Dave's Titanium Series Rant: 6" Wave 3 G1 Scourge Optimal Optimus Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/6Titanium3 - check here for updates if you see this file on Usenet before emailing any corrections. :) CAPSULES G1 Scourge: Has some issues with odd joints, and I'd prefer colors a little closer to the G1 toy (darker light blue, gray face), but it's a pretty solid toy for a shellformer. Recommended. $14.99 at Toys R Us. Optimal Optimus: "Only" a Triple-Changer. About as good an adaptation as you're going to get for this design, but it's a design that loses just about all its good points when done at this scale. Neutral. $14.99 at Toys R Us. RANTS Packaging: Same design as wave 1, including use of the robot mode's design elements on the sides, top and front of the box. Each has the "bust" shot of the other in its "Also Available!" panel on the back. OpOp's package only shows his ground altmode and the robot mode. Both come with a catalog that includes listings of all six 6" figures but only has pictures of the first four. The back of the catalog includes the first fifteen 3" figures in list form, but pictures only of 7 of the first 9. As with wave 2, both have three twist-ties that go through to the cardboard backing, the rest only connecting to the plastic tray inside. DECEPTICON: SCOURGE Unique Feature: Constructed of DECEPTICON wreckage After the castrophic battle in which both MEGATRON and OPTIMUS PRIME were mortally damaged, the fleeing DECEPTICON forces dumped the ruined bodies of their former comrades into space to lighten their load. In the void of deep space, the wreckage drifted until an ancient creature known as UNICRON swallowed it up, melted it down, and used it to create a host of mechanical servants. Among this host was a squad of elite tracker-terminators known as the Sweeps, led by the deadly and silent SCOURGE. Screaming down out of the night sky of CYBERTRON, SCOURGE and his troops fell upon AUTOBOT and DECEPTICON alike, destroying all those who stood against them. They were the first in a long line of heralds and servants to the evil UNICRON, and to this day many of the streets and buildings of CYBERTRON carry the scars left by their powerful disintegration cannons. STR 8 INT 8 SPD 8 END 7.5 RNK 8 COUR 8 FRB 7.5 SKL 7 Avg 7.75 Cute how they totally sidestep the issue of which Decepticon became Scourge, by simply retelling the events and adding a "melt everyone down, let Unicron sort 'em out" step. Seven twist-ties in total, again the kind that's really painful to remove by hand. It's like dealing with barbed wire, as if they're trying to warn us against removing these toys from the package. Definitely wirecutter time. There's also some secondary plastic trays between wings and arms, connected by a thin strip. With an extra twist of ties in between wing and arm, of course. He's packaged with his hip joints set up to move sideways, but not forward. It's possible to change this for robot mode poseability, though. The nametag stays on reasonably well. Weight: 6.125 oz (174g). Main Weakness: The elbow joints are weak, and pop apart more easily than the shoulders ratchet, so you have to rotate the arms by grabbing the upper part, or you just rip the forearms off. Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall at the top of the funny hat, with a maximum wingspan of 6" (15cm). The torso (except for the center chest) and boots (except for toes and the back side of each boot) are die-cast metal. A bright blue (that I can't really find a good web equivalent for) plastic is used for the head/center chest piece, the shoulders, forearms, thighs, toes and the backs of the boots. It glows strongly under UV. The upper arms, fists, hip joints, knee joints and snap connectors on the boot backs are a dark gray (666666) plastic. The wings are ice white (just a faint tinge of blue) and glow a little under UV. The gray plastic is soft, and the thruster pieces on the head and wings are soft, but the other plastics are hard. The torso is painted mostly blue (a decent match with the plastic) with medium gray (999999) trim around the center chest and gold on the abdomen. The boots are mainly painted ice white (a tiny bit bluer than the plastic) with medium blue accents and a gold stripe down the sides. The wings have medium blue techno-feather patterns with gold stripes painted on the front side, and more solid blue with gold and silver trim on the back. Medium gray paint accents set off the thighs, forearms and center chest. The face is ice white with red eyes, and the thruster fronts are also red. There's silver grilles on the chest. The toes are painted mostly ice white and black with only a tiny bit of the plastic showing. There's a silver and violet Decepticon symbol printed on the right shoulder, and violet-and-blank-border ones on the backs of both wings. The face is bearded, but doesn't look quite like the G1 cartoon version. A little closer to the G1 toy, but not as good. The head can bow as part of its transformation joint, but cannot turn. The waist does not turn. The shoulders are universal joints that soft- ratchet in both directions. The elbows are hinges, and weakly held on as mentioned above. They bend about 45 degrees either way. The wrists are swivels. The hips are oddball joints, ratchet hinges on swiveling ratchet posts from the pelvis. In default position, the hinges swing outward for transformation. However, thanks to the swivel at the hip and a non- ratcheting swivel above the knee, you can turn the thighs 90 degrees so that the swivel allows normal forward and back movement. The knees are hinges that kinda ratchet. The toes point on a transformation joint, but the ratchet is almost one-way, making it hard to point the toe but letting it slide back to standing pose with little resistance. So the toe joint doesn't really allow for meaningful support. Each wing has a hinge at its root and another hinge about 1/3 of the way out from the root. There is no accessory-type weapon, and the fists have no peg holes. Transformation: Really simplistic. Snap the lower legs together after pointing the toes, bend the head forward 90 degrees, then fold the wings around everything. Yeah, this is pretty much how the character is supposed to transform, but it still makes him Thunderblast's older brother. In going back to robot mode, the wing shell can be a little tricky to open up, since the pegs are notched to catch like hooks. Vehicle Mode: 5.5" (14cm) long and 3" (7.5cm) wide, it's a little more pointed at the front than the classic G1 flying soapdish. Where the G1 version has a sort of crescent pattern repeating from the bow, this version is triangular, with a chevron in blue and gold at the front and a blue wedge at the middle rear. The difference between the ice white paint and the ice white plastic is more obvious in this mode, but the overall pattern looks acceptable despite the lack of uniformity. The very tip of the prow is dark gray. Seams aren't too bad, mainly a problem on the sides. It holds together very firmly, but does suffer from having open areas at the rear and on the bottom that show robot bits through them. The distribution of metal puts the center of mass of the vehicle mode at nearly the geometrical center, for a pleasant balance. Overall: While such blatant shellformers tend to bother me, it fits the character and looks pretty good in both modes (altough the face would look better in gray, and I'd have preferred light blue over the ice white). Once you get the hang of some of the joint idiosyncracies, it's pretty good for a Titanium. AUTOBOT: OPTIMAL OPTIMUS Unique Feature: Mutated by the Spark infusion of OPTIMUS PRIME Forced by circumstancs into a desperate gambit, OPTIMUS PRIMAL takes the Spark of the greatest of his AUTOBOT ancestors into his body. While the MAXIMAL crew works feverishly to repair the destroyed circuitry of OPTIMUS PRIME and end the timestorm that threatens to tear their universe apart, their leader struggles to stay alive. His body is wracked by he strain of containing two Sparks - something his bio-mechanical battle frame was never built for. By the time the Spark of the AUTOBOT leader is returned to its rightful place, OPTIMUS PRIMAL has been mutated by its power into OPTIMAL OPTIMUS, a MAXIMAL of incredible size and astounding might. Armored and equipped like an AUTOBOT warrior from the Golden Age of CYBERTRON, he casts a formidable shadow, and presents the greatest threat MEGATRON and his PREDACONS have ever faced. STR 10 INT 9 SPD 9 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 8 SKL 8 Avg 9.25 Hm, interesting retcon of his altmodes. :) Seven total barbed wire ties again. Ironically, the tie that's intended to keep the chest together also keeps it from being properly pegged together. Nameplate doesn't stay on well, and it's an Autobot symbol rather than making a new Maximal one. Weight: 10.125 oz (290g). Main Weakness: They ditched the one mode that came close to looking like something. :) Seriously, the main weakness seems to be the decision to do this design. What did Optimal Optimus have going for it? It was big, it had electronic gimmicks, loads of poseability, and four modes. This version is not big, has no electronics, so-so poseability, and only three modes, two of which are the weakest of the four. Robot Mode: 5.25" (13cm) tall at the head, 6.5" (16.5cm) tall at the top of the shoulder wings, 5" (13cm) across at the shoulders. The shoulder fronts, boots (but not feet or wheel chunks on the sides of the boots), pelvis, abdomen, front half of upper torso and front of cockpit piece are metal. Forearms, wins and thighs are a gunmetal gray plastic. The head, hands, feet, hip joints, torso back, knee joints, shoulder backs and other joint bits are one of two different kinds of yellow-orange (FFCC00) plastic, some of which glow moderately under UV and some weakly (I'm not convinced there's a consistent pattern, but there's no obvious asymmetries). Part of the shoulder joints are dark gray (666666) plastic, as are the wheels and some connector bits involving the cockpit and the ball and socket elbows. Light gray (CCCCCC) plastic is used for the peg and hole keeping the legs together in vehicle modes and for the socket the wheel pieces on the boots are attached to. The shoulder cannons are silver, although I don't know if they're solid silver plastic or painted. The torso and pelvis are mainly painted yellow-orange with a decent match to the plastic, with silver and black painted details. The cockpit itself is a pale yellow (FFFF66). The shoulder discs, top of the head, face and boots are painted a very dark blue (not on the web color chart). The shoulders and "spats" on the feet are painted maroon (993366). The toenails and kneecap vents are painted silver, and there's also silver trapezoids near the tops of the shoulders. The mouth, nose and forehed tablet are painted silver as well, with the eyes being metallic blue (and kinda sloppily painted, more as a visor than eyes). There's an out-of-place Autobot symbol in the silver trapezoid on the right shoulder. A touch of red on the laser sight bump on the chest would have been nice, but I guess it was abandoned because it would have requires an entire mask just for that (there's no other red aside from the tampo'ed Autobot symbol). The head turns, and the waist has a transformation joint that lets him lean back. The shoulders are universal joints, but the sheer size of the shoulderpads restrict movement some. The elbows are somewhat restricted ball joints and share the floppiness issue of Titanium Megatron, but since there's no metal in the forearms they don't droop. A layer of nailpolish clearcoat on the balls will probably stiffen them up plenty. The wrists are universal joints. There's no finger or thumb jointing, and a big 4mm peg sticks out of each palm for ground mode (hey, he can hold Classic Mirage's hand). The hips are ratcheting universal joints of the standard kind, rather than Scourge's weird variety. The knees are ratchet hinges with swivels just above them. The ankles ratchet through 45 degrees of toe-pointing. The shoulder winglets are on universal joints, and the shoulder cannons are hinged to swing out. Transformation: Legs peg together and shorten, rear wheel chunks rotate 180 degrees, shoulders collapse inward to lower the joints, head stows, chest flips out and torso rotates up 90 degrees. Then, either pull out the front wheel and clap the hands around it, or put the arms in flying pose and fold the wings out. The leg shortening/lengthening motion is a bit dodgy, and doesn't always lock all the way open or closed unless you force it. Vehicle Modes: He gets the jet mode and the ground mode, but no gorilla mode. So, really, this is Megatron's version of the body from the final battle in Beast Machines. :) Regardless of mode, the robot head is reasonably well concealed. Jet mode is 8" (20cm) long with a 8" (20cm) wingspan. Ground mode is 7.5" (19cm) long and 4.5" (11.5cm) wide. The rear wheels spin freely, but the nose wheel does not, at least on mine. All five wheels are 17-18 mm in diameter. The jet mode looks like a flying gorilla, the ground mode like not much of anything. Frankly, this one would have been better off as a non-transforming toy, replacing the chest transformation bits with better articulation in the arms and hands. It's a good thing transformation is so easy, since you don't get much payoff. Overall: Garish, blocky, and with pretty lame altmodes. If they wanted to do a Beast-era Optimus at this size, Transmetal Optimus Primal might have been a better idea...because even a really good execution of the Optimal Optimus design at this scale is still gonna be pretty weak. In robot mode it looks decent on the shelf, but so would a 3" version. Dave Van Domelen, ended up putting Megatron and Optimus Prime away in bubble wrap to make room for Jetfire and Scourge, but cleared space on a different shelf for these two.