Dave's Transformers Universe 2 Rant: Legends Wave 4 G1 Series Beachcomber (dune buggy) G1 Series Bumblebee (compact car) G1 Series Brawn (offroad vehicle) Animated Series Starscream (jet, not reviewed here) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/U2/Legend4 I've put a review of Starscream over in the TF: Animated section, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Legend1a, but it does ship with this wave. And if you're wondering why this is wave 4, it's because the third wave of Universe 2 Legends was the first Animated Series wave, and is found at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Legend1. Got it? Good. An odd unifying element of this trio is that the molds carefully bring in as many G1 animation model element as possible, but then the people doing the paint masks seem to be ignoring this, or working from only brief handwritten notes about the colors. Weird. Update: I've touched up Brawn to unify the colors a little better, but not to alter them or try to make it more show-accurate. I also experimented with using electrical tape to give Bumblebee stripes, but it doesn't really work well, I don't recommend it. Get professional pinstriping tape if you don't want to use paint. http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/ULegend4r.JPG http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/ULegend4v.JPG Then I removed the tape and stripped the paint from Bumblebee's ankles as best as I could (the pins at the ankles wouldn't come out) and added some taillights. http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/ULegend4bb.JPG CAPSULES G1 Series Beachcomber: Good in both modes, solid transformation with a nice tweak, a worthy update. Recommended. $3.99 at HasbroToyShop.com G1 Series Bumblebee: Has some stability issues in vehicle mode, decent if slightly bricky robot mode, okay transformation. Good if uninspired. Recommended, but not as good as Beachcomber (just not bad enough to drop to mildly recommended). $3.99 at HTS G1 Series Brawn: Suffers from stability issues and mediocre articulation in robot mode, and from a lack of paint in vehicle mode, but the root design is strong enough to overcome these quibbles. Recommended. $3.99 at HTS In ranking, I'd go Beachcomber best, closely followed by Brawn, and Bumblebee bringing up the rear. RANTS Packaging: Same shape and design as Wave 2, but with a silver foil "25 Years 1984-2009" banner in the upper right corner of the card front. Interesting printing error on Brawn's, the 2 on "Quick Conversion" isn't printed, just the red block between 1 and 3. The blister replaces molded faction symbols with a molded "25" on the upper left facet. AUTOBOT: BEACHCOMBER Series: G1 Altmode: Dune Buggy Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Energon Techspec: STR 3 INT 9 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 5 COUR 5 FRB 1 SKL 10 Avg 5.75 Odd that he has FRB 1, given that he has a gun in vehicle mode. Packaging: Three twist-ties hold the robot in. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall, with a pretty good capture of the G1 animation model, although the front fenders on his boots and the rollbar kibble on his arms do mar the illusion a little. The shoulder joints, thighs, feet, wheels, spare tire and the back of the spine are black plastic. Everything else is darkish blue plastic. The front of the torso and the boot flare fenders are painted white, the face and rollbar bits are silver. There's a red "T" shape on the chest center between the molded exhaust pipe details with yellow in the corners, yellow on the headlights, and metallic blue on the visor. He has a red Autobot symbol on the top facet of his chest. Oddly, while they kept pretty close to the animation model in the molding, the deco scheme makes some significant departures. The Autobot symbol is moved up and replaced by an abstract pattern. The face is silver instead of blue, and the goggles are metallic blue instead of silver. At least the black legs are explanable as not wanting to go with three different plastic colors or add white paint onto so much black plastic. And only Brawn gets to have three plastic colors. :) Shoulders and hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges. The feet are hinged on transformation joints, and this can make the heel spurs a little more useful for posing. The spare tire gun chunk can be removed from the back, but there's no hole to peg it onto on either arm (which I may go ahead and change). Transformation: Pull down on the legs to make the head retract into the torso. Then it's just fold up the legs into the front of the vehicle and fold the arms against the sides. The heels fold out to become the driver and passenger seats. Pretty simple, but the waist extension trick is nice. Vehicle Mode: It seems to be some sort of Baja Trophy Truck (a type, not a brand, and most are customs) with a machine gun stuck on the back, although I can't shake the feeling that I've seen it in the context of a military vehicles show. Like, something that didn't succeed at the competition for the Desert Patrol Vehicle. [Later note: it has been pointed out to me that it's a close match to the Warthog from Halo. Another reply noted that the gun looks like an MK-19 grenade launcher. Maybe he fires water balloons.] Anyway, at a little under 2.5" (about 6cm) long, it's somewhere between the standard Hot Wheels scale and the Cars scale, although it's hard to be sure without having an actual real vehicle to compare to. :) The white front fenders stand out a bit oddly, although it might be an attempt to evoke the more needle-nosed design of G1 Beachcomber by thinning down the front end visually. The aforementioned machinegun is attached to the spare tire, and can't traverse any while pointed forward. However, if you unpeg it and point it backwards, it can swing back and forth a bit to cover a wider angle. Of course, given that FRB of 1, it's probably a paintball gun. Or a dart gun for tagging wildlife. Very stable in vehicle mode, and it rolls along nicely on the four oversized tires. In fact, it's hard to just set it down on a non-flat surface without it rolling away. Overall: Beachcomber simply hasn't gotten enough love in the whole name-recycling game...all he's gotten since G2 has been a redeco of an Energon toy. So I support this toy simply on that level. But it helps that, odd paint choices aside, it looks good and looks like Beachcomber should. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Series: G1 Altmode: Street Racer Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Universe, Classic, Movie, TF:A Techspec: STR 2 INT 8 SPD 4 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 10 FRB 1 SKL 7 Avg 5.75 Wow, a lot of FRB 1 going around. In fact, Brawn has it too. Packaging: 3 twist-ties hold the robot mode in. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall, he looks like an 8-bit version of Classics Bumblebee. Same rough structure, including the hatchback section as a backpack, and an oddly chunkified head. The wheels, pelvis and torso core are black plastic, everything else is bright yellow plastic. Including the legs, which are painted very thoroughly matte black. He has the usual "arms molded inside the doors" thing seen on smaller Transformers, but the upper arms and fists are painted fully black rather than being left unpainted. There's also black paint on the grille-toes. Pool blue eyes and foot- headlights, metallic blue windows on the chest and backpack, silver face, red and white Autobot symbol on the chest. Very restricted universal joints (yes, not ball joints) on the shoulders, ball joint hips, hinge ankles. The knees are molded bent backwards a little, oddly. The waist can bend forward and back a little on a transformation joint, but it's not really useful. All in all, mediocre articulation, given how the door kibble keeps the arms from doing all that much. Transformation: Backpack folds up over head, taking the arms with it. The legs fold up into the front end, and the arms snap around the sides with the shoulder joints telescoping inward in a manner reminiscent of G1 Bumblebee. At least on mine, the pegs that are supposed to hold the feet together as the hood don't work, and this cascades to make the whole thing pop apart slightly. Fortunately, a little nail polish topcoat on the pegs did the trick. Vehicle Mode: Essentially the same compact car "fuzor" as Classics Bumblebee, but without the spoiler or the supercharger hump. Sorta like a Mazda 2 or a Peugeot 207 hatchback, although the way the side windows narrow down makes me think Dodge Magnum (albeit a chibi Magnum). The junk in the trunk, as it were, is not commonly seen on any subcombat hatchback design, though. The exaggerated grille and airdam are definitely an aftermarket mod for street racing, though. 2.5" (6cm) long, it's actually bigger than the Cars scale for similar cars (i.e. Chuki, which I kitbashed into a chibi version of my own car). In fact, if you assume it's the same scale as Brawn, it's not so much a subcompact hatchback as it is something like a Nissan Murano or other midsized SUV. The coloration works pretty well, although the black chunks at the rear of the hood (exposed ankles) break it up a bit. Some black hood stripes would have lined up with that nicely, I may do that. The white paint of Classics BB is absent. Stability is so-so, even once the front end tabbing is fixed, but it rolls along decently. Overall: I think they may have used up too much of their paint budget making the legs black, not sure why they couldn't have made them black plastic and had some more deco elsewhere. Like, paint at the ankles to make the hood uniform, or racing stripes. One way or another. A decent design otherwise, if not exciting. AUTOBOT: BRAWN Series: G1 Altmode: SUV Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: G1 Techspec: STR 9 INT 3 SPD 4 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 1 SKL 4 Avg 5.625 Packaging: Yep. Three twist-ties. He's "mistransformed" in package, with his shoulders down near his belt and his arms raised. But some consider this to be an intentional feature, a way to give him a sort of elbow joint for some poses. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall, and like the original toy his head is under his bumper, set back in the front end of the vehicle. Otherwise, it's pretty close to the animation model, just with extra stuff tacked on (front grille over the head, doors on arms, spare tire on the back of the right boot, big cape from the roof on his back). The pelvis doesn't hold tightly to a tab on the underside of the torso, but two layers of nailpolish top coat solved that problem. The torso and wheels (including the spare) are black plastic. The shoulder joints, pelvis and thighs are silvery gray plastic, the arms and boots are darkish green plastic. The "cape" is almost fully painted, but I'll go into that more on the vehicle mode section. The helmet, forearms and fists are painted gunmetal. His eyes are light blue, but the face left unpainted black. The front of the chest is painted yellow-orange with a silver Autobot symbol in the middle. The eyes are light blue. The shoulders are restricted ball joints, although he can completely cover his face with one arm if you want. The transformation hinges can be used to give him faux joints, as the in-package pose demontrates. The hips are slightly loose ball joints (back to the nail polish!). The knees only bend backwards for transformation. He has big boots for nice stability. It's worth noting that his front wheels are near his fists, not his shoulders. Transformation: The boots peg together and bend back and up to form the rear half of the vehicle. The shoulders fold down and the arms lift up and around to slide into the sides. Vehicle Mode: A Hummer H3, with just enough changes to avoid license fees. The shape is right, and it has the distinctive hood hatch that marks it as a Hummer. There's also the optional roof rack, although it looks like he's toting legs in the roof rack. :) The green paint on the front top section is a decent match for the green plastic of the rest of the body shell, but it's glossier than the plastic. The windshield and the front side windows are painted matte black (yes, black paint over green paint over black plastic), but the rear side and rear windows are not painted black, which is something I suppose I'll need to fix. The brushguard and grille are painted gunmetal with light blue headlights. The spare tire spins freely, and seems to be identical to the front wheels (the rear wheels are a little wider). About the only problem I have with this mode other than some of the paint apps is that the robot feet are glaringly obvious between the rear wheels. Despite the lack of clearance this causes, it rolls along nicely. Overall: Beachcomber got little love, but Brawn got zero. He didn't even get a G2 reissue. Although it amuses me to think that an Outback remold of this toy with a spare tire on the roof would put a spare tire on Outback's butt. Anyway, a Hummer is a good choice for Brawn, and it's good to see him back in the toy line. Good to get. Dave Van Domelen, off to fiddle with paint touchups.