So, remember how I bought those He-Man cartoon figures?Well, the only problem was, it got me jonesing for more cartoon-accurate 80’s figures for the collection. Which led me to G1 Transformers, which led me to Super7 Ultimates, which led me to realizing that pretty much everyone I wanted was still available, which led me to some of them being on sale at BigBadToyStore, which led me to one of them being Grimlock, which led to a very large box on my doorstep.
I think they’ve done like 20 or 24 of these so far, and I wanted five, which is sort of reasonable? We won’t discuss the order total.
Note, these do not transform. There are those who would ask “what point is there in a Transformer that doesn’t transform?” To them, I would ask - who wants to look at a Transformer in vehicle mode? Nobody. Who wants to fuck around with fiddly transformations? Not this blind guy. Hell, I have two bins worth of 90’s Transformers that I’d love to get into vehicle mode just to stave space and eventually send them on to new homes but I can’t do that shit anymore.Give me the best mode, which in all but one case is the robot mode. Speaking of.
HIM GRIMLOCK! In dino mode, of course. I’ve literally been watching the G1 Transformers cartoon for the last two weeks on Tubi and I still couldn’t pick Grimlock’s robot mode out of a lineup.
He’s a robot T-Rex who comes with an apron and serving tray because if Super7 loves anything, it loves weirdly specific accessories that reference a thing that happened one time. He also comes with a crown, an ensmartening helmet, a barely articulated Wheelie who can ride him, that fish for some reason, and extra hands. And probably two other things I’ve forgotten about.
Super7 Ultimates will always sacrifice articulation for accuracy, but of all of these, Grimlock is the most surpringly posable given his shape and size. He’s a big boy, on par with the Dragonzord. Yes, I’ll be making those wo fight at some point. Within those limitations, though, he can get to and hold a suprising variety of poses.
Starscream is the most poseable of the standard robots, with few limitations at the hips and waist, plus hinges at the wings and swivels at the arm guns. He also comes with a bunch of stuff, although getting him to hold his gun accessories was… maybe impossible? Anyway like all of these, looks great, moves OK with flaws, comes with piles of bits and hands and, except for Grimlock, at least one bonus head that I will never use.
Megatron, and Soundwave who’s up next, both make SERIOUS sacrifices in hip and waist mobility for the sake of authenticity, which is disappointing even though I know what I’m getting into with Super7. Again, bunch of weird stuff like that electrical sprite, odd feature where you can drop a chest panel to reveal holographic “anti-matter” stickers, hands, heads, etc. He seems a little squat but Megatron’s proportions were WILDLY variable in the cartoon so this is a reasonable average.
Starscream, seen here stealing Earth’s supplies of energy, comes with the fewest accessories and most hands of any figure. My theory on why he comes with a bajillion hands and not, say, little figurines of Ravage, Laserbeak, and Rumble, or at least three cassette tapes, is that his hands are the same color as Optimus Prime’s and Optimus doesn’t come with a lot of hands. Or they knew he’d be crazy popular and could skimp.
He does come with a transformed version of himself and an Energon Cube, and his tape deck pops open and can hold the cassette, and his back opens up to hold other accessories, but he has the same waist/hip thing as Megatron, maybe even worse. But man, Soundwave is COOOOOOL.
Finally, Optimus Prime, who again goes ham on accessories, with heads, some hands, ion cannon, energy axe, little Spike, Matrix of Leadership, oh and also a basketball and a hand specifically to hold it and a goddamned surfboard. FOR REASONS. Reasons I love, even if I don’t fully understand.
Optimus has great leg mobility, but the weird thing here is the elbow joints, which go maybe 30 degrees before the box arms hit each other. Which seems maddening. You look at the arms and it seems like they should be able to bend farther but they don’t. But that’s Super7 for you.
Anyway, it was a slightly foolish impulse splurge and I do have some issues with them, but there’s no denying how much they look like their cartoon counterparts, so overall, it’s a win. I’m sure they’ll do something with Bumblebee at some point - maybe because he’s so small they could do like a multipack with him and Ravage and Laserbeak and Rumble,. A man can dream.
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