reissue" G1 Terrorcons

[Zobovor]

Short Version: Great copies of the G1 toys! Buy them.

Long Version: I may have possibly mentioned to my wife that these guys were somewhere at the top of my birthday wish list, so of course she went out of her way to make it happen for me. (What's strange is that it took them an inordinately long time to actually arrive in the mail. She's ordered stuff for me from Hong Kong and it's showed up in a week, but this purchase took over a month to arrive. I actually wonder if there are just much more frequent shipments sailing from overseas during the holiday months as compared to right now. She picked it up on March 6th, a day before my birthday!)

So, the Terrorcons were introduced in 1987, intended as the rival team to the Technobots. Originally, the Autobots were mostly cars and trucks and the Decepticons were mostly planes and weapons, but by 1987 the theme of the toy line had changed; the Autobots usually got vehicle transformations (both ground-based and the aerial variety) while the Decepticons were predominantly creatures. The Technobots and Terrorcons are clear examples of this shift in the design philosophy, a trend that would continue for the next couple of years.

When script writer Paul Davids was asked to provide an origin story for the Technobots in the cartoon series, he wasn't instructed to come up with an origin for the Terrorcons; who were depicted in "Grimlock's New Brain" as a pre-existing Decepticon team by the time the Technobots were born. Unfortunately, an earlier episode, "Money is Everything" (actually the first episode broadcast that featured the Terrorcons) revealed them to be agents of the Quintessons. It's difficult to reconcile these two episodes; were they created by the Quintessons but sometimes acted as Decepticons-for-hire? Were they Decepticons by allegiance who were temporarily on loan to the Quintessons by Galvatron? It's hard to say for sure; like the Predacons (who were acting as Quintesson agents when introduced), their true origins remain a mystery.

As far as the toys themselves go, the 1987 combiners were Hasbro's first foray into creating a team of Scramble City style combiners that were all-new toys, not based on any Diaclone designs, but which still followed the same basic design rules. (The Terrorcon gift set was still marketed as a Scramble City set in Japan, interestingly enough.) The four Terrorcons sold on cards were among the Transformers toys who included the rubberized figures that were offered as part of that year's Decoys promotion. The Terrorcons were also offered as part of the 1988 product line, by which point Hasbro had phased out the heat-sensitive rub symbols on the toys (most likely owing to the fact that there was little or no competition from the other robot toy lines, and thus there was no longer a necessity to identify the Hasbro product as "true" Transformers.) While there were numerous 1988 toys that had a spot for a rub symbol but never included one, Hasbro took the extra step to fill in the square-shaped indents on the 1987 toys which originally housed the rub symbols. The Zhong Jin versions come with rub symbols to apply, though the toys are actually a mix of the 1987 and 1988 editions (see below).

Curiously, unlike most of the other combiner teams, an Abominus gift set was never offered by Hasbro. What this means is that Zhong Jin had no existing template on which to model their gift set packaging. While the text of the tech specs for the individual Terrorcons is (more or less) authentic, there was no Abominus tech specs card ever offered by Hasbro, so what was Zhong Jin to do in this situation? The answer may surprise you!

PACKAGING

So, this package is a sort of "What If?" attempt at depicting Abominus as his gift set might have appeared in 1987. Now, it's possible that there was some secret Hasbro packaging template that Zhong Jin somehow acquired, but I think it's more likely that they pieced it together themselves, probably using Computron's packaging as a template but swapping out the relevant text and photos. They did create a fairly major anachronism in using the 1986 battle scene on the back of the box (showcasing city-mode Metroplex with his head poking out, two Hot Rods, etc.) rather than the more authentic 1987 battle scene (with Fortress Maximus). The side panels describe him as a "TERRORCON SUPER WARRIO," yet another in a long line of seemingly deliberate package misspellings. Sinnertwin's tech specs retains the original Hasbro error that says he is "unnerved by small creatures like nice, insects, and mini-droids" (I'm sure that should be "mice"); Blot's tech specs includes a new misspelling that says "wherever he gose [sic] he leaves a foul-smelling trail of lubricant." Rather than using the English-language translation of the Takara tech specs, as I'd sort of been expecting, Abominus gets a truncated version of the (comparatively) new profile written for the More Than Meets the Eye profile series by Dreamwave from 2003, and reads as follows:

ABOMINUS
FUNCTION: WARRIOR

"Chaos is my only ally, and DESTRUCTION my only friend" [no closing punctuation]

As a unit, the Terrorcons are infamous for their brutality and ferocity, so it's no surprise that their combined form is the embodiment of those characteristics. Abominus has a core of malevolent rage that's the equal of the warriors, with fury of a storm. Unlike the feral creatures he acts like, it's plain that there is some hint of inttelligence [sic] within Abominus that enjoys the devastation he causes. With immense strength and endurance, he is able to shrug off most artillery fire with no ill effects. he wields Hun-Grrr's [sic] sonic stun gun when not using his bare hands to crush his enemies.

STR: 10 INT: 1 SPD: 3 END: 10 RNK: 5 CRG: 10 FPW: 8 SKL: 4

Its editorial voice is not very authentic to the time period, and it's littered with problems and mistakes (it's plain that there's intelligence within Abominus when his Intelligence ranking is "1"?) but at least Zhong Jin made an effort, and whether I like it or not, the Dreamwave profile is canonical and official, so it's as good a source to draw from as any.

HUN-GURRR

There is not a small amount of confusion over the spelling of Hun-Gurrr's name, likely owing to the non-traditional nomenclature that cannot be found in a dictionary. The 1987 toy was called Hun-Gurrr (with a "u" and three "r's") on the side panels of the Hasbro packaging, but the character was referred to as Hun-Grrr (without the "u") in his tech specs. (The 1987 Hasbro toy catalog calls him Hun-Gurrr while the 1988 catalog says Hun-Grrr.) Internal documents for the Sunbow cartoon also use the Hun-Grrr spelling, while Marvel Comics trimmed things down a bit and spelled it Hun-Grr with only two "r's." (The Transformers: Prime toy released last year is called Hun-Gurrr, so this seems to be the name Hasbro has finally settled on.)

In the cartoon, Hun-Gurrr was voiced by Stephen Keener, who also provided the voice characterization for Scattershot (and, later, Hardhead). He was described in his toy tech specs as constantly eating, and further was given the ability of being able to reconstitute the food that he'd eaten into crude missiles, a disgusting prospect to say the least. There's a fun moment in "Call of the Primitives" where one of his heads begins gobbling up rocks on the ground while the other head begins to spit them back out as weapons. It's moments like this that really helped to bring the toys to life.

In his creature mode, Hun-Gurrr is a two-headed dragon, predominantly light grey and dark grey with some magenta accents. He's got really good articulation for the time period; his front legs move at the hips, his rear legs move at the hips and knees, and each creature head/neck assembly has five separate joints (they're all required for his transformation, of course, except perhaps for the y-axis joints that serve as the knees for Hun-Gurrr's robot mode). He lacks opening jaws, though, and his eyes are just featureless visors that lack paint detail. He has two peg-holes on his back intended for the Abominus shield, but you can attach his robot-mode rifle there if you're so inclined. Hasbro originally included all the Abominus combiner parts with Hun-Gurrr (the fists, feet, helmet, and chest) but there's really nowhere sensible to attach them in this form.

Somebody at Sunbow must have decided that it wasn't fair that all the other Scramble City team leaders got an additional third transformation, so they made one up for Hun-Gurrr, too. His animation model includes a bizarre alternate transformation that is, perhaps, meant to be a repair bay of some kind, with the rear creature arms being positioned to function as repair arms. This mode was never actually used in animation (and, while the toy can assume this look, it was never included in his instructions), and it was also strangely colored--somehow, the all-grey Hun-Gurr manages to transform into an all-purple repair bay. Shades of Galvatron!

To transform Hun-Gurr to robot mode, the dragon heads become the robot feet; the rear dragon legs turn into the arms, while the tail flips back to reveal the robot head. He boasts some impressive articulation for a time period in which many robots didn't have functional legs at all. Not only do his arms move at the shoulders and elbows and wrists, but his head rotates (so that it can fit inside the dragon tail better) and he can do all sorts of things with his legs. He can do the splits; he can sit; he can do it all. Scattershot has joints in most of the same places, but as a toy, he's so much more limited. A square Scramble City peg can flip out of the inside of the Abominus chest shield so that he can wear it as an arm shield (as seen in his box art), though it's kind of large and ungainly.

If Hun-Gurrr has any major flaws, it's a lack of paint applications. The 1987 toys had a bare minimum of paint applications (with different colors of plastic or, to a lesser extent, decals used to create color contrast) and some paint on his creature-mode eyes would have gone a long way toward livening up his monster transformation. The toy was sculpted with visors that wrap around each dragon head, but the character was drawn with individual eyes on each side of each head in comics and TV. I used an X-Acto knife to cut some red stickers using the leftover label sheet and gave him some proper eyes.

The Zhong Jin version is a good copy of the original. It's based on the 1988 toy, which had the indent for the rub symbol in his left shoulder (mostly) filled in. He's quite authentic--color scheme, ratcheting joints, details of the sculpt, everything is what I would expect to see in the G1 toy. Literally the only differences I'm seeing are that a) the cross-hatching detail on his robot back is more diamond-shaped than square shaped; b) the gap in the back of his head is machined precisely and angular instead of rounded off; and c) the Hasbro copyright stamp is present, but it's in something like the Ariel font instead of using the Hasbro proprietary logo font.

CUTTHROAT

Cutthroat is the tiniest of the Terrorcons, and it's always seemed strange to me that his official position in combining with the others is as Abominus' leg. If it weren't for Hun-Gurr's spindly, skinny legs, he would look disconcertingly out of place. In the cartoon, his voice characterization was provided by Tony St. James (the voice actor for Brawl; he also performed Blot), and delivered a strangled vocal quality that really sold the character as some kind of monsterous bird. Sadly, perhaps his most significant role in the cartoon show is when he delivers some exposition about Galvatron wanting the heat-resistant alloy in "The Return of Optimus Prime" part 1.

In creature mode, Cutthroat is very clearly a bird of some sort, though he also retains some fantasy elements (he has claws on his wings, making him more bat-like in some ways). He is designed to stand upright, though he effects a slightly more bird-like posture when you swing his lower body assembly back so that it serves as a really thick tail. He is equipped with a very small dual gun that mounts to the top of his tail and can pivot on a hinge; it doubles as his hand-held weapon. His green-and-cream-and-purple color scheme is among the most garish of all G1 Transformers. His bird head and neck boast limited articulation and his creature legs are poseable, but you can't really move his wings without partially untransforming him.

To switch to robot mode, the wings fold back, revealing the robot arms that are attached to them. His midsection extends to form his legs, and the bird head flips down and forms his robot chest, revealing his robot head. The joints for his arms are in the center of each elbow instead of at the shoulders, so he suffers from a case of Swindle arms. Also, there's a piece of plastic designed to artificially inhibit the movement of his arms, so that he can only raise them 90 degrees; this is probably so you don't try to transform him with his arms pointing up instead of down (they wouldn't fit in the cavity quite right).

Like all the small Terrorcons, his head doubles as his connector peg for the combined form. When serving as a leg, he's essential in a short version of his robot mode (also like Swindle). When he forms an arm, you flip his head back so that it pokes out of his back. His unique pivoting hips means that Abominus actually has a functioning elbow, albeit a limited one, when Cutthroat is serving as an arm.

The 1988 version of Cutthroat retained the square-shaped spot for a rub symbol in the center of his torso, but some sculpting was added to make it look a little more like a deliberate aspect of his design. To me, it still looks like a rub symbol indent with some extra lines going through it, but that's just me. You can't really put the supplied rub symbol on this edition of the toy since it's not a flat surface and the embossed lines would ruin the rub symbol the first time you pressed on it.

The Zhong Jin toy is, not surprisingly, quite authentic. The cream color used on the toy is slightly lighter than the G1 toy, but you wouldn't notice unless you did a side-by-side comparison. The gun for the Zhong Jin toy is not reverse-compatible with the G1 toy; it's designed to fit the Zhong Jin toy specifically and the gun peg is way too loose for the G1 toy (and, conversely, the G1 weapon peg is too thick to fit on the Zhong Jin toy). For some reason, the factory sticker sheet came with two versions of Cutthroat's leg stickers. There's one pair with purple trapezoids and a set where the trapezoids are silver. I think this is meant to represent a running change, a variation in Cutthroat's stickers (I've seen pictures of the toy online wearing both the silver and the purple ones). No matter which color scheme you prefer, Zhong Jin's got you covered!

SINNERTWIN

I originally got Sinnertwin for my 11th birthday in 1987 (along with Swindle and Rippersnapper). I was at an age where I recognized that I was growing older and more sophisticated as the Transformers toy line was steadily getting less complex, and while I loved the Terrorcons, I was also beginning to realize that I was getting too old for toys like them. Clearly, I eventually got over that silly phase and embraced my toys wholeheartedly. Alas, my Sinnertwin suffered a horrible fate when his entire upper leg assembly shattered in my hands a few years ago like a Jolly Rancher. The plastic had just become embrittled to the point where it shattered. So sad!

Like Hun-Gurr, Sinnertwin is a two-headed monster, though Sinnertwin is less dragon-like and more dog-like. So, perhaps he's a cerebus with one head missing. He's a cheerful yellow with teal monster legs and two light purple tails. So colorful! In the cartoon, Sinnertwin is interesing in that two voice actors were actually utilized to perform him; Jared Barclay (who would also play Cerebros) voiced the robot mode and provided the characterization for one creatue head, while Marshall Efron provided the other head (the deeper, growly one). Sinnertwin got a fair amount of screen time, usually featuring his two heads bickering with each other, even to the point where he was arguing with himself in "Grimlock's New Brain" about which of his heads would demolish the Autobots.

Sinnertwin really takes the 1987 design philosophy for the toy line and runs with it. It's a very minimalist approach, with the absolute bare minimum of moving parts needed. The result is a creature mode that's chunky and durable, but doesn't really do much. Each of his four legs can swivel, and that's about it. His tails can flip up and down together, but his creature heads don't move (they're a single piece of plastic mounted on a hinge) and his jaws are permanently sculpted in an open position. Of all the Terrorcons, I think Sinnertwin benefited the most from the removal of his rub symbol. It was originally placed in the spot *between* his two creature necks, ostensibly the only available real estate on the toy to put it. The problem is, even though that space is filled in with plastic, it's "really" an empty space, and its placement there really bugs me. He uses a cannon that mounts to his back in this form, but he cannot carry it as a robot.

To transform him, you flip his monster head assembly back to reveal the robot head, and you fold his tail assembly up so he can stand. His legs extend from his body, and you have to do some rearranging of his creature limbs to get them out of the way. (He has a Decepticon symbol on the shoulder of one creature leg, so that helps to inform you of its proper position when he's a robot.) His robot mode requires the liberal use of imagination. His arms are the most puny, ridiculous arms imaginable; if you can imagine a toy like Hot Rod or Silverbolt who can only raise their arms at the elbows, and then took that a step further and got rid of the upper arms altogether, well, that's Sinnertwin. Technically, he beats out toys like the Battlechargers or Throttlebots who don't have functional arms at all, but still. In this mode he uses a small pistol; you can still attach the back-mounted gun for his creature mode if you connect it to his robot back and point it upside-down. Like Cutthroat, his leg configuration is just his robot mode with his legs shortened.

Frankly, nobody buys Sinnertwin because he's an amazing toy. He's the Groove of the Terrorcons. You get him because Abominus needs to be able to walk around on two legs. Even I have to admit that the Transformers: Prime edition of the character (sold as Twinstrike) is a much more fun and better-designed toy. However, he's cute in his own way.

On the G1 toy, the factory-applied stickers were metallic foil while the consumer-applied stickers were printed on paper stock. The Zhong Jin edition has all the stickers on paper, which actually makes sense in this instance since I used to have a lot of trouble with Sinnertwin's metallic Decepticon symbol peeling off the curved surface of his creature-mode shoulder. So, that's an improvement. His rocket-grenade launcher is a very tight fit in his robot hand, but to me, that's better than being so loose that it falls out (as is the case with the Takara reissue of Swindle).

The G1 toy is a slightly lighter shade of yellow and a slightly greener shade of turquoise than the Zhong Jin toy. The same notes apply to his copyright stamp (present, but in the wrong font for the toys Hasbro released in 1987). He still has the silly safety knobs at the ends of his twin tails, though the horns on his twin heads are just slightly more pointy. Oddly, the width of the gun barrel on his handheld weapon is measurably larger on the Zhong Jin toy, by nearly two millimeters. Overall, the sculpting detail is significantly sharper on the knockoff, particularly the details on the creature arms.

BLOT

Blot is characterized as the most disgusting Transformer ever. Landfill and Wide Load are both pretty gross, and Apeface is deliberately obnoxious, but Blot is absolutely slovenly. Unfortunately, this was likely a characterization that was applied to him after the fact, so no aspects of the toy reflect this. I think it would have been great for him to have had a paint wash or some deliberate flaws applied to the sculpt. Of course, the Kup toy was in perfect shape, too, and that bothers me as well. (With Kup, they could at least have given him stickers with rust spots or something.) He's got a great moment in "Money is Everything" when the Quintessons test the recreator matter transporter on him, which also repairs and restores, and he comes out of the experience muttering, "Uh... Blot feel sick..." The implication is that the experience cleaned Blot up to the point where he no longer felt like himself. I think that's hilarious.

Blot is the largest of the four Terrorcon limbs, transforming into something approximating a gorilla. Or perhaps a frog. It's kind of hard to tell. Dark blue with light purple, he's got perhaps the most appealing color scheme. His creature head is designed to pivot up slightly, so I think he's designed to be posed slightly hunched over, with his long arms extended and his knuckles touching the ground. In addition to his head moving a little, he has articulation at the shoulders, elbows, and hips. He comes with a two-piece weapon accessory that's made up of his robot mode pistol, which connects to a backpack which in turn plugs into his back. (Frequently, the animation models for characters drew their weapons separately, with arrows pointing to the spot where they connected. Amusingly, a misinterpretation of his animation model for "Money is Everything" resulted in the arrows being drawn as part of him, so that his backpack was positioned significantly above his head instead of being attached to his back.)

Transforming him involves extending the lower section to form the robot legs (swinging the creature legs back so they're out of the way), swinging the creature arm sections back and around so they're on the robot's back, and flipping up the robot head. He's got the same sort of stubby Sinnertwin arms, and his problems are compounded by the fact that his body is so large and ungainly that it makes his ped head and tiny arms look even smaller. For robot mode, his gun pops off the backpack component and he carries it in his hand; you can fit the backpack in his other hand as a sort of shield, but this isn't in the instructions. His Abominus arm configuration is essentially his robot mode only with the head swung back to serve as a connector peg, with the monster's arms and legs positioned in the most aesthetically appealing spots.

Blot is as good a copy of the G1 toy as you can expect. Strangely, they changed the shape of his creature head; the knockoff has a noticeably more pronounced bulge on the top of his head (it's possible this was a change made in 1988 when the rub symbol indent was done away with; my research has been inconclusive). His creature head pivoting function is a little looser on my knockoff than on my original toy, but that's about the only difference in functionality I noticed. The fact that the original factory stickers come on a separate sheet means that you can stick his Decepticon symbol somewhere else (like the top of his creature head) instead of the original factory spot (the forearm of his right creature arm) if you like. The same notes on the copyright stamps apply (and he does have a HASBRO stamp, not HRSBRO like some of the other Zhong Jin toys).

RIPPERSNAPPER

Okay, so Rippersnapper is, hands down, my absolute favorite Terrorcon. He's so freaking adorable in his little fish-monster transformation, with his sexy curves and eyeless head that's shades of H.R. Giger design philosophy. (Aliens came out in 1986; Rippersnapper was released in 1987. Drawn your own conclusions.) He's not drawn nearly so adorably in his Sunbow animation model, and don't even get me started on him when they revisited him for Transformers: Prime. I was devastated when the head broke off my first version, so I got a 1988 release with no rub symbol. The second toy actually had some misapplied paint to his eyes, giving him a kind of crazed, wild-eyed look that really fits the character (he was originally slated to be named Frenzy, as in "feeding frenzy"). Voiced by Jim Cummings in an uncredited role (he also provided the voice for Afterburner), Rippersnapper's most memorable moment in the cartoon was during "Money is Everything" when he complained about the Quintesson timer mechanism that was programmed to separate the Abominus back into his component Terrorcons. Rippersnapper was angry because they hadn't finished tearing things apart!

As a fish creature, he's grey with blue creature limbs, a subdued but pleasant color scheme. He stands 4" tall, and has articulation in his creature shoulders and hips. His creature head doesn't move, unfortunately, and his tail only wiggles a bit inasmuch as it's necessary for his transformation. He's arguably the only Terrorcon who's incomplete without his back-mounted weapon, since the gun also includes his dorsal fin.

His transformation is essentially the same as Sinnertwin, only his creature head ends up shifting back and pointing upwards instead of flipping all the way back and ending up upside-down on his back. He and Sinnertwin and Blot all share the ridiculously stubby arm design, giving hm only enough articulation necessary to hold his gun upright. His back-mounted weapon cannot be used in this form because his creature head is now in the way of the peg-hole. He has basically zero functionality as a robot, and he's an utter joke compared to modern toys, but I do love him so.

The Zhong Jin toy is the only one of the five Terrorcons who is a copy of the 1987 edition and not the 1988 edition. He still has a rub symbol indent on the top of his creature head, and the only one of these toys where it really makes sense to apply the supplied rub symbol. The joints on my knockoff toy, by the way, are super tight. I'm sure they'll loosen up a bit as I fiddle with him more, but the plastic tolerances are almost frustratingly unforgiving. If you're not familiar with his creature head and how it's supposed to fold and pivot, you might worry that you're going to break this toy. (I actually put visible stress marks in his fist trying to wedge his gun into his hand, too.) Also, the fact that the Decepticon symbol on his left breast is paper stock and not metallic foil means it's thicker, and I accidentally scraped part of it off the first time I transformed him. Lowering the replacement sticker slightly remedied the problem.

ABOMINUS

Abominus is not the first combiner who's made up of animals (Predaking holds that honor), but he was the first to be inducted into the ranks of the Scramble City style toys. Thanks to Hun-Gurrr's ratcheting leg articulation, Abominus boasts a fairly impressive range of articulation for a combined form (some of them, like Defensor and Bruticus, cannot move their legs at all). They're long and spindly, to be sure, but not quite as much as Superion. He's really cool-looking in this form, with a large, fuschia chest shield that dominates his look (the one Hun-Gurrr could use as an arm shield) and a neat helmet design. Abominus (voiced by Jim Gosa in the cartoon) exists purely to destroy, a nearly mindless brute who is the antithesis to Computron's overanalytical approach.

In their combined form, there aren't a lot of places to put the individual Terrorcon weapons, though I figured out that, by accident or design, you can plug many of them into Abominus' gun in much the same way as Takara developed for Valdigus/Ruination (and Abominus can hold Sinnertwin's back-mounted gun in his other hand, eliminating one more weapon floating around).

After my experiences with the Aerialbots and the Protectobots, I was concerned that the Zhong Jin toys would be difficult to combine together. Actually, it looks as though somebody ensured that the combination would be functional and smooth, since I didn't have any troubles with it at all. Combining the Terrorcons together doesn't appear to cause any damage to their heads or face paint, either, which is a relief. I was hoping perhaps that Zhong Jin would have repositioned the pegs on the Abominus foot plates so that they would be properly centered (every one of the Terrorcons has a single peg-hole in the bottom of his feet, so an off-center peg on each foot plate makes no sense) but in this case he is a slavish copy of the original. He's even got the embossed "R" and "L" on his right and left fists and feet, which some of the Zhong Jin toys have omitted.

Okay, so the Abominus set goes for around $100 on ioffer.com (which, realistically, works out to about $15 per small Terrorcon and $40 for Hun-Gurrr). You can expect to pay around $150-200 for a complete set of G1 Terrorcons (loose, of course) so even if you found a set for substantially less than that, the toys would have worn-out stickers and would be made from brittle 27-year-old plastics. I really feel like the knockoff is the way to go, especially since you get the experience of opening brand-new toys and applying the stickers yourself (you'd have to pay about $900 to get an unopened G1 set). Yeah, it's more pricy than hopping down to Walmart and plonking down fifteen bucks or twenty for whatever Hasbro is currently producing, but the best toys are always going to be the most expensive ones. The Zhong Jin toys on the whole range from truly excellent (the Dinobots, Weirdwolf) to merely very good (Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Squawktalk), but the Terrorcons are definitely on the high end of the scale. If you're on the fence about these at all, I highly recommend them.


Zob