Guess which one of these guys is not based on a dude from 1985. Hard, I know.
This is the last of my six new guys from my Giant Box Of Awesomeness. He was the only retool of a toy I already had of the bunch, so of course he was the least interesting to talk about, and that’s why he’s bringing up the rear. His name…
…is Solar Storm Grappel.
Yes, that’s right. ”Grappel.” Misspelled for some reason. It can’t be for trademark purposes, since, well, trademark doesn’t really work that way. Hasbro couldn’t sell a toy named “Batmanne.” And usually the name prefixes like “Solar Storm” are appended onto common nouns that are hard for Hasbro to defend ownership of, like with “Special Ops Jazz” or “Turbo Tracks.” But “Grappel” isn’t a word, much less a common one. Except maybe, I guess, amongst drunken people.
So I assume this was the worst kind of typo. Even if it wasn’t, it’s still horrible.
But, at least, this means I can start calling the guy who used to be simply “Grapple” the distinguished name of “Grah-PELL.” Y’know, pronounced all French-like or something. Like “GRA-pell” was his commoner name and now that he’s a famous arteeeest, he’s known in the galleries as “Grahh-PELLLLLL.” This amuses me.
The forearm retooling helpfully gets rid of the hose nozzles on the original version's vehicle mode.
Grahpell is an extensive retool of Inferno, the fire truck. They shared a toy back in 1985, and they do so again in 2011. And by extensive, I mean they changed wayyy more than the water cannon, which would have been sufficient. Grahpell has a new crane hook arm, obviously, since a crane is what he’s supposed to be, but he also has a new head based on the original cartoon’s character model for him. He also has new forearms, new hands, and new feet. The new hands are sculpted into an open position, but not the kind that still allows for him to hold 5mm peg weapons. No, they’re just open to look pretty. They don’t rotate at the wrist, either. The new forearms do away with the previous version of the mold’s ability to rotate the vehicle kibble higher up onto the arm and out of the way of the hands. It’s all one solid piece here.
The crane hook arm can extend in either mode, but it’s kind of unwieldy in robot mode. Since the wrists don’t rotate, it always has to be slung under his arm, meaning the crane hook arm’s hook has to always be hanging, uh, upwards, unless you want his arm to look broken.
And the money shot.
A plus for this version of the toy is that it holds together much better in vehicle mode than either of the older versions I have. The arm panels lock into his legs more securely. This might be because of the loss of rotating arm panels or it might be plain ol’ plastic tolerances, who knows.
And finally, because Grahpell’s not gonna be left out, the little rungs on the tops of his shoulders have been widened so that they can interact with the whole C joint clip system that all the other current toys are a part of. This, my friends, is sweet ass.
I love these reviews.
My immediate thought is they were combining ‘grapple’ and ‘rappel’ but maybe I’m giving them too much credit…
There’s a difference between “misspelling a word to make it trademarkable” and “misspelling a word in a way that can be confused with an active trademark”. Your “Batmanne” example is the latter.
Yes, but if they were misspelling a common word to make it trademarkable, then they wouldn’t need to put “Solar Storm” on the front of it. Either changing the spelling works or it doesn’t.
Another piece of information: In some markets, and on Hasbro’s website, “Grapple Grip Mudflap” was spelled as “GRAPPEL Grip Mudflap.” In some markets this was changed to the correct spelling. Clearly somebody at Hasbro thought that’s how it’s spelled. http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Mudflap_(ROTF)#Fast_Action_Battlers
Fair enough, just pointing out that they’re two different things and you were conflating the two with “Batmanne”.
What you are clearly missing is that this autobot travelling millions of years ago, overshot the earth and landed on planet Krypton, where he was adopted by a prominent local family, who renamed him Grapp-El, the Last Son of Cybertron.
Or so they believed.
I wonder if his new C joint bars are there specifically to make up for his inability to hold things?
(Also, his wrists don’t turn? Crap, that’s gonna ruin my plan to get an Inferno and swap their hands.)
I just don’t like that he’s a crane truck. I’d buy a truck that size as a utility truck with a cherry picker, but as a crane? No way.
Actually they did misspell a common word. Grapple is a word. It means “Engage in a close fight or struggle without weapons, wrestle.”
With his name they flipped the l and the e.
I like Grappel’s head more than the previous two figures. More TF less power rangers looking.
I would love to hear what your definition of “Power Rangers looking” is.
I don’t really have a clear definition, it is just my personal view, but here goes
It is just that the head on Inferno (who I have) looks more like what I would see on a PR robot (zord I believe the kids call it)
I dunno, something about the face to “helmet” ratio, the pointyness as well. The newer head seems to match up better with the heads on my other Autobots better.
Not a value judgment, just a personal taste thing.