Metalhawk, Botcon 2012 Final figure review

So I finally have my new face for Metalhawk, actually, I don’t know why I used finally. After I emailed funpub in regards to the face I received before, they sent it out pretty much right away and I had it within a week or two at most.  Cheers guys.  Thus I now have  the final review I will do for the Botocn 2012 (Mainly because I don’t feel the need to hunt down the attendee figures at all this year), the leader of the Autobots on the Skyhammer over Japan, Metalhawk.

 

Metalhawk was a Pretender back in the day.  I know a lot of people dislike Pretenders as the robot is usually sacrificed so that they fit inside their monster/human shell.  I have a soft spot for them, as you kind of get two figures and their rubbishy look is cheesy and baffles the mind as to what vehicle they are sometimes.  Now he doesn’t have a Pretender shell, but he still manages to covey the organic feel of Pretenders. 

 

So how does a shell-less Pretender rate?

 

Something’s not right…. Gigatron

Just note, there is a lot of thought-working-through that goes on in this post.  If you want to know what I think straight away, scroll to the last line where I finally managed to work it out.  Then you can enjoy the pictures as you see fit.  Otherwise, just keep on reading.

 

So here we have probably the most controversial choice in this year’s Botcon set.  It is Gigatron.  Or the character he was inspired by, Overlord (from Master Force).  The original toy was an impressive massive dude, who was made of two characters.  He was a Power-Master, so he had two engines that Transformed and connected to his chest.  The engines were Giga and Mega.  Obviously Mega has gone somewhere and here we just have Giga.  The original toys transformed into a space shuttle and a tank as  well as a sort of base and a large, impressive robot mode.  It is very cool and now very very expensive thanks to a comic book.

 

THIS version of Overlord (hereby referred to as Gigatron to avoid confusion) is re-using the body of Bludgeon from the Hunt for The Decepticons line that was a space filler after the Revenge of The Fallen movie.  The reason for the controversy is this, Bludgeon was a samurai character and the body is well designed to represent a samurai body with swords and armour.  It also has a skull theme going on, which is good for Bludgeon as his face was a skull.

 

While the tank is appropriate for an Overlord homage, in my opinion the robot mode is not.  So now that that ugly business is out of the way, let’s get on with a look at the toy.

 

Evil Ultra Magnus!

 

This year’s Botcon set is an eclectic set.  A bit of a mish mash ideas, it reeked of desperation and a lack of ideas.  It contains a mix of ‘classic’ (G1-ish normal) characters and some from the ‘Shattered Glass’ series, which was an opposite ‘universe.’  So the Autobots are the bad guys and the Decepticons are the good guys.  Shattered Glass was done a few years ago and I really liked the idea.  Seeing it again so soon though made me think, “Hmm, this is a bit sad.”

 

I thought that the set was going to be a bit lack-lustre this year and the figures a bit rubbish.  Well, the set is a tad lack-lustre, but the figures are surprisingly well done.  Well, the ones I have looked at so far anyway.

 

Ultra Magnus here is one I thought would be pretty good and was looking forward to, as he has an opaque head…

Badly Written Bios - Fisitron.

Fisitron
Function: Weapondry Expert 
“A brilliantly designed piece of firepower is a work of art”
Fisitron is an overly enthusiastic maker of tools, and the genius behind some of the most effective weapons in the Autobots arsenal.  In his cozy lab he makes whatever comes to mind.  For each strange gizmo he dreams up, he also manages to develop devices that can turn an Autobot into a one-bot wrecking crew.  He always keeps a pair of nucleon shock gauntlets handy.  Although Fisitron created Optimus Prime’s laser axe, it is often credited to his rival Skyfall.

• Strength        - 8
• Intelligence    - 9
• Speed           - 5
• Endurance     - 8
• Rank             - 7
• Courage        - 6
• Firepower      - 8
• Skill              - 9

OK, for a start is ‘weapondry’ even a real word?  I can see my spellchecker doesn’t like it.  Surely they mean ‘weapons’ or ‘weaponry.’  Or even perhaps ‘Armourer’?  All of those would be a better option than some random combination of letters or odd suffixes to get their meaning across.

“For each strange gizmo he dreams up, he also manages to develop devices that can turn an Autobot into a one-bot wrecking crew.”
 I think the message of this sentence is a little bit off.  I would recommend dropping the ‘he also’ as with it, it implies that he is creating other strange things, like a “flavour-wave” that are unrelated to weapons and the weapons that are dangerous are just a side project, which is not the case.

The shock gauntlets look like they are just a side comment with no relevance.  It could have worked better is it was something like “His Nucleon Shock Gauntlets were one of his earliest inventions.”  Which justifies what they are and keeps them in theme of his inventing and weapons creation.

Finally, the spelling of ‘cozy’ as opposed to ‘cosy’ although I suspect this is an American fascination with phonetic spelling, like ‘apologize’ and ‘apologise’ and dropping the ‘u’ from ‘colour.’  I will let this slide.

On the positives, we finally have the correct usage of ‘Although’!!  Well, they use it often enough, so they were bound to get it right at least once.  Huzzah!


The Bio in question.

Badly Written Bio . Grimstone

Welcome to my first “Badly Written Bio” segment where I will rant and rave either about grammar, writing style or the message conatined within.  Our lucky first contender happens to be the Power Core Combiner of Grimstone.  Come on down!

Grimstone is here for two main reasons, please read the following bio, taken right from the side of his box.

Grimstone has always dreamed of power and the privilege it brings.  Despite his hunger for power, however <WHA? Why is this here??>, he has always  considered the needs of others before himself.  He believes it is the responsibility of the powerful to protect those less fortunate – A belief he intends to aggressively enforce now that he has his own Power Core Team.

• Strength       -9
• Intelligence   -6
• Speed          -3
• Endurance    -10
• Rank            -8
• Courage        -9
• Fireblast       -5
• Skill             -5

Now here we have another badly written bio.  An unnecessary ‘however.’  As well as the point that Grimstone here intends to “aggressively enforce” his beliefs upon others.  “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” is the call of Optimus.  “As long as it’s MY type of freedom,”  should be in a sub-clause.

Sure they may be beliefs that are well intentioned, but surely thrusting your views on others is only going turn them off.  Just like various zealots of many flavours, both religious and non-religious, although to be honest I can’t think of many that aren’t religion centric off the top of my head.  Aar, Autobots, Transformers and politics.  Gotta love it.  All this and they went to the effort of changing the Seacons to be more friendly.  I sometimes wonder if these bio-writers ever re-read what the write.

In this bio I see little that separates this Autobot from the Decepticons.  Here we have an Autobot willing to use force on others to make them follow his ideals.    Unless it means that now Grimstone is more powerful HE will protect those weaker than him.  If that is the case, then it should have been worded differently.  Perhaps the wording “aggressively defend” instead of enforce would be better.

Grimstone: “Hey, You!  It’s the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak”

Tough-Bot: “Yeah, I know, I am busy right now though”

GS: “Raaaarrgh! Not good enough! PROTECT THE WEAAAAAK! Or I will aggressively enforce my views upon you!!”

TB: “Man, I think I am going to punch you in your faces if you keep on like that!”