Dave's Transformers Universe 2 Rant: Legends Wave 5 G1 Series Autobot Cosmos (flying saucer) G1 Series Rodimus (sports car) G1 Series Autobot Wheelie (compact car) G1 Series Warpath (tank) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/U2/Legend5 In case anyone's wondering why I picked that order, it's the assortment number order, 83915-83918. :) I ended up ordering these online and then seeing them in stores three places before my order shipped, but since every brick and mortar wanted $4.84-$4.99 each and the TF2009 coupon turns out to be reusable, I saved a few bucks. :) Some interesting thematic notes about this set. The obvious thing is that they're all Autobots. Additionally, three of them are Minibots (two 1985, one 1986), none of whom have gotten new molds of their own since their first release. And Warpath only got a redeco in the Sector 7 line (along with some color-but-not-name redeco homages), the other two having no reuse at all in America. CAPSULES G1 Series Autobot Cosmos: A good basic design, accurate colors and a character who really needed to get redone. Unfortunately, all of the ball joints pop apart too easily, which is either a design flaw or lousy quality control (and either is possible these days). Still, recommended. $3.99 from HasbroToyShop.com (about $5 in brick and mortars) G1 Series Rodimus: Decent vehicle mode, okay transformation, somewhat bricky robot mode. Colors not as good as they could be. Mildly recommended. $3.99 from HTS G1 Series Autobot Wheelie: A really good update of a character that was hideous as a toy and horrible in the cartoon. :) So, while the heritage drags it down a little, it's still quite good. Recommended. $3.99 from HTS G1 Series Warpath: Somewhat cheaty vehicle mode, good transformation, very good robot mode (although it could use faceplate paint). Recommended, best of the lot. $3.99 from HTS RANTS Packaging: Same as wave 4. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT COSMOS Series: None (G1 if you leave off the TM-aiding "Autobot") Altmode: UFO Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: G1 Techspec: STR 2 INT 8 SPD 10 END 6 RNK 6 COUR 7 FRB 6 SKL 9 Avg 6.75 These are the original G1 techspec numbers for Cosmos, who despite almost making it into the Titanium line has not seen any reuse in the U.S. Packaging: 3 twist-ties. Robot Mode: A little under 3" (7cm) tall at the head, his shoulders rise up to the 3" mark. Despite a number of differing details in design, it clearly is Cosmos, both in general design (saucer core as chest, sides of saucer as arms, etc) and color scheme of dark green and yellow with red head. He's definitey an upgrade, with arms akimbo and legs that look more like legs. He's missing the thruster guns of doom, although it's because he swaps front for back with G1 Cosmos and has the front end of his saucer over his fists. Purely from the front, his arms are just saucer segments, but if you look inside the sides there's robot arms and fists molded there. Most of the toy is made of forest green plastic. The sockets of the shoulders, the thighs and a hinge buried inside his torso as a spine are rigid bright yellow plastic. He also has a spike tail on his butt made of rubbery bright yellow plastic. There's yellow paint on the chest and the molded arms, plus the face. His helmet is painted red, and a red Autobot symbol is printed on his center chest. The chest, I should note, is molded in a way that evokes the pattern of the sticker on G1 Cosmos's chest. Vents on the sides of the chest are painted silver, and strange symbols are printed on his arms. The eyes are a dark, faintly metallic blue. This paint color is also used for stripes along his arms and on his feet, but nearly blends into the green except under good light. I have been told by people slightly geekier than myself that the strange symbols on his arms are Cybertronian characters for COS and MOS. He's the Mr. Terrific of the Transformers! Shoulders and hips are ball joints, all of which pop off pretty easily but are stiff enough to avoid sagging. The knees are very stiff hinges, to the point that bending a knee can make the hip pop off. No other articulation, and the weird shape of the feet makes the toy a little unstable, but fortunately the knees can bend "backwards" enough to get the center of mass over the supports. Transformation: Arms connect across the front of the chest, legs fold back which allows the head to drop down, and then the shins do a somewhat complicated foldaround in which they may pop off at the hips in order to form the rear third of the saucer. When going back to robot mode, folding the lower torso down pushes the head up automatically. Vehicle Mode: A circular disc 2.5" (6.5cm) across and three quarters of an inch (17mm) thick at the center, tapering out to the edges. The tail spike becomes a tail fin at the back, sticking out so that the total length is 3" (7.5cm). The head has sunken down to a small red button in the middle top, and you can more clearly see from the underside that the head is indeed on a piece of dark green plastic. The rigid yellow plastic is mostly hidden on the underside. The blue paint on the feet and forearms comes together as front windows and a stripe all the way around the saucer, and the COS and MOS of the arms are almost unified as a single word, but there's still a noticeable gap. There's no landing gear, and the pieces don't snap together securely so the seams can get a bit large, but it generaly looks pretty cool. It's not the same sort of UFO as G1 Cosmos, but it's a good retro-SF look nonetheless. You can spin it like a top, but the slight asymmetries of the toy make it start rocking pretty quickly, which damps out the motion. Overall: I like the design in general, although I do wish the engineering was a little better on those ball joints. Still, it's nice to see them get the details right where it's relevant, unlike the seemingly random color changes made to the Deluxes in Universe 2. AUTOBOT: RODIMUS Series: G1 Altmode: Sports Car Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: Energon, Classics (plus some G1 Hot Rod stuff like RH) Techspec: STR 6 INT 5 SPD 6 END 8 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 7 SKL 6 Avg 6.625 These are new stats, not taken from any Hor Rod or Rodimus I can find. Packaging: 3 twist-ties. Robot Mode: A little under 3" tall (call it 7.3cm), mostly dark red and black with yellow flames. The color scheme isn't really the toy, animation or comic version of Hot Rod OR Rodimus Prime, though. Mostly made of dark red plastic with a faint metalflake inclusion and moderate UV glow, the slick appearance is somewhat marred by some sprue marks visible on the sides of the spoiler. The wheels, pelvis, shoulders and a strut holding up the spoiler on his back are black plastic. There's molded fists on the arms, sort of...only the front part of the fist (thumb, index finger, middle finger) are there, it's hollow behind. There's yellow flames and a red Autobot symbol on the chest. The fronts of the thighs and the toes are painted black. The fists and face are silver and the eyes are blue. The spoiler on his back is not painted yellow (sigh, back to random arbitrary changes) but instead is a dark metallic orange not used anywhere else. I see no reason why it couldn't have been yellow. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, and the shoulders can shrug up on transformation joints. That's it. No waist, no knees. The spoiler can swing down, I suppose. Mod note: the spoiler is just pegged on, albeit with a split-head locking peg. But a knife blade will pop it off easily enough, after which repainting is easy enough. I may spraypaint mine, I have some yellow spraypaint left over from another project. :) [Later note: the Krylon Fusion spraypaint didn't work out so well, so I used regular acrylic. http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/ULegends5.JPG also has some touchups on Warpath.] Transformation: The arms pull down to the sides in a way reminiscent of Cybertron Hot Shot, although the center of the hood is a separate piece that folds down to become the chest. The legs pull out via that black strut moving the whole chunk at once, rather than having the legs bend or telescope, an interesting solution to the situation. And the spoiler folds up against the back as wings. Vehicle Mode: A mix of traits from Dodge Viper (mostly the middle), Audi (mostly the front end) and a bit of Porsche in the back, according to my car source. Just a little shy of 3" (7.3cm maybe) including the big riced-out spoiler at the back. Mostly dark red metalflake with some black and of course the yellow flame details. The front fenders on mine don't stay pegged in well, so he has visible seams on the hood, and the roof is marred by the big black strut cutting down the middle for where the spoiler flips up onto the back in robot mode. Most of the black plastic is now hidden inside, no new plastic colors show up in this mode. As for paint that becomes more visible in this mode or changes position significantly: The windows are painted dark metallic purple, the sort of color one uses as "black" on magma and other red-hot stuff to represent how strong nearby red glows can mess up our "visual purple". A red Autobot symbol is printed on the hood center amid the flames. Note, these are "classic" flames of the wispy type, not the thicker flames used on G1 Hot Rod. There's no paint on the wheels. The wheels roll okay, but the ground clearance is essentially zero. Also, the car is too wide to roll on Hot Wheels tracks. Overall: Well, the vehicle mode works pretty well for the character, but the robot mode isn't quite right in colors and it's one of the less posable Legends. It'd almost work better recolored in blue and yellow as an update of Cybertron Hot Shot. A decent toy, but the weak link of the assortment. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT WHEELIE Series: None (G1 if you drop the "Autobot") Altmode: Junk Planet Speeder Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: G1 (the name got more reuse love in Japan, tho) Techspec: STR 5 INT 6 SPD 8 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 9 FRB 7 SKL 8 Avg 7.125 Wheelie's badass. His original techspecs used fractional scores, but for the most part these are the same with rounding (his original Courage was 8.25 though). Packaging: 3 twist-ties. Robot Mode: A lanky 3" (7.5cm) tall at the head, about a centimeter more for the shoulders, he evokes more of a teenaged look for Wheelie. And a more, um, NOT SUCKING look. Face it, G1 Wheelie's mold is pretty horrible in many ways, even beyond the eye-searing colors. The colors, though, this update has. Bright slightly yellowy orange with red and light gray. And he has his energy slingshot molded on the inside of this right shoulderpad, a very nice touch. The head isn't exactly his G1 animation model, it's more like a painter's cap than a ballcap, and the bit over the cap visor is reduced to just a slit. Mostly made of orange plastic, with light gray on the back, shoulder joints, pelvis and wheels. Both plastics have a moderate UV glow. Most of the paint is more relevant to the vehicle mode, so I'll discuss it there. His face is painted gray with dark teal eyes, and the dark teal paint is used on his slingshot. The kneecaps are red, and the hood becomes his chest so he has a light blue center chest and his red Autobot symbol is printed on his belly. Shoulders are a ball joint on the end of a hinged strut, a bit more range of motion than Rodimus gets out of his arms. Ball joint hips, and the knees only bend backwards for transformation. The ankles have some useful range of motion on their transformation hinges, though. Transformation: The boots connect together and transform in a manner much like Legends Brawn's, but the torso core does some rather nifty folding around to connect up the windshield. The arms just snap in on the sides. Going back to robot mode, the waist pegs together via the Edsel-like front end of the hood. Vehicle Mode: As mentioned above, it's got a bit of Edsel feel at the front. Kinda like the Mazda 2 coupe otherwise, but deliberately generic. It doesn't really scream "Junk Planet" to me, and Wheelie was stranded on Quintessa in the movie anyway, oops. A compact 2.5" (6.5cm) long, but also a little too wide for Hot Wheels track. The windshield is light gray plastic, but the very top of that piece is meant to be roof, so it would benefit from some paint. The wheels are the only other gray plastic visible in this mode, the rest is orange. The side windows are painted light gray in a good match, but the rear window is unpainted. The taillights are gloss red, and a red Autobot symbol is printed on the central hood. The front fenders and running board are painted red-orange. There's a hump at the rear center of the hood like that of a Mazda RX-8 (Alternators Meister mold), and it's painted very light blue. With larger wheels and much better ground clearance than Rodimus, Wheelie rolls very well. And the oversized rear wheels give a more muscle car feel to it. Overall: A little on the bricky side, but not too bad for all that. Given what's being upgraded, the color scheme can be excused, and it's well executed. AUTOBOT: WARPATH Series: G1 Altmode: Tank Previous Mold Use: None Previous Name Use: Movie Techspec: STR 9 INT 5 SPD 2 END 8 RNK 5 COUR 9 FRB 7 SKL 10 Avg 6.875 Weird that his Fireblast is only 7 but his Skill is 10. Granted, these are his G1 specs exactly, but it's still weird. Packaging: Wait for it...3 twist-ties! Not quite properly transformed to robot mode in the package, his boot-treads need to be folded back to give him longer feet. But I guess that would have made it harder to fit him in the blister properly. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall and a bit on the leggy side, but otherwise well-proportioned. Mainly red plastic that's a bit lighter than G1 Warpath's with gray at the core and black around the extremities. The cannon barrel is mostly recessed in this mode, a nice nod to how the animation model shortened it to avoid looking really dumb. :) The torso core and cannon barrel are light gray plastic, otherwise the toy is red plastic. The chest section is red plastic, but the shoulder roots are part of the gray piece. Black is the main paint color, used on the eyes, treads and toes. A black Autobot symbol is printed on the left upper arm. The fists are left unpainted, but unfortunately so is the faceplate. There's a yellow rectangle under the cannon barrel. The shoulders are ball joints, but heavily restricted. The hips are ball joints free to move around, while the elbows and knees are hinges. The knees can only bend a little bit due to the way the treads fold behind the shins to make for larger feet. The head cannot move, its transformation joint is blocked by the cannon inside the chest. However, the entire chest chunk can lean back on a transformation joint, so Warpath can elevate his gun to shoot down Decepticons. Transformation: The arms rotate up and peg against the torso piece. The boots unfold into rear treads and the legs bend back on themselves to make the rear of the tank. The chest folds back, and then you pull the cannon barrel out so that the head can fold down. Vehicle Mode: While the robot mode kept the essence of the original, about all this shares in common with G1 Warpath is that it's a red tank. It kind of splits the difference between a real tank and an H-tank, with the front treads being widely separated but the rear almost connected together. 2.75" (7cm) long, mostly red plastic, with some gray, black and silver in the mix. Most of the gray plastic is hidden in this mode, and the wheels it rolls on are also gray. The sides of the treads are painted silver, and the treads themselves are painted black. The black Autobot symbol is on the left front tread chunk. The barrel elevates, and there's a joint that would let the turret turn if it weren't blocked by the robot abdomen bit. Overall: A very good update of the character, about the only thing I'd change (and probably will change) is to make the faceplate gray. Best of the set. Dave Van Domelen, will add links to some touchups later.