A gung-ho fighter who never gives up. Considered the best in the field. Uses cool headed logic and hardened battle tactics to outwit his enemies. Always ready to lend a helping shovel to his fellow Autobots, no matter how dangerous the situation. The kind of soldier you want around when you're pinned down in a slug swamp with no ammunition. Teamed with Tracer who transforms into a twin laser-guided ion blaster, and Holepunch, a former office manager turned military man who transforms into a steel-shattering dual compression cannon.
Figure Details
Manufacturer - Hasbro
Toyline - Generations
Additions/Mods:
- Added an Autobot symbol to the chest, covering the tampographed one
- Added an Autobot symbol to the cab
Review
Sometimes Hasbro surprise you. It happens rarely, but they occasionally pull something like
Unicron or
Metroplex out of the bag and you realise that, all these years on, they still have the 'power to surprise' (sorry). I was utterly flabbergasted when I saw the pictures of their forthcoming
Whirl, and I thought to myself that this was definitely the oddest release of the year. Only because it was G1 accurate and even sported a sticker sheet. But then, I remembered Scoop. I know nothing about Scoop. I did pick up Landfill, who I was convinced was a fake Transformer. Why? Because it was the first Transformer I got which lacked the once-synonymous rubsigns. Little did I know that this was a sign of things to come, as the toys (by and large) became more simplistic and even non-transforming. So anyway the only memorable thing about Landfill was the he was a double Targetmaster, who sported particularly garish sidearms which could plug into each other. So for Hasbro to randomly forge ahead with a homage to one of these guys practically blew my mind.
Appearance (Robot Mode) 8/10
Despite his relative anonymity, Hasbro have homaged this character with a fine little robot. I say little, but he is deluxe sized, and certainly as tall as the
Trailbreaker mould. His proportions are particularly nice, he is endowed with a decent headsculpt with nice light-piping, most of his kibble is either stowed away or does not detract from the robot. If you don;t like your figures garish, however, you may be disappointed. He is a shock of virulent orange set off against a more muted yellow, and punctuated by deep blue. I dig this paintjob, as I am an avid fan of garish Transformers. The mould also has a nice amount of detail, and has a good amount of paint apps, although the quality of one in particular is a bit sloppy. Perhaps the Reprolabels crew will work their magic. He also comes with the aforementioned guns, which look good enough in robot mode. They leave a lot to be desired as guns, however, looking overly long. This is mainly because their legs do not fold over, as was traditional with the first wave of targetmasters. This may be accurate to the original toy but I think he looks a wee bit daft holding them. He also has hollow forearms - a bugbear of mine.
Appearance (Alternate Mode) 7/10
Again Hasbro have done well here. Seeing Scoop in this mode makes me think that Hasbro will produce a
Scrapper out of it - and this mode certainly fits the bill. This construction vehicle scales well with
Maketoys Constructicons. The clear plastic in the cabin is nice and the digger arm has some articulation. The wheels also roll nice and freely. Despite these good points, this vehicle does not hold together particularly well, the front section particularly suffers, because the tabs on the inside of the robot chest do not slot very firmly into the front wheels. Also the arms only partially slot into the sides, leaving them prone to falling out of position. The guns can supposedly attach to the vehicle, however their placement isn't great, nor do they hold in place particularly well.
Transformation 7/10
The legs fold back over themselves to form the rear of the vehicle. The front is a bit more complex, with the chest plate folding down and the whole upper body rotating backwards. As I have mentioned already, the front wheels attach rather tenuously to the chest. To compound this issue, the shoulders rotate to get the wheels into position. This rotation causes flex and actually pushes the torso out a bit. Perhaps this is just on mine. I had to apply a bit of force initially as the shoulders were not aligned properly, meaning that the engagement of the tabs to the wheel section was even worse. But again, perhaps I was unlucky. The head also sits in the clear cabin in vehicle mode, so if you look closely enough you can see robotic eyes staring back at you. Unnerving!
Poseability 8/10
Hasbro have done a pretty decent job here. The head is ball-jointed and the waist is on a swivel. There are ball-joints in the shoulders and hips, with the shoulders also sporting some additional articulation thanks to the transformation. The biceps and thighs both have the all-important swivel. The elbows have standard joints but there is no articulation in the wrist. The knees are double-jointed which allows for some dynamic poses, and there is articulation in the toes although it is not particularly useful. Speaking of the feet, there should be more of a heel because the large scoop on the back of the figure makes it slightly back-heavy and prone to falling over. The 2 little targetmaster figures have ball-jointed shoulders and that is it - unfortunately their legs are permanently fused together. Still, they are tiny though.
Quality 6/10
I really wish that Hasbro had done a bit more QC on this figure, my main issue being the lack of stability in vehicle mode. There are two sets of tabs which are both inadequate to perform the task intended, which is a real shame. I have also mentioned the fact the shoulders on my figure were out of alignment by a couple of millimetres, and I had to carefully fix this myself. Add to this the torso section which moves worryingly when the shoulders move and there are a few issues which really should have been addressed in the design stage.
Overall - 36/50
As an unexpected addition to the increasingly unpredictable
Generations line, Scoop was always a bonus figure, and for that reason my expectations were never high as I just didn't have any. Overall, I think this is a nice enough figure, ruined somewhat by poor QC. It is a good sign if Hasbro are willing to look at more obscure and later characters to homage, but I really feel they need to get a grip of the issues which have plagued their
Blitzwing mould, and to a lesser extent dimmed my enthusiasm for this one. But with one double Targetmaster out of the way, I'm hoping that we might see a Needlenose and Quake one day, to keep my
Spinister company.
