Friday, January 23, 2015

Combiner Wars!

Guess what I got?

Yeah, I picked up some Combiner Wars figures. On a whim and with the help of a gift card I bought CW Alpha Bravo and the latest cartoon star Strongarm from the RiD (cartoon, not comic) series premiering in March.

As far as RiD goes, I'm excited to have Sideswipe as a main character and so Strongarm would be some kind of test on quality for that cartoon's line. I will discuss that later. I picked up Alpha Bravo because the store had this brand new Deluxe figure on sale so why not? I didn't really want to jump on board with this because though I like having new Generations versions of G1 figures, I was never a fan of the "Scramble City" style of combiners. Their tiny heads and transformation to robots that were far less imaginable than the Minibots. Even the Micromasters have better robot modes, but that's my opinion.

Well, Alpha Bravo is a surprisingly sturdy figure. And his helicopter mode is pretty cool too. The coolest thing about this figure is getting him from robot to helicopter. The transformation of his legs, which open and then surround his robothighs, is a contrast to the simple transformation of the rest of his body. Pretty impressive.

The packaging is kind of ridiculous, as in questionable. It's not so much the frequent references to his being a limb for Superion, but that there's no info about Alpha Bravo on the back of the packaging card. He comes with a trading card. On the front side, the box art. The back side? A giant Autobot logo. Wait, REALLY? You've got to be kidding me. What an opportunity for a deeper bio and tech specs! That's why you go to the trouble to include a trading card!

I'll have a picture or two next post about toys. I picked up Silverbolt and there's more to say but he's special for his combiner mode and that's what I think most fans are going to focus on and remember about this series.

Okay, I hope you are all well.