Dave's BWII Rant: Destron Seacons - God Neptune Set CAPSULE Very nice recolors of the G1 toys, in metallic and pearly hues for the most part. Not bad poseability for G1 gestalt pieces, but missing a lot of the accessories of the original toys. Worth getting if you don't have the original Seacons or if you have a liking for one of the characters, but it's a bit pricey. 3980 Yen in Japan, so anything under about $40 in this country would be taking a loss. RANT The Seacons are more or less recolors of the G1 Seacons, brought in to help beef up the Destron ranks. I don't own the original Seacons (except for a totally-stripped Overbite), so I can't say if there's any subtle differences in the new toys. Before I go into a detailed review of the toys, I'll list the differences I *have* noticed: - No Nautilator recolor, nor fixings to make the sixth Seacon into a weapon. - No individual weapons that aren't an integral part of the toy. Which pretty much means everyone but Halfshell (Snapper) is screwed. - Better color scheme. Most are a mix of pearl color and slightly metallic light grey, with accents in gold or copper and a few other colors for small details. A pine green is added for Halfshell and the Combiner Kibble. - Snapper is the only one with a rubsign (Predacon). Packaging: Boxed in plastic bubbletray like the rest of the line, with a nice background picture. As befits their role as space pirates, the picture is a seascape at night, with a spiral galaxy visible in the sky and the rigging of a sailing ship in the foreground. Comes with a catalog (nothing "new" to me, it's from just pre-Takotank) and poster-sized instruction sheet, plus trading card (which I'll scan when I get the time). No individual techspecs are given, just numbers for God Neptune, the combined (gestalt) form. He has all 10's except for Courage of 9 and Speed of 8. SEACONS: In BWII, the Seacons are a crew of space pirates apparently taken from the mold of the Pirates of Penzance, to judge from their performance in Comics Bon-Bon 10/98. While nominally Destrons, they owe no allegiance to Galvatron and will go where the money is. They cruise around in a spaceship outfitted like an old sailing ship, complete with Jolly Roger flag, and they tend to stay in beast mode most of the time. SCYLLA (Tentakil) Scylla is part of the first love triangle in BWII. She's got it bad for fellow squid Scuba, while she's pursued by Bighorn. She's also the first female character in BWII aside from Artemis, who doesn't have a toy (yet, anyway). No real remolding was done to the toy, the lips of the beast mode were simply painted red. In the show and manga, her lips are much fuller and more pronounced. Beast Mode: Just shy of 4" (10cm) tall, her tentacles and top-of-head are grey, body and feet pearl and face copper. Two of her tentacles have little clawlike hands, which might be able to hold small pegged weapons if she had any. The tentacles move as a batch back and forth a little, the legs swing back and forth at the hips, and the rear tentacles can move a little to help with standing. Her in-story weapons are energy blasts from the upper tentacles and the ability to extend her tentacles to grab stuff. Transformation: It's a G1 combiner limb. Not a whole lot of stuff to do to transform it. The "knees" are a bit stiff and seem to be a possible breakage zone. Robot Mode: Even counting the tentacles, it's slightly shorter than in beast mode. Gold accents on the robot chest and arms. The arms swing at the shoulders, which is pretty much it for poseability. Transformation to Gestalt Mode: Shorten the legs of the robot mode and fold the tentacles back. It's G1, folks. The "Scramble City" model doesn't encourage fancy transformation. Becomes the left shin. TERRAMANDER (Seawing) Terramander hasn't really done anything that I've seen to distinguish himself. Beast Mode: A sort of manta or devil ray 4.5" (12cm) long and with a 4.5" (12cm) wingspan. And legs. All of the Seacons have legs in beast mode, even though most of their beast inspirations don't. The legs can swing back and forth at the hips, and the feet can swing at the ankles. The jaw can also open wide. The lack of weapons is somewhat distressing in this mode, what with all the holes sitting open, especially the one on his snout. His in-story weapons are missiles fired from his wings. Main colors are pearl and a darker grey with gold accents and a little copper and orange. Transformation: Has a few clever bits, but still nothing to write home about. Robot Mode: A stumpy 3.25" (8cm) tall with a huge backpack of wings and tail. Feet sorta pose, arms move at the shoulders and a little at the elbows (his fists are above the beast mode heels). Color scheme has about the same balance as in beast mode. Transformation to Gestalt Mode: Shorten the robot mode. You might also wanna raise the tail so the wings can be pushed together. Forms the right shin. COELAGON (Skalor) Coelagon is a crusty old pirate who's been everywhere and seen everything but is having trouble remembering most of it these days. Kup of the Destron set, more or less. Beast Mode: A squat Coelocanth ("living fossil" fish) 4" (10cm) long, mainly grey and gold with some pearl on his legs. He also has arms. The short arms move at the shoulders, the legs move at hips and knees, and his mouth opens. This makes him pretty poseable for a G1 toy. He has a rather nice scale pattern on his back picked out in gold. Transformation: Not bad, but still pretty simple. Robot Mode: A little over 3" (7.5cm) tall, most of the gold is on his back, leaving more pearl visible in robot mode. His arms have elbows and shoulders, and a little bit of wrist motion, but his legs are fixed in position. His beast mode arms remain on his robot feet, which looks a little odd. He can use them to support a "leaning forward menacingly" pose, though, I suppose. Transformation to Gestalt Mode: Start with beast mode, pull out robot legs and swing beast legs parallel to body. Forms the left arm. SEA PHANTOM (Overbite) Another cipher so far. Beast Mode: A shark with arms and legs, measuring 5" (13cm) from snout to tail tip. Legs have knees which ratchet, but the arms are just pegged on. The jaw opens, and the dorsal fin and tail move for transformation. Primarily pearl colored with some grey and a splash of copper. Nice red and green detailing on the eyes. Transformation: Another simple one. It would have been nice if the beast mode forelegs had a peg size that would fit in the robot's fists, or anywhere else on the robot though...they look stupid sitting on the robot's feet. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall, with pretty much the same poseability as Coelagon. The blandest-looking of the lot, with no gold or copper visible from the front in robot mode. Transformation to Gestalt Mode: Same trick as with Coelagon. Forms the right arm. HALFSHELL (Snapper) The leader of the Seacons, somewhat of a schemer. Beast Mode: A giant turtle with guns. Stands 3" (7.5cm" tall, is 6" (15cm) long and 4.5" (11cm) wide. Mainly pearl and pine green with some copper, gold, grey and black. Legs move about as much as a real turtle's (not a whole lot), head moves up and down, jaw opens. There's also a nice gimmick where moving a lever back and forth causes the guns mounted on his back to fire in "pom-pom" action. Transformation: Somewhat more complex, as typical of gestalt team leaders. Very nifty feature by which his hands pop out automatically as you straighten his arms. Be sure to pull down the heel flaps, or he'll fall backwards. Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall if you don't count his back-mounted cannons, which add an extra inch (2.5cm). Mostly pine green with a bit of the other colors. Arms have shoulder and elbow joints, but the legs pretty much just splay outwards (doing the splits). Head doesn't even turn. He can hold the big sword, and part of his turtle shell becomes a shield he can attach to his shoulder. You can also stick the shield's pegs into his feet, turning it into a sort of boogie-board or hoverplatform. Transformation to Gestalt Mode: Frighteningly similar to Onslaught's. Fold the arms up and back, bend the knees sideways and the hips out so that Halfshell's shins become the combined mode's thighs. Then attach the shield to his chest, which can be a bit tricky until you get the hang of it. Oh, and flip the heel pieces back up. GOD NEPTUNE (Piranacon) Pretty powerful, but BB and Megastorm have been shown able to break him apart. His sword has powers over water. Assembly: Stick the pegs of the limb components into the appropriate holes on Halfshell. Add head, hands and feet. You're done. Several orders of magnitude easier than Tripredacus. Gestalt Mode: Stands 8.5" (21cm) tall, your typical "Scramble City" brick. Fists have clawspike things, and locking-type mechanisms inside the fists to hold the sword firmly in position. The legs don't move at all, nor does the head. The arms can swing at the shoulders only, and even there you have to be careful because the joint between Halfshell and the arm is stiffer than between Halfshell's own arm and shoulder, so the wrong bit may move. It's oddly appropriate that God Neptune can hold the sword of the 8" Ivar (Mystic Knights of Tir na Nog line) figure, as Ivar has a water motif. Also, looking at Lioconvoy and God Neptune side-by-side, I'm not going to argue with the techspecs...Lioconvoy looks like he *should* be a little more powerful than the gestalt. Dave Van Domelen, also got the latest Comics Bon-Bon, but won't have time to deal with it tonight....