Welcome to part one of a three part series on Triple Changers I've acquired over the past couple of months. We'll start off with Springer first, since I seem to have to most to say about him.
I'm going to be completely honest and just say that I've never cared for Springer at all. Something about him just put me off when I first saw him in
The Transformers: The Movie, he just annoyed me. That annoyance carried over into Season 3 of the show, unfortunately. Thankfully, Springer wasn't featured in the Marvel comic, so I didn't have to deal with him. Maybe that's why I loved the comic so much? Even to this day, I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about with the guy. After
Last Stand of The Wreckers, I was worried that we'd be inundated with a metric ton of Springer appearances, but we were thankfully spared. My dislike of Springer is hard to pinpoint, and I've never given it much thought, but I'm sure it has to do with the bravado. I just don't get it; it's not like he's Grimlock or Omega Supreme.
Enough about my distaste for the character. Let's onward to the actual figure. We'll start with the Springer's most famous mode - the helicopter. Out of the three modes, this is by far the superior one. It would seem that most of the design time was used for the chopper. The blades feature some of the best spinning of any helicopter in G1 that I can remember. The arms sticking out of the sides don't really look too much like skids, but they're passable, I suppose. At least he doesn't look like a brick.
Speaking of bricks, have you seen the "armored car" mode? That's...that's a generous term, I think. Actually, looking at him at this angle, Springer looks like he was designed using very early 1980's 3-D computer graphics. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that Floro Dery just sketched out his designs. The most disappointing aspect of this mode is that Springer's gun won't even mount on the roof. I'd probably be a bit more forgiving if that were an option.
I loved the helicopter mode, and I wasn't too impressed with the car, which now leads us to robot mode. Robot mode, man I forgot how much I never liked that mode. As a kid, I grew up with many a brick of a Transformer, but Springer seems to take the cake. Yes, there's arm articulation, but it is horrendous. Any kind of side-to-side movement makes the chest pop up. If Springer is holding the sword, attempts to move that arm makes the sword fall over. This could be the result of the helicopter blades being a bit loose, but I seem to remember this happening to me as a kid as well. Yes, this is my second Springer. I was so disappointed as a kid with my first one that I traded him for other Transformers.
Maybe my childhood recollections of this figure have colored my perceptions. Perhaps Springer is just an awful figure that should be best forgotten. I know I'm in the minority, but I just don't like the guy.
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