While
Legacy promised a return of variety, its taken a bit of time to make
good on that promise.
Wave 1 had the look of business as usual, with a very high percentage
of G1 characters, repacks,
and toys that could have been
in Kingdom. The Prime Universe toys, the main exceptions, screamed
repaint fodder, and it would have been very easy to assume Hasbro
would not go further. Happily,
the balance is definitely shifting with wave 3 and what is
known about Evolution next year. The
first real evidence that Hasbro was serious came from the “Velocitron
Speedia 500 Collection”, a
sub-line of exclusive repaints that
replaced Netflix Siege. This
went hard on the whole alternate universe thing, visiting 6 different
continuities immediately,
whereas Legacy wouldn’t
really begin to branch out until wave 2. This brings us to today’s
subject: Burn Out, a massively obscure repaint of a rather obscure
character that plays homage to something that was Transformers before
Transformers was a thing. Burn Out is also notable for being, well,
a girl. The Speedia stuff has a good gender balance, which does mean
I have to talk about gender issues again, although I’ll try not to
repeat myself. I picked this
one up on sales on the last day of a vacation, with the hope of
returning to work in a good mood. It worked.
The
Diaclone Honda Turbo, and its variants, circa 1982/83
Now,
I had to shelve my first draft of this post, as I was struggling for
a focal point. I had skipped the original version of this toy, Skids,
because I already had a toy of the character. Its kinda hard to avoid
mentioning him, but also hard to talk about for any real length of
time. He had a very limited fictional presence until the highly
regarded More Than Meets The Eye comic series by James Roberts, and
basically everything that happened there probably counts as a
spoiler. There is something of a tradition of comics writers taking
blank slates and making them desirable, its called the Furman Effect,
although it seems that it didn’t stick. Legacy Skids, and for that
matter the unexpected Masterpiece version, is very faithful the G1
iteration, which as mentioned didn’t get much to do. Burn Out has
even fewer fictional appearances, and is very much in the exclusive/obscurity bracket. She’s a character with a distinctive paint job,
but is so far from the mainstream that nobody would mind that she is
an exclusive, unlike, say, half of Earthrise. Her singular claim fame
is that she’s based off a colour variation from Takara’s
Diaclone, one of the toylines that would provide raw material for
Hasbro’s Transformers. Diaclone is kinda of a big thing in
collectors circles, with a boutique modern reboot, but in the
Transformers context its mainly a convenient source for repaint
ideas. So, yeah. Burn Out is obviously part of the black repaint phenomenon, but given that she is referencing a rare variant
from 1983, this is about as deep as cut as you can make. If you want
actual legacy in Legacy, why not homage the gestation of Transformers
brand, and something that was probably only one marketing decision
from a western release?
Righty,
that’s the context established, on with the show. Burn Out's
vehicle form is a legally distinct copy of the Honda City Turbo. Its
a vehicle type that isn't really seen in Transformers that much,
unless realistic cars are the main thing that year. It is more blocky
than big or speedy looking, but it is distinctive. I have read that
this car is a big thing in japan which is probably half the reason
Skids gets any attention at all. Nerds like myself may recognise it
from the anime/manga You’re Under Arrest. As to how much this
differs from Skids? More than is immediately obvious, but once you
get past the black its a bit subtle. Burn Out retains the stripes,
red plastics and translucent blue of Skids, which is faithful to the
source, but possibly faithful to a fault. Less obvious are the grey
wheels, gunmetal front bumper, clear sunroof, and tail-lights.
All-in-all its a nice looking car, with plentiful 5mm ports for
weapon storage. The basics are there, and in black, so that’s good.
Of course, the vehicle mode also inherits the same problems of this
mould, such as overuse of translucent plastic, clip-on wheels, the
face visible from the underside. While Burn Out has seemingly has not
suffered the issues with tolerances Skids did, and mine seems fine, a
certain degree of care is recommended with regards to anything blue.
The
transformation ticks all the boxes you'd expect it too, presenting a
similarly pleasing robot form, but if you were paying attention to
the first picture above, you may have clicked what is different. Yes,
Burn Out has a mouthplate, whereas previous iterations have either
used the Skids head, or a new feminine sculpt in the case of the
Masterpiece. This brings us to the promised, if brief, discussion of
gender issues. Burn Out is on the other end of the scale from
Elita-1, and is a toy which makes no attempt to use gender coding at
all. On the one hand, this totally sidesteps the design compromises
that affected Elita-1 and others. Burn Out is not a shellformer
with a mannequin body shape, and is instead a classical "door
wings" carformer with merits that I will shortly get into. There
is no requirement for a robot to fit gender norms in the first place,
and if this means a better toy, maybe this is a justifiable route? I
mean, I we’re getting a Gobots character this way too, and then
there’s Override, whom probably needs her own article. People seem
to like them a lot. On the other hand, if you told me this was gonna
be Crosscut, until someone realised that they could save him for
later and thus get more repeat sales on the mould, I'd believe you.
I’m cynical like that, and a black paintjob is the sort of thing
you get an intern to do. For its faults, the Elita-1 mould tried
harder. That having been acknowledged, Burn Out’s status as a
premium redeco is more evident in robot form. The shoulders that were
neglected on Skids are picked out in red and blue, with the limbs
having more grey and black. Burn Out lacks chromed thighs, but the
there’s a smoother transition between chrome grill, gunmetal bumper
and charcoal grey plastics. Its a good look, if understated still.
She also benefits from an earnest attempt to improve on Skids’
characteristic weapons storage. The two silver ones can be either
forearm via dedicated ports, combine into a bigger gun, and further
combine with that blue axe thing for a bigger gun. I clearly wasn’t
paying this energon weapon business due attention, because its
working out pretty well here. Posability is similarly pleasing. Its a
good toy.
My
point? Only that Legacy Burn Out is something that exists. And exists
in the shadow of rather obscure character in the first place, which I
wasn’t rushing out to buy. I’ll admit to having been a little
unimpressed by Transformers: Legacy at time of writing; I’ve liked
what I’ve chosen to post about, but I haven’t brought much, and I
have yet to find a must-have. Wave 3 and Evolution look like more my
sort of thing. Burn Out however suggests maybe I should have taken a
few chances.