Saturday, February 15, 2014

Generations Voyager Whirl - another comics page!

If these photos are too dark, um, there are other people who have this figure and took better photos. Enjoy those too. SO, I said I'd update you. The tracking #s that Hasbro sent didn't seem to work under USPS, UPS, or UPS-Mail Innovations, so I would check and there'd be no info as to the progress for this package. Anyway, I got home and woo hoo, there was a box for me! And it was WHIRL!

These weapons? Going right into a ziploc bag
and into a parts box and never coming out
until I sell this guy on eBay in five years.
Now, I'm a huge fan of the Head Robots Drone upgrade, and figured it'd be enough for a Generations Deluxe Whirl (made out of a HFTD Tomahawk) to fit in with the rest of the Lost Light crew. I was going to pass on the Voyager Whirl because it looked way too much like his G1 counterpart, and I had been spoiled by More Than Meets The Eye and was hoping for something with two rotors, one on each side as part of his forearm or elbow. The comic gave him a great personality and a freakish, almost contortionist appearance, and I was disappointed this toy looked like the G1 version.

Of course, the G1 toy (lifted from another toyline, but you have TFWIKI for that info) was remarkable because unlike the TakaraTomy figures that made up the bulk of the line, he had moving arms AND legs. No elbows or knees, but he had 100% more poseability than the Decepticon jets or the Autobot cars (how many had moving legs?).

Jetfire had to be renamed and redesigned for the cartoon. Yet Whirl & Roadbuster couldn't become Dizzy and Pavement Crasher? (Hasbro: call me). I mean, weren't Jetfire and Roadbuster in the same catalogs as Jetfire? Did they just run out of time scrambling to turn Jetfire into Skyfire that they said forget it with Whirl & Roadbuster?
Smile.
You don't have to answer that, I just envision a great introduction of Whirl and Spike freaking out over Whirl's bizarre appearance compared to the rest of the Autobots. "It's not on the outside what counts," lectures Optimus Prime, but Spike is too terrified to listen and runs screaming from the Ark, felled seconds later by Decepticon laser-fire. Wait, why did I go there with that?
You'll notice I didn't do the 3rd mode, "Heloped."
Because there is no Gerwalk mode for Whirl.
"Too lazy to finish transforming" is not an alt mode.
Freakish is what this figure still manages to accomplish. Giving him the chicken legs helps a lot, but be careful: that "knee" piece is really thin. So are the shoulder parts. You'll be moving these pieces a lot transforming and posing him, so be really really careful.
That part? In the middle? Between the blue and silver?
Be REALLY careful. Can't stress that enough. Really.
Some clumsy assembly required.
It also comes with stickers. WHAT? Is this the first Classics to do so? How much work do I have to do with this one? They remind me of the GI Joe vehicles you'd spend too much time putting decals on only to skew ONE and have the whole thing look extra fake. There doesn't seem to be any injokes/references from More Than Meets The Eye hidden in the stickers.

Anyway, cool figure. I took a quick pic of the Whirl lineage. Tiny Whirl became incredibly fragile since I got him, by the way.
I gave Head Robots Whirl a baseball bat just because.
BONUS! I bought this from Brian Shearer. It's a page from More Than Meets The Eye, #20. This is another terrible phone pic with some boosted contrast. Sorry. It and some other pages (mentioned in previous posts) are being framed. I'll take a good pic when I get them all back.

Okay, that's it. Continue reading the news and fan heartbreak and 2nd guessing from the ToyBusinessConventionThing. I'll read all about it in Transformers Aficionado magazine, known for its great articles and tasteful photos of Arcee on a bearskin rug.

(Transformers Aficionado is not a real magazine.)

5 comments:

  1. Whirl is nice. I love the fact that a modern toy *finally* has a sticker sheet! To me applying decals is part of the 'play' process for a toy (esp during G1) and really, its what discerns 1 toy from another - the way that you apply your decals differentiates you from that 20 other cross-eyed kids who applied them slanted!

    Nice art page dude. Oh, guess what? I think I have the original art page *before* the one you photoed!

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  2. Yeah yeah yeah...you don't have my oafish stubby sausage like fingers. There's a reason why I play bass instead of guitar. Anyway, I completely forgot about that aspect. I don't know how, what with Reprolabels existing as a business needed by many. I remember the decals being a bigger thing for GI Joe vehicles, that's probably why.

    Anyway, guess what. I already flubbed and ruined a few stickers.

    Oh SNAP! Hey, maybe if we meet and combine pages WE SUMMON CAPTAIN PLANET! :P

    I regret not buying page 18 of MTMTE #12 (Before & After) as I had purchased page 19. Plenty of Cyclonus and Tailgate and it would have been great to have a two page layout that told the story.

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    1. like Optimal, I use tweezers too. Gone are my slender child-like fingers, like 20 years ago. If I have to play an instrument, it'd be drums, so year, if I can do stickers, so can you dude.

      The MTMTE pages look regal up close and in real life.

      I'm trying to be selective though, otherwise that monster called the completionist-devil will creep in and I will start to want every page!

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  3. I'm still waiting for Whirl to ship, so I'm excited. Stickers?! That's pretty cool. Have you tried using tweezers to apply decals? That's what I use.

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  4. Yeah yeah yeah, tweezers. Now you tell me. :P I thought about that after misapplying the first one.

    I lucked out with pages when I saw Brian Shearer at C2E2 (the Chicago comics convention NOT sponsored by Wizard World). He had a BUNCH of great stuff. I think I spent my budget at his booth. Which is fine. It was great to get pages that I liked (the silly pages I add dialog to? With Arcee and Sideswipe? I loved that page when I read it) and had cast members I dig (Arcee! Sideswipe!). I'm thrilled to have the (inked) page (Milne's pencils are separate, Shearer has a reproduction to ink over) introducing the newest star of MTMTE, MY FIRST BLASTER.

    I might be giving a page away for a Robots With Coffee contest but I'm not sure yet. :P

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