Look, I have a lot of toys to talk about, but we have to get this little thing out of the way first. In the “Are We Sure This Isn’t A BotCon Exclusive Idea?” Department, Hasbro’s retooling Fall of Cybertron Bruticus as, well, the Wreckers. The torso is now Impactor, with a new Impactor head and a new handheld harpoon gun. Impactor’s never gotten a toy before. He was a Marvel UK-only character that recently got new exposure in Last Stand of the Wreckers. The limbs are the Jumpstarters and the Deluxe Autobots. Topspin and Twintwist haven’t gotten new toys since 1985. Roadbuster and Whirl have had plenty of new toys since then, but none with their actual heads.
And the head of this combiner, dubbed Ruination, is based on Emirate Xaaron, another previously non-toy guy.
And and the chest of Ruination has the old BotCon Wreckers logo, the blue Autobot symbol with the hammer forehead.
Plus with a dark blue helicopter, a green jeep, a light blue tank, and a white shuttle, the toy seems to serve as an homage to Robots in Disguise Ruination as well, with the orange/golden chest of the Car Robots version seen in the animation. This thing is an homage within an homage baked inside another homage. An homage turducken.
Seriously, what in the hell. Mind, this is a good “what in the hell,” but what in the hell regardless.
My only reservations are that Xaaron is not the best head choice for a giant combiner thingy of murder. He was a politician at worst and a resistance movement figurehead at best. But still. Xaaron head. It’s hard to complain. (Plus no matter what continuity we’re talking about, at least two of these guys are dead.)
But, yeah. I will buy this. I will lick it. It makes no sense, but I don’t care. Rule of Cool overrides all else. Why is it not next spring yet, I put to you folks. I think TFWiki needs a new category for “Things That Should Not Be Normal Retail Releases Yet Somehow Are.”
It’s Homageception!
I just wonder why the deco artist seemingly fell off the homage bandwagon. I think they were going for a more unified combined color scheme or something but some of the color choices on the Jumpstarters and Whirl in particular just boggle my mind. It just seems strange to go through the trouble of making exacting headsculpts for the characters and stop short of coloring them properly. Oh well, that’s what paint is for I suppose.
If Whirl is supposed to be in Ro-Tor colors (hence “Ruination”), then all makes sense. And, likewise, Topspin is a white shuttle and Twintwist is a blue tank, which also fits the “Ruination” homage idea.
Meh, by not settling on making it one or the other they don’t really effectively make it either. I’m happy to have these characters, but mixing in RID flavor wasn’t necessary. These will pretty much solely draw the attention of Wreckers fans, and pretty much any Wrecker fan would have preferred them in their proper colorations. At this point even RID falls squarely under the realm of nostalgia, and anyone looking for a new Ruination wouldn’t be satisfied with this either. Sure maybe there’s a few now grown-up kids who were RID fans that might be like “Oooh that reminds me of Ruination…except they’re Autobots now…and different names…the hell?” Besides, I’m sure the club or some other retailer like BBTS would have jumped at the chance to do a Ruination deco on these molds. Sure you can justify the colors if you go “well, if you look at it this way it makes sense” but it still seems to me something was lost between the head sculptor’s intent and the final product. But whatever, I guess I’ll just reinforce the Transfan stereotype of never being happy.
I’m happy with it. I’m one of those few people in the boat of ‘not every homage needs to be slavish.’ This works on multiple levels for me, and I like it on every one of those.
Besides, only the mishmash of Wrecker and Ruination colors can combat G2 Bruticus.
I’m generally happy to add orange to anything.
Totally agree. I don’t know why I love the idea of mashing Ruination and the wreckers together, but I do. I like it much more than slavishly sticking to only one of those themes.
“Oooh that reminds me of Ruination…except they’re Autobots
The RID Commandos were Autobots, before they came to Earth and were corrupted by exposure to Megatron’s PURE EVIL. So it wouldn’t make much sense for pre-Earth versions to be Decepticons.
Yeah this thing is a super Homage/Easter Egg Turducken Pizza Wrap Burrito.
Well, let’s be fair – these are coming out maybe six months after the mass release Combaticons – you’ve got to make the retools significantly different. Roadbuster can’t be orange, he’ll look too much like Swindle, etc.
Regardless, I expect we’ll see lots of Brutinations in thrift stores and yard sales in the future.
I will own this. Yea, verily…
I am curious to know where all those spiffy new weapons go, in Vehicle and Combined modes. The Ruination picture seems to depict the original Combaticons’ unified weapons… Does that mean we get both (and if so, how are we gonna store the things)? Are the new weapons only a ruse? Or, most likely, is the Ruination picture just a heavily Photoshopped artist’s rendition that won’t really represent the final product?
All I can say with certainty is that all of these images are indeed heavily photoshopped. The rest are questions I also wonder.
Are any of them actually new? I was under the impression that they were reused Mechtech accessories. Like I’m pretty sure Topspin’s saw blade originally came with DOTM Ratchet. I don’t know, though, I didn’t collect that line too heavily.
Ratchet’s looked like this: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:DOTM_Deluxe_Ratchet.jpg
Yeah, so it did! I looked through the others and I see they definitely aren’t reused. But they do kinda look like mechtech weapons, don’t they?
Not to rain on this parade, but you did notice Twin Twist and Top Spin’s heads/colours/weapons got mixed up right? It’s like some kind of cruel joke; they finally get new toys and then they mix up the details…
Are you sure? The slideshow presentation labeled the blue tank with double drills and the face-with-eyes as Twintwist and the white jet with the saw and the face-with-goggles as Topspin. That’s correct.
I get what Cyhwuhxlkqk is saying: Topspin and Twin Twist are both white-and-blue, but I’ve always thought of Topspin as “the blue one” and Twin Twist as “the white one” because those are their predominant colors in vehicle mode.
Regardless of whether you consider robot or vehicle mode colors their “real” colors, I really don’t think their heads and weapons got mixed up. The colors are only one-third of what he was talking about.
Impactor was an almost instant classic for me. I never understood why he didn’t have a toy as a kid. Then the whole zombie episode came along and I was scared to death of him…
Ok, this is prettttty darn awesome.
I know right? I hate to be gross, but I darn near messed my pants when I saw the pictures of this. I mean, F’in IMPACTOR? YAY!!!!!!
But really, Whirl looks amazing, Twin Twist and Top Spin, Amazing. MUTHERFUZZIN ROADBUSTER LOOKS AMAZING. Way to go Hasbro….way…to….GO.
Yes, this may be a perfect Botcon toy, but it makes me very happy to see this released through retail. I love everything about this set, even the Ruination homage (Hmmm…ruined forever meta-reference?). I feel that RiD was the reverse Animated because the Autobots were overpowered and the Decepticons an odd bunch of weaklings.
Didn’t Topspin and Twintwist get new life as Wreckers in the Dark of the Moon line…?
Just Topspin. There was also a Topspin that helped form a limb of Nexus Prime. But I consider those name reuses and not a new iteration of the older character.
I think there was going to be a Twintwist (a repaint of Topspin) but he was part of the waves that never got released. Anyway, I see what you mean.
Yeah, we’re unsure if that was actually gonna be Twintwist or the slideshow presentation guy got the name wrong. I think that toy was seen elsewhere later but with the usual Topspin name.
Yes, it was.
It occurs to me that a decent customizer could turn these guys into a FANTASTIC Computron.
I would have liked a full-on RiD homage, but Ruination is a perfect name for a Wrecker gestalt. So maybe pre-reformatting and corruption the RiD Commandos _were_ that universe’s version of the Wreckers?
Whichever, this is likely the version of this team that I’m buying. I don’t have a single Bruticus that isn’t actually Ruination, so why change tradition?
This is exactly how I’m viewing it, and it actually makes WAY TOO MUCH SENSE that way.
In another life, Mega-Octane would have been RID Impactor.
and given the way the TF multiverse works, almost certainly is and was.
I’m actually pretty blown away with all the TF stuff from SDCC. The last couple years with TF and GI Joe I’ve kinda gotten used to “Here’s a lot of neat stuff that will never have a wide retail release.”
Now we’re getting First Edition, those spiffy Asian Generations figures, a ton of new Kreons, and a Wreckers combiner? Not to mention some new Masterpiece figures. Still, it’s sort of hard to get excited when there’s always the possibility that all of these items will be impossible to obtain.
Ah, well. At least I’m assured my G2
DudicusBruticus.I know right? Its like we went from nothing but Prime stuff to all sorts of cool releases!
FYI, I added your site to my blog list, hope that’s cool.
The more the merrier!
I know I shouldn’t but I am getting these guys when they come out.
Has anyone else noticed that Impactor, Topspin, and Twin Twist’s weapons have to deal with their character. Impactor has some type of harpoon like the hook hand he has in the comics. Topspin has a saw which spins. Twin Twist has a twin drill like in his original vehicle form.
Got the G2 on preorder, the SDCC version purchased, and this one will be a definite next year. Granted I collect only combiners and the Masterpiece guys, so it doesn’t sound quite as crazy as it might otherwise to be getting at least three versions of this mold.
Getting three versions is crazy? …uh oh…
Wheelie say: Getting all four is what I’ll score.
I’m Wheelie in that scenario above.
Trust me I thought about it, but just not a fan of the retail colors. I’m not sure what it is, I mean I could say the day glo decoy, but I ordered the G2 guys. They just don’t call to me like the others do. Of course once I see them on the shelf at retail that might change.
I came
Man, I want to LOVE this, I mean I want this side by side with my fully upgraded Bruticus on the shelf now, but all that Orange is really throwing me off. While I really dislike it on Whirl, I can live with that. But I want my lavender/purple/yellow Impactor! Still… these are really early shops… maybe not set in stone yet.
Am I the only one that noticed that the 3rd sentence in the last paragraph is “I will lick it.”.
Are we getting a glimpse into Willis’ secret fetish??? He is a toy licker.
Willis talks about stuff that he plans to lick all the time; Universe Hot Shot, Prime Hot Shot, his new ‘Dumbing of Age’ book, and now this toy. Probably some other stuff too, that’s all off the top of my head. It’s not really a secret.
To answer your question, he is an AVID toy-licker.
Transformers plastic must taste pretty good, huh?
Ahhh, I just got the Rotorstorm joke! Lol.
I want to like this, but I can’t. Headsculpts aside, they look nothing like the Wreckers do body-wise. They’re as ill-fitting as that Megatron head on the Bludgeon mold.