Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Core Wave 2

Exo-Suit Spike Witwicky (kinda sorta ground vehicle)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Core2

So, this was one cursed wave. The pre-orders on Pulse sold out within
minutes, and then stores just sort of skipped it. Entirely. Went directly
to wave 3. There were a few spotty sightings, especially in the Walmart
holiday impulse displays, but otherwise if you wanted it you had to pay about
a 100% markup to a reseller.
I did not really want it, as it did not look very good.
Finally, one of my regular sighters spotted it on sale at Macy's website
(not as weird as it sounds, they currently run the Toys R Us brand and do
pop-up TRUs in their stores). And rather than being $15 or something, they
were on sale for $7. Of course, minimum shipping was $11, so I grabbed three
to bring the unit price down to under $11 each. (One for me, one for a local
friend, one to kitbash.) They sold out almost immediately after I made my
order.
So, a lot of trouble but at least not an unreasonable amount of money
for a toy of dubious quality. Then again, it doesn't have a lot of
competition, does it? The Buzzworthy version is Micromaster sized and
transforms by lying down, the one that came with Studio Slag doesn't
transform, and both of those are Daniel rather than Spike. Others come with
even more expensive main toys, such as Titan Master Leinad.

CAPSULE

Price point is theoretically about $12 for Core Class these days, but
good luck finding this for under $20 unless it gets folded into a future wave
that actually ships to stores.

Exo-Suit Spike Witwicky: The mold is a decent representation of the
animation model in humanoid mode, but the vehicle mode is a bit lacking. The
toy is overall also hurt by some corner-cutting around Spike's head. Very
mildly recommended.

RANT

Packaging: Same shape as other Studio Core figures, but immediately
obvious on the pegs because the art is dominated by a cel-style depiction of
Spike from the movie, rather than greebly tech background into which the
robot blends. There's some Unicron innards background, but it's low detail
and doesn't distract from the main figure.
Like other Core Class, it lacks the designation number that larger
Studio Series toys have, so no "86.xx" deal on this, nor do they list a movie
scene or give a bio blurb. The package is branded with the Autobot symbol,
because while Spike is not technically an Autobot, he's kinda one by
adoption.

AUTOBOT: EXO-SUIT SPIKE WITWICKY
Assortment: F3142
Altmode: Sort of a vehicle
Transformation Difficulty: 11 steps
Previous Name Use: None as a solo act
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Transformers the Movie
Scene: Not listed on Core packages.
Quote They'd Use If They Had Guts: "Oh ****, what're we gonna do now?"

Packaging: Five plastic ties hold the humanoid mode to the backing card,
which has more generic Unicron's Innards pipe background. The two Fire
Blasts are wrapped up in tissue and taped to the back of the card. Note, in
order to fit in the tray, the arms have the shoulders rotated so that the
wheels are on top, but they should be in back. There's even a three step bit
in the instructions to point this out, now that I actually look at them (yes,
I write reviews in a "jumping around as I figure things out" way).
The renders on the back show the figure being white and a neutral light
gray, but the actual toy uses more of a desaturated light blue, way more blue
than even a "cool" gray.

Robot Mode: Well, "human in a robot suit" mode. The proportions are a
bit odd...I'd always figured these suits were of the "pilot is curled up in
the torso, all the limbs are waldos," variety. But Spike's head is too big
for that to work, while actually trying to put his limbs into the limbs of
the suit would quickly lead to many broken bones. And yeah, that was a
problem with the animation as well, even Daniel would have had a hard time
stuffing himself into just the torso. All that said, and allowing for how
inconsistent with scale the cartoon could get, this is a pretty accurate
representation in terms of the shape. The two main departures are that the
arms are hinged rather than being bendy straws, and there's wheels mounted on
the shoulders of the toy so that the vehicle mode can actually sort of roll.
Okay, the third is that Spike's head is hollow in back, which is a touch on
the disturbing side. And he has no eyes, that's a problem too, but it's a
paint issue rather than a mold issue.
3.25" (8cm) tall in mostly white and a light desaturated blue. Someone
seemed to have taken the 80s animation "blue shading to simulate metallic"
trick a little too literally and decided to go with blue rather than silver.
The torso front, the head piece, the outer forearms/fists (the forearms are
made of two pieces with a swivel between them so that the fists can rotate
backwards for blasting mode) and the boots are white plastic. The torso
back, shoulders, wheels (on shoulders and inside the backs of the boots),
upper arms, inner forearms, and thighs are light desaturated blue plastic.
The bubble helmet is clear colorless plastic, while the thruster Fire Blasts
are clear bright yellow plastic.
The face is painted "white people" fleshtone with no eyes or other
features, and the hair is glossy medium-dark brown. The sides of the bubble
helmet are painted gloss white. Little details on the chest are painted red,
gold, and light desaturated blue (that one I think is taking the shading of
a depression too literally). The light desaturated blue is also used on the
kneecaps and shins. The fists are painted a darker blue-gray.
The head turns, the helmet swivels independently of this (for
transformation), the shoulders have swivel roots and then hinges to lift the
arms to the sides. There's a transformation joint in the mid-bicep that can
allow some elbow-ness, but otherwise the arms are fixed at a 90 degree angle
with the elbow joint being a swivel...the arm articulation is mostly aimed at
the transformation rather than being good arms. It all does let you
reconfigure the arms to look like shoulder mounted cannons, though, something
not in the instructions. No waist joint, the hips and knees are ball and
socket joints. Oddly, there's also a very hard to bend hinge above each
knee, which is used for transformation in the instructions, although I didn't
even notice it was necessary until I started wondering what it was there for.
(Little notches in the kneecap tops fit onto tiny tabs on the thighs to help
stabilize things.)
In a clever bit of design, the little tab to let you turn the head
despite it being encased in a bubble. Note, if you decide to fill the hollow
head and paint it like I did (picture links below, although I hadn't
realized at the time I took the pictures that the shoulders were wrong
in-package), don't paint the rim of the head base. I did that, and now the
entire helmet turns, rather than the head turning inside the helmet.
The hands can hold 3mm pegs, but the forearm details on the blue part
(that look kind of like blasters as well) get in the way of anything too
big. There's a 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis, and the elbows end in
3mm studs for the placement of the included Fire Blasts. They missed an
opportunity, there's a molded jetpack but it has no 3mm studs, so you can't
attach the Fire Blasts there as thrust.
The two Fire Blasts are pretty simple thrust pieces 21mm long with
8-fold symmetry and a blunt cone at the tip. They are not rubbery plastic,
so they require a good fit to stay on (and the tip can't be jammed into a 3mm
socket and stay...it'll go in, but it won't deform to grip). On closer
inspection, they might be made of the same clear colorless plastic as the
bubble helmet, with clear yellow paint over them. There's nowhere to store
them other than on the elbows.

Here's the pictures of my custom job, which I completed before finishing
this review, thanks to having two copies of the toy and reviewing the one
that's at the office:

http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/StudioSpike1.JPG
http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/StudioSpike2.JPG

Transformation: Rotate the boots 180 degrees at the knees and bend those
hinges in the thighs to shorten the legs, then peg the boots together.
Rotate the helmet 90 degrees so that Spike's face is hidden. Rotate the
shoulders so that the wheels point forwards (from the perspective of a
standing person) and mess with the arms until they're kind of like Star Trek
warp nacelles. There's not enough range of motion in the arms to let the
forearms actually connect over the body, and the swivels between the two
halves of each forearm don't have notches to secure them in position so the
white parts are easily moved askew.

Vehicle Mode: Okay, they don't have a lot to work with here, as the few
times we saw the vehicle mode in the movie and S3 it wasn't very impressive.
Pretender inner robots had more convincing vehicle modes, and there was a lot
of "parts come out of or go into subspace" to even make what they showed
work. The Spike that came with Buzzworthy Bumblebee, which just lay down and
folded a panel over, probably got about as close as anything shy of a
Masterpiece-level panel-madness transformation is gonna get.
3.25" (8cm) long not counting the thrust pieces (it really only loses
about 2mm to the leg bend bit), 3.5" (9cm) with them on. No new colors of
plastic or paint visible. Technically no articulation that doesn't involve
untransforming, other than the head rotation. It rolls okay, I guess, with
the rear wheels being a bit smoother than the front ones.
I mean, as Studio Series Core Class goes, it's not the worst altmode,
but that's only because Ravage turns into a trash-compacted version of
himself.

On Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 9:04:22 AM UTC-7, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> The package is branded with the Autobot symbol,
> because while Spike is not technically an Autobot, he's kinda one by
> adoption.

He was made an honorary Autobot at the end of "Desertion of the Dinobots" part 2.

> Vehicle Mode: Okay, they don't have a lot to work with here, as the few
> times we saw the vehicle mode in the movie and S3 it wasn't very impressive.

Vehicle mode never appeared in season three, though it was used in the Headmasters cartoon in Japan.

Zob (pedant-at-large)