Dave's Mega Energon Rant Wing Saber Alpha Quintesson Mega-Dinobot Man, this final wave has been hard to find. I *still* haven't seen any of them in stores. I traded with Justin Anderson for Wing Saber, bought Alpha Quintesson from Amazon.com, and traded with a friend in Australia for Mega-Dinobot. CAPSULES Wing Saber: Acceptable vehicle mode, nice-looking robot mode, great combination modes. Recommended. About $20, I traded a bunch of History Collection figurines for it. Alpha Quintesson: Fails to look like the show character except in a general way, and that's really all it was supposed to do. Don't bother with this one unless you're a completist or like horrorbots. $19.99 plus shipping at Amazon.com. Grimlock and Swoop: A lot of promise, but feels like they shipped it out the door before finishing it. Grimlock is so-so, Swoop is decent, Mega Dinobot looks okay but doesn't really have meaningful articulation despite the profusion of joints. Mildly recommended, and that's mostly for Swoop. About $20, traded Bonecrusher and Wideload for it. RANTS An interesting thing about these last three new Mega molds is that none of them really fit into a Mega box. Wing Saber and Alpha Quintesson are disassembled to fit, while Grimlock (and to a lesser extent Swoop) is crammed into the box in an uncomfortable-looking position. Of course, the scuttlebutt is that Grimlock and Swoop were planned to be sold separately as Deluxes in the Universe line, not that they really look like they would have fit into a Deluxe bubble very well either. AUTOBOT: WING SABER Function: Liaison Altmode: Stealth Fighter/Bomber Powerlinx Cog: Black Motto: "Courage and fortitude are the foundations of a true warrior." WING SABER served as a first class transport for members of Cybertron's high council before he discovered his true calling as a warrior. His incredible speed and ariel [sic] skills have made him a valued member of the AUTOBOT TEAM. In jet mode, his stealth abilities allow for long range attack that have given the AUTOBOTS the upper hand during many offensive maneuvers. WING SABER takes great pride in his standing with the AUTOBOTS and has proven his loyalty and devotion to OPTIMUS PRIME on many occasions. His ability to powerlinx with OPTIMUS gives their combined robot form impressive flight capabilities. MEGATRON has kept an admiring eye on WING SABER and hopes to someday sway this great AUTOBOT WARRIOR to the side of the DECEPTICONS. STR 9 INT 7 SPD 10 END 8 RNK 8 COUR 9 FRB 10 SKL 9 Avg 8.75 Packaging: Standard Mega box, which means that it isn't completely assembled in the box, since the vehicle mode is significantly wider than the box. I've heard that Hasbro required that this toy be designed so as to go into the box without disassembly, but I guess that fell through. The co-sells are Dreadwing, Beachcomber, E.Ironhide and Landquake, suggesting that this might be from the original wave a few months ago rather than the later wave. The packaging number (P/N) ends in 0000, also indicating the original packaging and not a laer revision. The back and right side panels show both combined modes (Flight and Fight...heh, Wing Saber is Prime's adrenal system!). The back panel also shows Wing Saber in vehicle mode and in robot mode...apparently showing off the extent of his articulation. Which ain't much. Opening the box (yeah, I wrote all of the above before opening the box), I see that it comes with the volume 3 catalog, so maybe this is part of the latest wave after all. A mere 7 twist-ties secure the toy, and rubber bands hold the two missiles to the side of the inner tray. No troublesome ties. Vehicle Mode: Okay, there is definitely a stealth bomber in there, covered in stuff. A LOT of stuff. And, of course, being a riot of red, white and blue in addition to silver and black makes it not very stealthy, but hey. While there are winglike surfaces, this is clearly something that flies by main force, with loads of jet nozzles in the back (including the chest details from robot mode). The designers did what they could to create the visual impression of a delta wing, though, and I applaud the effort. At 14" (36cm) wide, it's certainly a large flying bri...wing. Not counting the missiles, it's about 4.5" (12cm) long. Stability is okay, although the pegs that are supposed to hold the robot arm pieces onto the robot boots don't work so well. The landing gear consists of a double wheel on either side about 1/3 of the way in from the tip to the centerline, and a longer nose wheel that folds down from under the cockpit. The central chunk around the cockpit is clear red plastic with silver, gold and black paint applications. Most of the rest of the central half is either white or black plastic, with extensive red and silver paint up top. A black Powerlinx cog is painted to the right of the cockpit, behind the leading edge of the wing. There's a 5mm peg hole on either side of the cockpit on the underside of the wing edge. At the 1/4 and 3/4 marks are a booster engine in red and white on top with dark blue intakes (the robot arms) and clear red missile launchers with white muzzles below. The missiles themselves are dark blue, and the white triggers are on the inside faces, making them resistant to accidental firing (at least in this mode). On the right side of the right booster is a white "dead" hardpoint in a dark blue housing, while the left side of the left booster has a dark blue spark crystal holder. Each booster has a molded Autobot symbol on top. The "wingtips" are big chunks of medium blue plastic with silver paint on top continuing the leading edge of the wing and white intakes on the front. At the very ends of the wings are large (2.5"/6cm long, 1.5"/4cm high and half inch/1.7cm thick) black pods each containing two non-removable 4.75" (15cm) long dark blue cannons. The outsides of the pods each have one 5mm peg hole. Additionally, the four screw holes atop each medium blue chunk are 5mm in diameter. The pods can swivel around, clicking at each cardinal 90 degree point. Transformation to Robot Mode: Doesn't need instructions, although I'd recommend not doing it with the missiles loaded. Most of the bulk of the vehicle mode folds down and joins together to form the lower body and legs (be sure to rotate the boots before locking the pelvis together). The part that actually looks like a stealth bomber does a bit of origami to form the arms. I'll note here that a sort of gerwalk mode is possible, but the legs are so big that it doesn't really look like a proper gerwalk. Finally, the head halves fold up out of the main air intakes and snap together. You need to fold them up at the same time, if you fold one all the way first it'll block the other. The shoulders don't lock into place very well, and will un-transform if you apply a little force in the wrong place. Robot Mode: It definitely evokes Star Sabre (from Victory, not the Mini-Con sword), both in color and in shape. The shoulders especially. 8.5" (22cm) tall at the head, 9.75" (25cm) tall at the shoulder. The shoulders, head, chest and pelvis are mainly red with silver and white accents, plus yellow on the chest intakes and gold on the face with yellow-green eyes. The fists, feet and shoulder connection are black, with blue and silver intake vents over the shoulders. The forearms and waist are white plastic. The thighs, toes and several joints/connections are dark blue. The clear red plastic cockpit section of the bomber forms a sort of short cape, and the clear red missile launchers default to pointing backwards, although they can be folded forward to become the kneecaps from hell. The missiles themselves are too thick to be held as batons, so you either leave the launchers loaded or set the missiles aside. As for poseability...well, yes, this is a brick. It's not quite as bad as some have said, though. Each arm has three joints: a side to side hinge at the middle of the upper arm (sort of a lame shoulder joint), an elbow hinge that can bend forward about 45 degrees (and backwards a lot more), and wrist swivels. The hands have standard 5mm holes, and the one hardpoint on the toy ends up on the left forearm. Additionally, there's a mid-thigh swivel and the feet themselves can swivel, plus the hip joints ratchet to let the legs spread apart to a maximum of 90 degrees apart before you have to pull the hip armor panels aside to allow one more click before the absolute maximum. This is enough to let the figure do a stable one-legged kicking pose (the standard dynamic pose for G1-style bricks). An amusing feature of the toy that results from its God Armor modes is that the robot mode can be pulled in half along the centerline, as if he'd been sliced in two down the middle. Later addition: Due to the requirements of the infamous Drop Test, the toes actually can be removed (so that if dropped, pieces too long to choke will pop off). They have 5mm pegs, so they can be held as comically small clubs, and you can install Energon weapons in their sockets in vehicle and Fight modes. Transformation to Flight Mode: Pretty intuitive. Pull apart the four quarters of the toy, transform the robot arms back into their booster pod form. The leg connectors (made of clear red plastic) are actually fists. If you follow the instructions rather than looking at the box pictures, you can get a nice elbow joint too. The blue boot chunks are left as-is. Flight Mode: Wow. This is the mode Fatimus was designed for. The hips are a little weak for the massive bulk of the wings, but the figure can stand up straight without sagging. 10" (25cm) tall at the head, with a wingspan of about a foot (31cm)! It weighs about 1.75 lbs (0.75 kg) give or take a little for missiles and so forth. The reds and blues don't quite match between the two toys, but it still goes together very well, much much much better than the color scheme of Prime's regular Super Mode. Poseability is pretty good. Ratchet shoulders with arm-lifting hinges, an upper arm swivel (that can be blocked in some configurations, so be careful), ratcheting elbow hinges (two per arm) and a wrist swivel. The meaningful leg poseability all comes from Prime: universal ratchet hips, ratchet knees. The feet can swivel around still, but look kinda dippy doing so. He can also stand with his feet together. This big boy is definitely the Display Mode. Oh, and it looks rather disturbing if you pop up the Wing Saber head halves in this mode. Transformation to Fight Mode: Making the feet is rather fiddly, and I had to resort to the instructions to get all the parts in the right place. The arms are a lot easier, and there's a clever bit to make the hands. Fight Mode: 10" (25cm) tall, but "only" 8" (20cm) across at the shoulders. From the front, the color scheme is much darker than Flight Mode, and the legs cannot be placed right together due to the bulk of the calves. The hands cannot hold 5mm pegs, but there's a peg hole on each forearm just above the hands, so he can still hold weapons in addition to the clear red missile launchers that are now forearm mounted. The cannon pods that made the feet in Flight Mode are now shoulder mounts, letting Prime compete with Omega Supreme in that department. The right shoulder has a big molded Autobot symbol that's only put there for this mode (the other Autobot symbols on the toy are in good places in at least two modes). Unfortunately, this mode has less poseability. The only hinges in the arms are side to side, so he can stand akimbo, but can't point his missile launchers in the same direction as his cannons. There *are* upper arm swivels, though, so you can get them within maybe 45 degrees of each other. And the hands can close in a mitten-like way (this can't be used to have them hold 5mm pegs, though). This is clearly the secondary configuration. Not as much poseability, Wing Saber's forearms stick out as heel spurs in a rather obvious way, and the feet can't come together. Other Modes: In theory you can mix and match the limbs however you want, such as both red on the right and both blue on the left. These weird combos aren't really worth the bother, though. Overall: This toy makes Prime great. And it's really not that bad on its own, although it does suffer a LOT from the requirements of the add-on modes. It's a pity they seem to have decided to short-ship it (its initial wave was very limited, and its current wave isn't even being picked up by a lot of stores, as they shut down Transformers while awaiting the Cybetron line). DECEPTICON: ALPHA QUINTESSON Function: Terrorcon Mastermind Altmode: None Motto: None As of March 21, 2005, there is no online note for this toy. STR 8 INT 10 SPD 4 END 4 RNK 8 COUR 7 FRB 7 SKL 10 Avg 7.25 Packaging: There's more co-sells than usual on this box. On the right side panel are Mega-Dinobot, Beachcomber and Wing Saber (as far as I know, AQ never shipped with Beachcomber, Sixshot had replaced that recolor by the time AQ came out). On the bottom panel are Kicker, Galvatron and Omega Sentinel. Comes with volume 3 of the comic/catalog. And while there's the Decepticon logo and color scheme to the packaging, there's no "Terrorcon" notation or other indication that AQ might not exactly be a Decepticon. The securing of this packaging is quite annoying. Most of the twist-ties are connected to the plastic tray, which itself is taped to the cardboard insert using tabs like an Alternator's (except thre's eight of the dratted things). Only four ties go through the cardboard in back, including the two thick ones holding the figure's base. Once you get the plastic tray out, there's *12* more to get through before Alpha Quintesson is free. Packaged in pieces, with the base and tentacles being separate from the rest of the figure. Base: Unpainted cool gray plastic molded to look like a writhing mass of tentacles 6.25" (16cm) long and 4" (10cm) wide with a roughly oval shape. The mound is about 1.5" (4cm) tall. There's seven connection points, one in the middle and the other six spaced more or less evenly around it. The central point is for connecting the main body. Every other one of the surrounding points is static, designed to hold either a standard 5mm peg or an energon star. The remaining points are angled outward and intended for the connection of the tentacles. I'm going to go with the instructions and say that the front of the base is the narrow end with a spinny tentacle connector. The underside of the base has four wheels in a trapezoidal configuration. The front pair have a longer axle and roll freely. The rear pair have a short axle, rubber tires and are gear-linked to the three tentacle connectors. When the base rolls, the tentacle connectors spin around, making a full revolution for every four or five inches the base rolls (10-13cm) in the case of the rear two connectors, and twice in that distance for the front one. Tentacles: There's three of these, each made of a slightly sticky soft plasic with a bend-em wire down the center. The main length of each tentacle is a 5mm diameter cable with a 1mm wire spiral-coiled around it (these two cables are molded together, they're not separable). Each has a different weapon. They're all a warm gray along their length. Tentacle 1 ends in what's supposed to be an electrical arc, but it looks more like it's spraying purple goo. Total length including connector plug is 11.5" (29cm), and it seems to work best connected at the front. Tentacle 2 ends in a mini-chainsaw painted dark red, and is 10" (25cm) long in total. Tentacle 3 ends in a yellow clamp (it's soft enough to be manually closed, but has no bendy wire inside to keep it in any position other than the default) and is the shortest at 8.5" (22cm). The tentacles work best if you bend them into tight curves so that they don't flail into the body. Body: Looks more or less like on the show, but molded in shades of green plastic with yellow, red-brown and black paint. Fully assembled, it's about 9" (23cm) tall at the head, 10" (25cm) at the missile launcher. The main reptilian head has hinge joints on both top and bottom halves. If you open the mouth all the way and look straight down the gullet, you can see a tiny Quint head inside. Pressing a light green lever on the back causes this head to advance one click. Only the original three interior heads are present, and there's not really any way to add a fourth. The interior heads are all mis-colored as well, so they're not immediately recognizable. Ten small claw/leg things are mounted along the sides of the body, made of light gray plastic. They can rotate in their "shoulder" joints, which are highly restricted ball and sockets. Mounted on the back is a mechanical post with no jointing that terminates in a 5mm peg hole, intended for inserting a green and yellow missile launcher that comes with the toy. The missile is yellow, and fires a couple of feet. The launcher can also be held on any of the peg holes covering the figure. There's also hexagonal holes on the body, one each behind the main gray leglets (which get in the way of some weapons being inserted). A hinge joint is found where the main body meets the slimmer stalk, it has about 45 degrees of movement. The stalk itself can swivel around where it plugs into the base. Each arm (made of light yellow-green plastic) has a universal joint shoulder, a hinge main elbow, and a swivel just below the elbow so that the main forearm can rotate. Connected to this swivel (which is actually a swivel at each end) is a ball and socket with a secondary forearm. The socket is hard plastic while the rest of the secondary forearm is softer, and the place the two plastics meet looks like a swivel joint, but does not seem to move. The main forearm has two "finger" claws and one "thumb" claw, while each secondary forearm has two smaller finger claws with no thumb. All the claws are painted silver. Each arm has three energon star holders with 5mm peg holes in the center. One on each upper arm, one on the back of the "hand" on each primary forearm and one on the back of the hand of each secondary forearm. Overall: This would have been a lot better if they'd made it in the same colors as the character on TV. It would still have been pretty weak, though, especially at the Mega price point. Its main purpose seems to be a place to put all your energon stars or weapons, with nine extra holders for energon stars. If it had come with a bag of spare energon stars and copies of energon weapons it might be worth getting on its own. As it stands, it doesn't seem to actually do any of the things it's supposed to. It doesn't look like the show version, it doesn't have accessories to put on all those connectors, etc. AUTOBOTS: GRIMLOCK and SWOOP Function: Assault Altmodes: T.Rex, Pteradon Motto: "We love to munch Decepticon metal!" Primitive in thought and simple in speech, what GRIMLOCK and SWOOP lack in intelligence they make up for in strength. They have given the AUTOBOTS the tactical upper-hand in battle time and again sending DECEPTICON legions retreating in fear. SWOOP will often use his impressive aerial maneuvers to confuse and distract an enemy while GRIMLOCK sneaks from behind and stomps that enemy before they even know what hit them. They then use their combined strength to ensure that there is little left of their unfortunate prey. Although they are armed to the nines with powerful weaponry, GRIMLOCK and SWOOP prefer to take down their enemies with razor sharp teeth and talons. Grimlock: STR 10 INT 7 SPD 3 END 10 RNK 9 COUR 10 FRB 8 SKL 10 Avg 8.375 Swoop: STR 6 INT 6 SPD 8 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 7 SKL 7 Avg 6.875 Packaging: As mentioned at the top, they're kinda awkwardly shoved into the box. Swoop merely has his wings folded in, but Grimlock looks like he's trying to sneakily tip-toe through the tulips or something. The package art is not a unified group shot, just two individual pieces stuck together, further enhancing the impression that these guys were not initially intended to be sold together. The co-sells on the bottom are Galvatron, Shockblast, Sharkticon and Dreadwing, and the P/N ends in 0000 so this is the original packaging. Either Darren snagged me a left over first shipment version, or they didn't bother to change the packaging for the second shipment. The left panel shows the robot modes and the Mega Dinobot mode. The right panel shows the art in larger form, the back has pictures in both modes and Mega Dinobot. As with Checkpoint/Prowl and Kicker/High Wire, the two share a single tech spec card. The catalog in with this toy is volume 2, suggesting that Australia is indeed awash in the first shipment of this toy. Oh, and Australia is getting the North American packaging, with Spanish and French added on here and there. Grimlock is held in place by two twist-ties and a couple of separate plastic semi-bubble shields to hold him in his weird pose, plus a rubber band that keeps his head down and another that keeps his tail tips together. Swoop is far more annoying, with two twist-ties that penetrate the cardboard, but then you need to tear out the main bubble tray to get at another three (which are in bad positions to use wirecutters on), and then there's two more ties and two rubberbands on the robot leg parts. Despite all these ties and bands, the figure was all unpegged and floppy in the box. The instructions are incomplete or outright wrong in several places, as I'll detail later on. Before I go into the specific reviews, I'd like to give a general impression of this set: it's like they just gave up before finishing these toys. All the elements are clearly in place, but they don't all fit together right, some details are missing, and the tolerances in general are really bad. GRIMLOCK Beast Mode: A robotic T.rex, of course...but the proportions are closer to that of the "Myclone" superdeformed Grimlock than they are to the G1 Grimlock or to a real T.rex. 8" (20cm) from snout to tail tip, about 4" (10cm) high at the hip in a "scientifically correct" pose with the body horizontal. Most of the plastic is medium gray with yellow paint on the forehead, neck and tail tip. The tiny forearms, foot claws and some of the joints are a lighter gray. The hind legs are dark gray with yellow joints and extensive red paint. The eyes and non-molded Autobot symbol on the forehead are also red. Once you get everything pegged together correctly, it's reasonably stable, although the pegs don't all want to go in at the same time. The stance is a bit wide, and the bottom of the neck reminds me of Pretender Grimlock, in terms of there being little attempt to make it look all connected. Poseability is pretty good. The head can move up and down with a little rotational wiggle, and the mouth can open about a centimeter. The forelimbs have shoulder swivels but no other joints. The hindlegs are heavily jointed because they become the robot arms, although there's only so many poses that don't look doofy. Transformation: Similar to G1 Grimlock, but with some changes here and there. The tail becomes robot legs as per G1, but there's heel spurs that fold down (and aren't mentioned in the instructions). The spurs can come a few degrees further than flat, you need to pull them down as far as they can go to compensate for the huge backpack. Also, the instructions show a bad way of storing the head and upper body as a backpack, it works better if you let the dino head point straight down as a bustle or something, since this shifts the center of mass forward a bit. With the heel spurs all the way down, the mostly hollow head can be left as per the instructions without the figure falling on its back, but only if the arms are held out to the front. The torso comes apart way too easily when trying to transform the toy. Robot Mode: It looks more or less like G1 Grimlock, albeit with a different color balance, no chrome, smaller wings and bigger backpack. The head is reminiscent of Don Figueroa's toothy helmet design. At only 5" tall, he's shorter than Swoop and his long arms give a sort of gorilla feel. The torso is mostly bright yellow plastic with light gray along the top. A medium gray depression in the middle of the chest has a painted but not molded Autobot symbol. The head is dark gray with red eyes and no other painted detail. The thighs are dark gray with red stripes along the front. the fists are medium gray and look unfinished...they have all the fingers molded onto them, but the top and bottom surfaces are totally smooth and there's no other detail. Most of my Go-Bots have better detail on their hands. The front two claws of each rear leg become a pseudo-Wolverine strike weapons, and trying to fold them all the way out of the way will pop them off entirely. The head swivels, but the waist does not move. The shoulders are odd universal joints, there's upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, a swivel between the elbow and the forearm. The wrists do not turn. The hips are restricted ball joints, you can get a total separation of about 15 degrees between the legs. The knees are ratcheting hinges. There's no thigh swivel or foot articulation, but the hip articulation can let you point the toes back and forth a little. He comes with no accessories, and his fist holes are too small for standard Energon pegs. Overall: There's several ways in which this could have been made better with only a little effort, they have to have been backed up against a deadline or something. Probably fixable with a little paint and some kitbashing, but still disappointing. SWOOP Beast Mode: Wingspan of about 10.5" (27cm), depending on how you pose the wings. It's a short-crested pteradon with big legs set in a wide stance and huge jet boosters on its back. Most of the pteradon bits are light gray, the legs and boosters are dark gray, the feet and underside robot bits are bright blue. There's dark gray paint on the crest, with a white oval in the middle that has a tiny painted Autobot symbol. The eyes are red. The hollow neck shows the robot head (dark gray) and its yellow crest, plus there's yellow paint on the legs and boosters. There's also silver paint on the booster nozzles. The outer halves of each wing can swing forward and back on swivels, while the wings connect to the body using ball joints that let the wings flap a fair amount before hitting the boosters. The head can move up and down, and the mouth can open pretty far (nearly 180 degrees). Not much useful pose in the legs, just hip swivel and a little give from the robot hinges that are mostly suppressed with the legs collapsed into beast mode. The claws are hinged as well, but not very stiffly. Once everything is properly pegged, it's not too terribly floppy, but it doesn't take much force to pop something loose. Transformation: The instructions are missing the part where you have to have the robot chest pulled apart to the sides for beast mode (if you leave it pegged together, the robot legs cannot both peg onto the back of the beast mode). Otherwise, the main aspects of transformation are pretty intuitive, although you do have to apply excessive force to get the forearms all the way out to expose all the arm joints. There are some tabs where the shoulders come to rest, but they don't actually lock together or do much of anything useful, another not quite completed detail. Robot Mode: About 6" (15cm) tall at the head, the overall proportions and color scheme are pretty good. The abdomen, upper arms and claws are blue, which goes well with the light and dark grays that make up most of the rest of the body. The crest is yellow, and there's yellow paint on the shoulders and the toes, for a nice five pointed symmetry. The robot face is silver with blue eyes in a dark gray helmet. The head can turn about 45 degrees either way as well as swing down and forward. There is no waist joint. The shoulders are universal joints, but you have to be careful when turning them lest the transformation joint an inch below the shoulder is what actually turns. The upper arms have swivels, and the elbows are hinges (with only a 45 degree range). The claws are hinged, the two "finger" claws connected as a single piece. The hips are ball joints, with some restriction from pelvis armor. The knees are ratchet hinges, there's no thigh swivels. The toes can move a bit due to the transformation joint. Overall: Much better than Grimlock. If only some of the pegs locked instead of just sitting there (notably the shoulders in robot mode and the jet boosters in beast mode) I might even recommend getting the set just to have Swoop. MEGA DINOBOT Combination: The instructions are correct for Grimlock, as far as I can tell, although it'd be nice if his connector clip could swing forward another ten or twenty degrees. Swoop, however, is missing two vital points. One, do NOT leave Swoop's head in place when clipping Grimlock on. This will weaken the link. Rather, fold the head down into the beast head, and then the crest can also be folded back against the clip for better stability. Two, pull Swoop's torso apart as per beast mode. The final step picture in the instructions indicates this is intended, but they don't actually show that step. It moves his effective hips up about an inch and improves the overall proportions of the figure. Later note: Three, collapse Swoop's thighs into his upper legs a bit, to increase leg stability. Unfortunately, while it looks like Swoop's wing section is supposed to lock against Grimlock to stabilize things, this is yet another fitting that's too loose to do any good. Jamming in some poster tack helps. Anyway, if what I've heard about the combination being added on after the initial designs had been completed is true, this is a decent 'fan combination'. Unfortunately, it really could have used another round of quality testing. Combined Mode: 8.5" (22cm) tall at the head, with a "wingspan" of 10.25" (26cm) created by Grimlock's tail halves. The collection of grays help bind the overall color scheme together, as does the yellow paint found on both components. Splitting Swoop's torso does keep it from looking so much like he's just in robot mode and carrying Grimlock. There's really no way to stow Swoop's arms, though. Poseability is...so-so. The head doesn't turn, there's no waist joint. The arms are Grimlock's arms, but with everything swung forward 90 degrees the actual range of motion is limited. The legs can spread apart some and wiggle a bit back and forth, but are limited by the chest armor of Swoop (which forms a clear Gundam Skirt). There's effectively a double knee joint, and now it's clear why Swoop's hips can't move forward, since it would result in weird bending for MD. This is largely a figure for posing on the shelf, not playing with. One interesting thing I just noticed is that Mega Dinobot is a dinosaur totem pole...Grimlock's beast head as the chest, Swoop's as the pelvis. (And I can just see a Japanese manga adaptation having the Swoop dino-head speaking in Mega Dinobot mode, freaking someone out.) Overall: I really would have preferred a non-combining pair of toys if they could have spent that extra design time making sure everything worked properly. Don't bother searching for this one unless you're a completist. Dave Van Domelen, has been suffering from a constantly mutating cold all week, bleh.