Dave's Transformers Rant: KB Toys G1 Spychangers Prowl Autobot Jazz Silverstreak Autobot Wheeljack Optimus Prime Hoist I'm gonna be filing these online under Universe, even though the cards are Armada color scheme, since I'm putting other recent recolors in that directory. Do not confuse these with the Wal-Mart exclusive Spychanger repaints, which were a mix of G1 and RiD. With Kay Bee closing so many stores and apparently not interested in offering these online, these are a lot harder to find than most TFs. My recommendations will assume that A) you have an open Kay Bee nearby and B) don't mind paying Kay Bee prices. If these conditions do not apply to you, knock the recommendations down a peg or two. Here's the reviews of the original issues of the molds: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RiD/spych2 - Daytonus, Prowl 2, Side Burn, Side Swipe. Corrections to this review: I mixed up Block Town and the previously unrelease GoBots in my "history" bit, and Prowl 2 is actually a custom "cop job" Chevy Caprice, not a mix of models. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RiD/spych3 - Scourge and X-Brawn (along with RiD Prime and Magnus). CAPSULES Prowl: Decent colors, yet another Prowl Spychanger though. If you have Infernalert from Wal-Mart, you don't really need to bother with this one. Very mildly recommended. $3.99 at Kay Bee (automatic discount from $4.99, this price is the same for all of 'em). Autobot Jazz: The Side Burn mold looks sweet as Jazz, although the robot mode is a bit albino. Recommended. Silverstreak: Great recolor of a mold I previously liked except for the colors. Recommended. Autobot Wheeljack: The decision to go with Daytonus's paint masks was a bad one, and the sticker placement seems to be the trickiest of the lot. Very mildly recommended. Optimus Prime: Aside from some odd remnants of the Scourge paint masks (metallic teal parts), this is a great recolor of an excellent figure. Strongly recommended. Hoist: Interesting choice for recoloring, it works okay in vehicle mode, but is too distinctively X-Brawn in robot mode. Very good mold, though. Recommended. RANTS General Comments: These are single-pack carded like the past two waves of Kay Bee exclusive Spychangers, and overpriced like the past two waves. They have Armada backgrounds, but no subline under "Transformers". The back of the card has short bio notes for all six (next to photos of the prototype vehicle modes), a nice touch. Except for Prowl (which got repainted as Inferno for Wal-Mart earlier this year), this is the first time these molds have been recolored for a US market. Since it's less cost-effective to make all-new paint masks for a limited run, though, it seems that they took part or all of the existing masks and augmented them with stickers, to varying degrees of success. These are plastic stickers, not paper, and many of them have clear backgrounds. When they say "Product and colors may vary" on the back of the card, they ain't kidding. Prime's the only one who looks exactly the same as the cardback pic. The rest have different paint applications, although they all seem to have the same stickers. By the by, the bio notes do not include techspec numbers, nor do they give altmode or previous mold. I've added those last to bits of information. AUTOBOT: PROWL Function: Military Strategist Altmode: Chevy Caprice, Police Custom Previously: Prowl 2 Motto: "Logic is the ultimate weapon." PROWL is a strategic genius. His logic center is the most sophisticated in the AUTOBOT army, capable of analyzing complex combat situations and making strategic decisions almost instantaneously. Unexpected events, however, have been known to scramble his circuits. Launches powerful wire-guided missiles and high-corrosive acid pellets. Well, it's ANOTHER Prowl. This one has been redeco'ed in the G1 style, with the colors of the Japanese Federal Police (kinda like the FBI), with stickers for the blue shield on the hood and the "Highway Patrol" decals on the doors. The Autobot symbol is NOT tampographed like most of the others, it's a separate sticker on the driver's side of the hood, wedged between the black paint and the shield sticker. The paint apps are a bit different from the package pic, with a black spoiler and silver grille/bumper. Interestingly, the black paint is matte, not gloss. The gun, underside front and underside back (shins) are black, and the core piece is gray. The robot head has silver faceplate and forehead, with eyes left gray. Compared to Prowl 2, the flashers, windows and spoiler are the same paint masks, everything else (front, sides, back) is different. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT JAZZ (yep, another trademark hassle) Function: Special Operations Expert Altmode: Dodge Viper Previously: Side Burn Motto: "Do it with style or don't bother doing it." Clear, cool and adaptable, AUTOBOT JAZZ takes on the riskiest missions with trademark flair, dazzling enemies with spectacular sound and light displays. His vast knowledge of Earth culture makes him especially valuable in Earth operations. Equipped with a photon rifle, flame-thrower, full-spectrum beacon and 180 db stereo speakers. Correction, should be 180 dB. Which, by the way, will kill small animals that get too close. Seriously...120 dB is the threshold of pain for humans, and because deciBels are a logarithmic measure, 180 dB is a MILLION times more intense. It's a megawatt per square meter. A human body hit with that much sound would get roughly half a megajoule of energy every second. Never mind shattered eardrums, it's like slamming into a wall 10 times a second at 100 mph. Okay, end physics lesson digression. Autobot Jazz has very little paint on him, and is made of all white plastic except for the wheels. His visor slit is black, and his windows, headlights and grille are a metallic light blue, and that's it. The rest is stickers: the stripe along the top of the car, the numbers on the doors. The prototype has a red paint app on the airdam and lacks the paint on the grille. The Autobot symbol is part of the hood sticker, making this the other one without painted symbol. Appropriately, Jazz is the only one with gold chrome hubcaps (all the rest have silver). Comparing to Side Burn, they just removed the flame and Autobot symbol tampos and made all the other car mode paints the same color while preserving the pattern. I had to sand down the copyright notice on the "collarbone" piece to get Jazz's hood to fold down all the way for robot mode, a problem with the original versions that was not corrected. The robot mode is really, really white. The gun is white. All the plastic parts are white except the wheels. I'm probably gonna paint up at least the head and shins in black. AUTOBOT: SILVERSTREAK Function: Gunner Altmode: Race-modified Chevy Camaro Previously: Side Swipe Motto: "I never met a DECEPTICON I didn't dislike." Always on overdrive, SILVERSTREAK is an incessant talker whose sharp humor can lighten tense situations. Formidable weapons and incendiary speed make him an impressive adversary, although the memory of his home-city's destruction has left him with a lasting distate for war. Equipped with long-range bombing capability and 80,000 volt attack beam. Incendiary speed? While incendiary may be a synonym for "blazing" in some contexts, this ain't one of 'em. Silverstreak is one of those victims of trademark loss, as someone else grabbed the Bluestreak name a while back. Oddly, while the prototype on the package looks to be a darker version of Bluestreak's colors, the actual toy is two-tone and evokes the Diaclone "blue Bluestreak" appearace. While the green and black found on Side Swipe looked bad, this dark blue-gray and silver color scheme just looks awesome, and brings out details I hadn't really noticed on the original. This is also one of only two in this set to lack stickers, making up for it with an all-new paint mask (not just silver on the hood, face and airdam and dark bronze on the windows, but also red headlights and taillights, black spoiler and a yellow strip along the bottom of the airdam, Autobot symbold tampo'ed in front of the engine block). Unfortunately, it's also one of the two in this set I had to sand down the copyright info on in order to fully transform it. The robot head is a bit colorless, I'll probably paint it to bring out the goggles. Maybe give him a Splinter Cell nightvision sort of look with green lenses. In fact, the gun and pretty much all of the underside of the car, including the robot torso block, are white plastic. My initial impression was that this must have been done for another project, due to the extensive paint masking and lack of stickers. But there's actually a lot of pattern similarity with Side Swipe, with the black paint V on the front of Side Swipe replaced by a silver rectangle. And the Autobot symbol moved from roof to hood. Such subtle changes, added to a better set of base plastic colors, make a huge difference. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT WHEELJACK (odd, since Armada Wheeljack lacked the extra "Autobot" qualifier) Function: Mechanical Engineer Altmode: F-5 Racer Previously: Daytonus Motto: "Never do what your enemy expects you to do." WHEELJACK is a genius at combining throw-away objects into incredibly effective weapons. He is also a spectacular driver who never passes up a chance to show off his high-speed prowess. Arsenal includes a magnetic inducer shell, gyro inhibitor and an ever-changing array of new gadgets. This one is a disappointment. First, because after making the prototype they decided to stick with the black paint apps from Daytonus, making the toy way too dark for Wheeljack. Second, because the large number of stickers on this were almost all misapplied on mine. All the nooks and crannies and rounded areas probably made it harder to assembly-line it. I'm tempted to remove the stickers, acetone off the black very carefully, and then glue the stickers back on. On closer inspection, they didn't QUITE keep all of Daytonus's paint masking. The black and silver is there on most of the car, but they added more black behind the driver's compartment and dropped the paint on the sides of the doors (but not the little bit of silver stripe leading down to the doors). The windows are redone in a dark bronze. The underside front and back are the same dark blue-gray that's all over Silverstreak, as is the gun. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Function: AUTOBOT Leader Altmode: Semitractor, Longnose Previously: Scourge Motto: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." Dedicated to protecting all life, OPTIMUS PRIME leads the AUTOBOTS in an unceasing battle against the evil DECEPTICONS. His courage and wisdom know no bounds, and he is respected throughout the universe as a powerful champion of peace. Carries a blaster rifle as well as the ancient AUTOBOT Matrix of Leadership. Science lesson time again. "Sentient" refers to anything that can sense, anything with a nervous system or its analogue. So Prime defends your pet goldfish's right to freedom. Heh. He probably *means* sapient beings, those capable of thought. Wonder if anyone will build a mini-rifle for Prime, since he doesn't come with one? Maybe I'll kitbash one. Ideally it should have a peg that fits both in a forearm slot and in the screw-hole on the roof of the cab. Anyway, the mold comes full circle with this toy. Scourge was originally a recolor of Laser Optimus Prime, then they made a Spychanger for Scourge, and now they've recolored it as Laser Optimus Prime. He has the bright blue of that later version, not the dark blue of G1 Primes. One odd casualty of this recolor is the non-turning wheels, which are now bright blue instead of black like the rolling ones (kitbash time!). Another oddity is that they kept some of Scourge's metallic teal paint apps here and there, which kinda look weird on Prime. More repainting to do. On the other hand, there's no stickers on this one, so nothing to get in the way of repainting. Comparing to Scourge, it looks like they took apart his metallic teal masks into several pieces, changed the colors of the ones that fit Prime... and left the rest on. The front and rear fender trim, kneecaps and shoulder circle bits remained metallic teal. The chest bits became silver, the pelvis mask went yellow. The windows went from blood red to silver, the smokestacks and grille stayed silver, the headlights stayed red (and therefore almost invisible). The silver bits on the head stayed silver, the red eyes became yellow, the metallic teal strip became silver. One paint mask was added, to make the chest red (the torso block is white plastic). The head and boots are bright blue plastic, the cab and forearms are bright red, the front underside and torso/legs block are white plastic. If they'd only used gray instead of white plastic, it'd be very G2 Laser Prime. But I suppose they wanted white for the cartoon appearance. AUTOBOT: HOIST Function: Maintenance Altmode: SUV Previously: X-Brawn Motto: "You have to be rolling before you can be fighting." HOIST is first on the scene whenever an AUTOBOT is injured in the line of duty. His personal mission is to make sure that each of his comrades operates at peak efficiency levels at all times. Although his primary function is maintenance and repair, he'll gladly convert to robot mode to take on a DECEPTICON adversary. This is probably the most incongruous recolor of the batch. The first four are pretty close fits in vehicle mode and have faces that are kinda generic and don't evoke any other existing character, and of course, Prime's a special case. But X-Brawn's Spychanger is distinctive in both modes, especially the head in robot mode. I think it would have been a better idea to recolor this as Ratchet, to match the Deluxe sized X-Brawn-to-Ratchet TF:Universe toy. Especially since Hoist's towtruck mode really doesn't map well onto this. Oh, they made a game effort, painting the spare tire rig orange kinda like G1 Hoist's towing rig, but it's even weirder than the ladder painted on TFU Ratchet's roof. The paint aps on the bottom are virtually identical to those on X-Brawn, same chest and boot fronts. On the top, the windows, side stripe, taillights and pushbar ar the same. The grille is the same mask, but silver. The headlights are new in yellow, and the spare tire in orange. The Autobot symbol is in the same place, and Hoist is missing the metallic teal splashing on the back. The face paint, a silver faceplate with yellow eyes, is identical. The upper car shell is olive green, as is the entire right arm. The rest of the toy is black plastic. Bleah, the yellow and black hazard stripe stickers along the sides are already starting to peel. Like X-Brawn, Hoist has trouble staying standing, due to the massive left arm. Dave Van Domelen, waiting for Wal-Mart Sunstorm to drop below $15 locally (been reports of a drop already some places).