Reflector

www.botchthecrab.com

After I finished my review of Deep Cover, I ran through the figures that I had left in my queue and I somehow completely missed Reflector.  How in the world could I forget a figure (group?) like Reflector?  It's time to correct this grievous error.

tfwiki.net

Reflector has a weird history.  He was featured pretty prominently in the first season, up to "Autobot Spike" and then he just became a background character.  As an 8-year-old, I never really paid attention as to the reasons why.  I just knew that I could never find him in the store.  Then around 1985, I noticed that he was available, but as a mail away.  The cost was pretty minimal - two robot points and a cool $10.  I always had robot points, and I was able to save the $10, but my money generally went to figures I could buy in the store.  For some reason, I didn't trust ordering toys.  How things have changed.

In the series, all three robots that comprised Reflector all looked the same, with minor variations of the chest.  All three also had the same voice actor, Chris Latta.  Once I actually laid eyes upon the Reflector toy, I had no idea why the animators decided to have all three look alike.  Time?  Cheapness?  Both?  Whatever the reason, it's an odd decision.

tfwiki.net

Reflector did make some appearances in the comics, but he didn't do anything worthwhile.  Unless you can count being tricked by Wheelie as something incredible and memorable.  For the record, I don't.

Gotta love the 1970's look of the camera.

Here's Reflector's combined form.  Does that make him (them?) a gestalt?  It's a fairly good representation of a single lens reflex camera.  I'm not going to lie, I did walk around pretending like I took pictures with him.  Notice the hole in the flashcube?  A missile can be inserted there, for an attack mode.

You never know when you're gonna have to shoot your way out of a photo shoot.

I feel like I got a decent price on Reflector, but I'm still not too happy with the seller.  The seller assured me that all of the joints were tight, but in fact, Spectro had a loose left leg, which is common from my understanding.  Still, when I asked him to make sure that everything was tight, he kept saying that everything was fine.  After I alerted him to the loose leg, he did give me a partial refund, which I suppose makes things better.  I still would have liked to have gotten a 100% tight Reflector, however.

Since I'm complaining about the loose leg on Spectro, I'll start with him.  The looseness of the leg can't be seen in this picture, but in camera mode, it's prone to falling down very easily.  Color-wise, he's easily my favorite of the group.  The simple red and black just makes a statement. 

Next, we have Spyglass.  He's pretty much like Spectro.  His legs are the inverse of Spectro, with the black trim of the camera on the back of the legs.

Finally, we have Viewfinder, the defacto leader in my mind.  Thanks to the TFwiki, I learned about the gun configuration seen above.  Now he has a huge honking cannon.  In camera mode, you can actually see through the viewfinder, which is neat.  Viewfinder was actually the reason I bought this particular Reflector from the seller.  I looked at the detailed pictures of the arms to see how uniform the gray plastic was.  Swirls here generally denote a knockoff and I can't have that.

I don't have a lot to say about Reflector, other than I'm glad to have finally gotten over a bit of my K.O.-phobia with him.  If you can find him at a good price and the arms on Viewfinder look good, I'd say pull the trigger.