So when the largely middling
Netflix Cartoon based on the War for Cybertron: Siege toyline aired,
Siege proper had ended and Earthrise was already a thing, prompting a
run of exclusive toys. These featured alleged more cartoon accurate
colour schemes, although it's probably more accurate to describe them
more enthusiastic paint jobs. These doubled-down on the grime and
wear motifs that many had disliked about Siege, and this premium
paintwork was the justification for a higher price. These exclusives
varied from the desirable to the unneeded, the very obscure, i.e.
today's subject. As exclusives go, they weren't super hard to find,
scalpers notwithstanding, as a retailer in each major region carried
them. Today's subject is the Japanese version, and the phrase
"Japanese Exclusive Transformer" has historically been the
subject of much fervently irrational desire. Not so much this case;
Takaratomy does still occasionally do its own thing, like
masterpieces, but mainly they just re-release stuff. Apparently, not
everyone got the memo, as this was reduced from 55 to 25 quid by a
specialist toy supplier. Good if you're a completionist, I suppose.
Or if, like myself, you saw an inexpensive indulgence, and a chance
to try something you passed on at the time. As to whom Hotlink is,
and why he is? Well, he's a Seeker, one of the army of Starscream
repaints that were used to fill crowd scenes in the 80's cartoon, and
subsequently named in later fiction. Hotlink appeared in episode 1
and while he had a gimmick I'll get to, he's a blank slate. I suspect
the only reason why he's here is that they were saving the Coneheads
for Earthrise, and they'd done the similarly obscure Rainmakers as a
three pack. He had a Botcon toy under similar circumstances and a few
appearances since, but as lore goes, he's a niche within a niche. He
didn’t even have a name until decades after the fact. Even the
paint job here is taking liberties, as Hotlink more of a uniform
purple and grey on screen, whereas this toy edges into Skywarp
territory. I’ve seen at least one person repaint this into Skywarp
because that toy is harder to find. On a conceptual level then, this
is largely harmless exclusive; its not taking a popular guy out of
circulation, Earthrise, I’m looking at you, and as its so
obscure, it can afford to mix things up a bit.
Now,
the siege Seeker mould got some well-earned criticism at the time due
to its engineering. Its basically a shellformer, where robot form
balls up, and is concealed by the backpack. I'd compare it to
something out of the Gundam franchise, one of its function over form
mecha where the transformation is about adding utility, rather than
passing for a jet. Something along the lines of the Gundam Airmaster,
perhaps? My example was also suffering from some spotty QC which
prompted the use of a craft knife to ease a transformation joint and
general touching up. Not great, but also not unexpected given the
price and inevitable mould degradation. I have mixed feelings about
this design approach, as I have pilloried certain Earthrise toys for
doing similar, and objectively it's flawed. The difference is, I
suppose, is that it feels actual creativity was used to catch the
spirit of something, rather than simply a lack of imagination. If
you're gonna cheat, cheat to create an alien attack polygon. Don't
cheat to create a car. Visually, the jet has a lot of moulded detail,
and many have made the comparison with the Colonial Vipers from
Battlestar Galactica. Its certainly got that 80’s, real model,
universal greebly vibe going on. What’s specific to Hotlink is the
colours, a transition of black to purple to lavender, with orange
highlights. There’s multiple tones going on, with both plastic and
paint, putting me in the gentle use of an airbrush. Its a good
scheme. Functionally: the tetra-jet isn’t doing too much, but you
can have fun with blast affects attached to the thrusters, and you
end up with a total of 6 under-wing mounts for the null rays.
The
robot mode attempts the same trick, but its not as unified, and
generally comes across as darker in the extremities. This draws the
eyes to the torso, with his orange faux not-cockpit and lavender
codpiece, which is a sentence, but the overall affect is
pretty good. This is also where the base mould starts to shine,
because there’s numerous little touches that suggest the time they
saved on engineering to make things a little nicer. There’s notably
good movement at the shoulders and knees, with two points of
articulation for each wing. If you get a flight stand for this chap,
he’ll look great, and he’s fully in the Siege play pattern, so he
can carry a lot of guns. The general sort of Underbase Saga, real
model, greebling also continues, and the eyes are light-piped red. I
acknowledge the backpack as the beginning and end of all this toy’s
design problems, but they did kinda nail the robot mode, with good
posability and presence. I don’t think I would army build this
mould, but I will say its got more appeal than I thought.
We
now come to the unique selling point of both Hotlink and the set in
general: flamethrowers. Hotlink’s one claim to fame is that in the
first ever episode of the Transformers cartoon, he tried to trap
Wheeljack and Bumblebee in a ring of fire. It didn’t work, but, I
say again, flamethrowers. He’s got two little battlemaster
chaps to represent this, Heartburn & Heatstroke, so, yes, he
dual-wields flamethrowers like a goddamn Redemptionist. Both are
recolours of the Blowpipe mould, and are functionally identical, and
by omitting half of the blast effect, they now spurt fire. As my tone
may have implied, I find this rather fun, but possibly the execution
isn’t great. In what I assume is an attempt to more closely match
that one scene, both are in a light blue, which doesn’t really
work. Maybe they would have been better in some other tone, but this
mould was used 7 other times, so maybe all the good colours were
taken…
My
point? Only that Hotlink etc are something that exists. And,
sometimes, a mould can surprise you.
