It seems like only yesterday fans were swooning over finally getting an updated set of Stunticons in the Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors toy lines. Fan favorites, the Stunticons were the second ever combiner group to be introduced in the G1 Transformers cartoon and their rebellious attitude and sweet alt-modes gave the Autobots a run for their money on the roads. This has lead to them appearing in multiple toylines, from KRE-O to Bot Shots to even Robots in Disguise.
Well the Stunticons are back again – well – two of them anyway, with more along later in the year. Drag Strip was released several months ago and Motormaster – the latest Commander Class figure – has just hit stores here in Australia. So without further ado, lets have a look at Legacy Motormaster & Drag Strip!
Drag Strip
Robot Mode
There is a lot of yellow going on here, like a lot. The faux-engine in his chest and the guns and head break it up a bit, but this here fella is yella through and through I tell ya what! But he still a nice looking figure with good proportions, a very cartoon-accurate countenance and no big ugly combiner peg in his chest. Overall an improvement on what has come before. His articulation is quite good, with ankle-tilts and a decent range of motion in all his limbs.
His two pistols can be combined into one double-barreled gun and can also be stored on the backs of his thighs.
Vehicle Mode
A really beautiful and faithful rendition of the original toy, Drag Strip finally turning into a 6-wheeled racer again rather than a Mirage wannabe. There is very little to fault here and kudos to the designers for making him look sweet as!
The pistols can be added to his vehicle form, giving it a battle mode. Gotta say it is an improvement on the giant cannon that plugged into the back of the G1 toy. Overall this is a really nice figure with an intuitive Transformation and perhaps the nicest official Drag Strip figure we have ever had.
Motormaster
Robot Mode
The original Motormaster toy was quite different from his cartoon depiction. The toy had its body made from the trailer so was therefore grey, whilst the entire cab made up Motomaster’s feet. This made the toy a bit comical, although very easy to stand up admittedly, with his feet being the size of Prime’s alt-mode on their own! The cartoon kinda skirted around this by making Motormaster predominantly black, as if he was made up from just the cab like Prime was. This Motormaster comes with a trailer but the robot is made up solely of the cab, though they gave him little fake-cab feet, which are actually pretty cute, if quite odd. The lower legs are disproportionately big compared to the rest of him, but that beautiful face-sculpt more than makes up for it.
Motormaster has good range of arm motion, but very little swivel in the neck and the legs are too bulky to do much with. Still very good overall however and more cartoon reminicent than the larger Unite Warriors version.
Vehicle Mode
Now this is what I’ve been waiting for – Motormaster with a trailer! Just like I’ve often felt many Optimus Prime toys have been lacking when they come sans trailer, I was disappointed we got no trailer for any of the Motormaster toys subsequent to the original one. Though it’s not as long as I would have liked, it is an extremely welcome addition and really makes the toy for me. Motormaster doesn’t appear nearly as big as the other Commander-class figures in their alt-modes, but that is due to just how jam-packed with parts the trailer is. This mode is what made me want to go buy the figure, and it has (except for the quibble of length) not disappointed. Plus unlike the original toy the cab can detach too!
Base Mode
The original Motormaster toy had a sorta base mode, complete with a ramp for his little roller-drone to drive down. This base mode is by far an improvement on the original, with the entire trailer partsforming into a big gun emplacement. This helps make up for Motormaster’s lack of a rifle. It actually looks pretty sweet in person, and while not as cool as Sky-Lynx‘s shuttle launch bay, looks a lot cooler than Rodimus Prime‘s gun trailer. Given everything the trailer has to do to become both a gun-emplacement and parts for Menasor, the partsforming is forgivable in my opinion. The one silly thing is that Motormaster has to put down the sight in order to actually use the gun.
Between robot mode, truck mode and base mode this is easily the best Motormaster figure we have ever had, and we haven’t even got to the gestalt gimmick yet!
Menasor
(thus far)
It’s a bit hard to do a review of Menasor at this stage since only two of his five components have been released, but I’ll give it a shot.
Drag Strip Component
While they fully made up the limbs of the original G1 toy, in the cartoon the four smaller Stunticons seemed to simply plug onto pre-existing limbs to give them more bulk, and that is apparently the route they are going with this rendition of the Stunticons. Whilst I appreciate toon-accuracy, I’m not a big fan of this, and poor old Drag Strip has to literally split in half in order for Menasor to use his right elbow. It might be screen-accurate, but personally it’s not my cup of tea.
Motormaster Component
Motormaster himself converts into the upper torso of Menasor, whilst his trailer becomes the chest, hands, feet and, er…., exoskeleton of the rest. Once again partsforming is in play. It’s actually quite cleverly done and this mode, like all the others of Motormaster, consists of lots of tab-slotting which gives a lot of structure stability to the figure. I appreciate how the effect overall differentiates this Menasor from his CW/UW counterpart, who because of the design looked similar to many of his toyline gestalt peers. I will reserve judgement on his good this Menasor is until I get the remaining three Stunticons. The gun turret from the base mode stays separate to Menasor and is useable by him, though it does look a bit odd, with it being so big compared to Motormaster, and so small compared to the combined form.
Toy Review – Unite Warriors Computron VS Combiner Wars Computron
Overall – worth getting?
Both Motormaster and Drag Strip are a significant improvement on their predecessors. Both have smaller robot modes but this is far outweighed by both their visual appearances and the intricacy of their toys. Both have good transformations, and despite the multiple configurations inherent in Motormaster there is never a point where one feels frustrated by the process and all the tabs lock tight and sweet! There is one issue however:
There have been many, many reports of yellowed parts on this first batch of Motormaster. I lucked out that there was only one small panel suffering from it on mine, but there have been reports of much worse from many Aussie TF fans. If you purchase a Motormaster and find many such panels, I suggest you try to swap for another.
As previously stated, I am reserving judgement on their Menasor mode before I fully review that mode. Right now my plan for my Transformatorium is to have, regarding my Stunticons, my Combiner Wars in their combined mode, my Unite Warriors in their robot modes and the Legacy toys in the vehicle modes. Then I have the best of all 3 worlds!
So yeah, Legacy Motormaster and Drag Strip – go pick them up! Just watch for the yellowing, only that dang varmint Stripper should be yeller on his belly.
Got something to say about these figures? Pop it in the comments section below!