Decepticon Small Headmasters Fangry and Squeezeplay

I'm on the march to the end of the US G1 line, and it's been a slow, cumbersome process to get there.
Currently, I'm at a point where getting good specimens are going to be expensive, or there are characters that I couldn't really care about.  Seriously, getting excited about Micromasters is just hard.  The exciting thing is that I'm finishing a ton of subgroups along the way.  Recently, I completed the Decepticon small Headmasters when I got Squeezeplay and Fangry.

We'll start with Fangry since I purchased him first.  The interesting thing about the small Decepticon Headmasters is that the beast modes are comprised of two different animals.  For Fangry those animals are a wolf and a bat.  I think, I'm not entirely sure.  Based on some good old fashioned Andrew Wildman art, the wolf part is definitely right.

TFwiki.net

Man, could Wildman draw.  Love that guy.  Anyway, Fangry in real life does not look like that.

Fangry has a transformation scheme that I wasn't expecting.  His head goes where is, um, butt is and his tail splits into arms.  As far as robot modes go, it isn't horrible, but it isn't spectacular.  The purple just reminds me of late 80's Decepticons for some reason.  I keep wanting to say that Fangry is Roadgrabber for some reason, and I think it's because they use the same shade of purple.

Squeezeplay wound up being my favorite of all of the small Headmasters, Autobot and Decepticon.  He's supposed to be a crab monster thing.  I guess the claws are crab-like, but I'm also seeing some sort of snake.  Or I'm just wrong.  Either way, it still looks better than Fangry and Horri-Bull, even with the teeny, tiny legs.

The only downside to Squeezeplay is the monster head drooping down on his backside, there.  For the record, I wound up buying an unused Squeezeplay that was barely attached to the bubble, but Lokos was still sealed.  As you can see, he isn't unused anymore, but I still haven't busted open the packet containing the paperwork.

I think that Squeezeplay may be the most articulated G1 figure ever.  Dude can just straight pose.  Waist articulation and bending knees?  Hell yes.  Almost Masterpiece level, right there.  This is how I have him in my display case.  Just simply stunning.

Final shot: all three small Headmasters together.  Such a nice, nice grouping.

Joyride

Image from www.botchthecrab.com

Look!  Yet another subset of Autobots completed!  I should have completed the Powermasters much, much earlier, but I took my sweet time.  The Powermasters are some of my favorite figures in the G1 line, and it pleases me to no end to finally have them all.  Well, all of the U.S. releases, that is.  Japanese exclusives will have to wait.  For now, let's just celebrate the newest addition to my collection.

I think that one of the reasons I waited so long to get Joyride is that his alt-mode is just a dune buggy, and the only dune buggy that I care about is Beachcomber.  That is, until I found out that Beachcomber isn't a dune buggy.  Geez.  However, once Joyride was in hand, I was duly impressed with this mode.  Garish neon colors aside, the dune buggy mode is much better looking than pictures had me believe.  Maybe it was the joy of getting that last Autobot Powermaster making me love the mode more than I should.

Joyride's robot mode is pretty much what one would expect for a later era G1 figure.  His arms move at the shoulder and elbow...and that's pretty much it.  The legs are fused together because this is what many in the toy industry figured would help them pass safety laws.  In short, Joyride is just a brick.

But what's this?  Joyride is moving at the waist!  How is that even possible?  Could it be because of Joyride's transformation scheme? 

Pictured here we have my childhood Slapdash, Getaway, and Joyride.  Seeing them together like this, I'm a tad surprised at the varying heights of the figures.  I'm not complaining, as this just makes them a little more diverse.  Still, I can't believe that Getaway is taller than Slapdash.  I just realized that I've mentioned completing the Autobot Powermasters quite often in this post, but I haven't included Powermaster Optimus Prime.  He was...camera shy.  Or I didn't feel like pulling him out the overly complicated display case that he's in.  You be the judge.

Here we have Rev, Lube, and Hotwire all together in a get together of all of the basic Powermaster engines. 

What I'm most excited about is that getting Joyride allowed me to take this picture - every U.S. released Nebulon in one nice shot.  Eventually, I'll have one of the Decepticon Nebulons.

-FIN

Triggerbot Dogfight

Image from www.botchthecrab.com

I've been putting this guy off for a long, long time.  Dogfight showed up in my collection about the middle of last year, and the pictures have been sitting on my desktop for about the same amount of time.  Guess I better get this over with.

Before last year, this is what I knew about Dogfight.  He showed up in one issue of the old Marvel comic in a flashback.  That red and white truck?  That's Optimus Prime.  The other vehicles are the Triggerbots.  And Dogfight is the jet flying with his landing gear down because of Jose Delbo.  Oh yeah, Dogfight was also in another issue where he fought psychic vampires.  I'll just leave it at that.
So far, we're not off to the best start to endear a character to my heart. 

Much like the Powerdashers, the entire Triggerbot or Triggercon concept just never appealed to me.  While I love the Sparkabots, the trigger concept just didn't make me jump for joy.  When a subgroup does nothing for me, I tend to not spend a lot of time searching for a perfect specimen.  So for $8, this guy felt good enough to come home with me.

I was a bit thrown off with Dogfight when he arrived on my doorstep.  When I pushed the button to activate the gun mechanism, I could hear the sound of gears cranking and turning.  For a minute, I thought I had a Starcom vehicle.  Backstreet and Override feature spring based guns, so that is what I was used to.  The different mechanism that Dogfight features supposedly marks him as being meant for the Triggercons.  What changed, I don't know.

When the trigger action is used in robot mode, Dogfight's arms merely lift up.  I'll be honest, I've played with this feature a lot with Dogfight.  The sound of the gears just makes me giddy for some reason.  Hopefully, this doesn't trigger (Ha!) some sort of trip down a Starcom buying spree.  That would be...unfortunate.

Finally, this subgroup is finished.  The worst conditioned figure in this group is my childhood Backstreet, but I can't bring myself to replace him.  Also, who cares, they're just Triggerbots.  I suppose that I should start on the Triggercons at some point in time.  I'm not in a rush.

Nightbeat

Pic from www.botchthecrab.com

Let's try an exercise, shall we?  I want you to rank all of the Autobot Headmasters in order of best to worst.  Which one was your favorite?  Odds are it was Nightbeat.  Who do you have listed as your least favorite?  For me, the answer is obvious: Nightbeat.  Hey, I'm being a contrarian! 

Pic from TFWiki.net

I get why everyone loves Nightbeat so much.  He's pretty much Simon Furman's masterpiece, along with Scorponok.  Awesome detective solving mysteries?  Yes, please.  Drawn the best by British artists in the early 1990's?  Check.  Then why is it I don't like Nightbeat?  Man, that could be an entire article.  Let's just boil it down to this: all he does is solve "mysteries".  Nightbeat is one giant MacGuffin.  I know that the minute he shows up, he's there to solve some dilemma that's stumping everyone else.  There really isn't any depth to the guy, and I don't get why everyone loves him so much.  I mean, Needlenose has been given more depth than Nightbeat.  Needlenose!  Also, Nightbeat is the worst looking of all of the Autobot Headmasters.  There, I said it.

I remember when I first saw Nightbeat in the catalogs in 1988, right after I got Hosehead.  I took one look at him and just said "Nope."  Over twenty years later, and I still have that feeling.  I've put off getting Nightbeat in my collection for so long, that I entertained thoughts of just not ever getting him.  My collection would have been missing a very important piece, but I think I may have been okay with that.  That isn't to say that this figure is completely crap.  Now that I've spent some time with him, I've come to the realization that what makes him look so rough are those arms.  They don't look like they belong on him.  They're too long.  Everything else about Nightbeat?  The bee's knees.

I really like the Porsche mode, flame decals and all.  I don't know what they were thinking when designing the deco on poor Nightbeat.  "You know what would make this Porsche look great?  Flames!"  Even though I'm not a huge fan of the simplistic yellow/blue color scheme, it somehow works here.  You can definitely tell that Hasbro were gearing up for 1990's color trends here.

Nightbeat's Nebulon partner goes by Muzzle.  He's super yellow.  I really lucked out on this Nightbeat, now that I think about it.  I paid a lot less than what he normally goes for, and he's in such great condition.  I know that a lot of Nightbeats out there tend to get a bit of discoloration on the blues, but I have yet to run across any on mine.  Stickers are in amazing shape as well.

Like all of the small Headmasters, what Nightbeat and Muzzle lack in size, they make up for in accessories.  Unlike Siren, to open the cockpit in attack mode necessitates removing the gun on the roof.  It isn't a big deal.

This is one of those special edition Porsche's that only seat one.  And have a yellow interior.  And guns.

The gang's all here!  All of the small Autobot Headmasters together in one place!  It took awhile, but it was definitely worth it!  Sadly, I could have sworn that I had taken a picture of all of the Autobot Headmasters together, but I can't find it.  Which isn't surprising since I took these pics nearly five months ago.  What I'll show you is a picture of all of the Autobot Nebulons together.

So nice to see, and have, all of these guys.  One day, I'll have all of the Decepticon Nebulons.  Then the Japanese ones.  Guess that means I'll have to keep collecting...

Triple Takeover Part III - Octane!

Image from www.botchthecrab.com

Triple Takeover finishes up with Octane!  Of the Decepticon Triple Changers, Octane is far and away my favorite.  Yeah, he isn't some super aggro tank or fighter jet.  Sure, one of his modes isn't as awesome as a space shuttle.  You know what?  I could care less.  An evil passenger jet is just as good, maybe even better.

Image from TFWiki.net

Really, one of the main reasons Octane is so near and dear to me has to do with the above picture.  While Blitzwing had the nerve to stand up to Galvatron and work with the Autobots to stop the Quintessons, Blitzwing was merely banished.  Octane had brass ones the size of Cybertron's moons and he displayed them by defecting from the Decepticons and started hanging around the Autobots.  What's more?  He was hanging out with a freaking pacifist.  I wonder how Galvatron liked them apples?  At least on the show.  In the comics, he was pretty much background fodder.  So sad.

So here's an embarrassment from the past.  This picture was actually taken about three years ago when I thought I had decent equipment.  I did not then, and I do not now.  Fortunately, my photo taking knowledge and skill has progressed to the point where I'm not completely making a fool of my myself when displaying my pictures.  Low self esteem aside, this photo does point out just how ugly my childhood Octane had gotten.  As a kid, I had a habit of taking things apart to see how they worked - telephones, bikes, the occasional VCR, and toys.  Especially toys.  Especially Transformers.  My god did I love taking apart poor Transformers to see how they were engineered.  For the most part, when I put them together, the only evidence that anything had happened to them would be a decal with a hole in it, if it covered a screw hole, or a torn one if it was on a part that separated.  But Octane seemed to have fared worse than all of the others combined.  I think it had to do with the fact that there was something freaky going on with his midsection, but I could never figure out what I was looking for or even how to fix it.  I would later find out that I was correct on the waist, after reading TFWiki, but when I was 12, I didn't know.  As a result of all of the tinkering, I wound up with one crappy looking Octane.  Look closely at the above picture, and you'll notice that the wheels are missing on Octane's chest.  Thankfully, I lost the cover for the tanker mode, so I was able to quickly get over the agitation of replacing a childhood toy.  

Hey, look!  It's an Octane with wheels on his chest!  And paint left on the hood!  And decals on the shield!  Is he a K.O. reissue?  I hope not, because he cost me like $30 M.I.S.B., and I'd hate to think I spent that money on a cheap piece of plastic.  I kid, of course, but the fear of winding up with a K.O. kept me from purchasing a replacement Octane for a few years.  Thankfully, this one has enough wear to him to make me feel more than comfortable with the purchase.  Like any self respecting G1 figure, articulation is limited to the arms, but Octane is able to move both his shoulders and elbows in an up and down motion!  Jealous?

I don't know why I love the tanker mode so much, but I just do.  Could it be that I dreamed of becoming a truck driver one day?  No, I can't even imagine I'd last a day as a truck driver.  I used Octane's tanker mode like everyone probably did - refueling.  That's right, Octane drove the battlefield refueling Decepticons - and later, Autobots - with laser fire gonig off all around him.  That's a sign of bravery.  Keeping his fellow bots fueled is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Airplanes are sexy, and everyone knows it.  The thing is, it doesn't even need to be a fighter jet to be sexy.  Just tell someone at that you're trying to impress that you're a pilot, and they'll swoon almost immediately.  Flying a commercial jet is much more impressive to the ladies, I think, because it's hard flying a jet that large with that many people on board safely.  All of this is conjecture, of course, since I've only ever flown paper airplanes and an Airhog X-Wing Fighter that I hated.  The point that I'm trying to make is that Octane's jet mode is just as impressive as Blitzwing's.  Heck, Octane is even bigger than Blitzwing in jet mode.

Here's a picture that I could have easily taken years ago, but I was embarrassed.  Not because of my perceived lack of skills, but because of Octane's sorry state.  Man, it sure feels nice to have the gang all together again.  Six Triple Changers?  Check.  Still no clue on what to do with the old Octane, however.  He's too sorry looking to sell, even as a junker.  Maybe I'll just keep him in jet mode.  Man, now that I'm looking at this picture, maybe I should look at replacing my childhood Astrotrain...dammit.

Pretender Bugly

Picture from www.botchthecrab.com

I originally purchased Bugly last year, but I haven't talked about him due to worry that I had dominated last year with a lot of Pretenders.  You know, for a sub-line that claim to love, I seem to be in need of quite a few of them.  Bugly represents a bit of a transition point for me with Pretenders; I'm at the point where all that's left to get are the ones that aren't cheap.  Thankfully, I didn't have to pay a ton for him.  Not because I don't like him, but because he usually isn't cheap.

Photo from TFWiki.net

This is my only real recollection of Bugly as a kid.  I remember him vaguely from the catalog, but this is what sticks in my mind: the old product (Skywarp) getting the best of the new product (Bugly) before the new product wins out.  What really got to me was Skywarp using the word "nor", which is something I had never encountered outside of English classes.  It just hit my hear wrong.  It certainly isn't something that a robot from another planet would say, I'm assuming.

Did you know that Bugly is a practitioner of the deadly art of Circuit-Su?  Did you know that there was more to Cybertronian martial arts than Metallikato?  I sure as hell didn't.  Circuit-Su apparently deals with the mind.  I guess that's how Bugly was able to predict where Skywarp would teleport to next in the above issue.  Neat.  At any rate, Bugly certainly has one of the better looking shells.  I love how pointy it is.  Yes, Iguanus has a lot of points on his shell, but I think the colors and wings just make Bugly stand out more.  Sadly, with a great price come a couple of blemishes.  There is a nick on the paint on Bugly's mandible, but I can live with that.

  There is also to the standard bit of spotting on the shell, this time on Bugly's wings.  It isn't as bad as I initially feared, but it's still present.  I wish there was a way to remove that stuff.  The antennae, I think, are what really make Bugly pop to me.  There's movable, so they can be in a variety of positions.  I prefer the down position, but I may put them up from time to time.

When I took these picture, back in freaking December, I didn't realize that I forgot to take a standard picture of Bugly's robot mode.  I have this close-up of his torso, so we'll make it work.  Bugly has one of the better Pretender inner robots.  The colors are very complementary and work well together.  Lavender and purple look nice next to each other, no?  There could be some color on the eyes, but I'm not complaining.  I've decided to leave the jet fins up while in robot mode to give Bugly a deadlier edge.

There really isn't anything to say about Bugly's jet mode.  It literally looks like every other Pretender transformation ever.  And I mean ever.  Still, the colors are nice. 

Finally, a shot of Bugly standing next to his shell.  While I was writing this, I purchased two more Pretenders.  Couple those with what I have in the pipeline, this may very well turn into the Year of the Pretender!

Triggerhappy

Decepticon Targetmasters have had a mystical aura for me over the last few years.  As a kid, they were always on the top of my list to get, but I never managed to snag any.  Once adult fueled nostalgia kicked in, Decepticon Targetmasters became expensive totems to me.  Yes, I wanted them, but I didn't want to really pay that much for them.  Finding one in great condition, sans yellowing or broken parts with an intact Nebulon is difficult enough.  Getting one without mortgaging the future is nigh impossible.  Then I had the heart attack and I started getting a different outlook on life.  The first purchase I made when I got home was Triggerhappy. 

As a kid, Triggerhappy always appealed to me in the catalog that came with every figure from that era.  Something about that space ship mode just stuck in my head.  I've read where others believe that he shares some aspects with an X-Wing fighter, but I don't really see it.  I really wish that Triggerhappy had been used as a Headmaster just so we could have the canopy open.  That is one sleek spaceship.
 

I want everyone to take a good look at Blowpipe when he's not in gun mode.  This will most likely be the last time he's in this mode.  While mine isn't cracked or showing super serious signs of stress, I want to make sure that he doesn't break.  For the life of me, I don't know why Hasbro decided on clips for the legs on the Decepticon weapons but went with pins for the Autobots.  Mr. Brr-Icy pointed out a mod that I can do to Blowpipe that will take the stress off the clips, and I may try that.  If I try it and it works, I'll spread the word, but I have no reason to not trust what I've been told.

This is how Blowpipe will remain until I try the mod.  Triggerhappy, well, he'll be swapping modes a lot.  Lighting proved to be problematic during this shoot.  My Triggerhappy is not nearly this color of cream.  I'm not sure what happened, but the whites look yellow here.  Perhaps I should switch back to white backgrounds.  Whatever the case, I did come out with a very nice Triggerhappy.

 Here's a closer shot of Blowpipe.  While I only have the one large Decepticon Targetmaster, I think I made a great decision in making him my first.  In my opinion, Blowpipe looks better than any of the Autobot Targetmaster Nebulons.  Blue and grey work well together in this instance.  I'm extremely happy with Blowpipe.

As lovely as Triggerhappy is in vehicle mode, I find his robot mode much more desirable.  Still, something seemed off when I transformed him into robot mode.  It took me awhile, but I was finally able to out my finger on it - Triggerhappy's head seemed...off.  I went to TFWiki.net and figured out why my memories of this guy were incongruous with what I was holding in my hands.

Image from TFWiki.net

 I should have known that the figures in the catalog rarely, if ever, completely resembled what we actually got.  Especially when the prototype is using a painted Blaster head.  Duh.

Triggerhappy seems to be full of surprises.  Not only did he feature some nice leg articulation, thanks to the transformation scheme, but Triggerhappy also has some nifty arm articualtion!  His arms move at the shoulder, plus at the elbow.  This is something that I'm not exactly familiar with in figures of this era.  If there was some head and waist articulation, I'd say he has ready for some dynamic posing!  Alas, that isn't to be, but that doesn't mean that Triggerhappy isn't a phenomenal figure.  That price, however, leaves so much to be desired.  Collectors that only get MISB must be forking out a small fortune for him.  That's one Decepticon Targetmaster down, and the rest to go!