Dave's Transformers Rant: Energon Deluxe Wave 1.5 Hot Shot Inferno Starscream Hasbro did a weird thing with Wave 1 of Energon. Wave 1.0 would be some new toys plus one Armada recolor, and Wave 1.5 would be all new toys, replacing the recolor with one new figure. So Wave 1.0 of the Deluxes is Hot Shot, Inferno, and the Sideways recolor Rapid Run. Wave 1.5 replaces Rapid Run with Starscream. Given that what little enthusiasm I had for Sideways has long since faded and I dislike the new color scheme, I feel no sorrow at all over getting just 1.5 locally. }-> CAPSULES Hot Shot: Decent vehicle mode, so-so transformation, so-so robot mode and upper-combined mode, okay lower-combined mode. Mildly recommended. $9.87 at Wal-Mart. Inferno: Okay vehicle mode, simple transformation, nice robot mode, very good upper-combined more, nice looking but immobile lower-combined mode. Cool weapon. Recommended. $9.87 at Wal-Mart. Starscream: All that and a bag of chips, man. Yes, it reuses some engineering from Smokejumper, but Smokejumper is based on a revolutionary design. And it's an improvement in every way over Smokejumper, with lots of great touches and design elements. And a big horkin sword/buster cannon. Strongly recommended. $9.87 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Packaging: The blister cards are 11.5" (29cm) wide and 8.25" (21cm) tall, with patterning scalloped out of the top. The blister covers the rightmost two thirds of the card, with the energy vault pattern being behind the blister. On the left third is the red grid on black background of Energon packaging, with character art and logo. More or less the Basics scheme rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. The back of the card shows a large picture of the toy in both main modes, a few co-sells (varies by toy) and pictures of the Powerlinx forms in the cases of Hot Shot and Inferno. Starscream has Jetfire, another Wave 1.5 toy. In three languages (French, English, Spanish) is the setup for the Energon storyline: The quest for Energon - a rare and potent substance that the AUTOBOT and DECEPTICON warriors have battled over for eons - continues on Earth! The DECEPTICON forces have struck a deal with UNICRON: in exchange for new powers and forms, they will supply enough Energon to fully reactivate him. Now legions of hyper-powered DECEPTICONS speed toward Earth, intent on controlling its Energon resources at any cost! Only an elite team of AUTOBOTS, empowered with the SPARK OF COMBINATION, can save the planet from total destruction. The blister is an irregular shape. If you start with a square 6.5" (17cm) on a side, then put in a bump in the upper right, a dent in the middle of the left side, and a few other slight wobbles, you'd get about the shape of the blister. There's the usual cardstock insert along the bottom with th ename and faction symbol and covering up the packet of comic and instructions. Along the right side is taped a plastic packet containing a trading card with techspecs (no bio, just the stats) on the back. The removable logos of Armada are gone. None of these toys has a subline title like Terrorcon or Omnicon, but the combiners have a modified faction symbol. The Autobot symbol is enclosed in a ring with five evenly spaced cog-like teeth. But, unlike a cog, the inside is not a simple circle, it has five dents following the outer teeth, so the whole thing is more like a wavy lined ring. The teeth are too far apart to be an actual gear/cog, making it more like a cam. The instructions are not bound in with the comics. Hot Shot and Inferno have two-sided instructions, one side for their own stuff and the other for Powerlinx modes (combiner forms). Starscream's instruction sheet is single-sided but bigger, owing to his more complicated transformation. As far as I can tell, the instructions are not missing anything this time (as I found out after posting my review, Skyblast's instructions miss how to push the nosecone back away from the head). For those counting, Hot Shot is bound in by two twist-ties (one on car, one on gun) and two rubber bands, plus a separate shield over the hood. Inferno has four twist-ties (three on truck, one on gun) and a rubber band to keep the head closed. Starscream has three twist-ties on the jet, keeping on a shield over the tailfins, plus a tie on the gun (the sword is held in by one wing). There's a very long rubber band twisted around everything on Starscream. Also, the missiles are held under the wings with two more ties. It takes a lot of twist-ties to contain Starscream's mightiness. AUTOBOT: HOT SHOT Altmode: Sports Car (2003 Aston-Martin Vantage, more or less) Subgroup: Combiners STR 7 INT 8 SPD 10 END 8 RNK 8 COUR 9 FRB 7 SKL 9 Avg 8.25 Very nice art on the package and trading card, although the colors don't quite match (in favor of the art...the real head is kinda odd). Vehicle Mode: 5" (13cm) long and mostly yellow, with some dark bronze, black and silver bits, plus a few denim blue bits from robot mode visible, especially on the running boards. The roof is made of clear plastic and painted yellow except for the windshield, but the yellow isn't quite the same as the yellow plastic used in the rest of the car, so it stands out. The headlights are separate pieces of clear plastic. Where the robot feet break up the rear of the car, new taillights are inserted and painted red, departing from the Venture design. The combiner Autobot logo is painted in silver on the rear right fender. The car rolls pretty well on a very flat surface, but heelspur pieces at the rear almost touch the table, and any negative curvature at all in the surface or any roughness will result in the heelspur pieces dragging. The doors open about 60 degrees before causing the car to start transforming. The hood opens with a hinge at the front, revealing an engine block with an Autobot symbol molded onto it. This is the only way to see that Autobot symbol, it is not revealed by any transformation. Nice touch. The underside is very well covered, with only the front quarter open to show any robot bits (the head, to be specific). Vehicle mode is in general pretty stable and tight. The weapon can be attached to pegholes behind the driver's compartment, either as a unit or split apart with the sight pegged separately. It's really hard to get the gun pegged in, though, since you really can't see the hole. There are several screw-holes in the front that are the right size for standard Energon pegs, but not really at the right angles for shallower pegs. The Powerlinx Hot Shot fists are disguised as taillights, and their pegs are good for attaching stuff. There are no hardpoints on the car itself. Weapons: Hot Shot's weapon comes in two pieces (well, three, counting the missile). A clear red missile launcher with colorless clear pegs, and a clear colorless sight piece. There are three connection pegs on the rifle, one of which is the toy's only Hardpoint. The sight has two back-to-back pegs, neither of which is a Hardpoint. The missile is the same black (or almost black) color as some of the bits on Hot Shot. Transformation to Robot Mode: Pretty simple. The arms are reminiscent of G1 in the way they're all folded up, and the head is a bit clever in how it deploys, if sometimes frustrating. It also covers up some of the forest of Powerlinx tabs and slots on the shoulders. Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall and surprisingly not-yellow. Lots of denim blue and blackish color, plus silver and red paint apps, a gray-painted face with bright blue eyes, and some neon purple paint bits on the chest. He has a standard Energon spark crystal, but no energon chip to cover it. The face molding is vaguely reminiscent of Armada Hot Shot, but the head is much smaller and doesn't look so good overall. Maybe if the colors were different, using the colors of the card art, it would be better. The proportions are...questionable. Short, thin arms, but huge boots with the roof of the car as kneepads. The pelvis does not peg together, so attempts to spread the legs apart usually spread too much. The hips have three points of articulation each: side to side, front and back (VERY stiff) and a swivel just below. No knees. A little toe articulation. The shoulders are weirdly limited ball joints and the arms pop off if you try to move them to the sides. The elbows are double hinges thanks to transformation, and help a little in overcoming the shoulder weirdness. No wrists, no waist, and the head locks into place. The huge yellow shoulderpads can flap up and down like wings. The front quarter of the car forms a big backpack Powerlinx Hot Shot: Hot Shot's arms fold out of the way to join the backpack, the head on its weird mounting swings around to the bottom, and the legs split apart to become rather unconvincing arms. Inferno is largely the vehicle mode with a few tweaks, the front flipped down and the weapon removed. Hot Shot looks bad in this mode, and while Inferno makes nice-looking legs, they don't really move. Hot Shot's already small head looks even smaller. The arms have elbows almost right next to the shoulders, so poseability is questionable and it looks pretty bad. The legs can separate a little bit, and that's it. The instructions say to fold down the gray panels on Inferno's sides for this, but I think they look better up, giving more of a sense of solidity. This mode is 6" (15cm) tall at the head. Yeah, not much taller than regular Hot Shot, although with much bigger arms. And his Spark Crystal is upside-down. Combatron? }-> Overall: The best reason to get this is so that Powerlinx Inferno has poseable legs (a double-Inferno version looks cool, but is a brick). It's about comparable to Armada Hot Shot...better in some areas, a little worse in others. Probably a little better than Armada Hot Shot overall, if only because of the Spark of Combination. AUTOBOT: INFERNO Altmode: Fire Truck Subgroup: Combiners STR 8 INT 7 SPD 8 END 10 RNK 8 COUR 10 FRB 10 SKL 10 Avg 8.875 Yeah, the stats seem to be on the inflationary side. On the other hand, these are supposed to be an elite team, so.... Pretty good card art in worm's eye view. Vehicle Mode: 5" (12cm) long, this is a chunky red fire engine with light gray parts and some faintly metallic dull blue parts and clear blue plastic. There's some paint accents of metallic blue and bronze. The front of the cab is clear blue plastic mostly painted red, and the paint is a little lighter than the red plastic of the rest of the toy, but the difference isn't as jarring as with Hot Shot. The robot head sort of sticks up for no good reason behind the cab, although at least the face is covered so it doesn't quite look like a head. The six wheels roll nicely, and the underside clearance is about 2mm, significantly better than Hot Shot's. But the really cool thing about vehicle mode is the water cannon. It can elevate to about 40 degrees and fire a blue missile, standard stuff. But if you twist what looks to be a water reservoir next to it, a soft gear turns the cannon as well. This gimmick limits the traverse to a 180 degree arc (front and right quadrants), but it's just cool enough to make that unimportant. There's two standard peg-holes near the back of the sides, and a hardpoint on each side just ahead and above of them. Makeshift can be connected pretty nicely, although the other two Emergency Team members don't have good connector locations for it. An Autobot symbol is painted on the right side, with the Autobot Combiner symbol on the top just above it. On the top next to that is the spark crystal. Inferno wants to make REALLY sure you know who he's fighting for. Not too much robot kibble visible aside from the head. The fists are visible in back, and some of the shoulder jointing is visible on the sides, but it's generally good. Weapon: The water cannon unit is removable, but this is not immediately obvious if you don't read the instructions. He has no Energon stuff of his own. Transformation to Robot Mode: With a few differences here and there (like the head not popping up), this is Rescue Roy. It helps to bend the knees a little if you follow the instructions and pull the front window down to be vertical. The head's mounting rod is supposed to peg into the torso, but it comes loose if you look at it funny. Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall, still mostly red. The almost-black forearms and blue fists don't quite go with the rest of the color scheme, but at least they don't actively clash. Much like Hero Prime (Kay Bee Scourge), the water cannon mounts on his right arm and doesn't get in the way too much. The hardpoints are now on his shoulderpads, facing forward. The head is light gray with a red crest and a metallic blue face surrounded by gold trim. The eyes are orange. The face shield pieces vaguely resemble the wings on a samurai helmet. Universal joint shoulders (hinge plus swivel), hinge elbows and a swivel just below the elbow for positioning the fists. The forearms have shields that end in a strange claw-like or taser-like projection with no obvious purpose (although they make the legs look a little nicer in Powerlinx Hot Shot leg mode). The hips are universal joints, but restricted by the "skirt" so the legs can only separate a couple inches. There's a swivel joint (that looks like a ball joint, but isn't) right below the hips, and hinge knees. There's some range of motion to the toes, too. The fists look as if they should swivel because of the different plastic color, but they don't. No waist joint, but the head is free to move on a ball joint. Powerlinx Inferno: For Inferno, rotate the head to the back and peg the head itself onto the peg there, rotate the arms 90 degrees. The chest opens up to reveal the Powerlinx tabs, and the legs fold up and around to form Overload-like cannons, with toe pieces (both the regular toes and the longer Powerlinx Hot Shot toes) forming cannon barrels. Hot Shot just hides the head and folds the arms back and you have the legs. This is a MUCH more satisfying Powerlinx combo. The over-the-shoulder cannons give a sense of power that is missing in the Huge Arms Powerlinx Hot Shot. 6.25" (16cm) tall at the head, 7.25" (18.5cm) tall at the shoulder cannons. And it can have a four-arm mode by deploying Hot Shot's arms at the sides. Overall: Not a perfect toy, especially with the head sticking up in vehicle mode, but much better than Hot Shot and well worth buying even without Hot Shot. Alternate Powerlinx Forms: Predazord of the AllSpark boards found that if you reverse Inferno in Powerlinx Hot Shot mode, you can flip Inferno's front up over Hot Shot's face like G1 Ironhide (or War Within Ironhide and Kup). For Powerlinx Inferno, I find that separating the pelvis of Hot Shot makes for better proportions. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM Altmode: F-22 Raptor Subgroup: His own, as usual. STR ? INT 9 SPD 10 END 10 RNK N/A COUR N/A FRB 9 SKL 10 Avg N/A The stats suggest that Starscream is some sort of Energon Ghost. His Strength depends on how much Energon he has absorbed, and since he's already dead he has no fear and no place in the rank structure. And, since there must be balance somewhere, his card art is pretty bad. Also, just to be really clear, this is NOT a tweak of the Smokejumper mold. It uses some of the same basic ideas for transformation, but it's bigger and has new elements. Entirely new mold. Vehicle Mode: 6" (15cm) long with a 4.5" (11.5cm) wingspan. Down the center it's gray plastic with silver paint in the panel lines plus dark red and gold paint apps. The cockpit is a smoky transparent green, as are the wings, although the wings are mostly covered by black paint, red trim and a splotch of neon green on one wing. The wings also have molded Decepticon symbols painted purple. The tailfins (which are a bit lower than they should be, since they're on the legs rather than attached to the wings like they would be on a real F-22) and some of the undercarriage are a light denim blue, not the same color as Hot Shot's denim. The robot forearms are also this light blue, positioned between the angled top tailfins. Yes, there's proper techincal terms for these plane parts, but I've been typing this review for nearly three hours now. :) The Decepticon spark crystal is right behind the cockpit. The missiles fit into the wings, but the triggers are concealed, so no accidental launches, yay! Pushing down on the wingtips pops them open to reveal the launchers, although this is more useful in robot mode. There's a Hardpoint under each wing and the robot fists are accessible for pegholes, but there's otherwise no other connectors. Notably, it's not possible to attach an Energon weapon to the nose a la Skyblast. There's several small details here and there which suggest decay or damage, as if Starscream was having trouble holding his corporeal body together. These include the left wing, the left thruster nozzle area and a bit of the central underside. The landing gear folds down easily and conceals well. The fists are the only really visible robot parts, although the legs do make the jet thicker than in reality. Energon Weapons: Starscream's weapons are made of dark green clear plastic, and are a rifle and sword, each about 4" (10cm) long. The rifle has a peg for standard gripping, two powerlinx connectors back to back above it, and a peghole at the back. The barrel of the rifle is also the right diameter for holding. The sword has a regular peg handle with a hole next to it on one side. There's a second peg at the midpoint with a hole on the side opposite to the first hole. The edge of the blade is painted silver. Each can fit on the Hardpoints under Starscream's wings as more or less balanced weapons. There are several ways to connect the pieces, but one important way: end to end. This makes a 7.5" (19cm) long superweapon that is either a massive sword (held by the gunbarrel) or a buster rifle held in both hands. The sword hilt is a little short for two-handed use, but you can just barely get both of Starscream's hands on it. A hand-and-a-half sword, if you will. Appropriately enough for this character, it's a bastard sword. Transformation: Mostly like Smokescreen/Smokejumper/Starscrem (not a typo), but with the added twist that the tailfins spin around 180 degrees and the shins rotate 90 degrees before the feet can open. Everything locks together pretty well. You can either leave the wings in regular position, or swing them out and around to be over-the-shoulder launchers. Robot Mode: 5" (13cm) tall at the head, his shoulder thingies (the ones that are intake vents on G1 Starscream) adding a bit more height. The head is Armada Starscream's, more or less, with dark green light-pipe glowing eyes. There's some deliberate asymmetry here, with the left shoulder being light blue opaque and the right being clear dark green with neon green paint in the "decay crumbling" patterns. The not-intakes-anymore shoulderthings are red-bordered with gold circles inside. Some dark blue plastic is more visible here for the upper arms, hips and some paint apps around the collarbone and ankls. The shoulders are universal joints somewhat limited by the bulk of the shoulder armor. There's a swivel on the upper arm, but it's blocked if you raise the arms to the sides. The elbows are simple hinges. The hips are stiff ball joints. There's a swivel just above the hinge knee, although the two joints can interfere with each other. The toes and heels are hinged with relatively stiff joints. Overall, it's VERY poseable. And looks really cool holding either super-weapon. Overall: An excellent toy, based on an earlier excellent toy, but with all sorts of improvements. Buy it if you can find it. Dave Van Domelen, doesn't plan to buy Rapid Run even if he sees it.