Transformers: Buzzworthy Bumblebee Creatures Collide Set is Something that Exists

Hmm, I may have to keep on posting Transformers on a Thurday, got a bit of a backlog. Anyways, one of these days, I need to write about the "Buzzworthy Bumblebee" line. As the name implies, this is a line entirely about the very-very over-exposed Bumblebee character, although it's since become more of catch-all for various exclusives and reissues. As you might imagine, this has given me repetitive strain injury from rolling my eyes, but then something magical happened. I saw Iin a shop one of the Buzzworthy multipacks on discount. Deep discount. A pack of 4 deluxes originally 90 odd, sold at 45, and finally reduced to £12.98.

Obviously, I said yes to that. I was thinking it was daft not to, and if I didn't like any of it, gifts/donations were an option. Now, I could do an in-depth breakdown of each toy here, but I feel that would get boring pretty quickly. These are principally repaints of better known characters/toys, and the cadence of the discussion would be quite similar for each. So, I'm going to try to keep this to a paragraph for each before tying it all together in the conclusion. 

 

Not making the best first impression, Preadacon Skorponok is the weakest of the set. He's a 90's toy colours variant of the modern Kingdom toy, rather than a separate character, so not a huge amount of creativity going on, and the basic execution wasn't great in the first place. The robot mode is fine, a good approximation of the CG model with an optional head based off the old "mutant head" gimmick. He's not doing much of the 5mm port thing, but he is using in his claws for a set of decorative missiles and his Cyberbee. His beast mode legs are kinda just there, but the scorpion tail is articulated. The bad stuff starts with the transformation, which I found counter-intuitive, finicky, and ultimately doesn't do a great job of hiding the robot bits. One entire leg ends up stowing into the tail, not actually concealed, and it hampers the tail articulation. His head meanwhile sticks out on the underside. Also his joints are on the loose side, tolerances seem a bit off with this one, and a lot of him is translucent plastic. That said, the scorpion mode did grow on me, this being one of those toys that ends up appearing bigger in altmode, and there's some nice organic texturing on the bug bits. I don't think I can honestly say that this a great toy. I find myself comparing it to a RID 2015 warrior class toy which did the scorpion thing better, while the deco is outside of my nostalgia bubble and not especially interesting. Mind you, he's far from the worst in modern Generations, and I can see myself displaying him with the spare head.

Predacon Skywasp is obviously a Waspinator in new colours, although it's slightly more creative than the above. The colours are taken from a cancelled exclusive, by way of a Diaclone-inspired Botcon toy with a name too generic to trademark so they made him a beast wars tribute to Skywarp. Waspinator was possessed by Starscream that one time, and has had jet modes, so it's not really a stretch to have another seeker involved. As colours go, it's definitely striking with those blood red wings and eyes, but when it comes to wasp mode this doesn't do much for the organic realism. Wasps can be all kinds of colours, but not this specific scheme. I took a moment to check. Your mileage may vary on that point though, it certainly doesn't look bad in wasp mode, just toyetic, and that may be what you want. Otherwise, I'd say the basics are here, with little to apologise for. There's siege/Legacy standard articulation, a splattering of 5mm ports, more than most beasts in Kingdom, weapon storage, and an alternative humanoid head, as another nod to the mutant face thing. It's just with Waspinator, things got swapped around for the TV show, and the mutant face is considered his usual one. There's been a few Waspinator remakes over the years, and I don't quite know where this sits in the rankings, but this seems decent. I mean, I'm not a fan of the robot bits in wasp mode, but lots of beast formers have that problem. Less subjectively, one wing likes to pop off and there's a few cut marks that stick out. 

 

Ransack is the most modern of the toys here, the largest overall, and perhaps the one with a disproportionate amount of the paint budget, as there's an awful lot of translucent plastic painted over. Ransack is actually a G1 original, one of the larger "Deluxe" Insecticons, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing that. The toy wasn't a Takara original, and that seems to have meant no cartoon or comic appearances in the 80’s, or much after. Ransack here is a headswap pretool of the much better known Kickback, something which the Legacy release telegraphed with two otherwise inexplicable sword accessories. Ransack therefore looks an awful lot like Kickback in both modes, and only becomes more so if you apply the alternative head. (Said head goes unmentioned in the documentation, and seemingly exists as a toy-accurate head for Legacy Kickback.) Due to a quirk of design the robot mode and bug mode head are the same thing, just at different angles, so the rounder head is doing the heavy lifting here, although the swords do become a butt extension for bug form. As the mould is basically a 1983 design upscaled and given modern joints, Ransack isn't doing anything especially clever, but they aren't failing at it either. There's probably a third party "not-Ransack" out there that more faithfully updates the 80's original, but in so far as headswaps go, this is entirely acceptable. Decent robot mode, three weapons, not quite the right bug mode, but close enough. 

 

And finally, after a trio of bugs, we have a beetle. Autobot Goldbug was undoubtedly the most desirable of this set, although as a retool of Earthrise Cliffjumper, also the most familiar to me. Who is Goldbug? Well, he's Bumblebee after an emergency repair job and reassignment to the Throttlebots, which obviously didn't stick, but I did have that toy back in the day. The point of interest here is the fully licenced Volkswagen Beetle car mode, which like the boombox version of Soundwave seems to be under some sort of exclusivity arrangement. This is only the second time we've seen this specific toy released, while the original Cliffjumper variation has seen five releases. As a base mould, Cliffjumper was pretty good. A shame about the back-end of the car being a partsforming bit, but pretty good regardless. This means that Goldbug benefits from a strong foundation, I.e. a pleasingly involved transformation and a huggable shape, but if you're not a big Herby and/or Throttlebots fan it's more of a sidegrade than a slamdunk. The new vehicle bits omit 5mm ports, a tangible loss, with the instructions presenting a decidedly compromised alternative for weapon storage. Goldbug retains the modular bazooka/waterski/twin-blaster/random-greebly thing, and as fun as that is, it's very specific to Cliffjumper. Mind you, it looks great in gold, caramel, black, and blue, and the play value is there. Definitely worth a look, but it's very easy to overpay here.

I mean obviously, I didn't. But looking at the eBay listings, a few people have.

The Spare Head Three...

Conclusion

As I lucked out as got this set for 13 quid, it's honestly a little difficult to judge it from any sort of value-for-money metric. I could have had any single one of these for that price and feel quite happy about it. Hell, it was reduced from £45, and that's an objectively good deal as deluxes go for 25 each these days. That leaves broader creativity commentary, and whether or not something has an overt problem. On the overt problem front, only Scorponok has issues. He's not terrible, the vast majority of Generations isn't, but with his engineering and QC, he's in the "fine for now" tier. In terms of grander commentary, I'd say this demonstrates the issues that can occur when moulds are designed to be a specific character, but then reused for different ones. If you do a new head and new paintjob, or if the character is somewhat generic like a seeker, you're usually OK. That largely isn't the case here. For example, Goldbug, as mentioned, has the same accessories as Cliffjumper. These were based on memorable scenes in the Sunbow cartoon, so great for the mould original, but Goldbug never used them, and truthfully Cliffy-J didn't use them more than once. Maybe some small arms for all the other minibots would have been a better call? You could also make the case that Goldbug doesn't actually match his character model; and given how anal-retentive Earthrise was about such things, it's noticeable. You can make similar observations about the other three.

Ultimately, the Creatures Collide set is a multi-pack through and through. There's one you probably want most, but also one you don't, with two you're probably neutral on. As the toys are generally good ones, your choice will likely be based on your budget and how it fits into your collection. I got absurdly lucky with the price, and that three of the moulds were new to me. Regardless, the Creatures Collide set is something that exists. 

 

Also, the week after? I heard Game was offering this has as part of a "2 for £20" offer. Because of course it would :) 

Transformers: Buzzworthy Bumblebee G2 Universe Cybertronian Trooper Is Something That Exists

 And has a very long name.

 

Comic art of the Cybertronian Army, with Jhiaxus bottom-centre, from the wiki.

 

Now, here’s the thing about Transformers, a basic and fundamental thing: the vast majority are individuals. Optimus Prime for example isn't merely a thinking robot, he's a person whom happens to be a robot. And also a truck. While this idea has developed and shifted over the years, your average Transformer had a presumption of personhood from day one. It helps sell the toys. As such, Transformers as a franchise generally avoids tropes like faceless mooks, drones and disposable robots. There were however exceptions even in those early days, the first example being the self-replicating Insecticons, although the Vehicons featured in Transformers: Prime are probably the brands best example. A fandom term for such things is "army builders", where uniform anonymity is largely the point. This leads us to today's subject matter: The G2 Cybertronian Trooper. These were Jhiaxus’ army, and like him, were created from whole cloth for the Marvel comic. They obviously never had a toy before, but here they are as part of the new Armybuilder Boxset. But before we talk about him/them, we need to talk about a completely unrelated character: the G1 Pretender character Skullgrin.

 

The original 1998 Skullgrin toy

For the unfamiliar, a Pretender was a toy where you had a rather simplistic robot, that stored within a much larger figurine, which usually had the vibe of a He-Man character. An often fun idea. These ran for a couple of years, got a few variations, major regional differences, and a few noteworthy comic appearances. There’s been a few updates over the years, but the play pattern has not been attempted again in the mass market. Power of the Primes got pretty close, but those were tiny and not hugely good. Botcon did a few too, but good luck getting them. As a result, whenever you see an attempt to modernise a pretender character, most split the difference between the shell and the inner robot, by basing the robot mode on the shell. See also my write-up on Sky Shadow for further discussion, which was my first article in this format, inceidentally. Skullgrin was a Decepticon whom had a brief movie career, and received two revamps before turning up in Legacy. One was a headswap retool of Darkmount AKA Lord Straxus, a comic-first character we don’t really have time to go into here. The other was the use of his shell by Liege Maximo, Jhiaxus’ boss, and another comic-first character we don’t really have time to go into here. The Legacy version however was purpose designed for Skullgrin, and I suspect the Liege Maximo connection may have played a part in it being adapted into being a G2 Trooper. This presents a problem as, well, Legacy Skullgrin was not hugely good.

 

The 2022 Legacy Skullgrin toy

 

So, let's acknowledge the negatives before going further: the tank mode is hot garbage. Specifically, garbage that arises when the designers try to replicate something simple, and end up missing the point so hard that they end up climbing into their collective bumholes. Needlenose had a similar problem, but perhaps less extreme. The original Skullgrin toy had an extremely basic vehicle form, as many Pretenders did, so the designers merely scaled this up, and sculpted some hands on the guns, to suggest the old transformation. No consideration was given to how this would work, or parts allocated to make it roll. We just have a set of tracks on the rear half of the vehicle, the front seemingly floating there. You'd think the sensible thing to do instead would be, I don't know, put another set of tracks up front? You know, to balance it out? Or maybe wheels like that Darkmount retool? Maybe sculpt some tanky bits while you're at it? Cybertronian alt modes often look like nothing in particular, but most try harder than this. It makes Jhiaxus' jet mode look like genius by comparison. And what's more, the new parts make this problem worse, as you have a tank with a ribcage on top, with odd colours and more gaps. Also, and something I didn't quite realise until photographing the toy, the gunblades are rubbery white plastic with painted handles, which means unavoidable paint chipping. Positives? Well... I suppose we could acknowledge the 5mm port system, and that with 4 weapons, you can mix & match in a way handy for an army builder. But this altform isn't getting a passing grade just for that.

After a somewhat annoying transformation where the treads move on weak armatures to the lower legs, we end up in robot mode. And, to be completely fair, this was an area where Skullgrin did OK, and the Trooper arguably does things better. It's an unusually profound example of a headswap retool, as Skullgrin's rubbery monster bonce has been replaced with something more conventional, along with a new chestplate. This completely changes the character of the toy, and the designers have really leant into the army building thing by including an alternative head. There's a dedicated connector to facilitate swapping between the cranium, with the horns on each having a 3mm peg allowing you to have these positioned how you liked, or indeed exchange the horns. Factor in the aforementioned weapon options, you can definitely have the room to do a mixed squad. Not everything specifically Skullgrin has been removed though, and I think I see another explanation for using that mould. The Troopers had a very 90's/heavy-metal/muscles-&-guns look, and Skullgrin fits in with such things. Maybe they should have painted the skull belt, but the shoulder pads and gunblades are right at home. The fundamentals are also there, with legacy standard articulation and no glaring problems. He also retains a tail, if that's your thing...

My point? Only that the Trooper is something that exists. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the Trooper is quite compelling as a proof of concept. If Hasbro does want to try an army builder set again, doing it like this guy seems to be the way to go. And I'd be lying if I said the robot form wasn't appealing to me. On the other? The basic toy is based off arguably the most flawed Deception deluxe of modern times, and getting several of these is probably gonna be a nuisance. If somebody is splitting a pack, feel free to grab one like I did, but otherwise? Don't overpay.