Dave's Transformers Bumblebee Rant: Speed Series Wave 1 Bumblebee (VW Beetle) Bumblebee (Classic Camaro) Optimus Prime (Truck) Barricade (Police Car) Hot Rod (Sedan) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BB/Legion1 Yeah, these are really just Legion figures with connection ports for the Energon Igniter Cores, so I'm using Legion for the filename. CAPSULES $7-8 price point. Bumblebee (VW): Has some QC issues, but is otherwise a pretty good toy, and if you only want one VW Bumblebee this is probably the one to get. Decent articulation, decent paint in both modes, and about the size of the G1 Minibot. Recommended. Bumblebee (Camaro): Good mold, noticeably lacking in paint, especially in vehicle mode. Also has some QC roulette to deal with. Mildly recommended, might be worth seeing if they do a redeco instead. Optimus Prime: Decent mold, if a bit oddly colored (on purpose, Nitro Series version has the same basic coloration). Not as good as VW Bumblebee, but still recommended. Barricade: Good vehicle mode, robot mode has pretty much all the flaws of the original Legion Barricade despite being an entirely new mold. Mildly recommended. Hot Rod: A retool/cotool of Barricade. Mostly a decent use of the mold, but the lack of paint on the windows really stands out. Mildly recommended. Rank ordered: VW Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Camaro Bumblebee, tie between Barricade and Hot Rod at the bottom. RANTS Packaging: Simple rounded rectangle blister cards with flat fronts. The front of the card is laid out about the same way as with the Power Plus cards, with everyone getting Bumblebee's bust shot in the upper left, the Energon Igniters logo in the upper right, and the Transformers logo along the right side. The card insert has a touched up photo or render of the vehicle mode on the left side, with the movie logo and the character name along the bottom. (These are recommended for ages 6+.) The right side of the insert has the Authentic logo, the left side has the head of the character inside, the Igniters logo, and "Speed Series" in four languages. The card back is mostly legalese and logos, with no actual cosells. The only picture shows an Igniter Core ("Not Included") attaching to the back of vehicle mode. No character info or even transformation steps on the cardback. Unlike the usual blister cards, the "insert" is actually part of the cardback, folding around into the box shape. On the inside bottom is a stylized bee logo in faint brown over fainter brown. Since there's not enough room on the cardback for instructions, there's a small booklet folded up inside. The instructions are grayscale and yellowish orange, forming a folded over booklet. The front page is an upper body shot of the robot mode, the back page shows off the Igniter Core gimmick, and all the actual instructions are printed very small on the inner two pages. Plastic "sock ties" are used to hold the robots into the blisters. The assortment numbers are all over the place, rather than being neatly sequential. Note that while these are much lighter than Power Plus toys, the Core doesn't seem to push them much farther or faster. I suspect part of this is due to friction torque on the axles, which is disproportionately high on the smaller wheels. They really needed Hot Wheels quality wheels, rather than, well, what we got. Which isn't horrible, but not great either. Every altmode has a 5mm peg hole in the back for connecting the Igniter Core. Some of them are nicely hidden in robot mode, others...not so much. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Assortment: E0742 Altmode: VW Beetle classic Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: None Igniter: No Packaging: Five ties hold the robot in. The cardback has the VW licensing info. Robot Mode: A pretty good-looking VW-style Bumblebee, albeit with somewhat short arms. While necessarily not as detailed as the Power Plus toy, it's still clear that they put engine details on the abdomen. The front fenders and bumper form the chest, while the boots are the rear half of the vehicle split in two. The Igniter Core connection socket is partially hidden inside the left boot. 3.25" (8cm) tall, mostly yellow and black with some silver and gunmetal. The thighs, wheels, and shoulder struts are black plastic. Everything else is golden yellow plastic. Silver paint is used on the bumper, headlights, sternum and face. The eyes are painted blue, and the front faces of the arms are painted gunmetal. Notable is the fact that the hubs of the snap-on shoulder wheels are painted gloss black, rather than silver. Because painting them silver would require painting the rear wheels hubs silver too, and those are already black plastic. There's darkish metallic blue paint on the vehicle windoes on the sides of the boots and on the backpack. Ball and socket joint shoulders and hips. The ball part of the shoulders is malformed on mine, leading to a lot of stiffness until I'd rotated the joint enough to smooth off all the lumpiness. The knees are hinges, but really only look good in straight-leg (or close to it) pose or fully bent, as the jointing makes the leg look broken for angles in between. The toes can bend down on transformation joints, not that this is terribly useful. The hands can hold 3mm pegs. Transformation: Fold up the chest until it snaps in place, shrug the shoulders up against the sides. Fold the toes all the way in (there's a small ridge to help get them back out when going to robot mode), then bend the knees all the way and snug the bottoms of the feet up against the front half. Vehicle Mode: A nice litthe VW Beetle, complete with VW logo on the hood just ahead of the flat windshield. My only substantive complaints about the look involve the lack of paint in back (no rear window paint, no taillights). There's a big chunk in the back for the Igniter Core to attach, but I've seen weirder aftermarket stuff strapped onto the back of a Beetle. 2.75" (7cm) long, almost exactly 1:60 scale. No rally stripes, just a yellow Beetle with dark metallic blue windows (except in back), silver bumper and headlights, black tires and part of the rear bumper. It rolls okay on its own, provided the surface is flat but rough (polished wood veneer it tends to slide more than roll on). Pretty small ground clearance, it won't roll on any kind of carpet. Overall: A pretty spiffy Legion toy, all told. The usual "not enough paint" complaints apply, and the shoulder joints have poor QC, but otherwise well worth getting. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Assortment: E0760 Altmode: Classic Camaro Transformation Difficulty: 7 steps Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: None Igniter: No Packaging: 5 ties, and the cardback has GM licensing info. Robot Mode: A bit short-armed (Barricade may have stolen his arm length), and mine had an assembly defect where a big chunk of mold sprue wasn't removed from the left shoulder strut (more than just flash, several millimeters thick), but I was able to cut it off. The chest is a fake vehicle front end, but nicely sculpted, and with a molded but unpainted Autobot symbol. Good abdomen detailing with faux engine stuff, no car door wings. 3.25" (8cm) tall, in the usual Bumblebee colors. The thighs, shoulder struts, wheels, and feet are black plastic. The rest is golden yellow plastic. The abdomen front is painted silver, as is the face. There's black rally stripes on the fake chest hood, and bright blue eyes. The arm details molded on the insdies of the arm pieces are painted a bit sloppily in gloss black. It could really use some more paint on the chest, for the headlights and grille, but that's to be expected. The shoulders are ball joints on shrugging struts, and my copy has similar if lesser problems to the VW in terms of rough shoulder balls. Ball joint hips, hinge knees, hinge toes. The knees have a bit of a gapping problem when bending, but not as bad as the VW. The hands can hold 3mm pegs. Transformation: This is a bit tricky, because the hood piece on the back needs to be free to move to let the toes under it, which means you have to transform the back end first. Furthermore, getting the pegs lined up to connect the boots together is nontrivial. Once the back end is done, though, it's pretty easy to get the arms into place. Vehicle Mode: Well, it's the Classic Camaro we've all grown to know over the last decade, with black rally stripes that cleverly continue onto the folded down robot toes...but less cleverly don't continue past that. Also, the black plastic of the knee area forms a big obvious chunk of black in the back of the car. The windshield is painted the same gloss black as the rally stripes, but the side and rear windows are unpainted. The front end (headlights, grille, etc) is unpainted, which at least is consistent with the robot mode fake hood. There's no molded Autobot symbol on the real hood, though. The wheels are all riveted in place, so the hubs are steel and don't need paint. 2.75" (7cm) long, almost exactly 1:72 scale. Severely lacking in paint as noted, but quite solid. The fake chest leads to a near zero ground clearance, which doesn't help when hooked to an Igniter Core via the 5mm hole in the back bumper. Overall: Good molded detail, which makes the skimpy paint work stand out all the more, especially in vehicle mode. And it's nice to see a different transformation for an altmode we've seen several times in this size already. If you're not completely sick of Camaro BBs, it's worth picking up (especially if you like to customize Legion vehicle modes). AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Assortment: E0765 Altmode: Cabover Semitractor Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: None Igniter: No Packaging: Five ties and a rubber band keeping the head from popping back down. No licensing info (they didn't worry about making the truck mode actually match the real vehicle). Robot Mode: Some odd color choices here, to the point that it looks like a knockoff. On the other hand, the Nitro Series toy makes most of the same choices, so maybe blue thighs and red boots are now how Optimus chose to look during the 1980s. It certainly made it easier to get away with just two plastic colors. Otherwise it has the "Evasion Mode" design, including the molding of the feet. The front wheels hang off the forearms, reminiscent of an older Legion class Optimus Prime (the mold that got a LOT of mileage on the shelves at Dollar General). There's a molded but not painted Autobot symbol on the left forearm. 3.25" (8cm) tall, in red, black, and metallic blue, plus a little silver. The upper arms, shoulder struts, a piece inside the back, abdomen, hip struts, and wheels are black plastic. The rest is bright red plastic. There's metallic blue paint on the helmet, thighs, kneecaps, and chest windows. The face, helmet tablet, and the bit of grille just under the windows are painted silver. There's no separate paint color for the eyes. The shoulders are swivels, and can swing backwards on the transformation hinge to let the figure point off to the side. Ball joint elbows and hips, no knees (to help with stability in vehicle mode). The waist doesn't turn, but there's a swivel between chest and abdomen for transformation, and it doesn't look too bad turned just a little. The hands can hold 3mm pegs. Transformation: Let the head fall back into the cab, it does that at the slightest provocation anyway. Rotate the torso swivel, peg the boots together and swing back 90 degrees at the hips. There's an extra joint in the abdomen that has 90 degrees of play but only needs to swing back a little bit to make room for the arms to fold in on the sides. Pulling it back a little more locks the arms in place via tabs inside that aren't normally visible. Note, when transforming it back to robot mode, you need to push the legs forwards to unlock this. Vehicle Mode: Okay, it's a semitractor, but with obvious feet and the robot shoulders stuck behind the cab. The molded Autobot symbol ends up on the left side lower rear corner. All the wheels are real for once, and pinned in place so they roll pretty well. 2.5" (6cm) long, and overwhelmingly red, as the blue thighs are mostly hidden. The lower half of the front (which was a bustle in robot mode) has silver paint on the bumper and grille, but there's no paint on any of the lights. The side windows are molded, but unpainted. Good ground clearance, and the rigid legs and locked arms mean it rolls quite well. This was the best of the lot in terms of Igniter Core propulsion. Overall: Decent, probably the second best of the wave after VW Bumblebee. The colors are a bit odd, but it seems to be intentional rather than purely a result of cheaping out on plastic colors. DECEPTICON: BARRICADE Assortment: E0766 Altmode: Police Car Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: G1, Energon, Movies Previous Mold Use: None Igniter: No While he hasn't been in every movie, he's been in most of the movie toy lines, if only as a redeco space-filler. Packaging: 5 ties, no licensing info. Robot Mode: To be clear, while this shares a LOT of engineering with the first Barricade movieverse Legion toy, it's an entirely new mold. They just decided that the unstraightenable legs and pathetic ankles were a feature, not a bug. There's Bayformer greebly details molded onto the fronts of the arms, and the hands have 3mm peg holes rather than being just closed pointy bits. 3" (7.5cm) tall, noticeably shorter than the original Legion (which I got out to compare), in mostly black with some white and silver. Like, all the plastic is black. The grille and headlights on the chest are silver, as is much of the face. The eyes are red, as are the taillights on the knees (hey, a toy with painted taillights for once!). The outer faces of the arms have the doors, which are printed white with negative space Decepticon symbols in circles. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, the knees and ankles are hinges. The knees only unbend as far as about 135 degrees, and the ankles are fairly floppy. A definite loser against the original's ball joint ankles, but cleaning the mold release oil off might help with the looseness. Transformation: Peg the boots together and push the toes up to form part of the roof, then slide under the lightbar. Lift up the hood, then push the arms into the sides. Pretty simple as long as you do it in order. Vehicle Mode: Not a licensed vehicle, but reminiscent of the Crown Victorias that were the stereotypical police car of the early to mid 80s. As a friend of mine used to say, "Square headlights mean slow down." The fenders hug the tires rather than being more rectangular, but that's the most obvious difference between this and a Crown Vic. Well...it's also a coupe rather than a sedan, so kinda hard to put perps in the back seat. I'd think maybe that would be to let Hot Rod be a coupe, but the Nitro Series Barricade is also a coupe. Highway chase car, perhaps? 2.75" (7cm) long, and mostly black with white doors. The windows are unpainted, same as the original. The lightbar has the left 2/5 painted bright red, the right 2/5 painted medium blue, and the middle 1/5 unpainted (should be silver, an easy mod if you want to). Other colors already noted. The wheels have metal hubs, same as Camaro Bumblebee. I'd hoped that the pinned wheels combined with having front and back wheels on each side both on a single arm for stability would make this the most impressive mold for use of the Igniter Core, but there's just too much friction, and this and Hot Rod only go about two meters. Overall: Well, it looks true to the character, it's just not that great of a design to be faithful to, eh? AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT HOT ROD Assortment: E0985 Altmode: Sedan Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: TLK, Gen ("Hot Rod" on its own G1) Previous Mold Use: BB Igniter: No Technically this is a co-tool with Barricade rather than a retool, but given that every Hot Rod toy in the first wave shares a mold with someone else (several different someone elses), that marks him in my mind as the retool. The significantly higher assortment number also suggests it might have been intended as a later release (or even a Walmart exclusive, like most of the Last Knight Hot Rod toys were). Packaging: Five ties, no licensing info. Color Swaps: The wheels, thighs, and shoulder struts are still black plastic, the rest is now dark slightly shiny plastic. Paint Apps: In robot mode, the face has silver around the eyes and mouth, blue eyes, and orange on the rest of the face (nose and cheeks, mostly). The front end grille is silver, the bottom edge of the front end is painted orange. There's also orange paint on the lower section of the side panels, and on some arm greebles. No taillights. Vehicle mode adds an orange Autobot symbol on the hood. The lack of paint on the windows is a lot more of a problem here than on Barricade. Mold Changes: They only actually had to retool one part, as the same piece has the head and the lightbar on Barricade. So the head is done up like the Last Knight Hot Rod's head, and there's no lightbar on that piece. There's actually an irregular hole where the lightbar goes, suggesting that one could still be glued in place, and that the lightbar is a separate piece rather than part of the torso piece on Barricade. Other Notes: With no lightbar, transformation is a little simpler. Overall: If it had windows painted, I'd put this slightly ahead of Barricade, if only because a coupe makes more sense for Hot Rod than a police cruiser. Dave Van Domelen, thinks it may be time to do Throne of the Primes Optimus Primal's review.