15 Oct 2016

Euro Exclusive AM Exo-Suits Rumbler and Slicer

Continuing our look at the Action Masters sub-line, we come to the European Exclusive Exo-Suit range in 1991, the year after the line had halted Stateside.

 

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Featuring repaints of previous releases (Wheeljack and Sprocket from earlier in the week), and a new vehicle that transformed into a power suit with a motorised gimmick, the action was very much limited, but none the less, these are fun toys from a more innocent time.

Rumbler

 

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Rumbler is a straight repaint of Sprocket, but lacking individual hand weapons, or an animal sidekick like previous releases to set him apart.  He has an excellent head sculpt and an amazing colour palette which is very much of the time, but on his own, the figure isn’t much to write home about.

 

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To help balance the odds in battle, Rumbler comes with a 4WD All-Terrain vehicle.  It comes with two grabby claw things and two (only one pictured) cool looking duel-mace looking accessory that plugs into his wheels, in a very Mad Max style (okay, maybe more Grease than Mad Max).  Unfortunately, while the rest of the 4WD vehicle is very solid, the mace weapons are molded from a rubber like substance and – after 25 years – they are starting to melt and wither.  One of my mace weapons is doing well, and it only droops embarrassingly and weeps, leaving a sticky residue in it’s wake (I am not trying to be crude I promise), the other one has fallen apart.

The big selling point for this vehicle is it is motorised, pop enough batteries in to power a modern device for a year and you can just about get this amazing piece of 90s kitch moving forwards OR backwards.  A hell of a selling point for a toyline that used to be about innovative transformations.  But wait, it does transform!

 

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If by transform you mean it stands up.  Yeah, the seat folds forward to become a shin-guard, and the control-bars tilt upward to enable the now upright Rumbler to hold them.  Meanwhile, the grabby claw things unfold outward to give them a greater reach.

 

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Well I guess the colour palette is kind of cool, all bright and vibrant.  In this mode, his Exo-Suit is supposed to be impervious to all firepower, which sounds great on paper, but unfortunately it offers very little cover for Rumbler, and while the Exo-suit might be impervious to firepower, I’m sure his head, arms and torso are not.

Rumbler has had zero love in the 25 years since his debut, other than a Transformers Collectors Club appearance (everyone has appeared in the club magazine at this point) and a blink and miss it IDW cameo.  Not a single homage, repaint or 3P offering have even been discussed I’d wager.  Can’t think of why.

 

Slicer

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Slicer is a bit more well known in the fandom, thanks to him borrowing his base mold from the (more popular than Sprocket) Wheeljack toy, as such, there have been a plethora of Wheeljack molds released in the years since, making a Slicer repaint inevitable.

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While the figure on it’s own is again lacking even a hand-gun, seeing the familiar visage of Wheeljack is a different colour-scheme is always going to be interesting to the fandom, especially when he’s re-imagined as an Evil Decepticon.  In fact, the colour scheme has duel purpose, working as European exclusive and tertiary character Slicer and as Shattered Glass Wheeljack.  Surely there has to be an official Slicer repaint of a Wheeljack mold somewhere down the line?

 

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Yup.  Released as Decepticon Slice as an attendee giveaway figure for Botcon 2010, Slice is a repaint of Energon Downshift (who was an obvious Wheeljack homage).  Although many fans may have preferred later Wheeljack figures, I quite like the fact Slice gives me a chance to own an interesting Energon mold, one that I’d long since sold the original version of.  Fun publishing maintains that the Autobot logo on the chest in purple is for those who want to use him in Shattered Glass, but really it’s because it’s a molded logo and there was no way of removing that from the mold without incurring big costs.  Given how savvy Hasbro have become with prepaints and repaints, I can’t see them ever molding a faction logo onto a mold again.

 

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Slicer comes with a 4WD Assualt Vehicle (obviously completely different from Rumbler’s 4WD Off-Road All Terrain Vehicle).  It’s a straight repaint in moodier Decepticon colours that complement Slicer very well, as long as slight retooling on the weapon front.  The grabby claw things become straight up guns, and the maces on the wheels are replaced with wheel Slicers (I get it!) pretty much the exact weapon used in Grease actually, with the added benefit is they don’t melt like the weapons with Rumbler.

 

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In standing up mode, it’s the same affair as with Rumbler, guns fold forward, but with a slight variation the wheel slicers open up to become slicey weapons if only someone would just come within inches of his exo-suit.  I’m not sure how effective they would be, as they look like four goth Christmas trees stuck on car wheels.

 

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Ah well, there are worse playsets for toys.  Although I’m struggling to think of any right now.

 

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In car mode, TFCC Decepticon Slice looks pretty much like you’d expect him to; a blue repaint of a Wheeljack inspired mold.  It’s worth mentioning this deco was the inspiration for Transformers Prime Dark Energon Prime Wheeljack.  It’s cool that TFCC did this homage, but I really think we need an official release of Masterpiece Slicer to boost the MP Decepticon ranks.

If you’re wondering why mine includes G2 logos on the doors, well partly because I’d just spent money with Repro Labels and needed to boost my CHUG2 collection, but to me it makes as much sense as using him as SG Wheeljack, and there’s a part of me that feels the sensibilities behind G2 really started in the 1991 Euro AM line.  I mean, look at the colours of Rumbler and Slicer!  Given that the G2 logos were used before G2 in the Euro line, and after G2 on early Beast Wars toys, I think G2 is almost as much a state-of-mind as a period of time or branding.

Overall


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Despite my sarcasm, I do really like these toys.  Although, I concede, I may have a sickness which makes me like anything G1 / G2.  In 1991 the line was failing, and the European wing of Hasbro was just throwing ideas at the wall to see what would stick.  It’s crazy and silly, and the sort of thing a committee of toy executives would probably thing kids would want; a motorised vehicle that sits a non-transforming Transformer.

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Next week we’re taking a break from the Action Master fun to showcase some other weird and wonderful toys from the annals of toy history, but the Action will return and we’ll finish up this iconic series very soon.

 

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Don’t forget to check out the Kapow Toys store as they are having a super sale right now.  The Rumble is, prices have been Sliced (ho-ho!)

12 Oct 2016

Action Master Autobot Vehicles Sprocket and Wheeljack

Continuing our look at the Action Master line, today we’re looking at the Autobot Vehicles.  Some of the larger figures from the range, much bigger than the Action Blasters or Exo Suits, but smaller than the (for want of a better term) Leader Class toys of Gutcruncher, Megatron and Optimus Prime.

Sprocket

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Once again, some excellent character art for this guy, a lot of the times it doesn’t feature that prominently on the very busy 90s packaging, so it’s good to see it clean.  Fair play to Botch the Crab who does an excellent job archiving character box art on his site.

 

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Sprocket looks great as a robot with some excellent choices of colouration, the white, yellow and orange colourations really offset his darker torso.  Straight away, we’re drawn to that oversized weapon, the fact that it’s gold plastic with a small 3-mil hand-peg makes us all want to handle with care.  His chest looks like he used to transform into a Cybertronian jet of some kind, with the stylings differing from many of the Action Masters usual vestigial Earth-modes.

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Sprocket is unique to Action Masters, with no other updates or homages released third party or otherwise.  Why no love?  Jackpot, Kick-Off, Axer, Circuit, Slicer and many more AMs have been homaged, but this guy gets nothing outside of appearances in TFCC fiction and cameos in More Than Meets the Eye (which is something I guess?).  His name hasn’t even been re-appropriated for a vastly different TF character or product. For shame.

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As you can see on the artwork, the gold weapon doubles as missiles for the alt. mode, but these are solid pieces for display only with no working projectile ability.  Also, the car doesn’t fire huge lasers from it’s engine block and it cannot drive on it’s own.  Well done to Sprocket for maintaining a sensible “ten-to-two” hands on the wheel approach to driving amidst the chaos and gunfire.

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On it’s own, the vehicle isn’t that satisfying.  A green off-road vehicle with a fairly ugly design, I can’t see it appealing to many kids even in 1990 as it looks like a convertible Land Rover.  However, it’s transformation into an Attack Cruiser is quite involved, featuring only one breath-stopping forcing of a GPS liable block of plastic on the front end.

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This is pretty cool in my book; wings, helicopter blades, weapons, DeLorean / BTTF style folding wheels.  I never had this as a kid, but seem to remember a friend did, and it was great fun to convert and fiddle around with.  The extra driving seat adds an extra dimension and is a real highlight of the Action Master line, as these figures really do interact with each other and share a play pattern.

Wheeljack

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Finally!  A Wheeljack with a proper face, with eyes and everything!  Even as a non-transforming fairly basic figure that was often ignored at the time, it still has more paint apps than the Combiner Wars version.

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As with Sprocket, the missiles from the Turbo Racer detach to become hand weapons.  There’s not much else to say about the figure, it has standard knee joints, ball-jointed hips held by elastic, lateral movement in each arm and ahead swivel, like the rest of the product line.

 

 

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Artwork looks great, and it makes me wish I’d popped out Bumblebee and Jackpot to recreate this scene above.

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It’s a fun, racey looking vehicle with obvious Testarossa overtones, although one negative aspect of molding a big red plastic race car is it sort of looks like it transforms into this:

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Yup, Wheeljack’s car looks like it transforms into a bed.  Ah well, actually it transforms into the marginally more cool:

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It’s supposed to be a Jet Fighter, but the way the doors fold up to become wings get’s drowned out when you fold the front end of the cars around to give it more of a nosecone shape.  Still, it’s a flying car, and in 1990, you would not have been able to convince me that this was not cool.  The stickers on this guy are also a bit phoned in, with generic “mech” detailing visible in the alt. mode.  A shame, as the trim detailing and hood emblem in yellow really set off the car mode quite well.

Overall

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These are fun toys.  Just as Micro Masters was a reaction to Micro Machines, I’d argue this was probably a move towards competing with the Teenage Mutant Ninja / Hero Turtles toyline, which had seen great success with it’s action figure and vehicle / playset product line the years preceding these releases.
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They are a fun part of the legacy of the line, and whilst they were considered a miss-step at the time, it seems opinions towards the line has softened in recent years, and I would encourage all TF fans to give them a look.

As always, thanks to Kapow for giving the blog a home!  Although we aren’t spoiled for choice for Sprockets, there are plenty of Wheeljacks on the market, check out what Kapow has right here!