My creative process, such as it is, does not come when I call. Its more that things rattle in my brain until expressed, or I latch onto something and obsess. Or I have travel time, and a stream of consciousness congeals on my phone into an article. This is one such article. Its subject, Barricade, came dead last in a twitter poll, but I couldn't quite give up on it. So, after some pruning, here we are.
While not the first character to bear the name, Barricade is of course a notable from the Michael Bay Transformers films. I hesitate to call him a character, because Mr Bay is not interested in characterisation, especially of giant robots. Rather, Barricade embodied a theme that Bay was not political enough to explore: the idea of law enforcement being malevolent. A proper discussion of this matter is beyond the scope of this article, and is something I do not wish to trivialise, but the Heroic Cop ideal is a feature of American pop culture, so having an evil Decepticon disguise themselves as one was somewhat subversive at the time. But if you've watched the news recently? Perhaps more true to life than we'd like? You know what I'm talking about. The comics of course did it better, with IDW taking the character of Prowl, already a reputed prick with a police altmode, through moral ambiguity, and right out the other side. And then side to side. It has been my pleasure to describe Barricade as "less-evil Prowl" ever since. Despite a lack of screen-time, Barricade got a revamp for the 5th Bay film, had comic appearances, and a place in the Authentics line-up,so it looks like he's made it into the pantheon. Perhaps inevitably then, Barricade found his way into Siege as a Prowl retool, making him one of a vanishingly small number of break-out characters to imprint themselves onto G1 after the fact. In all fairness though, describing this chap as a Prowl retool is a touch imprecise. He is just as much a Smokescreen pretool, as this toy would be used as that character, minus the light bar. If indeed any of the "fairlady carformers" are the true original, I suspect they were developed as one. The look of the toy is based off Guido Guidi's attempt at a G1-styled Barricade, which was based on Smokescreen, whom is of course, the second Prowl retool from G1. This, if anything, makes the fact that Barricade was a mass market release more surprising, as there was a more obvious character right there. Smokescreen ended up in Generations Selects instead. I can only assume they felt that this would help with the faction ratio in Siege, Autobots being very over-represented in the deluxe pricepoint at the time.
Eh, that's 460 or so words of context, what's the toy like? Well, he's striking, if possibly a tad frail-looking. Let's start with the car mode. This is allegedly a Cybertronian altmode, but it never struck me as alien. A lot of Siege toys were like that. The Prowl and Smokescreen look so normal in this form due to their paint jobs, I would have happily used them as I.P-friendly Earth modes. Not that I have any real knowledge of cars, mind you. Don't they all have translucent wheels? Barricade however looks like cyberpunk vehicle, it's the purple and cybertronic lettering. I would not be surprised to see this driven by corporate security. Its on the small side for a Deluxe, but not obnoxiously so, and the battle damage paint apps are noteworthy as other versions of the mould skip them. Limited to the front fenders, its both appropriate and restrained. The transformation is a tribute to 1984 Prowl toy, and is generally pretty good, but things up skinny and hollowed out for the robot mode. Most of the lower body is best viewed from the front, and the heavy use of translucent plastic is a concern in the long run. Barricade is however nicely articulated and fully compatible with the Siege play pattern. Of particular interest are the accessories, which foreshadow Smokescreen. There's two guns meant to be shoulder mounted, but these can also combine into a double blaster or be held separately in hand. As the mould is covered in 5mm ports, including an easily missed hole on the light bar, you can do all kinds of gunplay/carmageddon stuff. There's also some good synergy with Brunt, in a brains & brawn pairing, and with especially with Earthrise Slitherfang coming shortly after. The dude looks great, in a sinister kind of way, with multiple options for both modes, and if if you get him a buddy with complimentary colours, it only gets better. Good mould, good looks, the complete deluxe experience. His only problem is one that affects so many Siege toys, he was made obsolete by an Earthrise exclusive with almost indecent speed. I could tangent fiercely about that trend, but that's also outside the remit of this article. Perhaps another time...
My point? Just that Siege Barricade is something that exists. There is however a lot of interesting context outside of the toy, and said toy is actually pretty good. And that's why I'm here, at the end of the day.
Wheee!
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