Dave's Transformers Animated Rant: Voyager Wave 5 Wreck-Gar (Garbage truck) Atomic Lugnut (redeco, not reviewed) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Voyager5 By my totally arbitrary labeling, this is wave 5. Judging by the cosells, it seems to ship with Skywarp back in the mix. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Voyager2 has the Lugnut review. CAPSULES Wreck-Gar: Solid in both modes, if simplistic in transformation. Recommended. $21.99 at HasbroToyShop.com. Atomic Lugnut: The original mold was mildly recommended, and while it's possible they fixed the engineering issues with it this time around, I don't really care for the new colors. $21.99 at HTS. RANTS Packaging: Same as Wave 1. The co-sells on the left side are for Skywarp and Atomic Lugnut on Wreck-Gar, presumably Wreck-Gar and either Skywarp or some other reship on AL. The bottom co-sells are Blurr, Samurai Prowl, Waspinator and Blazing Lockdown. AUTOBOT: WRECK-GAR Altmode: Garbage Truck Function: AUTOBOT Rookie Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: (front) "Moving lifting-forks!" (upper right) "WRECK-GAR is ready to trash some bad guys!" (back) "Moving lifting-forks!" and "Weapon storage!" Motto: "Anything I can do to help?" Galactic Powers & Abilities: > Loves to collect things other folks throw away. > Watches even more TV than BUMBLEBEE. > Believes everything he reads on the internet. WRECK-GAR means well. All he really wants to do is help folks in need. Unfortunately, he's a terrible judge of character, and happily helps anyone who asks without thinking about what he's doing. He has accidentally robbed a few banks, and blasted an AUTOBOT here and there. His Spark is in the right place anyway. Now that he's clear on the difference between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS, misunderstandings like that should happen less often. Note, only "less often," not "never". And that last "ability" is gonna get him in trouble fast. It's interesting that in this line, weapon storage is actually worth pointing out. This is the first Wreck-Gar toy since the original in 1986 to come out in the U.S., although he did get a MyClone (which I own) in 2003. Packaging: Two ties hold the fairly small vehicle mode into a blister tray, with a third just going around the truck to hold a shield on over the fork tines. The melee weapons are individually twist-tied to the cardboard tray. No rubber bands. Vehicle Mode: There's been loads of dump trucks, cement mixers, cranes and other assorted working vehicles. This is the first Transformers garbage truck. The only major-brand precedent has been Fly Trap, the Go-Bot Renegade (http://www.tfu.info/Gobots/Renegades/Flytrap/flytrap.htm), and if it weren't for the fact that the original Wreck-Gar had these colors too, I'd wonder if this were a sly Fly Trap homage. :) At a mere 5.25" (13cm) long, this Voyager has a bad case of Bulkhead Syndrome, in vehicle mode at least. It's a mix of warm medium gray, dark red, burnt orange and light tan, just like G1 Wreck-Gar's animated version (and the MyClone), just in different proportions. It has that blocky styling of TF:A terran vehicles, with six wheels and a set of Dumpster(TM)-lifting arms. The center of the front grill is uneven on purpose, to give an air of junkiness that's strangely missing from the crisp lines of the rest of the truck. Maybe it's meant more for the robot mode. Gunmetal gray plastic is used on the trash bin and grille. The rest of the cab is burnt orange plastic, the fuel tanks and fork tines are dark red plastic. The rest of the arms, the wheels, and some visible joints are black plastic. The taillights are clear light blue plastic but mostly painted over, suggesting a red-clear-plastic variant may be planned (i.e. why even make the taillights clear plastic otherwise?). The most common paint is matte black, used on the center grille, the cab windows and the molded-but-not-movable rear door. The rear lights are painted red with strong UV glow, the headlights are painted yellow with mild UV glow. The "upper arm" segments of the fork arms are painted light tan. There's dark gray paint in the molded depressions along the sides of the trash compartment, likely intended to be shadows rather than an actual hue. The wheels roll smoothly, although if ever there was a vehicle mode which had an excuse to roll roughly this is it. The arms are on soft ratcheting shoulder swivels that are stable at forward and straight up positions. Pulling back on a black tab at the shoulder area will make the arm straighten and lift. The two arms are not linked, so you have to be careful with synchronized triggering to get it to lift things without dumping them to the side. The trash compartment does not open to let you tip things in, so sad. There's a tab on the roof that lets you slide the stored weapons in and out, but this is mainly a robot mode feature, not doing much useful in this mode. Transformation: In broad strokes, this is Cybertron Armorhide (http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cybertron/Basic3) but simpler, his legs hidden under a big shell rather than folded up on the roof. It can take a bit of force to get the shell off, which is part of the price you pay for such a solid vehicle mode. The key is to pull the headlights forward, which will let some tabs slide out from behind. From there it's really just swinging the head and arms forward and folding the cab into the body of the shell to make it into a huge backpack. At least there's in-story reason for the backpack. :) It can be a bit tricky to get the backpack to snap into place, you have to make sure the neck piece is at just the right angle. But once you get it in, it's solid. A second clip in the small of the back doesn't really hold the backpack securely, but it's not like it has to fight gravity. Robot Mode: A proper-for-Voyagers 7" (18cm) tall here, at least. Mainly because transformation involves folding the robot in half. :) He's got that "Weird Al meets 1950s portable television" head complete with a handle that flat-handed TFs like Blitzwing can try to grab (well, Blitzy's hand is a bit too big, but hey). He picks up more burnt orange, and his dark red becomes more prominent. He also has a huge backpack with arms hanging off it, although (undocumented feature) you can swing the arms forward under his robot arms so that his lifter tines become striking snakes. Jab! Jab! The grille ends up on the front of his chest, but otherwise the torso and pelvis are orange plastic. His armor hip flaps are dark red, as are his shoulders. The boots and head are more orange. The forearms, lower thighs, heel spurs, hands, backpack and the handle on his head are gunmetal plastic. The upper arms, hips, neck and toes are black plastic, as are some internal struts seen during transformation. The rear four wheels end up on the forearms, while the front two are hidden inside the backpack. The bent TV antenna on his head is rubbery plastic, either gunmetal in color or painted that way. His blade weapons (scissors with which he runs, as David Willis has already pointed out) and lightpiping are clear aqua plastic. The face is painted light tan with black facial hair, silver TV dials and silver and yellow forehead light. There's dark red paint panels on the sides of his head. There's flathead-screw details on his shoulders, painted silver, plus matte black paint on his kneecaps and abdomen sides. Plus, all the front grille paint is still visible on his chest. There's orange stripes at the elbow-end of his forearms. The non-energy parts of his scissor blades are painted silver and orange. All joints are smooth except for the lifter tine arm "shoulders", which pick up one more click of motion in this mode. Well, they could point straight down in vehicle mode, I suppose, but then it'd be kinda high- centered on 'em. The neck swivels, the waist is fixed. The shoulders are universal joints, although the shape of the shoulderpads can interfere with some range of motion. Upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, and the fingers are hinged as a group. Universal joint hips, thigh swivels, hinge knees. The toes are hinged, but loose enough to not be useful joints for posing. The knees bend backwards a bit, which is helpful in stabilizing his stance, putting his feet further back to support the backpack. When you slide up the tab on his backpack, the 2.25" (6cm) long blades come into view and can be pulled out of peg-holes. Then, either connect the blades together into a single shield, or peg them individually onto the rearmost wheels on each forearm via black pegs that fold down. Given that he used no such weapons in his one cartoon appearance, I presume these shear- like weapons are a deliberate reference to Weird Al's "Running With Scissors" album. It's a pity the rear gate of the truck doesn't open up, it'd let you use the backpack to actually store stuff. Like random limbs. Or not so random Waspinator parts. Defect List: None, really. The design is so simple that they factory really couldn't mess it up. I suppose the toes are a bit loose, but it's not a big deal. On the other hand, you could call the simplicity itself a defect, but hey...it's show-accurate in both modes, not all transformations have to be complex. Overall: Almost suitable for the Go-Go-GoBots line, but adorably accurate to the show. Activators Ratchet is about the right size to shout angrily up at him, although there's a lack of a joint in the neck for Wreck-Gar to look back down in amiable confusion. :) Anyway, if you're solely in it for the complex transformations, this will disappoint. But it's otherwise quite good. Dave Van Domelen, daring to be stupid.