OOh baby, Targetmasters.... If you regularly read my blog and ramblings, (thank you very much!) you'll know that I love me some (any and all)masters action for my Transformers. So of course, here I am talking about the Targetmaster Pointblank, who actually comes with his targetmaster partner Peacemaker. Noice!
Is this post full of unconditional love and totally biased rambling because Pointblank is a proper, real, fully equipped Targetmaster who can Roadblaster-ise his vehicle mode? Well, you'll have to read on to find out.
I scanned the box, er, just because and you can see how much is covered over with stickers, not only covering the nice artwork, but also the QR code that should take one to the Bio on Hasbro's website (if it's actually there...)
Robot mode.
Transformers often have some kind of thing to make them instantly recognisable, otherwise they are just a lazy ass nameslap. Getaway has his shoulder pointy things, Optimus' boob-windows, Skywarp being black and purple etc. Pointblank here must have his awesome shoulder pauldrons.
And he does. He also has a new headsculpt. Which I love by the way. It's based on the cartoon and is damn sexy, Shame it just turns left or right. If you disconnect it from the back, you can make him look up though.
He is a fairly decent looking robot, containing the shoulders, the window chest and enough detail to not make him bland. He's also pretty thin, with not much in the way of kibble, making him a fairly sleek 'bot. He also looks pretty decent standing with some fellow era Autobots.
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| Just watch out for that guy in the grey behind you. |
Having a closer look at the robot mode now...
He does have these little waist bits at the side, which kind of link the back and front of the car together. In robot mode, they just kind of quietly hide, but it would've been nice if they could look a bit more streamlined.
You can see a little cockpit through the window chest which adds some nice ambient sculpting detail in there.
The chest is generally pretty nice.
Just, don't look at the hips. Eew, what went wrong here? They really don't mesh well with the rest of the body do they? Looks like he forgot to wear pants...
I know why they are like this, the legs fold over and the feet cover the joints for vehicle mode, but yeesh. It doesn't look good.
I really do like the blue and red combination and they've done exceptionally well matching the blue paint with the plastic.
Proportions are... well, they're ok I guess. He has big, long (empty) legs that allow for a very deep bend, and ankle tilts as well, which is super nice. The thighs and black bits of plastic do have some nice ambient sculpting on them. There is a port for a flight stand, but due to the sculpting there, without an extension, I find my Bandai stand's peg isn't long enough.
Unfortunately the arms aren't as well constructed and he has these big red chunks that seem to get in the way of the elbows, and because they fit within the shoulders for vehicle mode are a tad too short. So despite him being a Targetmaster with a cool transforming gun, I found it rather tricky to have him in cool shooty, poses...
From the back it looks hollow and picking him up, he feels light.
But, I guess, you can still play with and do a fair bit of stuff with him, so in that respect he is a fun toy.
Peacemaker...
(No, not the John Cena DC one) is pretty cool, They've made him from completely new bits and while not as awesome as the one that comes with Legends Topspin, it's decent enough and forms a robot and a gun mode that is similar to the original, with an extra step!! Peacemaker can be hand held, or if you like, stored on the back of Pointblank. Sadly Pointblank's stubby robot-arms are too small to have Peacemaker cuddled. A shame, as all Transformers should be able to cuddle their master-buddy.
Robot mode is cute, but completely lacks any articulation. A shame, but considering how cut Pointblank is, we should consider ourselves lucky that we don't have to go searching for the TM buddy. *Ahem* Spinister, Crosshairs....
How about some hot gun-on-gun action?
If you happen to be so lucky as to be in possession of the ever so sexy Legends version of Topspin, you'll also have access to the ever delicious Targetmaster as the instructions so eloquently call him, but we all know, it's Peaceman, Blanker's targetmaster partner. Since I happen to have one, I thought I would see how this Pointblank looks with it in hand.
Eh, not too shabby.
If you dock Peacemaker into Peaceman's barrel (Oy, focus!) you can have PeacemanMaker super mode and I reckon it looks pretty cool! Take that Slugslinger, you loud mouthed braggart!
Looks like the weight of the powerful gun is causing some droop.
Transformation.
Transforming this guy is a terrible experience. The arms kinda waggle-fold to form the bonnet and front of the car, which is fine. But finding them a place to stay which doesn't interfere in the placement of the windshield is very tricky.
The legs, oh gawd the legs... The bony hips are purely because the legs flip over in typical fashion, but these bits that for part of the side of the car / bulk his chest up manage to always be in the way. They are attached on small ball joints, which are pretty loose, Which is good as they usually pop off while getting the feet into place.
While also dealing with that, you also have to faff (yes, faff!) about with the cockpit window and the toes. They really don't integrate together all that smoothly and no matter how many times I have tried it, I just can't seem to work out an easy way to get everything to run smoothly. It's a fiddly pain the arse.
Once you do have things in place, waggle the waist bits to hook into the shoulders, and pin the toes onto those waist bits and the plug the cockpit in properly and you have vehicle mode.
Vehicle
Gotta admit, that's it's a very nice vehicle mode. Very sleek and future-space-like, I love the bonnet with the vent sculpting, and the paintwork on the lights (They could be lights) and the blue wheel hubcaps and the blue spoiler at the back of the car.
At the back, there is some engine detail. Originally this was a shield accessory, but it was cut in design. In fact, quite a bit was cut in design...
A slight diversion
A real shame as the prototype there looks pretty good. One thing I'd like to draw attention to is his hand was designed to attach the gun on the end of the arm like in the Japanese version of the Targetmasters. This explains a 5mm plug on the end of the gun. Sadly the port in the fist was dropped, so you can't do that.
Moving on...
The car mode is really solid, I really dig it, even without the engine shield thing. On the side of the car towards the back there are a couple of slightly hexagonal ports. I assumed they would be 5mm ports, so I slapped Peacemaker in there, only to see some stressing of the plastic. It would seem that it is a bit smaller than it should be on mine. Oh well. In fact, as I was photographing, I found that one side is a bit too small, but the other is fine.
The underside of the car is also pretty neat and robot parts are hard to find.
Luckily Peacemaker has an official mounting spot for vehicle mode. If you pop him there, he fills up the gap between the legs a bit better and looks pretty cool. Just make sure the angle is right, otherwise Peacemaker will blow a hole right through Pointblank's cockpit roof!
I think it looks great. Blah blah, yet another roadblasters comment. (Roadblasters seemed to have a major effect on me, despite me never really playing it much, or being good at it... I guess cars with guns are cool?)
Another little addition I really like is you can kind of see a shallow seat and details sculpted in to where a driver would sit.
One thing I do find a bit odd, is the general car design. At the front, we have very nice, sleek, angled bonnet leading up to a smooth transition to the window. However at the end of the window the car turns to boxy, odd matching pieces, almost like the back of the car doesn't match the front.
However looking at his tech specs, he has a speed rating of only 4, so maybe he isn't meant to be a speedster. It is more obvious on the G1 toy as the front of the car isn't so sharp and speedy looking and a bit more tough car looking than this one.
This one does look pretty speedy though and I think he should go pretty well with Hot Rod you know.
He also look all right with other Autobots of the same era. Apparently his function is leader of the Autobot Targetmasters ( according to the TF Universe comic), well Chromedome was leader of the Autobot Headmasters, which must've been a bit awkward what with Fortress chilling out somewhere with a massive battleship... Incidentally, his toy bio has his function as and "Enforcer."
So let's wrap this up hey?
I find myself somewhat conflicted with this guy. I really want to like it a lot, and being a Targetmaster, I should like it a lot, but I don't. I think it all comes down to timing, ever since the Siege line started, I must admit that I've found Transformers to fall within the "pretty good" to "Damn this is amazing" mark fairly regularly. None of them have been particularly disappointing, but Pointblank is flatly within the "just OK" mark.
In a way this kind of shows how good we've had it for Transformers lately. Had Pointblank come out earlier, I would probably be more positive, but as it is here, he is solidly in the "just OK", as previously stated. The good things he do are cancelled out by the bad.
Good things: Looks cool, is Pointblank with Peacemaker, great legs.
Bad things: that shitty fiddly un-fun transformation. Dodgy arms. Bad looking hips.
I do wonder though, had I not seen the prototype and what was cut, would I feel differently? Probably not, I just wouldn't understand WHY Pointblank is like the way he is. The thing I dislike the most is that he is just a pain to transform. It's not even like it's a difficult transformation, it's just a real pain to get bits where they need to go without fiddling with other bits.
Therefore, my final superfluous rating is:
Just OK
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