Generations Whirl

Back in the olden days of the mid 80’s, when hair was big, shoulder pads were bigger and dancing in the street looking like this was not only acceptable but encouraged by musicians who really should have known better, there were (more importantly) Transformers.

While fusing Takara’s Diaclone and Microman series together to create the core of the line, Hasbro were also busy appropriating licences from other toy manufactures to bolster the ranks of the Autobot and Decepticons.

Enter Whirl.

Hailing from the Armored Trooper Dorvack series, the toy originally known as Ovelon Gazzette was given a new lease of life in his tech specs by Bob Budiansky as a reckless, faux crazy, wild flying Autobot. It’s a nice character template, ripe for development.. except it didn’t happen.

Whirl never appeared in the cartoon. His appearances were limited to the Marvel comic where he was introduced as one of the (soon to be) fan favourite Wreckers. But his was a low key, minor role.

Of course, being a background character full of brooding potential is guaranteed to get you noticed by more industrious folk. And the good people at IDW comics have let Whirl leave an indelible mark on their universe.

Past form meant he was destined to bag a cameo in the Roche/Roberts penned Last Stand Of The Wreckers, but the guy made more of an impact through his (violent) unnamed appearance in the trades accompanying prose story 'Bullets'.

Depending on who's telling the tale

He then cropped up in a massively pivotal (and violent) role in the pre war tale Chaos Theory.

And then became one of the main draws in More Than Meets The Eye. Egotistical yet broken, sociopathic, tragically flawed and incredibly funny.  

James Roberts, take a bow.

(And yes, he’s violent in it.)

Off the back of this notoriety comes the toy. 

One thing I will say right from the start is that Whirl feels like a ton of effort has gone into making him.
While cost cutting is happening across the board, this one seems like the designers blocked, countered and won the fight. He's solid, made of excellent materials, and comes with four lots of attachable weaponry and a sticker sheet to reference the original toy.

Whirl's helicopter mode is decent if flawed. The biggest offender is the robot thighs up front. It's not so much them being there as I can see what they're meant to be doing aesthetically, it's the gaps they leave either side of the cockpit.

Having said that, there's plenty to appreciate here.

Proper nice colours, the blue plastic is both baby and darker metallic. The blue metallic paint nails the plastic colour pretty much dead on. Details aplenty. Rivets everywhere.

And it's a love letter to the G1 design (the stickers increase this, I haven't applied many).

Copter blades use the same yellow as G1 Whirl did. He has the skis. Even the shoulders end up where they do on the original toy. These design homages will be this figure's blessing and curse.

You can add Whirl's plentiful artillery to the Helicopter mode.

You may hum Airwolf's theme while thinking of blue Pampers for boys.. NOW

One of the toy's selling points is a third mode.

Like ED-209 with a discount Dalek upgrade

Heliped.

Bear in mind I am one those heretics that dismiss the Macross gerwalk modes as a half arsed thing, so don't expect any gushing here. It just looks like a helicopter halfway through transforming into a robot.

It is a dedicated mode though, with two transformation steps that commit to it so I can't say it's an afterthought. It's just not this Manfish's bag.

Pretty straightforward to transform, another legs fold down, arms swing out affair with some folding and compressing at the back. Just take care with the tight joints beneath the thigh swivel. 

Whirl cuts an impressive figure. The colours suggest a friendly good guy. The rest? Well...

Guns, guns guns!

..fairly unique aesthetically, he has claws instead of hands and is packing those controversial since '07 chicken legs along with massive hooves and a cyclopean visage.
You can attach the weaponry to ports underside his forearms as well as clip them onto his legs.
He's not a particularly welcoming looking individual.
And I like it.

Though it did take a bit. 

And this is in no way any fault of the toy, rather an appreciation for his current comic book form over the choice of homage. What we have here in the (very) blue corner is a fantastic update of the G1 toy, while over there in the red is MTMTE's spindly spiky Geth wannabe.

But the more I fiddled, the more I thawed. He's a lot of fun to pose, packs a ton of gun and the head and legs call out to the current comic design.

Those thin gangly shoulders the instructions leave you with can actually be pushed into the chest.

This makes them tighter for holding poses and improves Whirl proportionally. You can find a sweet spot doing it that lets you still freely use the ball joint and gives him some brilliant arm articulation. 

Be careful with the legs. His thigh joints are incredibly tight and there have been reports of breakage. 

I haven't broken mine. I am a clumsy, hamfisted guy too. Mileage may vary here. Just take your time with those joints. 

SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

For a dude with no face, Whirl manages to pack in plenty of character from both the poses you can put him in and the difference in aesthetics to the other Transformers in your collection. He's not gone behind glass yet and that's a big thing for me.

Happy. Angry. Sad. Confused.
Feel the emotion!

And if you truly hate the chicken legs you can spin 'em out for a more traditional look.

Bottom line, I'm glad I bought the nutjob. 

The definition of a grower, Generations Whirl packs in an impressive homage to the characters roots while still throwing in elements of the current IDW design that people are so enamoured with. Top stuff.

Time to weapon up, wallflowers!

____________________

Whirl tech spec and G1 box art courtesy of Botch the Crab's awesome site.

Maketoys Trash-Talk & Cogwheel

I have a lot of time for 3rd Party Transformers.

Having said that, there are so many of them these days it's pretty damn easy to get swamped in a mire of multiple releases, and the trend these days seems to be multiple releases of the same characters.

Take this IDW comic inspired twin pack by Maketoys in their 'Manga Mech Series'.

iGear already have their analogues of Swerve and Gears on the market, SXS have their Continuously Variable and its comedy retool. And lets not forget that we also have the considerably cheaper Hasbro releases in the Generations line.

So what makes this worthy of consideration?

In a nutshell, it is excellent.

The biggest selling point in this set is undoubtedly Trash-Talk, an homage to the G1 character Swerve, a character relatively few were aware of until master-scribe James Roberts took the metallurgist under his wing and gave him a standout role in the More Than Meets The Eye comic

If you've read MTMTE, you'll know why Maketoys gave him the moniker of Trash-Talk.
If you haven't, get it sorted, pour a large glass of your favourite tipple then come back and thank me.

(As an aside, when you buy the pair, they come to you packaged in a box that contains a box containing another box. That's almost another MTMTE reference right there.)

Both toys share the same mold with tooling differences in both modes.

Starting with the vehicles, Trash-Talk is dead on to the source. Cogwheel...well we haven't seen Gears in alt mode yet but Maketoys have done a good job of making him look Cybertronian while referencing his G1 vehicle mode.

Small but perfectly formed

Everything is well pegged together, clearance from the ground prevents any scraping and while these are small (you're talking slightly larger than a Commander class figure) they look sharp and the colours are spot on. Accessories can be pegged into alt mode.

Alcohol storage

As a little extra injection of character into the vehicle mode, Trash-Talk's canopy can open to reveal an optic on a stalked ball joint.

You can open Cogwheel's hood to reveal a rounded pair of lights.
It's a lovely little touch.

Transformation is a standard fold out the legs, flip out the arms, extend the forearms, fold in the wheels affair.

That's to be expected at this size but I'm glad Maketoys didn't over complicate the process.

It works, and it's easy, and you go back to doing it a lot more than with your average 3P figure.

One fly in that ointment though, is when initially pegging in the wrists. It is tight. Teeth gnashingly tight before you know how to do it. Carefully applied pressure either side of the hand will work. If you want to pop off the hands for a bit of room, feel free, they will go straight back on.

Subsequent transformations have seen this issue fade to practically nothing. 

Robot modes, and this is where these guys utterly shine.

Trash-Talk looks like he walked out of the pages of the comic. Grinning from auditory sensor to auditory sensor, he oozes character. The silver paint that picks out his vented details is a welcome addition to the dominant white and red.

I would have preferred to see the visor painted, as lightpiping with no means of the light getting through to actually pipe is a bit of a waste, really.

Apparently Cogwheel is harder to balance - I respectfully disagree

Despite being a retool and redeco, Cogwheel manages to look like his own character and there is no doubt you are looking at Gears. Again, his comic appearances have been slim on the ground but from what I've seen it's doing a decent job of pulling off an IDW styled Gears. I like him a lot but he wasn't the draw of the set.

Articulation on these little fellas is genuinely excellent.

You're going to regret that

I mean it.

You've got ball jointed and hinged shoulders, bicep swivels, ratcheted elbows and ball jointed wrists.

Ball jointed head, ball jointed waist.

Ball jointed hips, thigh swivels, ratcheted knees and ball jointed ankles.

It allows for some serious fun in posing them, although the heads are difficult to turn with man sized fingers and the hands can pop off easily.

Told you

As you can see, in addition to the two figures you also get a few accessories.

Trash-Talk comes with his drinks tray and a few drinks (he becomes the owner of a bar in MTMTE), the Shoomer weapon and the resulting effects of mishandling the Shoomer (that being an alternate, skull face).

Cogwheel comes with two heads, one toy accurate, one comic accurate and what looks suspiciously like the Rivet Gun from issue 6.

Yeah, this won't end well either 

While pricey, this release has got class, quality and character.

Maketoys products have a reputation for being top notch and this is no different.

The plastic is great, the paint apps are crisp and clean and the joints are good and sturdy.

Highly recommended. And hopefully the first of many more to come in the 'Manga Mech Series'.

Not even the prospect of free booze was enough to put a smile on Yanigerswipe's face

MP-12G Lambor G-2 Ver (Or G2 Sideswipe to me and you).

In 1992 the 'Robots In Disguise' came crashing back onto the shelves looking like they had taken their war to a paintball tournament by way of a rave. Genius or insanity or a dash of both at whisky fueled late night Hasbro meetings?

While the line introduced new molds such as the Rotor Force and Lazer Rod toys, and gave us the Cyberjets (which were the forerunners of the great articulation we became accustomed to from Beast Wars onwards), Generation 2 launched with a series of repainted and gunned up classic '84 and '85 characters.

Naturally there was a TV show to accompany this. The original cartoon was aired with a new CGI intro and cutaways. 

Then there was the  Generation 2 comic. A balls out, guns blazing, OTT kill fest that reveled in the excesses of its time.

And this is where the newest Masterpiece comes in.

Using the well received MP-12 Lambor mold, MP-12G comes roaring out of the box in an eye catching deco that is impossible not to look at and swoon.

Glorious

It's a licensed Lamborghini Countach LP500S in high gloss black paint with blood red translucent windows. And it looks gorgeous.

You can attach the robot modes weaponry in one handy package to the car roof.

It's comic accurate too.

Car porn meets gun porn

MP-12G comes with a sticker set so that you can present your figure in either toy or comic deco (I opted for something in between, although that neon green is so so tempting).

G2. Where everybody knows your name

Transformation to the robot mode is a fairly straightforward affair, the legs being the complex side of it but one you have the order of things in place it becomes a breeze to switch back and forth.

And you will want to. 

Because MP-12G looks amazing in both modes.

That balls out, guns blazing OTT kill fest I was speaking about? That's G2 Sidewipe in a nutshell.

And the robot mode encapsulates pretty much everything about the characters presentation in the comic perfectly.

While missing the bandolier, bazooka and grenade, we do get the spiked shoulder wheels (non functional in vehicle mode, alas), two big guns, the huge blade and the snarl.

I'm always angry

Yes, Derek Yaniger's grimacing, angry, gun toting Sideswipe is nailed here. I can see how this may be divisive for some, especially those unfamiliar with the source. Kind of stands out among the Masterpiece Transformers released so far.

But it was this that sold the figure to me despite owning two versions of the mold already.

It's a welcome shot of personality into the MP lines stoic face sculpts and I find myself drawn to MP-12G constantly to pose and fiddle about with. 

This is one of the good guys? 

Whilst the paint job in vehicle mode was flawless, I did notice some spotty paintwork on one of the guns and feet. The foot is only visible during transformation though.

The gun is disappointing but I have not seen anybody else come forward with the same issue.

And despite being the fourth use of the mold, all the joints are nice and tight here.

All in all, a glorious combination of deco, relatively obscure homage, sticker set, personality and accessories make this figure a bit of a win in my book.

And if he doesn't fit in with your Masterpieces he certainly looks the part with another trigger happy nutjob.

'Know what I like best about Nails?'

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Review: Unique Toys' Maniaking (Galvatron)

Galvatron knows the pain of trying to transform Fansproject's Diesel

The Good

We finally have a Galvatron! After years of third party releases, Unique Toys have finally stepped up to bat and give us the toy we've wanted since Hasbro gave us the rather ugly Galvatron in the Universe line.

Don't judge a book by it's cover was never more accurate!

There have been more than a few renditions of Galvatron but it seems that Unique Toys have taken their inspiration from the Heart of Darkness covers as drawn by Ulises Farinas which is a damn decent choice.

Behold, Galvatron!

Out of the box, Maniaking is pretty impressive! The metallic purple is a nice touch and really makes the figure vibrant!  A lot of people didn't like the white legs when the first pictures emerged but in person they aren't as bad and perhaps bring a little contrast to this figure. It's very hard to imagine a figure looking like a better Galvatron than this.

A distinct lack of kibble

There's very little kibble to Maniaking which is a nice change from the usual alt-mode-hanging-off-the-back that is often found with Transformers. The back is a very simple and sparse sight which is most welcome.

First Prime, then Ultra Magnus blah blah blah

Maniaking has a fair bit of articulation and the joints are nice and stable. The shoulder joints however do feel very stiff and like they want to snap unless you move them with two hands to not put too much stress on the joint. Considering how delicate the joints are on current Hasbro products are, it's not a big deal. 

Yep, Morg still can't take decent pictures.

Maniaking is in scale with Classics and stands at Voyager size which makes him a good bit taller than Universe Cyclonus and Generations Scourge and puts him at a good height for a character of his importance.  While this is going to sound odd, the small grey pieces on his shins are a great piece of engineering which hold together the legs and then are jointed to hold together the cannon mode. It's only a very small thing but it shows how much effort went into the design process.

Will anyone else attempt to flll his shoes?

The alt mode of giant tracked space cannon thing looks fairly decent and for the first time, I've actually liked this mode with Galavtron. It's nice and stable and looks for the most part exactly how you expect it to. 

The bad

It's a nitpick on my part, but the hands don't turn. As you can see from the next two pictures, when the elbow joint is in the "proper" straight arm position, the hand's knuckles face backwards. For the hand to sit as it would with most figures, the arm has to be turned so the elbow faces out. Not a deal breaker but a definite annoyance. 

Another minor nitpick is that forearm and the big gap in it. It feels like it wouldn't have taken a lot for the parts to snugly together like the legs do amazingly when transformed into cannon mode. The forearms also feel a little brittle. They aren't, they just feel that way but it was scary to first touch them.

The transformation sequence gets a mention here because it's a masterpiece level transformation with an instruction booklet that doesn't give masterpiece level details. At the point of the picture above I was starting to wonder if I'd be able to transform it at all.

The instructions were still baffling at this point but at least the front part was now beautifully put together. 

The Ugly

The back of the cannon mode definitely qualifies as ugly. In fairness, I may not have transformed it properly but the instructions were so vague at this point that it was quickly becoming a headache.

WTF?

As above, I'm happy to admit that this may not be the way it's supposed to look but I do find it hard to imagine it looking much better unless I've missed something major. EDIT: I did miss something major - the back end of MK's arm cannon slots into the top to improve the look of the back part.

The price is a bit of a sticking point in my mind too. I'm not sure why; Maniaking is a nice figure but with the bar being raised constantly and new releases seemingly getting bigger, better and better value for money it's hard to feel that Maniaking couldn't have been a little more spectacular in terms of pricing or what it delivers.

"And these shall be your minions - Scourge, the tracker. Cyclonus, the warrior. People will argue for 30 years over who they used to be trollolololol"- Unicron (Transformers: The Movie)

Overall

Let's talk about the elephant in the room - Unique Toys. Warhawk was dire, but slowly each release has improved as UT hone their craft and Maniaking is a fantastic figure with no obvious flaws. Nothing flopped around, dropped off or failed to line up. Yes there are some niggles, but this is a company that are less than a year old and still finding their feet. Maniaking is a definite leap in the right direction for them especially as they've nailed Galavtron's likeness spectacularly!

Two points that don't really qualify as bad points are the horns which look amazing but if MK decided to fall off a shelf there's no way they would remain intact. The other is that this should have been in Masterpiece scale as it's probably the best Galavtron we'll get for a long time! If UT re-released this in a larger size and fixed the minor nuisances I outlined above then it'd be hard to imagine Takara beating it!

So, we both die in the movie. You get a shiny new body while the image of my eyes turning orange and smoke pouring out of my mouth appears in most grown men's nightmares?

Maniaking is a definite buy for Generations collectors, especially those who like their characters to look like their IDW comic counterparts. Masterpiece collectors will find that MK is way too small to stand with the Decepticon MPs but he's still in scale with the Autobot cars to a point so it's got a wide appeal. Also, a toy this good looking needs to be in a collection even if it doesn't quite fit into your collecting scale perfectly!

Even if Maniaking isn't going to make you part with your money, Unique Toys are a company to keep an eye on if Maniaking is any indication!

Ceno Kibble Interview

Masterforce had the opportunity to sit down with Mastermind Creations writer Ceno Kibble about his work, but to make things interesting we turned the questions over to our customers on Facebook and posters on TFW.

Q. Does the name Ceno Kibble mean anything?
A. The pseudonym is a reference to the company aim of reducing kibble as much as possible.

Q. What have you worked on altogether?
A. My first work for MMC was the Hexatron comic dialogue, although the Airborne Squadron (MMC steampunk) seeker comics came out first. We've still not seen the release of the fourth seeker, the Vehicon-esque drone, and that concludes the Lenin story. All six issues of the Feral Cons comics are written by me, as well as the Mech Ideas profiles.

Q. Is there any place where your stuff can be found collected together? Any plans to put together a .cbr archive?
A. So far, we have collected all the releases on my Facebook page, but a .cbr file would be great. There has also been talk of collecting story arcs with extra content as small run graphic novels at some point, if the fandom are interested.

Q. How does the process start between you and the toymaker? Who approaches who? 
A. They approach me for the most part, although I have really pushed to make the Techno Toon Titans line happen. More on that later.

Q. How much time on average do you spend researching a toy/character's heritage and history before deciding how to approach their story for the products you work on? 
A. I'm already familiar with most of the characters, but a new project does give me an excuse to hit up Tfwiki or re-read old Marvel UK comics.

Q. What's the balance between retreading our shared source material (G1, IDW) and bringing something new to the table? 
A. Just that, a fine balance. With the IDW comics it is a growing concern which could very easily lead to contradictions, so we used the end of the Furman run (Devastation) as our jumping off point. The stories have to be new, but the characters have to feel familiar.

Q. How long do you get from the 3P companies to produce your material for them? 
A. It varies massively. The Feral Rex comics I've had over a year to think and plan them, which might end up with them being massively over-thought yet, we'll have to see, (laughs). Other stories have been full of constraints and time limitations and that can often lead to happy accidents.

Q. Of the projects you have worked on, which has brought you the most satisfaction and why? 
A. The Airborne Awakening Squad comics, because I got to play around with Russian history. If I had Bluster and Trench action figures on my shelves right now, that would have been my answer.

Q. Which figure that you worked on do you think came out the best? 
A. Feral Rex, the best is yet to come.

Q. What change to a figure from the original concept most disappointed you?
A. Thankfully, I don't think we've had this happen at MMC.

Q. Of the main G1 Combiners, which ones would you like to make, and in which order? 
A. (Laughs) I'm rejecting the premise of this question. If I answer this, people are going to take it as fact or conjecture that we're following up Feral Rex with another combiner, so I'll skip this one.

Q. Is there any character from comic continuity (current or older) that you'd personally take a lot of pleasure in helping to bring to the 3rd Party scene? 
A. Emirate Xaaron, Flame (the crazy zombie master) and Scrounge (with his magic hand of course).

Q. Which random/obscure character that MMC or even other 3Ps are unlikely to tackle anytime soon would you most like to work on? 
A. I love most of the G1.5 /G2 Turbomasters and Predator jets, especially Boss.

Q. If you could have worked on the story of one TakaraTomy/Hasbro product released in the last 3 years, which would you have chosen to be a part of? 
A. I think the best official Hasbro product at the minute is the IDW MTMTE comic by James Roberts and Alex Milne, and I would love to play in that universe, but those guys are doing more than fine as it is.

Writing 
Q. What kind of limits are there for 3rd party companies in regards to their stories? Has this eased up? Do you find you can get away with more now than in the past? 
A. MMC have been very good at giving me free reign.

Q. Is a 3rd party stand alone transformer comic series something you would consider doing on your own or perhaps just one full comic that isn't a pack in with a toy?
A. The best thing that could happen would be for a multitude of 3P toy companies to trust me with their characters and products, and let me write a monthly/quarterly shared universe 3P comic book. But unfortunately I don't feel there is a lot of trust between the companies and they would fear one company would try to undermine the other, and I feel some companies would get very, very precious with their products.

Q. Is a collection of the Feral Rex comics something that could happen? 
A. Fingers crossed. If people want it to happen, make your voice heard.

Q. If you were in charge of the next transformers show, what would be your general plot and who would be your central cast? What's the main thing that you would put an emphasis on doing differently from previous shows? 
A. Ooh, wow. That is a huge question. I have two concepts but that'd be telling (laughs) and at the moment I'm more focused on creating original characters for original IPs.

Q. Any comics of your own in the works? 
A. Three separate novels I'm working on command most of my time, a TV show concept and a few half thought-out comic series ideas which mostly sit in a folder without much happening. I've been let down by artists in the past which is why I've started to work with prose a lot more.

Mech Ideas
Q. Are there any other members of the Wrecking Crue in development and are they based off the IDW Last Stand cast or the classic lineup? 
A. Nothing I can talk about at the moment. These things are all decided between the designers and engineers before I get involved. They're the real talent.

MMC
Q. Do you get much of a free hand with the likes of MMC in terms of what you can write or does the company have a plot/plan you have to use already? 
A. Penguin One always has some very interesting ideas to contribute, and we have a big picture and an end game in sight which would wrap up phase one of the MMC fiction.

Q. Which, if any, of the MMC toys have you named yourself? 
A. Honestly, it is very collaborative. I really pushed to change the name from Ferocicus to Feral Rex because I really disliked that original name, but coming up with all the names for the characters and agreeing on the final name for the team and gestalt literally took an entire day of back and forth emails with the whole team.

Q. How has MMC's direct line of approach with the consumer affected your view of the fandom? 
A. think the question should be “how has MMC's direct line of approach with the consumer affected their view of our company?”. And I think the answer would be “very positively indeed”. I think it is safe to say we have gone out of our way to engage directly with consumers and retailers alike. We don't just say “by the fans, for the fans”, we show we really mean it.

Overlord 
Q. When is MMC's Overlord scheduled to come out and will he have "those" lips? 
A. There will be a choice of heads, for those who want traditional G1 and for those who want Nick Roche's Roman nose and luscious lips.

Looking forward
Q. How are the Techno Toon Titans coming along? 
A. Slowly. But good things come to those who wait, right?

Q. You're launching your own company soon and own toy line, tell us more about that. 
A. Yeah, a bunch of third party designers and myself have come together as “Mayhem Mekanics” to create a universe we call “Robo Dominion Saga”, and our first story and toyline “Unrustable Bastards” is coming together nicely. There is a blog which was once weekly, but we've been so busy with other projects and finalising the designs of the main characters that the blog hasn't been updated for a while.

Q. How does working on a project like the Unrustable Bastards stack up to working for an already established third party? 
A. Well, I've said “by the fans for the fans”. This project is more “by the fans buying”. We're looking to sell this as a kickstarter or other type of crowd-sourcing project, as it is a completely original IP, and we would like to see the universe expand into other mediums. If the support for the project isn't there, it won't happen. It is that simple. A lot of fans talk about new and original projects, with strong supporting fiction, well, that is exactly what we're attempting to do.

Q. Boxers, briefs, or boxer-briefs? 
A. I'm English, so I'll go with pants. We wear pants underneath our trousers you see, and because of that it is a much funnier word.