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interests / alt.toys.transformers / Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Blaster & Eject

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o Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Blaster & EjectDave Van Domelen

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Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Blaster & Eject

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From: dvan...@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Blaster & Eject
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2022 06:01:34 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: Coherent Comics UnInc
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Originator: dvandom@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
 by: Dave Van Domelen - Sun, 6 Mar 2022 06:01 UTC

Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Voyager Wave 5

Autobot Blaster & Eject (Boom Box)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VBlaster

Another "one new figure and reships" wave. This one is kinda bridging
Kingdom and Legacy, as the clear plastic Eject feels like a Legacy
accessory...and of course the toy will be re-released in Legacy (and has
already been seen in Legacy packaging in France, according to TFWiki). With
the cancellation of a repackaged Earthrise Starscream, this is also the last
Voyager for Kingdom. This is notable as the first Blaster in a long time to
not be just a retool of a Soundwave.
(I'm guessing that Eject didn't need to be Autobot Eject because his
name is attached to Autobot Blaster, so the trademark applies to the pair of
them this time.)

CAPSULE

$30 price point.

Autobot Blaster & Eject: I have a couple of aesthetic concerns with both
figures (too much black on Blaster, not enough "anything else" on Eject), and
Blaster's transformation has a frustrating step, but otherwise they're good.
Recommended.

RANT

Packaging: Same as previous waves. The back has renders of both
characters in both modes, plus a call-out of Eject in cassette mode fitting
into Blaster's chest.

AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT BLASTER
Assortment: WFC-K44
Altmode: Boom Box
Transformation Difficulty: 20 steps
Previous Name Use: Gen, Gen:TR, Vintage (G1 didn't need the "Autobot" part)
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Six ties at five locations (the legs get a double tie) hold
the robot into the cardboard tray, two more ties hold the electroblaster to
the right side of the tray.
I got another copy of the Dinobot card where he becomes Dinocronus,
herald of Unicron.

Robot Mode: For the most part it's definitely G1 Blaster with more
articulation and fewer sticker details. It's definitely trying to keep with
the animation model rather than the toy, so there's proper eyes instead of a
split visor, black thighs instead of gray, although the animation model did
try to keep some of the stickers that this is lacking. The right hand is
molded with a button-pressing finger (it takes some work to get it to
actually push the belly button, though).
6.5" (16.5cm) tall in mostly red, gray, and black, with a yellow tape
door chest. Red plastic is used on the head, most of the torso, the pelvis,
the shoulders, the forearms, the buttflap, and the backs of the boots. The
tape door is red plastic but with the window part and the bracket inside that
holds Eject in place made of clear light blue plastic. Black plastic is used
for the neck, shoulder roots, biceps, inside of the forearms, fists, rifle,
lower thighs, feet, shin speakers, instep speakers, toes, and the handle
halves on the outer faces of the boots. Light gray plastic is used for most
of each boot, the upper thighs, hip joints, tapedeck button chunk, and the
latch inside the chest.
The face is painted light gray (decent match to the plastic), with
metallic blue eyes and silver forehead. The outer facing of the chest door
is painted bright yellow with a red Autobot symbol printed on it. Details on
the upper thighs are painted red, and there's black in the recesses on the
fronts of the shoulders.
The neck is a ball joint with a decent range of motion, the waist is a
smooth swivel. The shoulders are universal joints, there's bicep swivels and
elbow hinges. There's additional transformation joints in the forearms, and
the wrists bend inwards on transformation joints (the wrist hinges bend
outward for transformation, but they left in a decent inward bending range
which helps with pushing the buttons). Universal joint hips, mid-thigh
swivels, hinge knees, and the now-usual sideways hinges at the ankles. The
toes snap into place, so no useful articulation there. Pushing IN on the
chunk of tape control buttons, not down, triggers the chest to pop open.
Loads of sockets, but no pegs or studs (well, there's some pegs on the
outer faces of the boots, but they're for holding the handle halves in place
and aren't otherwise useful in this mode). The fists can hold 5mm pegs (but
the right hand's pointed finger means it does a poor job unless the peg is
pretty long...which his rifle's is not), sockets on the outer faces of the
forearms and shoulders, shallow sockets on the backs of the shoulders, three
sockets on the back in a shallow V formation, one on each outer boot face (on
the handle pieces, one on the underside of each toe. There's a 3mm socket in
the back of the pelvis, but you have to lift the buttflap to access it.
The rifle is inspired by the G1 Electroscrambler, although the big
earbud hole is now just a 5mm socket on either side that doesn't pass all the
way through. 3.5" (9cm) long, a single piece of black plastic. The grip is
a 5mm peg, and while the muzzle ends in a 3mm diameter bit, that bit is less
than a millimeter long, so it can't hold any Fire Blasts. There's a slot in
the grip that goes onto a rectangular tab in the small of the back for
storage, but this is mostly for altmode storage of the rifle, it looks better
stuck on the back via one of the 5mm sockets.
I suspect, from the lack of 3mm stud compatibility, that Legends is
phasing out the Fire Blasts other than those on redecos, with the Energon
weapons going back to something like Transformers: Energon did.
However, there is a bit of backwards compatibility here...the Siege
cassettes can fit into Blaster's chest just fine, they're the same size as
Eject.

Transformation: Pretty straightforwards except for how the arms need to
be folded up around themselves and the fists folded OUT rather than tucked
IN. The only part that might not be obvious at least in principle is how the
shin speaker cones need to rotate, and I stumbled across that when noticing
that they kinda shook around in robot mode (I wondered if there was a thumper
gimmick...there isn't). I will say that getting the boots over the fists
requires everything in just the right place or it won't snap shut. It's one
of those things where just applying force won't make everything slide into
the right place, either...too much friction in the wrong places.

Altmode: It's a pretty good update of the G1 boom box, although there's
a little too much black paint applied on details in the red part. Like,
these aren't G1 animation details either, just Moar Black. And there's more
red on the bottom edge, the molded bits that were gray in the animation model
were not painted gray to match.
5.75" (14.5cm) wide and about 3" (7.5cm) tall including the handle. The
core is mostly red, the sides gray, the handle black, the tape door yellow
and blue. The round speakers on the front and the sides are black plastic,
while the smaller speakers above and below the main speaker are painted matte
black. The tials and readouts on the front are painted gloss black, and what
would have been the border of the gray parts are painted black. Too much
black.
No articulation other than the tape door opening, of course. All the
back of shoulder and torso sockets are still accessible, and the handle has
two 5mm sockets on top (well, they go all the way through so they're also on
the bottom, but not much clearance under the handle). The toe sockets are
now on the sides.
The intended storage point for the rifle isn't very stable,
unfortunately.

Overall: A good update of the character, although the transformation has
some frustrations along the way.

AUTOBOT: EJECT
Assortment: WFC-K44
Altmode: Cassette
Transformation Difficulty: 8 steps
Previous Name Use: G1, various G1 reissues
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Two ties hold the cassette mode to the right side of the
inner tray.

Robot Mode: Well, Blaster doesn't get an Energon weapon, he gets an
entire Energon minion, as most of Eject is clear bright blue plastic. The
blue is brighter than on the G1 toy, but unlike Blaster this seems to be
going more with the toy model than the animation model. However, in order to
get the cassette mode more solidly blue, the forearms and toes are clear blue
instead of gray. On the definite downside, the figure doesn't stand up very
well, although you can help with stability by turning the toes apart.
2.25" (5.5cm) tall in mostly clear bright blue with some light gray and
gold. Clear bright blue plastic is used for the torso front, shoulders,
forearms, and boots. Light gray plastic forms the head, the torso back, the
upper arms, and the thighs. Details on the chest and pelvis are painted gold
(if not quite chrome), the faceplate is orange, and the eyes are metallic
blue.
The neck is a ball joint, there's no waist articulation. The shoulders
are swivel and hinge universal joints, the elbows are ball joints. The hips
are also pinned universal joints, and the knees are ball joints. So, pretty
good articulation for a Micromaster. The outer face of each forearm is a 5mm
socket molded to look like a cassette tape reel. The actual fists (which are
almost invisible due to a lack of paint) can't hold things, and there's no
3mm studs or sockets.
Unlike G1, he doesn't come with guns, although I'm sure someone will put
some up on Shapeways or Reprolabels.


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