Post by Bogatan on Jul 22, 2010 14:38:21 GMT
Punch-Counterpunch
As I have rather a lot of Punch/Counterpunch who will from now on be referred to as PCP I thought it time to do a pictorial review and while I'm at it drag out the two other new releases of the mould.
But first PCP, my only exposure to him (them?) growing up was his (their?) appearance in Headmasters. Barely a cameo amongst about 70 characters that were introduced within its running time. And then he was largely forgotten as the toy wasn't available in the UK and the character either never appeared or never did enough to remember in the comic. Then in 2006 Hasbro are doing their reveals at Botcon when they show designs for classic Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Everyone is highly impressed, even more so when we are told the toys using the same mould with slightly different transformation sequence and each with a different head. The room went mad, but even as people were leaving the panel room afterwards already the idea of PCP was being suggested. Fast Forward 3 years and Fun Publications (FP) who run Botcon (BC) and the Transformers Collectors club reveal, in another Botcon panel, that one of the 2010 club exclusives would be PCP. They had art work that looked amazing. Everybody was excited.
Fast Forward about 9 months and preorderd finally start for him and club mate Shattered Glass Cyclonus. At $60 PCP wasn't cheap but it still sold out within 3 days. At a run of 2000 figures its was by far FP most successful product to date.
Lets start with the packaging, because its the only thing I haven't photographed yet, so its makes perfect sense. The front of the box is about 6 1/2x5 3/4 about postcard size and about 4 inches deep.
It follows the standard FP box design thick card board with a faux leather type feel to it making up the bottom and 4 sides, a thick foam insert and a lid that covers all four sides. The sides each has the various company logs and info along with the toys name. The top is mostly reserved for the art work. In this case PCP in alt mode speeding by and night with images of his two heads behind. It's not bad but you can only make a car so interesting, I prefer robot artwork and would have been happy with the art work used to promote the toy that is also used on the bio card which was based on the G1 boxart.
PCP comes packaged in car mode in the same sort of position you would expect to find one of the G1 Autobot cars. So since its already in car mode lets start in robot mode.
Just kidding, though as I have 5 or 6 out in various forms I could, if I wanted. Oh yes.
Car mode, well its just like Sunstreaker or Sideswipe except mostly blue. Really thats about it. Its very nice. And blue. Oh and the wheels are red. Oh and a rub symbol on the roof as the roof forms the chest of CP that kind of leaves PCP on the side of evil when in car mode. Possibly thats just an excuse to speed. Who knows.
I'm going to assume everyone has Sideswipe and or Sunstreaker and or Red Alert and doesnt want to read about the transformation, clever as it is.
So on to robot modes.
Lets start with Punch. Punch mostly uses Sideswipes robot mode, which for me is the better of the two. A few yellow paint apps on the chest shoulders and waist provide a dash of what was a much more primary colour on the orginal whose entire chest was yellow. The same technique is used on G2 Breakdown and its a nice touch it suggests the front of the car is just a piece of armour and underneath is the original torso.
In order to create more of a difference between P and CP they have rearranged the legs a little. well 180 degrees, the legs are simply unfolded without rotating the hips 180 and the lower legs are not rotated 90 degrees.
The problem with doing this is that the feet do not slip into place properly in this configuration causing the robot to lean backwards enough to fall over. The only way to work around it is to bend the legs out of shape to keep the figure vertical as I've done with the P on the right. But if you look at the thumbnail below you can see from the side just how misshapen it is. My alternative is to leave the feet stuck out the back, (left of picture) it leaves it looking a bit short but is quite stable. The other option is to have the feet stuck out at as far to the sides as possible but then P looks like he's waddling around which still looks odd and the balance still isn't great. One other problem with doing this arrangement with the legs is that the waist and upper leg screws are visible from the front in robot mode. I'd be tempted to unscrew them and swap them around but the other side of hte legs have colouring for CP mode that just wouldn't work for P. I think a dab or three of black paint will be the best solution if it continues to bother me.
You'll probably have seen the pictures of the tiny little head. Well in the plastic it is still very tiny, but it doesn't look bad at least to me. There was plenty of space to make it bigger, but it seems the factory felt the clearance wasn't enough. Thankfully the sculpt, particularly on P is great. Its based on the cartoon face which had a mouth, rather than the original toy which had a face plate. Normally I don't like that option, but as I mentioned my only memory of the character is from the cartoon so in this case I can't complain.
The top of the helmet flips back and forth mostly covering which ever face isn't being used, see the thumb below.
Counterpunch is the simper of the two as it uses Sunstreakers robot mode without modification. Just as P suffers from foot issues, CP suffers from hand issues. The left hand is on the left arm and the right hand on the right arm for P, this means when transformed into CP the left hand ends up on the right arm and vice versa. The hands do just pop out so can be swapped around but thats a stress that wasn't intended on a regular basis so in the long term might become an issue. Personally which ever mode is likely to get the most use will get the hands the right way around and I'll leave it like that. Besides one will always have a gun in it to hide the issue.
Speaking of the gun that transforms, if by transform you mean turned 180degrees. But that was good enough for new headmasters, double target masters and any number of McFormers.
CP gets the proper gun mode and P get the short double barrel option, which amazingly are the weapons the original toy came with.
CPs head is for me not so great its accurate to the toy and cartoon this time, but the sculpt just doesn't seem as good.
It might also be that CP head looks smaller because his chest is so much bigger. And theres also the fact he appears to have a happy little smile, not an evil grin or smirk, its more of a sitting in a meadow on a summers day watching the clouds float by thinking about everything that good in life. Or maybe its meant to be a a smile at how cheeky he is to be fooling all the sill deceptifools who think he's on their side.
So clever repaint with a decent new head. The new colours look good, but its let down by another factory modification and legs that just aren't quite up to a second configuration. A shame because it's something that could have been altered back in the design stages (of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker) if the possibility of different legs positions had been considered. At $60 plus shipping and now on the secondary market (unless your able to get one of the 300 second wave coming in August.) even more its an expensive toy, but as a classic/Universe fan I'm not disappointed by it. Which is a relief.
Oh the one thing I've not mentioned the whatever it is that sits on top of the car roof. It fits in the same way as on SS and SS, but is also shown in the bio picture wrapped around the gun to try and distinguish them. Its a clever idea but in practice requires time and effort that isn't rewared. nor does it attact the the back in either robot mode as well as it should so it'll be spending an awful lot of time in the box.
Andy
As I have rather a lot of Punch/Counterpunch who will from now on be referred to as PCP I thought it time to do a pictorial review and while I'm at it drag out the two other new releases of the mould.
But first PCP, my only exposure to him (them?) growing up was his (their?) appearance in Headmasters. Barely a cameo amongst about 70 characters that were introduced within its running time. And then he was largely forgotten as the toy wasn't available in the UK and the character either never appeared or never did enough to remember in the comic. Then in 2006 Hasbro are doing their reveals at Botcon when they show designs for classic Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Everyone is highly impressed, even more so when we are told the toys using the same mould with slightly different transformation sequence and each with a different head. The room went mad, but even as people were leaving the panel room afterwards already the idea of PCP was being suggested. Fast Forward 3 years and Fun Publications (FP) who run Botcon (BC) and the Transformers Collectors club reveal, in another Botcon panel, that one of the 2010 club exclusives would be PCP. They had art work that looked amazing. Everybody was excited.
Fast Forward about 9 months and preorderd finally start for him and club mate Shattered Glass Cyclonus. At $60 PCP wasn't cheap but it still sold out within 3 days. At a run of 2000 figures its was by far FP most successful product to date.
Lets start with the packaging, because its the only thing I haven't photographed yet, so its makes perfect sense. The front of the box is about 6 1/2x5 3/4 about postcard size and about 4 inches deep.
It follows the standard FP box design thick card board with a faux leather type feel to it making up the bottom and 4 sides, a thick foam insert and a lid that covers all four sides. The sides each has the various company logs and info along with the toys name. The top is mostly reserved for the art work. In this case PCP in alt mode speeding by and night with images of his two heads behind. It's not bad but you can only make a car so interesting, I prefer robot artwork and would have been happy with the art work used to promote the toy that is also used on the bio card which was based on the G1 boxart.
PCP comes packaged in car mode in the same sort of position you would expect to find one of the G1 Autobot cars. So since its already in car mode lets start in robot mode.
Just kidding, though as I have 5 or 6 out in various forms I could, if I wanted. Oh yes.
Car mode, well its just like Sunstreaker or Sideswipe except mostly blue. Really thats about it. Its very nice. And blue. Oh and the wheels are red. Oh and a rub symbol on the roof as the roof forms the chest of CP that kind of leaves PCP on the side of evil when in car mode. Possibly thats just an excuse to speed. Who knows.
I'm going to assume everyone has Sideswipe and or Sunstreaker and or Red Alert and doesnt want to read about the transformation, clever as it is.
So on to robot modes.
Lets start with Punch. Punch mostly uses Sideswipes robot mode, which for me is the better of the two. A few yellow paint apps on the chest shoulders and waist provide a dash of what was a much more primary colour on the orginal whose entire chest was yellow. The same technique is used on G2 Breakdown and its a nice touch it suggests the front of the car is just a piece of armour and underneath is the original torso.
In order to create more of a difference between P and CP they have rearranged the legs a little. well 180 degrees, the legs are simply unfolded without rotating the hips 180 and the lower legs are not rotated 90 degrees.
The problem with doing this is that the feet do not slip into place properly in this configuration causing the robot to lean backwards enough to fall over. The only way to work around it is to bend the legs out of shape to keep the figure vertical as I've done with the P on the right. But if you look at the thumbnail below you can see from the side just how misshapen it is. My alternative is to leave the feet stuck out the back, (left of picture) it leaves it looking a bit short but is quite stable. The other option is to have the feet stuck out at as far to the sides as possible but then P looks like he's waddling around which still looks odd and the balance still isn't great. One other problem with doing this arrangement with the legs is that the waist and upper leg screws are visible from the front in robot mode. I'd be tempted to unscrew them and swap them around but the other side of hte legs have colouring for CP mode that just wouldn't work for P. I think a dab or three of black paint will be the best solution if it continues to bother me.
You'll probably have seen the pictures of the tiny little head. Well in the plastic it is still very tiny, but it doesn't look bad at least to me. There was plenty of space to make it bigger, but it seems the factory felt the clearance wasn't enough. Thankfully the sculpt, particularly on P is great. Its based on the cartoon face which had a mouth, rather than the original toy which had a face plate. Normally I don't like that option, but as I mentioned my only memory of the character is from the cartoon so in this case I can't complain.
The top of the helmet flips back and forth mostly covering which ever face isn't being used, see the thumb below.
Counterpunch is the simper of the two as it uses Sunstreakers robot mode without modification. Just as P suffers from foot issues, CP suffers from hand issues. The left hand is on the left arm and the right hand on the right arm for P, this means when transformed into CP the left hand ends up on the right arm and vice versa. The hands do just pop out so can be swapped around but thats a stress that wasn't intended on a regular basis so in the long term might become an issue. Personally which ever mode is likely to get the most use will get the hands the right way around and I'll leave it like that. Besides one will always have a gun in it to hide the issue.
Speaking of the gun that transforms, if by transform you mean turned 180degrees. But that was good enough for new headmasters, double target masters and any number of McFormers.
CP gets the proper gun mode and P get the short double barrel option, which amazingly are the weapons the original toy came with.
CPs head is for me not so great its accurate to the toy and cartoon this time, but the sculpt just doesn't seem as good.
It might also be that CP head looks smaller because his chest is so much bigger. And theres also the fact he appears to have a happy little smile, not an evil grin or smirk, its more of a sitting in a meadow on a summers day watching the clouds float by thinking about everything that good in life. Or maybe its meant to be a a smile at how cheeky he is to be fooling all the sill deceptifools who think he's on their side.
So clever repaint with a decent new head. The new colours look good, but its let down by another factory modification and legs that just aren't quite up to a second configuration. A shame because it's something that could have been altered back in the design stages (of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker) if the possibility of different legs positions had been considered. At $60 plus shipping and now on the secondary market (unless your able to get one of the 300 second wave coming in August.) even more its an expensive toy, but as a classic/Universe fan I'm not disappointed by it. Which is a relief.
Oh the one thing I've not mentioned the whatever it is that sits on top of the car roof. It fits in the same way as on SS and SS, but is also shown in the bio picture wrapped around the gun to try and distinguish them. Its a clever idea but in practice requires time and effort that isn't rewared. nor does it attact the the back in either robot mode as well as it should so it'll be spending an awful lot of time in the box.
Andy
