I got Knock Out (and Vehicon) in the same box from Big Bad Toy Store that had Hot Shot in it, but I only asked Maggie to bring me Hot Shot to the airport for BotCon. Knock Out awaited me when I returned! I mean, I like Knock Out, but I don’t have a shrine of him. (It’d be a pretty small shrine at this point anyway, with only his Deluxe and his Happy Meal toy.)
Knock Out, much like SG Tracks, is evil Tracks. He’s more concerned about his paint job than anything else, and the only difference between him and heroic Tracks is that if you scuff him up, he’ll take a saw to you. Much of Transformers fandom — and expecially Tumblr — has decided he’s gay. If you want to see some hot Knock Out action, or at least some mild cuddling, search for art of him. I guarantee you he has a much higher percentage of slash than any other Transformers Prime character. (Starscream is probably second.) In fact, if you read nothing on the Internet about Transformers except what’s on Tumblr, you’d probably come away with the idea that Knock Out is The Most Popular Transformers Character Of All Time (And Also Has A Thing With Breakdown).
Given his popularity, of course everyone was excited for a toy of him. We got to see an early, unpainted version of his toy at 2011′s BotCon, to much cheering, but once we saw him in color, folks seemed put off. On the show, he has a pretty high contrast red/yellow/white color scheme, while the toy focused instead on the car’s two-toned red deco, leaving most of the yellow accents off. Knock Out is “that red and yellow car” according to probably most folks, but the toy was decided only red and gray. The toy does have some gold trim on the hood, but that’s the extent of non-red colors.
There’s also the matter of the show model being able to thwart all laws of physics and hide nearly all of his car parts and replace them with robot parts. The toy of course can’t do that, so instead of having normal robotty forearms, Knock Out’s forearms are the car’s rooftops, and instead of having a big robotty abdomen, his abdomen is car hood. Plus none of the official photos (and many of the in-hand photos by fans) seemed to have trouble photographing his torso transformed properly. Those car hood halves can angle towards each other so they nearly connect in the middle, y’know. And so folks were all “bleaaugh.”
Here's mine with some minor paint added, mostly silver and gold touch-ups.
(Except the folks on Tumblr. They seem perfectly pleased. I swear, the difference between the Transformers fandom on Tumblr and on everywhere else is like night and day.)
The toy itself, in all practicality, is fine. It transforms easily enough, and with enough unique twists and turns that it doesn’t feel like one of the 30 million other Transformers cars I already have. The face has the appropriate smirk, giving the toy some personality. And so I was pleased with it! It’s Knock Out, as a non-terrible toy, which may require some painting. Which I am perfectly capable of doing, so hey. I didn’t attack it as thoroughly as Cheetimus did, but I know the limits of my skill and I stick within them.
So if you like Knock Out, I recommend him. If you like Knock Out and have a silver Sharpie marker, all the better.
Hmm. Maybe I don’t need to rush to TRU, after all. On the one hand…Knock Out, and with a pretty awesome head sculpt, too. On the other…not really digging the colours, and the belly just…bluh. But to get a bit Deva-ish, I do like First Edition Arcee and Starscream well enough to put up with their lost show-accuracy. So. Hum.
I’ll never understand how a robotic life form that doesn’t have sexual organs or reproduce sexually can be coined “Gay”.
Explain how we can call one “female” and I’ll get back to you.
There are canonically gay Transformers. They’re all from Japan, but they exist.
I find it concerning that Transformers can have males and females, they can have brothers (Sideswipe/Sunstreaker), they can have sisters (Shadow Striker/Roulette), they can have cousins (Bulkhead/Quickstrike), they can have nephews (Arcee), they can get excited at the idea of naked roboboobies at a strip club (Rattrap), they can make out and apparently go to town on each other (Silverbolt/Blackarachnia), but the idea of one of them being gay is the crossed line!
Make a call, Willis: When are we going to see the first openly, canonically gay Transformer in US fiction? And in what medium will it appear?
SG Ravage, August 2010, comic strip.
I kid!
OR DO I.
(I probably kid.)
(OR DO I??)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o78MkSWe8Mw
When did I ever say it “crossed the line”? You’re making assumptions based on the fact that I’m questioning the application of homosexuality in a race of people that don’t have….SEXUALITY.
If they don’t have sexuality, then Willis just gave you a shitload of things you should be questioning already.
Many Transformers clearly do have sexuality. It was about 70% of Blackarachnia’s character.
Only 70%
There was supposed to be a question mark after that percent sign: “Only 70%?”
I hate laptop keyboards.
Dude, you might as well ask how a race of robotic life forms that don’t have sexual organs or reproduce sexually can have “male” and “female” sexes. Yet, there are Arcee and Airachnid. Though considering the male to female ratio on Cybertron, I’m surprised there aren’t more “gay” Transformers. LOL.
Seriously though, it’s interesting that back when Tracks was branded by fandom as being “gay”, it was a put down of the character. With Knockout, it’s almost a treated as a complement. Something people like about him. How times have changed.
Meh, that’s such a BS reply. “Because there are girl looking robots, there must be gay robots”. Transformers don’t have sex. I should think that is well established after all this time. If they don’t have sex, homo and heterosexuality mean nothing. You could argue they’re all gay, or they’re all strait, but if they’re not reproducing with sex, they you might have the same success saying “they’re all apples”. They gay lifestyle and culture is becoming more established in society and that’s the only reason some people feel it necessary to coin some of the characters “gay” that’s the bottom line. It just doesn’t seem to apply in my opinion.
Sexual reproduction doesn’t matter. They clearly have defined genders and romantic relationships (and romantic and sexual relationships are different things) it is entirely possible that transformers to have Homo-romantic or gay relationships. I’m not saying they do and I’m not saying they don’t. But the argument that they can’t be gay because they don’t reproduce sexually is flimsy at best.
If it’s the terminology that’s stumbling you, just call him a machismophile or something.
Dude. Real gay people don’t reproduce with sex.
I’d say Willis and Ryu Serpentine summed it up a lot better then I could. I understand you dislike the idea of sexuality between Transformers, but the fact is, it’s already there. Since Generation 1, we’ve seen numerous romantic relationships between Transformers, despite the fact they don’t have sexual organs or reproduce sexually. If you can have a “heterosexual” romantic relationship between and “male” and “female” Transformer, why not two “males?” Or two “females” for that matter.
That would certainly explain the way Airachnid kept touching and caressing Arcee whenever she had her captured. Or the time Starscream straddled the body of a damaged Megatron and felt him up way back in Masters & Students. You know, if the Prime writers want to insist that there is no designation for gay or straight on Cybertron, maybe they should refrain from writing sceens where the bad guys feel up their victims before going for the kill. Just a thought there.
You’re are right in a way Carl, realistically, romantic relationships don’t make any sense in the context of a race of robots who don’t engage in actual sex. But they DO inexplicably exist in almost every Transformers universe, so most of us kind of accept them the way we do Transformers having gender and family relationships. If you can accept a “straight” relationship, why not a “gay” one?
The fandom, yes: the show’s writing staff is another matter.
“Glitch in the AllSpark”, seriously? That isn’t even *clever*.
When I first heard that part of me giggled.
And then I said to myself: “Uh well… I’m an awful homosexual…”
Yeah…
When the first pictures of Knockout showed up on Facebook, I threw the picture up on my Tumblr just to see what would happen. I think it got reblogged more than anything else I’ve ever posted.
The colors and torso don’t bother me, but man, is that a gigantic weapon port there on his side. You wouldn’t think that Knock Out would put up with that wrecking his curves.
I’ll certainly still pick him up, though, assuming I ever see him.
That’s by one big gripe with the RiD figures (well, that and the fact that Wheeljack’s the only one I’ve seen that actually has somewhere unobtrusive to store his weapons in vehicle mode….still haven’t seen most of them, I have to admit, though…stupid selling out before I can get them).
I’m probably one of the few fans who don’t care particulary about Knock Out. Sure, he’s a fun character, but I enjoy him (and Breakdown) not as much as, say, Starscream and Soundwave.
But I have to admit I actually care more about the Autobots, and by now I’m actually going to get the entire Team Prime, although I originally only wanted Optimus, Ratchet and Arcee.
I love Knockout (Admittedly being able to so easily ship him with Breakdown is one of the reasons) but I think he’s in drastic need of some attention. What we’ve seen has always been entertaining but at the same time he’s not as interesting as the other characters. Especially ever since Megatron woke up.
Triage however seems to suggest he’ll be getting some much needed development soon though. I’m excited for that.
TFP toys getting price cuts here and there in Germany, so I bought him today.
His transformation was a bit weird thanks to the idiotic instructions, but once I got him right, he’s actually a really nice toy. The contrast of dark red and bright red looks even better in real life than on pictures and such. My only complaint would be his arms due to the windshields, which are really limiting his poseability.
That Tears it. I’m going to customize him
It might just be me, but i prefer the toy designs to the show designs (then again I’m the same with all transformers lines other than animated)
I like it better when I don’t have to prefer one over the other.
His car hood DOES become his chest, though.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:DeusExMachina-Knockout.jpg
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:KnockOutvehiclemode.jpg
At least, it’s close enough that the toy doing that is acceptable. My biggest gripes are the shades of red chosen and the lack of paint in obvious places. Why can they afford to put little tiny yellow details on his hood but not splotch the wheels with yellow? If you’re going to buy the paint, USE it. And the total lack of paint on his back end (including the damn rear window) is especially baffling. More than the red and burgundy, more than the (lack of) yellow. But I guess I understand. That would have been a different color they had to buy.
*sigh* All I know is I’m going to do my damnedest to imitate Cheetimus up there once I get this guy.
I know his car hood becomes his chest. I was remarking on how much of his chest is robot parts versus hood parts.
Also, it doesn’t cost extra to use different colors. You don’t have to “buy another color.” That’s ridiculous. It does cost more per application, though, and four hubcaps are more costly than two hood details. Each toy has a budget of a set number of paint applications, and since hubcaps take (at least) four of those and generally look fine without paint, they’re not always chosen to take up that portion of the budget. Remember, for every bit of deco you add, you have to take deco away from somewhere else.
Technically his belly is made up mostly of grill parts, not specifically robot parts, but either way yeah, the unfortunate fact that the toy hood can’t size-shift causes it to pretty much take over everything.
I got him yesterday… it’s an okay toy, and I would’ve liked to see yellow rims; I might tweak mine that way if I get the nerve to.