Dave's Deluxe Cybertron Rant: Wave 2, or maybe 1.5. Red Alert Override Thanks to Justin Anderson for picking these up for me. These may be Wave 2, maybe Wave 1.5, hard to say. It's only a half wave anyway, shipping short with Wave 1 stuff initially and then shipping short with the next batch as well. Might be hard to find period, time will tell. Which is odd for major show characters. CAPSULES Red Alert: Solid vehicle mode, interesting transformation, decent robot mode. Uninspiring Key gimmick, but a nice secondary gimmick. Strongly recommended (albeit at the low end of that rating). About $10 most places. Override: Some interesting stuff, but wobbly in both modes, and unimpressive Key gimmick. Somewhere between mildly recommended and recommended. About $10 most places. RANTS Packaging: Standard Deluxe. Red Alert has co-sells of Override, Thundercracker and Hot Shot. Override has co-sells of Red Alert, Dirt Boss, and Clocker. Landmine gets no love. Packaged in vehicle mode, with two twist-ties on Red Alert and only one on Override, although both have extra blister pieces over their key slots and a twist-tie around the base of each Key. Comes with the Speed map, at least in the initial shipments. Later ones might have the next map. AUTOBOT: RED ALERT Planet: Earth Altmode: Dodge Magnum Planet Key Code: d26w Self-sacrifice is a way of life for RED ALERT, but non-stop fighting with the DECEPTICONS has caused him to doubt his skills as a healer. His vast sensor array, integrated tools, and instincts as a scientist give him an almost limitless capacity for absorbing data. He considers every possible course of action before committing to a plan, which brings him into conflict with the hot-headed HOT SHOT when the pair arrives on the Speed Planet. STR 6.5 INT 9 SPD 5 END 7.5 RNK 6 COUR 9 FRB 4 SKL 9 Avg 7 Key Info: Red Alert used to be a warrior in the old days of Cybertron. He fought alongside Landmine, Jetfire and Optimus Prime for years and years before the "accident". One day he was on the battlefield when Starscream attacked him. The evil Decepticon jet dove down into attack position and pulled out his Energon Saber. Red Alert went to block the attack, but Starscream lopped off his hand! Red Alert ended up putting a medical multi-tool where his hand used to be, but he has NEVER forgiven Starscream... (Also shows a computer-drawn front view of the robot mode.) Odd how he still has an Earth Key, while Hot Shot has Speed. I guess it symbolizes how the two have adapted and adopted. Hot Shot fits into Speed society quite well, and Red Alert is still an outsider there. Planet Key: Standard Earth Key. Vehicle Mode: Like most (but not all) Earth Planet altmodes, it's pretty much real, albeit with a few changes to avoid trademark issues. In this case, it's a Dodge Magnum with a few emergency vehicle mods (emergency lights, a couple of external first aid or repair kits. At a bit over 5" (13cm) long, that makes it about 1/38 scale (a real Dodge Magnum is 5.02 meters long). It's very solid, no parts flop around or come open easily if you're not specifically transforming it. It rolls well on its wheels. The main color is white. The windows and emergency lights on top are clear red plastic (and much of the body is clear red plastic with white paint), the bumpers andedge trim are gunmetal gray, and there are dark blue stripes. There are parallel Viper-like stripes on the hood, but they don't continue onto the roof. Rather, there are blue stripes along the doors. The headlights are painted pale gold. The Key slot is white and blends in pretty well. The top of the robot's head is visible between the emergency flashers, and blends in...okay. Not great, but it's not Energon Ironhide. The head is made of clear red plastic, but is painted dark blue on the only part visible in this mode. The wheels are very dark gray (okay, black) with bronze hubcaps. Stupid semi-transformation tricks include deploying the feet parts as brushguards, and then rotating the rear wheels inside to make a sort of hammerhead trike. The Key slot is at the top rear of the vehicle. The Key can be inserted one click in without triggering the gimmick. Pushing it firmly all the way in causes the rear side panels to pop out about 7mm to either side, letting little spring-loaded dark blue guns flip out in the manner of a Triggerbot. It's not the most impressive of Key gimmicks. Transformation: The leg transformation is rather clever. The front end folds down to become the front of the boots and the inside halves of the thighs. The lower part of the rear end folds down to become the backs of the boots and the outsides of the thighs. Toe and heel spurs fold out before you can connect them, and the rear wheels fold into where the heel spurs had been so that the four wheels mesh together. The rear top pulls back and folds down as a backpack, and a lot of panel and joint folding brings the arms out with the front door panels becoming shoulderpads. Not in the same way as Armada Red Alert, though, as they're more vertical. A couple of bits fold down to flesh out the abdomen, a nice touch. Robot Mode: A clear homage to or update of Armada Red Alert, especially in the face and the molding of the chest. A somewhat short 4.75" (12c) tall, most of the newly revealed parts are black or dark blue. The upper and lower arms, pelvis, abdomen flip-downs, thighs and backpack innards are dark blue plastic. The hands and feet are black. The head is painted dark blue with a pale gold face and the visor and "ears" left unpainted. No lightpiping on the eyes, though, as the back of the head is fully painted. Just glowing ears. The chest has blue in a sort of shallow T shape, plus pale gold headlights and a red Autobot symbol within a white gap. There's also more pale gold bits on the shoulders and pelvis. The right hand is normal, with a 5mm peghole. The left hand is a laser nozzle (4mm diameter peg), which is also the basis for some other tools. Cleverly making use of some of the bulky space, the designers turned the fronts of the boots into storage for tool attachments. In the left boot is a black hammer head that can attach to the tip of the laser. In the right boot is a dark blue manipulator claw. Additionally, the Key gimmick guns will flip around to rest on his shoulders, although they don't really show up that well. Might be worth it to paint them gold or red. Poseability is pretty good, if blocked by kibble. The head turns, although the waist does not. The shoulders are ball joints, the elbows and wrists are hinges (the wrists hinge for transformation, but it's a useful joint). The nature of the legs forces the hips and knees to be hinges, but the pelvis can split apart to let the legs spread. The toes have some useful range thanks to transformation joints, but not a lot. Overall: Solid vehicle mode is a plus, as is the clever transformation. The robot mode is a bit kibbly and the Key gimmick is weak, but the tool swap somewhat makes up for that. A good toy...much like the character, it's more solidly competent than flamboyantly impressive. AUTOBOT: OVERRIDE Planet: Speed Altmode: Race car (fantasy) Planet Key Code: dy7p Long-time champion and leader of the Speed Planet, OVERRIDE is always ready for a race. Acceleration is her only ideal, but she respects anyone with the guts to challenge her. She's faced and beaten thousands of upstart speedsters in her time. Though at first suspicious of the intentions HOT SHOT and the AUTOBOTS have for her world's CYBER PLANET KEY, OVERRIDE is only too glad to help once she realizes what's at stake. STR 6.5 INT 7.5 SPD 9.5 END 7.5 RNK 9 COUR 8 FRB 5 SKL 8.5 Avg 7.69 Key Code Info: It took a long time for Override to claim the title of Leader of the Speed Planet. When the Cybertronian explorers first landed on what would become Speed Planet, races were held to see who would be leader. Override pretended to be a BOY to enter the race and the entire planet was stunned when she won the race and revealed that she was a tough-as-nails female racecar! (Also shows a screencap of Override beating Megatron in a race from the show.) Oh, cute. In Japan, this character is named Nitro Convoy and is male. So the "male drag" racing thing refers to that. Planet Key: A Speed Key in gold instead of silver, as she's the leader of her planet. Vehicle Mode: Like most (but not all) natives of Speed, hers is a "fantasy" vehicle. Some have called it an homage to the Mach 5, but I'd say that while this is close, it's not quite on target. It's a lot closer to the Shooting Star, Racer X's car. If the toes touched, it'd be an even better match. It's 6.25" (16cm) long and 3" (8cm) wide. The cockpit has two seats, and assuming they're designed for human drivers, I'd peg the scale of the toy at 25mm (1/72), making it pretty huge...35-40 feet long. It's a new Tau fast attack vehicle. :) Stability is so-so. There's enough flex that you have to mess around with it a lot to get all four wheels on the table at once. The fenders are white plastic with bright red paint details. The inner bits are a mix of red and black plastic, with a clear red canopy and tachymer tires. There's some silver details on the headlights, canopy, gun section and hubcaps. The robot head's top half is visible behind the canopy, one of the two major similarities between this and Red Alert. There are soft red plastic thruster nozzles at the rear of the car, and soft red plastic spoiler fins attached to the gun section and mostly painted black. There's a few bits of metallic blue paint here and there, including on what look to be concealed weapons at the front between the robot toes. Inserting the Key causes two slender gunbarrels to flip around the sides to point forward. The barrels have white bases and soft red plastic tips. Flanking the robot head, they don't really stand out all that much. There's no way to store the Key without popping out the weapons. Stupid transformation trick: remove the weapon chunk and make it a flying gun drone. Transformation: Pressing a black bit in front of the canopy backwards autotransforms a bunch of stuff, although it doesn't all deploy correctly. The centerline stuff on top folds back and up, and the rear wheels flip around and deploy arms in a manner like Energon Strongarm, but automatically. This just leaves manually transforming the hips and legs, and pulling the center underbody front around to form a backpack. It pegs well onto the weapon chunk, but holds losely to the back if you remove the weapon. You cannot leave the key in while transforming, unless you remove the weapon entirely. Robot Mode: 5.75" (14cm) tall at the head, 6" (15cm) at the backpack. Not particularly feminine except for the boots, they didn't even tweak the face mold to look more female. And while there's "breasts", there's plenty of male TFs with much bigger racks. She has very wide shoulders and kinda stumpy arms. The balance isn't very good, she has to lean forward to avoid falling over backwards unless she holds her gun out at arm's length. Also, unfortunately, the deployed gunbarrels point inward a bit when not braced by the sides of the vehicle, which looks bad. The color balance is about the same, maybe a little more black plastic visible. The canopy becomes the chest. She has a small white Autobot symbol outline on her left shoulder/chest. The shoulders and forearms are black plastic with silver zigzaggy trim, and the upper arms are red (there's also some white plastic inside the shoulder joints). The head is white plastic painted red on the sides and helmet wings, and orange on the face. The eyes and forehead "tablet" are metallic blue. Kind of a Minerva thing going on. Poseability is okay. The head turns stiffly, the waist does not (although it can come undone if you're not careful). The shoulders are universal joints, plus the transformation spring joint that makes the arms flop around a bit. There are upper arm swivels and hinge elbows. The hips are ball joints, there are thigh swivels, and the knees are hinges. The feet have transformation joints, but are functionally unposeable in this mode. Overall: A fair amount of cleverness, and holds together okay in both modes (but not really "solid" in either). Suffers some from the gimmicky transformation, and the Key gimmick isn't too impressive on this one either. If it does end up being shortpacked overall, don't lose too much sleep worrying about getting it. It's nice, but.... Dave Van Domelen, now to assemble the puzzle that is Teaching Assistant job assignments for the semester....