(singing) Dashing Thew the snow!
Yes indeed, chumps and chumpalinas!
Time today for me to clobber you with a curious crew from the dead air between Generations 1 and 2
where all my favourites seem to come from.
Put your hands up for the Motorvators!
(singing) Thew the fields we go....
So this robo rabble are the 1991 quasi-complete Euro-exclusive re-release
of a Japanese trio from Transformers Victory named
Goddammit, Japan.
And not unlike the other stripped-down stragglers from Rescue Force, this lot kinda never really had a chance.
I mean, they were already two years out of date when they dropped
and they were mostly stripped of everything that made them cool in the first place.
Like, back in Japan they were called the "Brainmasters",
which is dumb, but it's got sort of an awesomely mistranslated hyper-fantasy bite to it
so getting blurted out over here with like half their gear
and a tedious homogenised early-90s exercise pun for a name must've been pretty bloody embarrassing for 'em.
Oh, and can you guess the name of the fourth Brainmaster who didn't even make it to Europe?
Yeah? No? Yeah?
Star Saber!
Yeah, no, you're all right. We're only Europe.
I suppose your fabulous intergalactic space casanova would be too weird to sell over here, wouldn't it?
We'll happily make do with his three least athletic mates. I'm sure they'll do fine against Overlord.
So in true post-heyday style,
these three have been burdened with blanketly boring, tediously generic and mostly recycled names.
Say hi to Lightspeed - not that one -
Flame - not that one -
and Gripper! What?
Yes indeed, this squonky square squad are about as schlumpy as they come!
They're some seriously boxy babies, all cubular and basic, and I could not be more all over their style!
I'm serious, man! Gripper was my number 1 dog for a bit and he's easily as evocative as Stalker or Skullcruncher
or even G2 Megs for a good old rose-tinted sigh!
Aahh, this takes me back to the divorce.
So anyway, Gripper is clearly the star of the show with his bangin black and orange styles
and endlessly noble pre-Raphaelite features.
Check him out, he's just such a baller with his spiky tyres, tasty foil stickers
and double-jointed industrial arms!
And that's kinda your lot, really. Hes not givin' me much to work with, but that's kinda why I love him!
He's just a big awkward clumsy dork and his name's Gripper and he is brave and that is it. Romeo done.
So check out Flame, lookin' 90s as frig in his hella yellow and maroon moonman shellsuit!
He's somehow even less mobile than Gripper - like his shoulders only go one way
and he's got these pathetic little wrist nubbins masquerading for hands.
Unlike Gripper though, he does at least have knees, but they're stiff as a mummy's boner!
Check out that sweet scar - hes definitely had some severe snappage in a previous life.
Still, I do love his swishly tradish faceplate mush and he's just drippin' with carefree clunky charisma!
Flame on!
Also, Flame's the only guy who's managed to hang on to his useless dumpy shortsword
but the hands are also the perfect size for a Combiner Wars gun.
God, I love Combiner Wars guns. I want a whole ziploc bag full of Combiner Wars guns!
Bringing up the rear then is Flame's almost-brother, Lightspeed!
He's basically functionally identical but superficially, like, rounder?
Hes kinda so normal, he almost reminds me of one of those discount cheapo robos.
Like, not necessarily a knockoff, but one of those uber-generic, zero-imagination
Super Converter Spacebot action guy toys.
Even his Italian name is "Starbot", so we're kinda halfway there!
But he's still definitely got the same blatant blockman bravado, with his like chunky-skinny styles
wicked day-glo eye-chevron and infectiously insane cyan!
So he's just about rad enough to make the team,
and at least he goes with Flame like a kind of Z-list Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.
But anyway, I'm sure you've noticed they all share a common colossal cubod.
Yes indeed, these cavernous hollow chest chambers
make the rest of the toy almost seem like incidental set dressing.
Check it out, they all come with like a little mini-avatar doppeldude!
They've all got like identically sculpted bodies and perfect little faces!
[unintelligible adoring noises]
I'm just so in love with this! It's kinda like how Japan did Headmasters.
Like, this guy's the character and this big robo's just power armoud.
Is that right? I think that's right.
But any time I look at a something-Master toy, I can't help but think about how unnecessary
and unfeasibly inhumane it all seems!
It's just so implausible that these crazy alien space machines would even need to
get squishy little organic humanoids involved to sub in for standard-issue robot equipment
like engines and weapons and heads???
And this has got to be the bonkersest version I've ever seen!
So check it out, you get the little Brainmaster -- sorry -
- Goddammit, Europe -
- and cram him on into the little belly box there,
and then you close it up and the little elevator platform lifts him up towards a grisly vertical disembowelment!
Christ alive, that's a bit much!
I mean, come on! Like, some of the others bend over a bit too far or snap their knees the wrong way,
but this guy's impaled himself on his own legs!
(SPLATTERING AND SCREAMING)
I don't care what kind of soft science bibble you wanna throw at it - that guy is straight up dead.
Corpse face! Corpse face!
Well that was easy!
It seems insanely over-easy for such overtly chunky bots - like, we're talkin' Micromaster level.
But it's quality dumb fun and it fast-tracks you to these sweet mega car modes!
I wanna say these are the biggest G1 carformers ever?
Like, they totally dwarf the '84 crew, Targetmasters are struggling,
Chromedome's not around to defend himself, so... we'll go with it?
All right! Give it up for the
Probably.
So Gripper once again easily steals the show, as is his wont.
Check out his sweet Baja buggy baditude with his classy black mass all about the semi-spaceshippy cockpit,
humungous chromey engine dominating the rear end there, much like your dad does,
and just some killer classically Autobot styles!
It's like Beachcomber if Beachcomber was Grimlock.
Lightspeed McQueen gets his ordinary on with an unremarkable but sumptuously satisfying
and righteously red racer!
I mean, it is nice, I guess, but I'm pickin' up echoes of that one pound shop Getaway.
I guess this guy does highlight a common problem with this lot -
sadly, the wonderful authentic rubber tyres have degraded a fair bit in the 20+ years since they came out
and indeed, Lightspeed's lost one on the old offside rear there. So thanks for that.
And finally, Flame drops an absolute sex bomb as this killer carbohydrate Sunstreaker!
Yes indeed, love this guy's angular fatness and unwieldy flair!
Kinda neat how all the magenta's just disappeared under this killer cocoon of luscious yellow
and balls-out badassness for a wickedly gigantic Lamborghini!
So the little mini-me's can once again get in on the action -
they sort of awkwardly cram into these extremely snug cockpit crags
with their face hangin' out the face hole like creepy robot Fred Flintstones.
It just nicely rounds off the package!
Like, there's something deeply gratifying about a complete Autosquad
with all their support staff present and proper, all shiny buckles all done up.
It's almost a tragedy, then, that the whole thing just degenerates into an absolute shambles!
Ohhh dear.
That's right, kids, welcome to the Big Motorvator.
'Cos you see, the original Brainmasters - while not busy masting brains -
would moonlight as the magnificently munted Road Caesar
but for whatever reason, the Motor boys didn't get any of the vital kibble cheats needed to finish it off
so what we're left with is essentially Road Caesar without the croutons.
So what fun can we salvage from this nonsense nonbiner?
I mean, look at it! Its just Gripper on friend stilts.
It's just a hopelessly imbalanced toothless tragedy!
An abortion of bewilderingly half-arsed localisation!
An unforgivably tacked-on third act plot twist!
But, I mean, it is kind of pathetically adorable and it is at least physically complete?
Like, this is the full set of bots, and it's kinda got arms,
so it's already one up in the ill-fated saps of Rescue Force.
And check it out, you can even kinda pull it back a bit with some Combiner Wars hands!
But it's just dumb as a bucket of bimbos and I'm fine with it.
So there's no way I'd recommend 'em as a kosher combiner crew, but they kinda don't need it!
I mean, individually they're at least Headmaster good.
Like, they're still big-time basic bliss with their chunky funkitude and serious size
and, y'know, the whole elevator face murder thing, and just enough of a taste of late-G1 Takara anime insanity!
The Motorvators, then!
I suppose they might not be for everybody, but for me they're a perfect --
...gobbing everywhere
but for me, they're a perfect curiosity!
They're just the ultimate example of Euro G1.5 kind of admitting that its best years were behind it
but still trying to make somehting happen!
I'm perfectly happy for 'em to hang out somewhere near the back,
looming silent and ponderous, like sentinels of old.
Insane in the Brainmaster!
Festive shoutouts to TheGlaug himself, our Tuxedo Mike, for hookin' me up at Auto Assembly
and to all a horrifically calorific Christmas!
Holla.
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Limited appeal, keeping it real.