Good morning, choppers!
Now, as we know, Siege is just about wrappin' up and rollin' out of town
but it's never to late to lob a little love at a luscious latecomer!
Let's twist again for Siege Spinister!
So, Spinister's one of those late-80s lads with daft colours and a nominal personality
who I'm sure I would've adored if I'd had his original figure as a kid
but I actually didn't even see one until well into my 30s so it didn't quite have the desired effect.
This is not quality stuff! This is a bad toy with a bad gimmick!
Bit rude, but I said what I said.
But to everyone's surprise and delight Spinister spun back onto the scene in 2019
to plug a whole heap of different collection holes:
righteously roundin' off the Siege lineup,
doublin' the Decepticon Double Targetmasters
and stealing the hearts of thousands in his IDW side project boy band.
Hasbro?
Crankcase.
Come on.
It's not just me this time.
Yes indeed, here we are in the future and it's unlikely!
Check you out, Spinerella, getting your very own actual, proper, non-exclusive, non-repaint
full-size figure and everything,
you king!
So, Mister Spinister here is simultaneously an impressively authentic ancestral upcycle
and one of the heftier Siege deluxes,
struttin' a surprisingly strapping silhouette that stands strident over his cohorts
with striking composure and effortless sass!
I mean, the colours are pure ridiculous joy,
deliriously decked out in purple, dark teal, and hot hot pink
like a bi icon!
Chest chunk's a bangin' box of belligerence
with his old-school sticker details gloriously glowed up in premium plastic pride.
You love to see it.
Face is likewise brilliantly built with its brooding black beetle shell helmet
and I'm not quite sure what it is, but something about the bright yellow deep-set eyes
and weird turquoise mouthguard somehow reads sort of gormless and intense?
Like, dangerous dipshit energy.
This copter kibble's a bit flashy and full-on, isn't it?
Like, look at this bloody great heli-tail rising a clear inch above his head.
So ostentatious!
And I love the way the blades fold up there and juuust about stash securely.
Like, they wobble, but they ain't going anywhere. And I like that!
Just a little loosey goosey. Why not?
Also you can crack 'em down his back to access the backpack attack, Jack.
Arms are pretty standard but certainly a strong point -
just absurdly articulated, with these potential wrist gaps jammed up with bonus detail
along with some cheeky shoulder spikes and yet more sticker-inspired sculpts.
God, I'm into that. More of that, please.
Legs are lookin' lofty but they're certainly strange specimens.
Like, they've given him an entire separate cockpit per leg?
That's certainly a choice.
Like, it is weird, but it totally works!
I mean, if they had just given him the one cockpit that split in half
we'd be looking at some serious open-sided inner-shin emptiness
so I think it was the right call to just give him two of his entire G1 bottom half
plus it looks cool as shit, man! It's like helicopter bell-bottoms.
Anyway, as a legacy Double Targetmaster,
good ol' Michael Spinnigan comes with two basic bi-barrelled blasters
tooled up for dual wielding or arm-mounting or doublin' up for Targetmastery troublemakin'.
Sadly they are just regular guns and not little blokes
although I'm pretty sure Singe and Hairsplitter are floatin' around somewhere.
Look, you want Targetmasters, now's the time to get Targetmasters.
They're on sale! They're on clearance everywhere! Just grab a couple!
They're all the same! Who cares?
Speaking of, let's make a swift run down the Siege checklist!
So he's packin' a couple of those little impact posts that I've run out of funny names for.
Blast bumps?
Pow pimples?
Flame freckles?
I've definitely run out of GOOD ones.
He's also blessed with the very dregs of the old scuffle scrapes
which is so downplayed at this point it just looks like ageing denim.
"Ageing Denim". That's what they call me.
And he does SEEM a little light on the old weapon ports but it turns out he's got like twelve of 'em.
I dunno if that means they're especially well-implemented, or if I'm just used to it now.
And whaddaya say we do the old blacklight box code thing real quick?
[muffled] Let me just type in these glyphs, and...
Rspiniste!?
Oh no...
...they gave up.
Ah well, kinda nice to know we all ran out of enthusiasm for that gimmick at the same time.
Hasbro and the fandom, united at last!
But look, you still get a pretty swish desktop wallpaper out of it!
A desktop wallpaper.
Of Spinister.
As if.
So, dude, Spinister's robot mode just friggin' rips!
It does everything it needed to way better than it needed to,
both as a heartfelt G1 homage, and as a bleeding-edge asset to the War For Cybertron squad.
It's just absolutely that bitch.
[SCRAPPY ROCK RIFF]
Transformation's a welcome bit of weirdness!
Like, I always love it when there's a waist twist that doesn't just go all the way around.
You gotta turn it halfway!?
Whaaaaaaat!?
Step back, noobs, this is a
Now then, let's give the alt mode a
thorough critique.
This thing's a total hoot, man!
Definitely one of the coolest heli modes I've seen in a long ass time
and a mighty meaty one with this macho military cockpit
flanked by weighty wedge wings and a beefy fuselage,
all of which manly machismo clashes horribly with the absurd colours!
It's just the tastiest kind of hot mess.
I love how nonchalant it comes off with the arms just chillin' out on the side there
but it is unavoidably odd that he ends up with this whole-ass back-to-front upside-down extra cockpit
just danglin' off his underbelly like an egg sac.
It can be kinda tricky to get it to sit up there just right,
so you gotta be sure to twist the hip and not just the leg!
I just found that out.
Still feels a smidge sparse on the old Siege sockets.
Like, it's got you covered on the wings and on the sides,
but the two on the back are all but unusable, and the cockpit's just got the one, just on this cheek?
At least it's unique.
But no amount of minor missteps could dull the blades of what is a kick-ass copter mode!
It looks rad, it feels hefty,
rotors go for days, details are some serious shit, it's got landing gear!
It just propels old Spinister to the top tier as an irresistible overachiever
that walks the line between badass and bananas like an absolute boss!
Like, part of what I love about Spinister is that he's got one of the best names in all Transformers
and he just doesn't suit it at all!
Like, just the name in isolation - aside from being weapons-grade wordplay -
the sound of "Spinister" evokes some kinda creepy-crawly cryptid
like some horrible skinny spider SPINning a web with its SPINdly legs.
Airachnid should have been called Spinister.
Ohh, look! She's also a helicopter.
It's a word that sounds way more horror-movie than the flamboyant fuchsia flash-heart who actually owns it,
but MAN, does he own it.
Spinvincible!
And I reckon that just about caps off Siege's dynamite Decepticon detachment!
Look at this, we got the classics;
we got neglected cartoon extras;
we got unlikely returning faces from the waning days of the OG toyline;
we got retconned G1 versions of characters from way after G1;
and who'd have thought that out of all those megastars,
the best one of the lot would have been...
Spinister.
I said what I said!
So until next time, cheers for watching! Don't forget to subscribe and that,
and lord help the mister who comes between me and my Spinister.
All right! I hope that one did the trick for ya.
Major thanks to Ian Dubson for being a patron of the show! Thank you, my friend.
#Do make sure that you're clean handeeeeeeddddd...
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Limited appeal, keeping it real.