Armada Starscream

Do you know what almost drove me from Transformers for good?  No, not Dreamwave.  The Unicron Trilogy.  Thank goodness for the book-style reissues and the things that Brad Mick was trying in the Dreamwave stuff.  If not for those tidbits of goodness, the Unicron Trilogy would've driven me off for good.  So, why did I get Armada Starscream from the Generations line?  Simply put: I actually liked this design, but the original was poorly executed in my eyes.

The original tfwiki.net

I'm still not sure why IDW went with the Armada body for the comics.  I'm certain that Hasbro had more than a small hand in that, but I still can't put my finger on why they felt the need to use it for the G1 continuity.  It's just shoe-horned in.  Whatever.

Here we have Starscream in a resting position.  See how relaxed he is?  This would be his everyday appearance, I suppose.  If you compare the original version to this version, the Generations one is so much better.  The arms are better proportioned, and the articulation is, naturally, better. 

Here's a shot from behind.  It's not for fan service or anything.  I wanted to point out the sword storage on the back of the wings.  Again, much better than the original version.

See?  Starscream doesn't look like a clipped bird when he's holding his swords.  I really like the articulation on this figure.  Oh, notice the ports on the forearms?  Those are for minicons.  As far as I know, there aren't any planned for release in the Generations line. Even if they were planned, they wouldn't activate anything; the gimmicks from the Unicron Trilogy are gone. 

As I look at Starscream, I think back to the Fall of Cybertron figures and I can't believe that they're in the same line.  The FOC figures featured so little articulation that it was sad.  They seemed like scaled up Legends-class figures.

Starscream has missile launchers that can be stored away when not in use.  Most depictions show the launchers up at all times, but I'm not too keen on this look, myself.

Jet mode is nice.  It's much better than the Fall of Cybertron jet-type.  Man, do I hate that thing.

I really don't have much to add about the jet mode.  It's a jet, and it looks pretty.  That's a review, right?

I can't believe that Armada is over ten years old now.  I'm old.  There are people out there who were introduced to Transformers with this series.  Thinking about how someone saw this series and fell in love with it blows my mind. Then again, I am a curmudgeon.  Thus ends this wave of Generations Deluxe figures.  I have one more new release figure before I go into some vintage guys.  Up next - Masterpiece Soundblaster with Ratbat! 

Classic Pretender Starscream

www.botchthecrab.com

For some reason people don't respect Pretenders.  I posted a pic of my latest purchase, Classic Pretender Starscream on a couple of Transformer Facebook groups and there were those who asked "Why?" or "I hate Pretenders!"  Really?  Apparently I was the only 11 year old that head the phrase "Pretenders hide the Transformer inside" and thought it was cool.  Whatever.

TFWiki.net

To coincide with the 50th issue of the Marvel Transformers comic, Starscream became an all-powerful megalomaniac who gained his powers from the Underbase.  It made him extremely large.  The two beings in the bottom of the picture?  Scorponok and Optimus Prime in his Powermaster form.  So, yeah, huge.  As a result of absorbing the vast knowledge contained within the Underbase, Starscream exploded and died.  His remains were collected and somehow wound up back on Cybertron with Megatron.  After a kidnapped Ratchet was coerced into repairing Starscream, we were given this:

TFWiki.net

Pretender Starscream!  Once his repairs were completed, he went to Earth and wreaked a bit of havok.

TFWiki.net

And then the shell was never seen again.  It's purpose had been served, however.  I wanted this guy.  After some cajoling with my parents, I was finally granted an opportunity to get him, and I was pleased as punch when I did get him.  This was my first ever Starscream.  I was denied the original version when I was younger due to my parents constantly getting me Autobots.  Finally, I had a Starscream.  Then after a bunch of moves, I lost most of him.  Here is all that remains of my Classic Pretender Starscream:

There are a few things I never really liked about this version of Screamer.  The first being the grey head.  I'm just not fond of it.  Second, there's the blacks on the figure.  I have no idea what kind of paint they used, but it scratches off very easily.  The same thing happened to my Classic Pretender Jazz.  As you can see. I attempted to use a Sharpie to color in the canopy once the original paint came off.

I've been actively looking for a complete Pretender Starscream for quite some time, but that's a tall order.  It's very difficult to locate a good condition figure.  There's the aforementioned paint issues with the blacks an then there are issues with the shell.  Thanks to the helmets, most humanoid pretender shells have a lot of paint wear on their heads.  Quite fortuitously, I stumbled into a great deal on eBay.

Do you like heavy metal?

 Starscream's shell is very spiky.  Spikes equate to evilness, I guess?  I also imagine him as the mascot for a cheesy '80's metal band.  

As you can see, there is very minimal paint wear to his head, which makes me very happy.  One note about that face - even as a kid, I thought the face was very funny looking.  I nicknamed the shell Bubba because he just reminded me of a redneck.  What's the condition of the inner robot, you ask?

Other than the jacked up leg stickers, this is a perfect condition figure, in my opinion.  I'm amazed that I got one with the paint still on the canopy.  Especially considering the price I paid.  I really to wish that this version of Starscream had arm mounted Null Rays, however.

Here is a back view.  There is one tiny nick on the canopy, but I can live with that.

Jet mode.  As you can tell, the guns become tail fins.  Starscream's transformation is extremely simplified.  Just flip up the nosecone, flip the wings around and place the guns in  place.  Voila!  Instant jet.  

When Starscream goes into his shell, the wings tab into the back.  This will be the only time that the wings are in there because I know from experience that the posts will break from doing this too much.  Unfortunately, the small weapons have nowhere to go.  Guess they'll stay in a tackle box until needed.

I am so excited to have this figure again, you just don't know.  In my head, I keep hearing the familiar refrain "No, not Starscream!"  Now, I only need to finish my Pretender Jazz, and I'll have all of the Classic Pretenders again.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and I'll see you in the New Year!

Starsceam, Completed!

Well, almost.  I still need to get his cluster bombs, but I've been more of a fan of the longer missiles, so we'll see if I make that purchase.  After getting a little bolder with the peroxide solution whitening trick, I completely disassembled Starscream again.  I even managed to knock out the pin that holds the canopy to the rest of his body.  I practiced on an very old Thundercracker junker that I had laying around first to see if it worked and it did.  This had the added value of giving me the experience to tighten the canopies of my other seekers.

I think I may have left the solution out in the sun for too long, but I wanted to make sure that everything was the same shade since I had to purchase a few parts singly.  Even if he turned out a little lighter than he had originally was supposed to, I was pleased.  Here he is after I pulled him out of the solution and reassembled him.

I forgot to take pictures before I put a few labels on.

Robot mode

I finally got my shipment of decals in from Reprolabels.  I cleaned off Starscream again to make sure that there wasn't any accumulated dust or dirt on him and to take off any remaining sticker residue.  Labeling only took me a few minutes, which was shocking.  When I relabeled my Defensor, it seemed to take forever. 

This mold never gets old

This restoration wasn't completely problem free.  I realized after I had reassembled him that his nosecone was worse off that I thought, it looks like it's been chewed on and there's a tear in it.  That should be fixed in a few days when the junker body I ordered arrives for the custom Seeker I'm working on.  The second problem was that I couldn't get up the courage to fix the red paint on his chest.  Still, that's a minor concern for me.  I'm just happy that I resurrected a great figure that I wasn't even aware that I had. 

He's Getting Closer...

The eBay seller who sold me the long Starscream missiles that never arrived sent me replacements on Saturday and they arrived Monday. Unfortunately, they were yellowed. Fortunately, the seller gave me a refund and told me to keep the missiles. The project is getting closer to completion.

After removing all of his decals, I noticed that Starscream had yellowed considerably. It was really noticeable on the wings after the stickers came off. I could've just put the new decals on in the exact same positions that they were originally in on the wings, but even with tweezers, I'm not that precise. Two yellowed missiles and other parts?  That means one thing - peroxide!

I've never tried this trick before, but I've read about it. I'm super nervous about this. I hope that this works.

Here he is disassembled

 So I dumped all of that, minus the chest and nosecone into a glass baking dish, added the peroxide/oxi-clean solution, covered it in plastic wrap, and put it out in my front yard in the sunniest place I could find.  There was only one problem:

That was as sunny as it got

We've experienced a lot of stormy weather where I live over the last week, so it's been difficult to get any kind of sun for any length of time.  That coupled with the fact that I was extremely worried about this screwing up parts, I didn't make the solution very strong.  As a result, the yellowing improved some, but not enough.  The weather should improve next week, so I'll try again with a full strength solution.  I just got the launchers in, so by the time I get Starscream completely clean, my decals from Reprolabels should be in.

Still yellow

Bad Luck, or The Ghost of Starscream?

I've been working on completing the Starscream that I found in one of my storage totes. I should be done by now. I'm not.

It's not like I've been procrastinating about finishing him. I've stripped all of the old decals off and cleaned him. This guy's ready to go for detailing.

I'm still missing his launchers and long missiles. I ordered each weeks ago. I ordered the launchers on the 7th of May. They shipped the 9th. Lost in the mail. During the two weeks I waited to contact the seller, I had received multiple parts that I ordered after the launchers. Damn. But that happens, right? At least the seller was awesome and refunded me quickly.

Next, I ordered a pair of long missiles. They shipped on the 20th. Still haven't gotten them. Just contacted the seller, and he's looking into it, but I'm confident he'll make it right. I've dealt with him on numerous occasions. In both instances, neither was shipped with tracking. I think next time I'll just ask the seller to tack on tracking.

When the launchers didn't arrive, I just thought it was bad luck. Then I started to suspect my wife after the missiles failed to arrive. But after careful consideration, I think the ghost of Starscream may be meeting the mail person at my mailbox and taking the parts so he can return to exact vengeance. After all, only his parts haven't made it to me.

Pathetic fool!  You'll never complete me!

Projects

The other day, I received my MP-11, Coronation Starscream. As soon as I opened him, my wife looked at me with the "Another One?" look that she seems to get. My six year old and three year old just went "You got another Transformer? You're always getting Transformers!". After listening to all of this, I've decided to slow down on acquisitions for a month or so. Which is good, because now I can focus on a couple of other projects I've been putting off: completing a few figures.

Talking with other collectors, it seems that we all have at least a plastic storage tote of incomplete toys. I only have one, and it's not that full. Mainly my old Voltron, an old Robotech Beta fighter, and miscellaneous Transformers. I something like seven tackle boxes full of accessories. Digging through my tote, I came across Starscream. When did I get this? I've never owned a Starscream before his Classic Pretender incarnation. I dug into the tackle boxes to see if I had any of his accessories.

I managed to find his left wing, the tail fins, and the rudder fins. I'm still perplexed as to how he came into my possession. Oh well, that just means I get to complete him!

That Starscream is sneaky

Scouring eBay, it looks like it would be cheaper to just buy an Encore version, but it's not the same as owning the original, you know? And the Encore versions have a lot of tampographed stuff, which is fine, I suppose. The real fun is getting out my tweezers and applying the decals!

I've already completed a couple of projects I've been putting off. One was getting new decals for my Defensor. Gotta say, I love Reprolabels. Really wish I had taken some before pics, my Protectobots were in bad shape, sticker-wise.

Really wished

Probably should've done a better cleaning job before reapplying stickers

Another bot that's needed decals for quite some time is my Bluestreak.  Bluestreak was my first deluxe class Transformer.  I got him Christmas of 1984.  My brother got Prowl.  Like a lot of kids, after a couple of years, the roof broke off.  I still had his weapons, and even his rifle was intact, so I was able to buy a body a few years ago for fairly cheap.  I kept putting off getting decals for him until last month, for some reason.

Hmm...stickered