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Zob's Thoughts on the Unlicensed "Reissue" Stunticons
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Zobovor
Dec 27, 2012, 4:11:29 PM12/27/12
to
Today, we're here to take an in-depth look at the Jhong Zin version of
the G1 Stunticons, one of my Christmas gifts from my lovely wife.
Yay!
The Stunticons were all originally designed for the Diaclone toy line,
but were never sold until their release as part of the Transformers
toy line. There had been a plan to reduce the scale of the Diaclone
vehicles, making them closer to the Constructicons, which would also
allow them to interact with playsets. All the Scramble City toys were
designed to interact with each other—Metroplex was intended to link up
to Hot Spot, Silverbolt, Motormaster, and Onslaught, who formed
extensions of the city mode and were all designed with spring-loaded
launchers for the mini-vehicles. Obviously, this wouldn't make sense
in a Transformers context, where the toys were separated into Autobots
and Decepticons, so part of this concept went forever unrealized.
Hasbro also neutered the launching gimmick on all the team leaders,
making their third transformations a little less special.
When Hasbro was culling the Takara archives for ideas to further
expand the Transformers toy line, they found the designs for the
Scramble City toys and used them as part of the 1986 lineup. Since
the Stunticons had never been released before, Hasbro had to design
box art for the toys. I think they probably also designed the
consumer-applied stickers for the toys, too, since a lot of the 1986
stickers seem kind of superfluous, lacking the fascinating and
intricate circuits and electronic components in favor of seemingly
random geometric shapes. The stickers for the Stunticons are a
particularly egregious example, making a lot of them look like clown
robots. Some of the stickers don't even seem to be designed to fit on
the toys properly, which also suggests that they were thrown together
by Hasbro rather than engineered by a Takara designer.
I think the Stunticons were probably originally conceived as Autobot
characters before somebody at Hasbro had the idea to mix things up and
do a group of cars that were bad guys. There is an official early
model sheet for Menasor that shows him with an Autobot symbol, which
supports this idea.
So, the Scramble City concept revolves around the idea that when the
robots combine together, the mini-vehicles are interchangeable and can
form any arm or leg of the combined form. Hasbro never really played
with this idea much (in the cartoon series, Dead End was always
Menasor's left arm; Drag Strip was always the right arm, etc.) but the
toys were designed with this in mind. Every one of the mini-vehicles
had to be designed so that they were all the same height as each other
when they were in their leg configuration, to ensure that the combined
forms were never lopsided. This was a major design limitation that I
think inhibited what was possible with the toys. Each toy also had to
have a connector peg hole in the right place to accommodate the foot
plate or the fist accessory, which further limited the toys. The
worst design decision, though, was to use the robot heads as connector
pegs. This scraped the paint off their faces, distorted the shapes of
their helmets, and sometimes broke their heads clean off. Some of the
Scramble City toys had separate connector pegs from their heads, but
every one of them (except Streetwise) used his head in either the arm
or leg configuration.
One other thing that hurts the Stunticon toys is that their animation
designs ventured so far away from the look of the toys that it made
the toys feel like inaccurate representations of the animated
characters. Dead End's toy didn't have purple eyes and a face mask.
Wildrider's toy didn't have those cool prongs jutting from either side
of his helmet. I don't know why the decision was made to make the
characters look so different, but it's always bothered me.
I assume the box and instructions are authentic to the original G1
gift set, but there are usually minor giveaways to the discerning eye
that identify it as a fake. If there are mistakes on the packaging
this time, I'm not seeing them. There's a pluralization error in
Breakdown's tech specs quote ("Keep your optical sensor to yourself")
but that's a faithful reproduction of the G1 version.
Okay, so it's finally time to talk about the toys themselves. Dead
End is, in concept, really similar to the Tonka GoBots toy called
Street Heat. They're both dark red street machines, and they both
employ the transformation trick where you turn the back of the car
inside-out to form the legs. His Porsche mode is compact and solid;
the bolts holding his knees together are the only thing that betrays
the lines of his car mode. He's also got a really cool racing stripe,
actually several different consumer-applied stickers that you have to
carefully line up along the seams of the toy, but if you do it right
it's a convincing and attractive look. What is not convincing is the
large, double-barrelled gun you can plug into his connector peg hole
behind his spoiler to create his "attack mode," a gimmick shared with
all four Stunticon mini-vehicles. In robot mode, he's less
interesting, essentially immobile except for his arms, but his
stickers help to dress him up a little bit. He's my favorite of the
Stunticon characters, but his toy is pretty bland. My original G1 toy
has all the paint scraped off his nose.
Drag Strip has one of the most distinctive Transformer vehicle modes
ever, and he's also yellow, a rare color for a Decepticon. The most
significant thing I have to say about Drag Strip is that I don't think
Hasbro had any idea where his stickers were supposed to go. He came
with three racing stripes of various lengths, and according to the
instructions, you put a short one on one side of his body and a long
one on the other. Does that seem right? Why wouldn't he be
symmetrical? In animation, Drag Strip's racing stripes travel along
the length of his vehicle mode, from the nose to the spoiler. That
seems to make a lot more sense to me. Maybe Hasbro's addition of the
rub symbol to the nose of his race car form ruined the sticker
placement so they had to take an alternate approach? They also want
you to stick his Decepticon symbol right in the center of his leg
stump, which sort of ruins the fantasy since we all know that
Transformers "really" have separate legs. Even his "canopy" sticker
doesn't make sense, since it makes the front part of his nose look
like a cockpit window, even though there's a clear and obvious gap at
the top of his car mode for a hypothetical driver. Basically, all of
Drag Strip's stickers are messed up with a captial "F."
Wildrider is the least interesting of the Stunticons to me—he's grey,
which is kind of a boring color, and his stickers are so goofy.
Yellow circles, blue circles, red circles... what, is he an
advertisement for Wonder Bread? His rifle fits rather loosely in his
hand compared to my G1 toy, but I think there's always going to be a
slight difference in plastic tolerances no matter what you do. He's a
sexy Ferrari, but the red paint on his front windshield doesn't quite
match the red plastic of his side windows, and the part of the car's
frame that separates the windows is unpainted—also red, like the
windows—so that makes him a little less realistic. Every Scramble
City team has its dog, and in the case of the Stunticons, it's
Wildrider. He's not horrible; he's just not great.
Breakdown is, I think, my favorite of the Stunticon toys. He's a
Lamborghini, of course, which makes him really awesome. He's also the
biggest of the four mini-vehicles and the best-looking in robot mode,
even though he shares the exact same transformation as Dead End. The
toy will benefit slightly from using some of the leftover color from
his sticker sheet and cutting out a red trapezoid shape to stick on
his roof, just behind his rub symbol. He's surprisingly authentic for
a toy of this scale—his entire front bumper, fenders, rocker panels,
and the little triangle-shaped things on his doors are all a different
color of plastic from his body. (I don't know if there was ever a
cream-colored Countach in existence; had this been a Diaclone toy, it
likely would have been red with black parts.)
Motormaster is a lot bigger than the other Stunticons in robot mode,
but then, a tractor trailer is a lot bigger than a sports car. He
comes complete with the factory-applied purple stripes on either side
of his trailer, leaving you to apply the consumer-applied stickers
yourself. His vehicle mode is a little cheatsy (four of his ten
wheels are falsies and do not roll; two of them are obviously hinge
bolts for his ankles. True to the Hasbro toy, his launcher mode is
totally neutered, so his little roller car (which I call Crusher)
can't do much but sit there on the ramp. He's the right shape to
connect to either Metroplex or Trypticon, depending on your
preference. He's really boxy in robot mode, but considering that he
transforms into a box, it's perhaps understandable. My toy had some
plastic flash inside his shoulder connectors that prevented the head-
pegs from going in all the way for Menasor mode, but a couple of
seconds with a screwdriver and an X-Acto knife took care of that.
Motormaster's connectors are a lot cheaper than those of the other
Scramble City team leaders; there are no pressure clips or spring-
loaded ratchets here. You just plug the Stunticons in and hope they
stay in place. His feet connectors are just unembellished square-
shaped holes. It's like somebody always knew he was going to be a
Decepticon one day, so they cheaped out well in advance.
The stickers that go on Motormaster's pelvis don't seem to actually
fit the toy at all. It's as if somebody came up with stickers to fit
that approximate size and shape without actually measuring first.
They could probably benefit from being trimmed slightly with a pair of
scissors prior to application.
Menasor's combined form is probably the weakest of the Scramble City
super robots. It doesn't have Superion's height or Defensor's compact
solid ruggedness or Bruticus' aesthetic appeal. Part of this may have
to do with Hasbro's decision to hide the vehicle shells of the robots
who form the legs; Menasor looks a little more like a bunch of cars
connected together when you can actually see the cars. Turning
Menasor's legs so that the undersides of the cars face the front also
creates the problem of Menasor, who is a little top-heavy, tipping
over due to his backwards knees. The instructions say to leave
Motormaster's feet hanging straight out in the air, but the toy seems
to be designed so that you swing the feet all the way around so that
they touch Motormaster's back. Due to the shallow connector pegs in
Motormaster's shoulders, Menasor's arms hang away from his body in an
awkward way; this isn't as much of a problem with other Scramble City
combiners. There's also the problem of what to do with all the
individual Stunticon weapons when he's combined, since there's no
place to stow their rifles or dual cannons.
The Jhong Zin versions of these toys are excellent reproductions of
the G1 toys. They are functionally and aesthetically perfect G1
reissues in every way that matters. They have die-cast metal in the
right places; all the parts fit together as they are supposed to;
their stickers are authentic and accurate. The stickers are actually
metal foil on these versions, rather than the paper stickers on the
original G1 toys, but it's a small change that doesn't really affect
things much. As with most of these toys, the rub symbols come
separately so you can choose to apply them. My Stunticons actually
came with a set of Autobot rub symbols, ironically. You don't notice
the difference unless you actually take the time to activate them,
which I basically never do. (I would later discover that my
Aerialbots came with Decepticon rub symbols, so I could have just
switched and everything would have been fine. I didn't know this
until I already applied the Autobot rub symbols on the Stunticons,
though.)
There are very minor mold differences between the G1 toys and the
"reissues." The new Dead End's headlights are smaller than the ones
on the G1 toy, probably because somebody made a mold from an existing
toy and then had to redefine some of the smaller details. The wedge-
shaped gap in the new Wildrider's upper chest is less pronounced on
the reissue, and his head sits slightly higher on his shoulders. The
peg for Wildrider's gun is shorter on the new one. The lines for
Breakdown's sculpt are sharper on the new one, particularly his
vehicle spoiler. On Motormaster's roller car, the axles on the G1 toy
go through the wheels so they're visible, but they're not visible on
the new toy. Menasor's fists no longer have the "R" or "L" stamp to
denote the left- and right-side parts, and the peg-holes in his fists
go all the way through now. I can't compare every single part because
I'm missing some of my Stunticon weapons, but the ones I do have are
so close that I've actually gotten them mixed up while comparing them,
and the dust on my vintage G1 accessories were the only way I could
tell them apart.
I don't know if this is common to all releases of this set or whether
I just got lucky, but my Breakdown and Drag Strip also came with two
handheld rifles each instead of just one! Drag Strip looks really
cool with his guns mounted in his hands and facing forwards in vehicle
mode, as part of his "attack mode."
One of the reasons G1 reissues excite me so much is because I love the
old toys immensely, but so many of mine are in such immensely poor
shape—a lot of them are broken with worn paint and peeling stickers
and missing accessories. My G1 Stunticons are missing half their
weapons; Menasor has no sword or right fist; Wildrider's screws are
rusting; Drag Strip is missing his engine. I'm delighted to be able
to get brand-new versions of these toys that I can display on a shelf
proudly.
Wouldn't it be amazing if Jhong Zin released G2-colored versions of
the Stunticons?! I would totally buy them! I already have a G2
Breakdown, of course, but I have always wanted to own the G2 versions
of these guys in their crazy colors, and it was such a disappointment
to me that they were cancelled. I think they could make it happen. I
want them to make it happen. (I would happily buy a set of the toys
decorated in Autobot colors, too, representing Optimus Prime, Jazz,
Mirage, Windcharger, and Sideswipe as they appeared in "Masquerade."
Two red cars together in one set might be a bit much, though.)
The Stunticons aren't great toys. They're extremely sub-par, and
there are far better combiner teams out there. If you ever wanted to
own the toys but didn't, though—or you have the G1 toys but want minty
fresh replacements for them—this is totally the way to go.
Zob
the G1 Stunticons, one of my Christmas gifts from my lovely wife.
Yay!
The Stunticons were all originally designed for the Diaclone toy line,
but were never sold until their release as part of the Transformers
toy line. There had been a plan to reduce the scale of the Diaclone
vehicles, making them closer to the Constructicons, which would also
allow them to interact with playsets. All the Scramble City toys were
designed to interact with each other—Metroplex was intended to link up
to Hot Spot, Silverbolt, Motormaster, and Onslaught, who formed
extensions of the city mode and were all designed with spring-loaded
launchers for the mini-vehicles. Obviously, this wouldn't make sense
in a Transformers context, where the toys were separated into Autobots
and Decepticons, so part of this concept went forever unrealized.
Hasbro also neutered the launching gimmick on all the team leaders,
making their third transformations a little less special.
When Hasbro was culling the Takara archives for ideas to further
expand the Transformers toy line, they found the designs for the
Scramble City toys and used them as part of the 1986 lineup. Since
the Stunticons had never been released before, Hasbro had to design
box art for the toys. I think they probably also designed the
consumer-applied stickers for the toys, too, since a lot of the 1986
stickers seem kind of superfluous, lacking the fascinating and
intricate circuits and electronic components in favor of seemingly
random geometric shapes. The stickers for the Stunticons are a
particularly egregious example, making a lot of them look like clown
robots. Some of the stickers don't even seem to be designed to fit on
the toys properly, which also suggests that they were thrown together
by Hasbro rather than engineered by a Takara designer.
I think the Stunticons were probably originally conceived as Autobot
characters before somebody at Hasbro had the idea to mix things up and
do a group of cars that were bad guys. There is an official early
model sheet for Menasor that shows him with an Autobot symbol, which
supports this idea.
So, the Scramble City concept revolves around the idea that when the
robots combine together, the mini-vehicles are interchangeable and can
form any arm or leg of the combined form. Hasbro never really played
with this idea much (in the cartoon series, Dead End was always
Menasor's left arm; Drag Strip was always the right arm, etc.) but the
toys were designed with this in mind. Every one of the mini-vehicles
had to be designed so that they were all the same height as each other
when they were in their leg configuration, to ensure that the combined
forms were never lopsided. This was a major design limitation that I
think inhibited what was possible with the toys. Each toy also had to
have a connector peg hole in the right place to accommodate the foot
plate or the fist accessory, which further limited the toys. The
worst design decision, though, was to use the robot heads as connector
pegs. This scraped the paint off their faces, distorted the shapes of
their helmets, and sometimes broke their heads clean off. Some of the
Scramble City toys had separate connector pegs from their heads, but
every one of them (except Streetwise) used his head in either the arm
or leg configuration.
One other thing that hurts the Stunticon toys is that their animation
designs ventured so far away from the look of the toys that it made
the toys feel like inaccurate representations of the animated
characters. Dead End's toy didn't have purple eyes and a face mask.
Wildrider's toy didn't have those cool prongs jutting from either side
of his helmet. I don't know why the decision was made to make the
characters look so different, but it's always bothered me.
I assume the box and instructions are authentic to the original G1
gift set, but there are usually minor giveaways to the discerning eye
that identify it as a fake. If there are mistakes on the packaging
this time, I'm not seeing them. There's a pluralization error in
Breakdown's tech specs quote ("Keep your optical sensor to yourself")
but that's a faithful reproduction of the G1 version.
Okay, so it's finally time to talk about the toys themselves. Dead
End is, in concept, really similar to the Tonka GoBots toy called
Street Heat. They're both dark red street machines, and they both
employ the transformation trick where you turn the back of the car
inside-out to form the legs. His Porsche mode is compact and solid;
the bolts holding his knees together are the only thing that betrays
the lines of his car mode. He's also got a really cool racing stripe,
actually several different consumer-applied stickers that you have to
carefully line up along the seams of the toy, but if you do it right
it's a convincing and attractive look. What is not convincing is the
large, double-barrelled gun you can plug into his connector peg hole
behind his spoiler to create his "attack mode," a gimmick shared with
all four Stunticon mini-vehicles. In robot mode, he's less
interesting, essentially immobile except for his arms, but his
stickers help to dress him up a little bit. He's my favorite of the
Stunticon characters, but his toy is pretty bland. My original G1 toy
has all the paint scraped off his nose.
Drag Strip has one of the most distinctive Transformer vehicle modes
ever, and he's also yellow, a rare color for a Decepticon. The most
significant thing I have to say about Drag Strip is that I don't think
Hasbro had any idea where his stickers were supposed to go. He came
with three racing stripes of various lengths, and according to the
instructions, you put a short one on one side of his body and a long
one on the other. Does that seem right? Why wouldn't he be
symmetrical? In animation, Drag Strip's racing stripes travel along
the length of his vehicle mode, from the nose to the spoiler. That
seems to make a lot more sense to me. Maybe Hasbro's addition of the
rub symbol to the nose of his race car form ruined the sticker
placement so they had to take an alternate approach? They also want
you to stick his Decepticon symbol right in the center of his leg
stump, which sort of ruins the fantasy since we all know that
Transformers "really" have separate legs. Even his "canopy" sticker
doesn't make sense, since it makes the front part of his nose look
like a cockpit window, even though there's a clear and obvious gap at
the top of his car mode for a hypothetical driver. Basically, all of
Drag Strip's stickers are messed up with a captial "F."
Wildrider is the least interesting of the Stunticons to me—he's grey,
which is kind of a boring color, and his stickers are so goofy.
Yellow circles, blue circles, red circles... what, is he an
advertisement for Wonder Bread? His rifle fits rather loosely in his
hand compared to my G1 toy, but I think there's always going to be a
slight difference in plastic tolerances no matter what you do. He's a
sexy Ferrari, but the red paint on his front windshield doesn't quite
match the red plastic of his side windows, and the part of the car's
frame that separates the windows is unpainted—also red, like the
windows—so that makes him a little less realistic. Every Scramble
City team has its dog, and in the case of the Stunticons, it's
Wildrider. He's not horrible; he's just not great.
Breakdown is, I think, my favorite of the Stunticon toys. He's a
Lamborghini, of course, which makes him really awesome. He's also the
biggest of the four mini-vehicles and the best-looking in robot mode,
even though he shares the exact same transformation as Dead End. The
toy will benefit slightly from using some of the leftover color from
his sticker sheet and cutting out a red trapezoid shape to stick on
his roof, just behind his rub symbol. He's surprisingly authentic for
a toy of this scale—his entire front bumper, fenders, rocker panels,
and the little triangle-shaped things on his doors are all a different
color of plastic from his body. (I don't know if there was ever a
cream-colored Countach in existence; had this been a Diaclone toy, it
likely would have been red with black parts.)
Motormaster is a lot bigger than the other Stunticons in robot mode,
but then, a tractor trailer is a lot bigger than a sports car. He
comes complete with the factory-applied purple stripes on either side
of his trailer, leaving you to apply the consumer-applied stickers
yourself. His vehicle mode is a little cheatsy (four of his ten
wheels are falsies and do not roll; two of them are obviously hinge
bolts for his ankles. True to the Hasbro toy, his launcher mode is
totally neutered, so his little roller car (which I call Crusher)
can't do much but sit there on the ramp. He's the right shape to
connect to either Metroplex or Trypticon, depending on your
preference. He's really boxy in robot mode, but considering that he
transforms into a box, it's perhaps understandable. My toy had some
plastic flash inside his shoulder connectors that prevented the head-
pegs from going in all the way for Menasor mode, but a couple of
seconds with a screwdriver and an X-Acto knife took care of that.
Motormaster's connectors are a lot cheaper than those of the other
Scramble City team leaders; there are no pressure clips or spring-
loaded ratchets here. You just plug the Stunticons in and hope they
stay in place. His feet connectors are just unembellished square-
shaped holes. It's like somebody always knew he was going to be a
Decepticon one day, so they cheaped out well in advance.
The stickers that go on Motormaster's pelvis don't seem to actually
fit the toy at all. It's as if somebody came up with stickers to fit
that approximate size and shape without actually measuring first.
They could probably benefit from being trimmed slightly with a pair of
scissors prior to application.
Menasor's combined form is probably the weakest of the Scramble City
super robots. It doesn't have Superion's height or Defensor's compact
solid ruggedness or Bruticus' aesthetic appeal. Part of this may have
to do with Hasbro's decision to hide the vehicle shells of the robots
who form the legs; Menasor looks a little more like a bunch of cars
connected together when you can actually see the cars. Turning
Menasor's legs so that the undersides of the cars face the front also
creates the problem of Menasor, who is a little top-heavy, tipping
over due to his backwards knees. The instructions say to leave
Motormaster's feet hanging straight out in the air, but the toy seems
to be designed so that you swing the feet all the way around so that
they touch Motormaster's back. Due to the shallow connector pegs in
Motormaster's shoulders, Menasor's arms hang away from his body in an
awkward way; this isn't as much of a problem with other Scramble City
combiners. There's also the problem of what to do with all the
individual Stunticon weapons when he's combined, since there's no
place to stow their rifles or dual cannons.
The Jhong Zin versions of these toys are excellent reproductions of
the G1 toys. They are functionally and aesthetically perfect G1
reissues in every way that matters. They have die-cast metal in the
right places; all the parts fit together as they are supposed to;
their stickers are authentic and accurate. The stickers are actually
metal foil on these versions, rather than the paper stickers on the
original G1 toys, but it's a small change that doesn't really affect
things much. As with most of these toys, the rub symbols come
separately so you can choose to apply them. My Stunticons actually
came with a set of Autobot rub symbols, ironically. You don't notice
the difference unless you actually take the time to activate them,
which I basically never do. (I would later discover that my
Aerialbots came with Decepticon rub symbols, so I could have just
switched and everything would have been fine. I didn't know this
until I already applied the Autobot rub symbols on the Stunticons,
though.)
There are very minor mold differences between the G1 toys and the
"reissues." The new Dead End's headlights are smaller than the ones
on the G1 toy, probably because somebody made a mold from an existing
toy and then had to redefine some of the smaller details. The wedge-
shaped gap in the new Wildrider's upper chest is less pronounced on
the reissue, and his head sits slightly higher on his shoulders. The
peg for Wildrider's gun is shorter on the new one. The lines for
Breakdown's sculpt are sharper on the new one, particularly his
vehicle spoiler. On Motormaster's roller car, the axles on the G1 toy
go through the wheels so they're visible, but they're not visible on
the new toy. Menasor's fists no longer have the "R" or "L" stamp to
denote the left- and right-side parts, and the peg-holes in his fists
go all the way through now. I can't compare every single part because
I'm missing some of my Stunticon weapons, but the ones I do have are
so close that I've actually gotten them mixed up while comparing them,
and the dust on my vintage G1 accessories were the only way I could
tell them apart.
I don't know if this is common to all releases of this set or whether
I just got lucky, but my Breakdown and Drag Strip also came with two
handheld rifles each instead of just one! Drag Strip looks really
cool with his guns mounted in his hands and facing forwards in vehicle
mode, as part of his "attack mode."
One of the reasons G1 reissues excite me so much is because I love the
old toys immensely, but so many of mine are in such immensely poor
shape—a lot of them are broken with worn paint and peeling stickers
and missing accessories. My G1 Stunticons are missing half their
weapons; Menasor has no sword or right fist; Wildrider's screws are
rusting; Drag Strip is missing his engine. I'm delighted to be able
to get brand-new versions of these toys that I can display on a shelf
proudly.
Wouldn't it be amazing if Jhong Zin released G2-colored versions of
the Stunticons?! I would totally buy them! I already have a G2
Breakdown, of course, but I have always wanted to own the G2 versions
of these guys in their crazy colors, and it was such a disappointment
to me that they were cancelled. I think they could make it happen. I
want them to make it happen. (I would happily buy a set of the toys
decorated in Autobot colors, too, representing Optimus Prime, Jazz,
Mirage, Windcharger, and Sideswipe as they appeared in "Masquerade."
Two red cars together in one set might be a bit much, though.)
The Stunticons aren't great toys. They're extremely sub-par, and
there are far better combiner teams out there. If you ever wanted to
own the toys but didn't, though—or you have the G1 toys but want minty
fresh replacements for them—this is totally the way to go.
Zob
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Dec 27, 2012, 7:19:11 PM12/27/12
to
On Thursday, December 27, 2012 1:11:29 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> I assume the box and instructions are authentic to the original G1
> gift set, but there are usually minor giveaways to the discerning eye
> that identify it as a fake. If there are mistakes on the packaging
> this time, I'm not seeing them. There's a pluralization error in
> Breakdown's tech specs quote ("Keep your optical sensor to yourself")
> but that's a faithful reproduction of the G1 version.
Oh, come on... everyone knows that Shockwave has been quietly pining for Breakdown, and just can't keep his optical sensor off Breakdown's young, tender, rigid grill structure.
> I assume the box and instructions are authentic to the original G1
> gift set, but there are usually minor giveaways to the discerning eye
> that identify it as a fake. If there are mistakes on the packaging
> this time, I'm not seeing them. There's a pluralization error in
> Breakdown's tech specs quote ("Keep your optical sensor to yourself")
> but that's a faithful reproduction of the G1 version.
...Also Known as Thunder
Dec 28, 2012, 2:54:36 AM12/28/12
to
Zobovor wrote:
> I don't know if this is common to all releases of this set or whether
> I just got lucky, but my Breakdown and Drag Strip also came with two
> handheld rifles each instead of just one!
My set also had this.
> I don't know if this is common to all releases of this set or whether
> I just got lucky, but my Breakdown and Drag Strip also came with two
> handheld rifles each instead of just one!
t.k.
banzait...@gmail.com
Dec 28, 2012, 10:23:32 AM12/28/12
to
All the Scramble City toys were
>
> designed to interact with each other—Metroplex was intended to link up
>
> to Hot Spot, Silverbolt, Motormaster, and Onslaught, who formed
>
> extensions of the city mode and were all designed with spring-loaded
>
> launchers for the mini-vehicles.
Don't forget Trypticon. He came with two plastic clips that plugged into his split hip in base mode that motormaster and onslaught would "plug" into. My poor Motormaster and Onslaught spent most of their prime play years in these modes, with an ocaasional transformation to get ripped to shreds by Omega Supreme. Omega Supreme... what a name.
>
> designed to interact with each other—Metroplex was intended to link up
>
> to Hot Spot, Silverbolt, Motormaster, and Onslaught, who formed
>
> extensions of the city mode and were all designed with spring-loaded
>
> launchers for the mini-vehicles.
-Banzaitron
Steve L.K. Macrocranios
Dec 28, 2012, 10:31:54 AM12/28/12
to
On Thursday, December 27, 2012 4:11:29 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
You've reminded me how much I didn't like the Stunticons when I was a kid. I remember talking Transformers with some kids on the playground (it must have been '85 or '86) and when one boy brought up the Stunticons, the conversation just died. I guess a kid I tried to stick to that rule of keeping quiet if you have nothing nice to say. To this day it sticks in my mind how Menasor was the only combiner I didn't care for and I think it was because Motormaster's robot mode was so terrible. It's sad because a sports car combiner is such a great idea but the combined mode suffers because of Motormaster's boxiness. Hotspot's also a rolling box but they did a better job with him.
> One other thing that hurts the Stunticon toys is that their animation
> designs ventured so far away from the look of the toys that it made
> the toys feel like inaccurate representations of the animated
> characters.
You've got me going back and looking at boxart and cartoon appearances now. Man, Menasor is such a train wreck across all media. His cartoon limbs are the worst drawn combiner limbs ever. It's like they drew the most generic robot arms they could think of and then drew cars stuck to them. I think it's because the cartoon model may have been based off the box art, or whatever toy they were using to create the character model was mistransformed in the same way the box art version is.
Oh boy the Menasor box art is horrendous. I think what happened was they had Motormaster's arms extended out from his torso in the combined mode so that it gives the appearance of Motormaster's arms being Menasor's, with the cars hanging off of them. Then Breakdown/his left arm looks to be positioned too high up relative to the rest of his body, and everything from the crotch down is way too large. And Dead End isn't even connected to Menasor's thigh. What a mess.
> I assume the box and instructions are authentic to the original G1
> gift set, but there are usually minor giveaways to the discerning eye
> that identify it as a fake.
It looks like the nametags on the front of the box are positioned too close to the character art for Breakdown and Motormaster relative to the originals. Here's pictures of the original to compare:
http://www.superstarcollector.com/item/PIRANACON/c9-mib-complete-us-menasor-gift-set#
And here's a great guide that goes into mold differences on Motoraster:
http://highendtfs.com/?q=node/51
> Wouldn't it be amazing if Jhong Zin released G2-colored versions of
> the Stunticons?! I would totally buy them!
Well they did G2 Devastator in both his colors. But they haven't done a G2 Defensor yet and I imagine Botcon wouldn't be as excited as you would be about knockoff G2 Breakdowns being released. G2 versions won't happen because I think Jhong Zin draws the line at creating new stickers, which weren't necessary for Devastator but are a big part of the G2 Stunticon and Protectobot decos.
You've reminded me how much I didn't like the Stunticons when I was a kid. I remember talking Transformers with some kids on the playground (it must have been '85 or '86) and when one boy brought up the Stunticons, the conversation just died. I guess a kid I tried to stick to that rule of keeping quiet if you have nothing nice to say. To this day it sticks in my mind how Menasor was the only combiner I didn't care for and I think it was because Motormaster's robot mode was so terrible. It's sad because a sports car combiner is such a great idea but the combined mode suffers because of Motormaster's boxiness. Hotspot's also a rolling box but they did a better job with him.
> One other thing that hurts the Stunticon toys is that their animation
> designs ventured so far away from the look of the toys that it made
> the toys feel like inaccurate representations of the animated
> characters.
Oh boy the Menasor box art is horrendous. I think what happened was they had Motormaster's arms extended out from his torso in the combined mode so that it gives the appearance of Motormaster's arms being Menasor's, with the cars hanging off of them. Then Breakdown/his left arm looks to be positioned too high up relative to the rest of his body, and everything from the crotch down is way too large. And Dead End isn't even connected to Menasor's thigh. What a mess.
> I assume the box and instructions are authentic to the original G1
> gift set, but there are usually minor giveaways to the discerning eye
> that identify it as a fake.
http://www.superstarcollector.com/item/PIRANACON/c9-mib-complete-us-menasor-gift-set#
And here's a great guide that goes into mold differences on Motoraster:
http://highendtfs.com/?q=node/51
> Wouldn't it be amazing if Jhong Zin released G2-colored versions of
> the Stunticons?! I would totally buy them!
Zobovor
Dec 29, 2012, 12:06:41 AM12/29/12
to
On Dec 28, 8:23 am, banzaitron....@gmail.com wrote:
> Don't forget Trypticon. He came with two plastic clips that plugged into his split hip in
> base mode that motormaster and onslaught would "plug" into.
That's always struck me as a last-minute design decision. Trypticon
> Don't forget Trypticon. He came with two plastic clips that plugged into his split hip in
> base mode that motormaster and onslaught would "plug" into.
never existed as a Diaclone concept toy the way Metroplex did, as far
as we know. If Hasbro wanted him to be compatible with the Decepticon
team leaders the way that Metroplex was designed to be, then why would
he have plastic clips that you had to attach to make the compatibility
work? Why wouldn't he just have built-in connector ports the same way
Metroplex did for all four team leaders?
When I was little, I had a beat-up second-hand Onslaught that I'd
gotten from some kid at daycare. A friend of mine named Nicky had
gotten Trypticon for Christmas and I was so excited to go over to his
house and see how the toys connected together. I didn't know that
Onslaught had come with his own ramp, though, so I was trying to plug
one of Trypticon's ramps into Onslaught and I got so frustrated when
it wouldn't fit. (I was so envious of Nicky. He had two younger
brothers. The youngest of them got all five Predacons for Christmas.
The second youngest got all five Predacons plus Sky Lynx. NIcky got
all five Predacons plus Sky Lynx plus Trypticon. When The
Transformers: the Movie came out, Nicky destroyed any of the toys he
owned whose characters died in the film. I remember him grinding
Sideswipe's head into the wheel of an exercise bike. What a waste!)
Zob
Zobovor
Dec 29, 2012, 12:20:30 AM12/29/12
to
On Dec 28, 8:31 am, "Steve L.K. Macrocranios"
Stunticons combine in the cartoon, Motormaster just transforms into
Menasor on his own, and then the individual Stunticon cars clamp to
his arms and legs like magnets. Motormaster doesn't even need the
other guys; they're just there for looks, apparently!
> And here's a great guide that goes into mold differences on Motoraster:
>
> http://highendtfs.com/?q=node/51
Not to denigrate the fine work these people are doing—they're doing a
service so people can tell the fakes from the G1 originals—but some of
the differences they're describing as identifying marks aren't going
to be consistent across the board. The circles next to Motormaster's
head, for example, are just the marks made in the plastic by the mold
ejector pins. They're going to be a slightly different shape than the
G1 toys because the Jhong Zin toys are being produced with different
machinery, but the pin marks aren't going to always look the same.
For the record, my "reissue" Motormaster has ejector pin marks that
are nearly identical to my G1 Motormaster. Also, describing the
plastic as more swirly or less swirly is an artifact of how thoroughly
a given batch of plastic was mixed up, and has nothing to do with
whether it's a fake or not. I remember a kid who had a G1 Onslaught
with a chest shield that didn't have any of the swirly plastic that
mine did.
(It's also very clear to me that when they say "TFW2005's counterfeit
ID guide has incorrect information and we don't want people to get
confused," what they're really saying is "we wanted to take a swipe at
this other web site that's in direct competition with us." That's not
very mature or professional.)
Wait, is it Jhong Zin or Zhong Jin? I'm confused now.
> Well they did G2 Devastator in both his colors. But they haven't done a G2 Defensor yet and I imagine Botcon
> wouldn't be as excited as you would be about knockoff G2 Breakdowns being released.
Well, BotCon made all the money they were ever going to make off G2
Breakdown many years ago. They're not going to lose revenue if
there's a fake version floating around (and I expect a Jhong Zin
edition would probably be in a gift set with the G2 logo, easily
identifiable as fake since there were never any G2 gift sets).
> G2 versions won't happen because I think Jhong Zin draws the line at creating new stickers, which
> weren't necessary for Devastator but are a big part of the G2 Stunticon and Protectobot decos.
What you're saying is logical, and you're probably right, but I still
want to believe that it could happen one day. I'll keep my fingers
crossed!
Zob
<Evil.King.Macrocran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You've got me going back and looking at boxart and cartoon appearances now. Man, Menasor is such a train
> wreck across all media. His cartoon limbs are the worst drawn combiner limbs ever. It's like they drew the most generic
> robot arms they could think of and then drew cars stuck to them. I think it's because the cartoon model may have been
> based off the box art, or whatever toy they were using to create the character model was mistransformed in the same
> way the box art version is.
What's even worse is that if you watch carefully, whenever the
> You've got me going back and looking at boxart and cartoon appearances now. Man, Menasor is such a train
> wreck across all media. His cartoon limbs are the worst drawn combiner limbs ever. It's like they drew the most generic
> robot arms they could think of and then drew cars stuck to them. I think it's because the cartoon model may have been
> based off the box art, or whatever toy they were using to create the character model was mistransformed in the same
> way the box art version is.
Stunticons combine in the cartoon, Motormaster just transforms into
Menasor on his own, and then the individual Stunticon cars clamp to
his arms and legs like magnets. Motormaster doesn't even need the
other guys; they're just there for looks, apparently!
> And here's a great guide that goes into mold differences on Motoraster:
>
> http://highendtfs.com/?q=node/51
service so people can tell the fakes from the G1 originals—but some of
the differences they're describing as identifying marks aren't going
to be consistent across the board. The circles next to Motormaster's
head, for example, are just the marks made in the plastic by the mold
ejector pins. They're going to be a slightly different shape than the
G1 toys because the Jhong Zin toys are being produced with different
machinery, but the pin marks aren't going to always look the same.
For the record, my "reissue" Motormaster has ejector pin marks that
are nearly identical to my G1 Motormaster. Also, describing the
plastic as more swirly or less swirly is an artifact of how thoroughly
a given batch of plastic was mixed up, and has nothing to do with
whether it's a fake or not. I remember a kid who had a G1 Onslaught
with a chest shield that didn't have any of the swirly plastic that
mine did.
(It's also very clear to me that when they say "TFW2005's counterfeit
ID guide has incorrect information and we don't want people to get
confused," what they're really saying is "we wanted to take a swipe at
this other web site that's in direct competition with us." That's not
very mature or professional.)
Wait, is it Jhong Zin or Zhong Jin? I'm confused now.
> Well they did G2 Devastator in both his colors. But they haven't done a G2 Defensor yet and I imagine Botcon
> wouldn't be as excited as you would be about knockoff G2 Breakdowns being released.
Breakdown many years ago. They're not going to lose revenue if
there's a fake version floating around (and I expect a Jhong Zin
edition would probably be in a gift set with the G2 logo, easily
identifiable as fake since there were never any G2 gift sets).
> G2 versions won't happen because I think Jhong Zin draws the line at creating new stickers, which
> weren't necessary for Devastator but are a big part of the G2 Stunticon and Protectobot decos.
want to believe that it could happen one day. I'll keep my fingers
crossed!
Zob
Zobovor
Dec 29, 2012, 1:18:08 AM12/29/12
to
On Dec 27, 2:11 pm, Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
<snip>
Motormaster's legs were kind of loose. Hasbro really wanted you to
transform the toy so that he was perpetually standing with his legs
splayed apart, even though the toy was designed to do this only for
Menasor's configuration. Motormaster looks much better in a straight-
legged pose, but Hasbro's got him spread-legged in both his box art
(which Takara actually went out of their way to correct, redrawing his
portrait from the waist down) as well as the line art from the
instructions.
Anyway, I couldn't get Motormaster to stand up without his legs
telescoping into themselves, so tonight I took him apart and made some
changes. There's a black plastic tab that's supposed to grab onto the
inside of his leg in order to lock his legs in place, so all I had to
do was bend it out slightly. I probably wouldn't have been able to do
this with a brittle G1 toy, but the new plastics they're using these
days are pretty flexible. I had been planning to report that the
Stunticons set was the only one of these to which I didn't need to
make modifications, but now that's no longer the case. I had to work
on Hot Spot and Silverbolt, too, for reasons that I'll explain when I
get around to reviewing them.
(My wife gives me funny looks when she buys me expensive Christmas
presents, and one of the first things I do is take them apart and
start tinkering with them.)
Zob
<snip>
Motormaster's legs were kind of loose. Hasbro really wanted you to
transform the toy so that he was perpetually standing with his legs
splayed apart, even though the toy was designed to do this only for
Menasor's configuration. Motormaster looks much better in a straight-
legged pose, but Hasbro's got him spread-legged in both his box art
(which Takara actually went out of their way to correct, redrawing his
portrait from the waist down) as well as the line art from the
instructions.
Anyway, I couldn't get Motormaster to stand up without his legs
telescoping into themselves, so tonight I took him apart and made some
changes. There's a black plastic tab that's supposed to grab onto the
inside of his leg in order to lock his legs in place, so all I had to
do was bend it out slightly. I probably wouldn't have been able to do
this with a brittle G1 toy, but the new plastics they're using these
days are pretty flexible. I had been planning to report that the
Stunticons set was the only one of these to which I didn't need to
make modifications, but now that's no longer the case. I had to work
on Hot Spot and Silverbolt, too, for reasons that I'll explain when I
get around to reviewing them.
(My wife gives me funny looks when she buys me expensive Christmas
presents, and one of the first things I do is take them apart and
start tinkering with them.)
Zob
Travoltron
Jan 8, 2013, 11:34:30 PM1/8/13
to
On 12/27/2012 1:11 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> Hasbro also neutered the launching gimmick on all the team leaders,
> making their third transformations a little less special.
Do any of the 3rd party Motormasters have this feature? I really want one.
> Hasbro also neutered the launching gimmick on all the team leaders,
> making their third transformations a little less special.
Zobovor
Jan 9, 2013, 1:59:03 AM1/9/13
to
On Jan 8, 9:34 pm, Travoltron <travolt...@defender.uni> wrote:
> Do any of the 3rd party Motormasters have this feature? I really want one.
I've read that there's a fake Motormaster with the launcher intact,
> Do any of the 3rd party Motormasters have this feature? I really want one.
though I've never seen one. There was a set of Stunticons that came
with a couple of Technobots instead of the full complement (Nosecone
and Afterburner, if I'm remembering right). They were out around the
same time that the Aerialbot knockoffs were everywhere, and that's
when I got my launching Silverbolt. It stands to reason that they
came out with a launching Motormaster at the same time. You could
always try to get a G1 Takara edition, too, since the Japanese version
had the launcher intact.
Zob
Travoltron
Jan 9, 2013, 1:53:46 PM1/9/13
to
On 1/8/2013 10:59 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> You could
> always try to get a G1 Takara edition, too, since the Japanese version
> had the launcher intact.
I've been looking. I don't see one on eBay or Yahoo Japan's auction site.
> You could
> always try to get a G1 Takara edition, too, since the Japanese version
> had the launcher intact.
Steve L.K. Macrocranios
Jan 9, 2013, 2:14:39 PM1/9/13
to
> I've been looking. I don't see one on eBay or Yahoo Japan's auction site.
It's a bit of a tough one to find. Here's a good article from someone who tried tracking one down recently:
http://heroicdecepticon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/transformers-scramble-city-stuntron-d.html
They were a bit more plentiful on YahooJapan when I was looking for them 12 or so years ago.
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