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You know the drill. You get up thinking today could be the day. You hop in the car and head for your luckiest place. You arrive with giddy anticipation. It’s now or never, you tell yourself as you round that last corner. What waits? Will it be great joy or intense dissatisfaction? Anything can happen on a Toy Run… <\/p>\n
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<\/center><\/p>\nI know it’s been awhile since we did our last Toy Run. Mattel has been overwhelming my toy budget with their DCUC & MOTUC, both of which I buy online. I’ve still been in stores, but other than Toy Story 3 overwhelming nearly every store’s toy section, I haven’t been finding anything that noteworthy in my travels. 2009 DCUCs and MUs are happily keeping the pegs warm. GI Joe sounds like it’s finally, finally starting to come out of its post-movie slumber, but I haven’t seen anything new yet. I can’t believe all the cool stuff I saw at JoeCon 2009 is still in limbo. Iron Man 2 toys have been fun, but I waited weeks for seven new figures and am now looking at weeks until the next few. I’m sure something new is hitting the shelves in the toy collecting world, but I haven’t seen it. Until this weekend. Our local TRU got a truck in – a truck that changed the landscape of one particular aisle. It’s an aisle that I’m only loosely affiliated with, despite it containing one of my favorite childhood properties: Transformers.<\/p>\n
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I can chart my childhood in phases based on which toys I had as a kid. 85-87 were my big Transformers years. The Insecticons. Tracks. The ’85 mini-vehicles. Defensor & Bruticus. Reflector. Hot Rod & the Movie characters. The Throttlebots. Yep, Throttlebots. I had a fair share of bigger Transformers, but I had a ton of the little ones. The Throttlebots weren’t the best bots, but I had fun with them as a kid.<\/p>\n
Despite my love of Transformers, it’s not gotten much representation in my “adult” collection and, as such, not much coverage here at IAT. I’ve had my bouts over the years: RID, Alternators, Universe\/Classics, Animated. I wasn’t completist with any of them \u2013 I just bought the ones I liked or had a childhood connection too. And I’ve found some that I really love: Masterpiece Optimus, Alternators Tracks, Henkei Hot Rod, Animated Swindle & Bulkhead (Leader Class), Universe Treadbolt. And there’s plenty of other Transformers characters that I enjoy, that I’m just waiting to see them receive a good toy.<\/p>\n
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Though I haven’t felt the need to immerse myself in Transformers, I still keep an eye on the news that rolls out of the various conventions and have an idea what to expect in the aisles. I\u2019d been looking forward to seeing some of this new stuff.<\/p>\n
When I found this cache of new Transformers, the first thing that caught my attention was the new, distinctive yellow packaging. But it turned out that what I wanted to see was still in red: Transformers: Generations. I was disappointed that I didn’t see any Drifts or Thrusts among the fives pegs of War for Cybertron<\/em> Bumblebee and Optimus, so I’m still having to keep an eye out for those.<\/p>\n I’ve been on the fence about picking up the WFC figures. Bumblebee looks like a TF I could love, particularly when paired with the inevitable Cliffjumper. But Optimus doesn’t seem that intriguing. I was able to pass this time, but that may change as the ranks of the WFC get filled out. Personally, if we can see a bigger, better Optimus in a larger size later, I could get into this incarnation of Transformers. In this size, I\u2019m hoping to see WFC versions of Ratchet\/Ironhide and Hot Rod (Hot Shot) make the cut. Vault, however, loves the new WFC and happily snapped up these first offerings. Look for that review later this week. <\/p>\n Anyway, it’s easier to see what Power Core Combiners are about in the picture of Skyburst below. Skyburst is simply the guy in the middle and the four smaller vehicles are drones that, when plugged into him, spring out into limbs. In theory, those same four drones could be attached to a torso-configured Huffer and make him into a “scramble city” type bot.<\/p>\n PCC could turn out to be cool, the TF Wiki<\/a> makes a reference that the designers were “able to create a gestalt consisting of thirty-two prototyped toys.” That sounds promising, even if they’re just spring-loaded drones. I may not buy it, but I hope to see that someday.<\/p>\n Remember that yellow packaging? It seems like everything I’m talking about wasn’t in it. But there were some nice items in the new packaging, in fact, the one Transformer I had to have was in a yellow box.<\/p>\n Long Haul (the green dump truck) was one of the Transformers I wanted to pick up and never did. This wave gave me another opportunity in the form of Payload, a yellow redeco of the same toy. I ended up passing on it because his bot mode is just ugly. If I bought him, I know I’d keep him as a dump truck all the time and that’s not worth $23. Plus, his tires are a solid brown. I could try and convince myself they’re completely covered in mud, but I doubt it. He was a letdown, but I had to have the third figure in this assortment: Seaspray.<\/p>\n As I said, the ’85 Mini-vehicles are some of my favorites. The Ultra Class Power Glide from last year is a favorite of mine and I was excited to pick up a Seaspray to go with him. I’ll take a look at him in more detail here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Well, I jump back in with both feet? That\u2019s doubtful, but Transformers is such a huge property with so many toys, stories, and worlds, that it feels like every collector probably has or has had at least a few TFs in their collection. If Hasbro is going in a direction where they intend to homage more G1 stuff, then they\u2019ll at least get my attention and have a better chance at my money. I imagine that\u2019s true for a lot of the collectors from my generation.<\/p>\n![](\"toyrun\/runfive\/5tr07.JPG\")
Also in the red packaging were the new Powercore Combiners. I didn’t totally understand what these guys were until I got a chance to look at them in the store. Pictured at right is Huffer. I picked him up mainly due to the B1G1 50% off, but also because I have a soft spot for Pipes (who reused the mold of the orignal Huffer toy backwhen). In addition to his truck and bot modes, Huffer can serve as a Power Core Combiner torso. This actually helped me to like him a bit better. I wasn’t a big fan of the small head that’s his own, but the larger combiner head ends up in the same spot and I\u2019ve been using that for Huffer\u2019s regular head. <\/p>\n![](\"toyrun\/runfive\/5tr10.JPG\")
I like Huffer well enough (and his minicon Caliburst is a nice clear blue) and I like the idea<\/em> of Power Core Combiners, but there are things I don’t like too. Mainly, that the limbs are spring-loaded drones. The use of the springs makes it seem like they wouldn’t be too stable and the lack of a robot mode just feels wrong. I’m not saying they need to be full-fledged minicons, but, as it is, it seems like it’s just a scout size Transformer with four really big accessories. And some of my favorite characters were among the Protectobots and Combaticons. I’d be disappointed if Swindle and Streetwise were just vehicles drones with no alt-modes.<\/p>\n![](\"toyrun\/runfive\/5tr09.JPG\")
For the most part, the yellow packaging seems to be the continuation of ROTF product. Movie versions of Bumblebee, Ratchet, and Ironhide were joined by a new jet, Jetblade. There was a Leader Class Optimus Prime and a new wave of Voyager Class figures: Night Ops Ratchet, Payload, & Seaspray. Night Ops Ratchet is simply a black deco of the movie Ratchet.<\/p>\n![](\"toyrun\/runfive\/5tr08.JPG\")
I do have to admit, I had some trouble choosing a second Transformer for TRU’s B1G1 50% sale, so I’m not ready to jump back into Transformers just yet. While it would have been an easy decision if Drift had simply been there, I’m not too excited by this particular wave of product. It’s what’s coming up that has me excited. Some of it we’ve seen like Darkmount, Red Alert (a redeco of Universe Sideswipe), Tomahawk, Blurr (a redeco of Drift), Axor (a redeco of Lockdown), but a some of it is stuff that may be a ways out: Grapple (a redeco\/remold of Universe Inferno), a new mold to be used for Perceptor & Reflector, a new Scourge, and a new Tracks (!!) just to name a few. If those figures look as good as they sound, it looks like there could be plenty of Transformers in my future. <\/p>\n