Joint Junkie: Cyberverse Ironhide

When I picked up Cyberverse Dreadwing several months back, I also picked up Cyberverse Ironhide, another figure in the same wave of this sub set of the Transformers: Prime toy line.

I’ll admit that I picked both of these guys up mainly for the fact that they were relatively rare, packed something like one per case. While the shelves were filled with Starscreams, Optimus Primes, and Megatrons (even Bulkhead was pretty easy to spot), there was usually only a single pair of these two toys for every branch of Toys ‘R’ Us and Toy Kingdom. I’d passed on them the first few times I’d seen them, but I eventually caved in to the that nagging voice in my head that told me that if I didn’t get them now, I’d be missing out.

Sometimes that voice is right, sometimes it’s wrong.

While both Cyberverse Dreadwing and Ironhide are good looking figures, I don’t think I would really regret not having them in my collection. I gave Cyberverse Dreadwing a good grade in my review of the figure, but I’d qualify that to say that it’s not a “must own” toy. It can be loads of fun if you’re willing to spring for the play sets, but the sub line is not for everyone and many of the figures don’t impress as much as that one did.

Cyberverse Ironhide is a case in point.

The figure shares the same white Transformers: Prime Cyberverse packaging that comes with the rest of the newer figures. Again, it’s different from the predominantly dark packaging of figures like Cyberverse Guzzle which came out during the reign of the Bayformer trilogy. I’d say it’s an improvement on those graphics, but I’m not sure that its really that eye-catching on the toy store shelf. I have a feeling it would have looked better if they’d just packaged him as a car.

At least this time, the “Heavy Munitions” blurb on the front fits with his “Snap-On Cannons!” and again, I love the subtitle, “Command Your World.” It fits so well with the unique selling point of toys in this scale.

As I mentioned, the toy comes packaged in robot mode. I’d been passing on picking up Ironhide because I just wasn’t sure that the robot form was successfully executed. It didn’t look good in the package, and it doesn’t look all that good on the back in the product photo. There is just something awkward in the way the figure stands and the way it holds itself.

When I got him out of the package, I could see immediately that my initial impression of the figure was right. Though he does have a surprising number of points of articulation, many of those points are obstinately uncooperative and getting them to move the way you need them to requires just enough effort to be annoying. On the whole, he's annoyingly un-intuitive.

His set of joints are really odd. He's got traditional knees and kind of has elbows. Instead of having traditional shoulders, he's got some sort of collarbone under his pauldrons that holds the arms out to the proper distance. There's a ball joint underneath, but it's tight as hell and whenever I move his arms, I'm afraid that the connecting limb in there will just snap in two.

Underneath that odd joint, before we reach the elbow, he's got another hinge that lets him swing his arms out. Then you get the elbow, which is a pain as well, locked in by all the stuff going on around it. Kibbles and bits. I especially hate the way that the roof parts are supposed to wrap around his fists and cover them entirely. When I transform him, I just pop them off and switch them around to the outside of his fore arms, that way they look like useful armor instead.

He does a little better down below. His feet bend inward on a hinge that is a result from his transformation design. It allows him to keep his feet firmly on the ground, but it's not really needed at this scale. All it results in is that his lower legs and feet look HUGE, and not a little bow-legged.

The sculpting of the toy looks pretty spectacular. Unlike the Deluxe Class version of Ironhide (or Sergeant Kup, since he was released first), the proportions look really great. He looks wide shouldered, and appropriately looming. From certain angles, he looks great (much like the Cyberverse Commander Ironhide from the movie line), but there are many areas that are hollow or look thin if seen from the side or back. If you're going to display him, he's got to be seen from the front.

He comes with two accessories, or one, depending on how you see it. The Cyberverse line comes with small weapons that have either C-clips that clip onto posts on your Transformer, or posts and holes so that you can fool around with multiple weapon configurations. This one gets the latter, with two energon cannons that come in the translucent plastic that the Transformers: Prime toys come with these days.

Honestly, I prefer the plain weapons that we got from the movie line, since you can't really see the detail that they've put on these accessories. Each of the cannons has multiple 3mm posts, and they can be combined end to end to create a kind of rifle. He can't really hold the thing well, but with some work, you can fake a two handed grip.

With the extra posts, you can also use the weapon as a club, or store the thing on his back or on the backs of his fore arms, where there are holes to accommodate the guns (unless you flip the roof parts around like I did, since that covers up the holes).

Changing him into a vehicle is pretty involved for such a small thing. His feet are the pickup truck's bed, the arms are the doors and roof, while his torso and head go under the hood. It's the standard layout, as simple as the old Gobots, but the design makes me think of Universe Galvatron: too complicated for it's own good.

Still when you're done converting the thing, he turns into a really, really nice pickup. It makes me wish the Deluxe Version looked as bad-ass as this one.

I'm still on the fence on whether or not I want an Arms Micron Ironhide (AM-20). I'm not really a fan of the transforming target master microns (in this case, Iro, who is orange and turns into one of the cannons that you see above) and the Sergeant Kup toy really turned me off to the mold.

I kind of wish that they could make a Voyager Class version with both cannons, the Cyberverse version's proportions, and the articulation of the Deluxe Class version (sub par as it is).

It kind of annoys me that Ironhide always seems to get the short end of the stick, from getting shot in the chest and then having his head blown off in the original movie, to then dying unceremoniously in the Bayverse, then to having the crappiest upgrade in the Classics/Universe/Generations line, then this.

Come on, Hasbro. Where's the love?

Pages

Cyberverse Ironhide

No comments:

Post a Comment

Disqus for Joint Junkie