‘Til All Are Displayed! The Collection… well most of it.

I was just looking at the pictures on my “‘Til All Are What Now?” page and thought it was just about time for an updated shot of my Transformers display.

As I sit at my computer typing this out a turn to the left reveals three shelves, each roughly six and a half feet tall, as well as an assortment of smaller satellite shelves. To my immediate right is display shelf 1. Topped by three (soon to be three and a half) shelves of the star of Transformers — no, despite what they would have you believe recently, not Bumblebee: Optimus Primes and Convoys of all shapes and sizes.

Working our way counter-clockwise, shelf-by-shelf from there we have:

• Half a shelf of Hot Rod/Rodimus Primes.
• Ultra Magnus’ (Magni?) and Blaster and his tapes.
• Smaller Constructicons and a slew of Micromasters.
• Constructicons (old and new) and other combiners.
• Scorponok, SkyLynx, and Omega Supreme.
• In the middle is the Dark of the Moon shelf and Kre-O Optimus, which is a bit of a mess at the moment.
• My wife’s “girl Transformers that could kick your tailpipe” shelf.
•  The multiple incarnations of Mirage, Prowl, and Jazz.
• The Targetmasters.
• Finally, the Headmasters and Wheeljack.

On the wall opposite display shelf 1, there are shelves 2 and 3 and two more ancillary shelves.

For this one, I’ll do each shelving unit individually, starting on the top left:

• Various incarnations of Star Saber (except an actual Star Saber, sadly) and Dai Atlas (with an actual Dai Atlas, happily.)
• Two shelves of Minibots and their updates.
• An entire shelf of Grimlocks.
• The rest of the Dinobots, as well as Grimstone and his Dinobot drones.
• The G1 repaints from the newest movies; such as red Ironhide, white and blue Jazz, and Revenge of the FallenSkywarp (look! I finally found my G1 repaint Movie (2007) Starscream!)

Display shelf 3, starting at the tippy top:

• AssortedGods, Monsters, Primes, and one tiny Fortress Maximus.
• The Animated Shelf, including the full 2011 Botcon set and TFCC Exclusive Animated Cheetor.
• The G2 and G2 Classics with all the glorious colours of the rainbow.
• The first section of G1 and G1 Classics Autobots.
• Shattered Glass and the second section of G1 and G1 Classics Autobots.
• The Movie (2007), RotF, and DotM Leader and Human Alliance class toys.
• More Combiners! Predaking!

Display shelf 2, from top to bottom:

• Shockwaves, The Fallen, and movie Megatrons.
• G1, G2, Masterpiece, Classics… just a whole bunch of Megatrons as well as Classics Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge and their updates.
• TheshelfoftheSeekers.
• Soundwavesgalore and mini-cassettes (and updates) galore.
• G1 and G1 Classics Decepticons.
• Japanese Beast Wars, including my beloved Tako Tank.
• Another shelf full of combiners.

The last little shelf is a mishmash of stuff:

• Smokescreens G1, Classics, and Alternators (soon to be joined by RotF and Cybertron Smokescreens once I dig them out.)
• The Generations Junkions.
• Scan series Bumblebee, Sideswipe…
• …Ratchet and Ironhide.
• The Power Core Combiner Autobots.
• The Power Core Combiner Decepticons.

Oh yeah, also Supreme class Beast Machines Cheetor standing to the side.

With the exception of G1 Metroplex and Cybertron Metroplex that stand ever vigilant above my computer (which is itself named Metroplex) and an extra Micromaster Tailwind, that is the entirety of my current display.

However, though admittedly a lot of floorspace is taken up by the display (and yes, I am aware that I am very, very lucky to have a wife that is not only ok with, but actually encourages my collecting and displaying), it only amounts to a little under half of my total collection. The rest are in plastic bins in a closet.

One day I will have an entire room devoted to the collection, until then, I’ll keep enjoying them by occasionally pulling them out of their bins to take pictures of them for this blog. That way I get to share the joy this collection brings me (and yes, a little showing off too.)

“War is a Sport and I Play to Win” Beast Wars II Autojetter!

The Decepticon Auto Rollers, of which Autojetter is (sort of) a member, have a rather interesting history. In 1995, at the tail-end of Generation 2, two Decepticon toys were released that made up the Auto Rollers sub-group. Their main gimmick was that they auto-transformed when rolled. As evidenced by the 1995 Sears Catalog, the two Decepticons, Dirtbag and Roadblock, were not to be the end of the Auto Rollers.

Yep, you read that correctly. The two Decepticons were to be repainted into Sgt. Hound and General Optimus Prime. Oh, G2, you never cease to entertain.

Unfortunately, before they could be released Generation 2 was cancelled and sadly the Seargeant and the General were never to see the shelves. What wasn’t apparent by the image above is that these four weren’t going to be the entirety of the Auto Rollers either.  There were actually two more molds that were going to be released and were it not for Beast Wars II, we might have never known. With three exceptions, the Japanese exclusive follow-up to Beast Wars was a toyline was repainted or remolded from toys released within previous series. We were given not just repaints of Roadblock and Dirtbag, but suprisingly the never-released other two Auto Roller molds as well. It was this fact that made me buy Autojetter. If there’s two things I can’t resist it’s some quirky toy history and some G2.

Now, Autojetter is only “sort of” a member of the Decepticon Auto Rollers because he’s actually a member of the Predacon Autorollers. Being a Beast Wars series, Beast Wars II featured the evil Predacons rather than the evil Decepticons. To that end, Autojetter has a Predacon rub sign, not that you would know in robot mode. It would end up on his chest when he transforms but instead it gets covered by the cockpit of his alt mode. Instead, you can see it on the underside of his alt mode. To activate his auto-transformation gimmick, you adjust the switch on his alt mode’s tail to the left or right then roll him on a smooth surface.

Putting the switch in the middle allows you to “lock” his transformation in place in either mode. A rather decent F-18 in alt mode, the only problem is that his wings have tabs but don’t actually lock into place. Basically the only thing keeping them in place is gravity; were he to perform a barrel roll, his wings would simply swing loose.

"Wings that lock into place are for wimps and Autobots. Oh wait, that's redundant. Har har!"

Of course, loaded up with his enormous missiles his aerodynamic profile is already pretty bad so I guess barrel rolls aren’t really a consideration for him most of the time.

"Barrel rolls? I can barely get off the ground."

Due to his auto-transformation’s gearing mechanism being housed in his feet, he shares the other Autorollers complete lack of leg articulation; though he does have very good arm articulation.

The other gimmick of the line, as you might be able to tell from the Sears Catalog image, is big honkin’ missiles with launchers for everyone. This pretty much makes Autojetter’s complete lack of hands ok.

"Hands are for wimps."

One cool thing about Autojetter is that, unlike the other Autorollers who utilize spring-loaded launchers, his are actually pressure launchers using sliders.

I really like his headsculpt too. Not content with just very good light piping, he also has details molded into his eyepiece itself.

I will admit that I managed to pick this guy up pretty cheap, but I like him enough I think I’m going to hunt down the rest of his Predacon sub-group.

Starting off on the right… tentacle? Tako Tank!

Some people’s Holy Grail of Transformers collecting is the two-foot tall Fortress Maximus, MISB (“Mint In Sealed Box”, for the uninitiated). For me, for almost ten years now, it has been Ikard October Barks, the transforming squid and his Octopus — “Tako” is the Japanese word for Octopus — tank with a motorcycle for a brain. (If your brain has a slight seizure whilst reading that sentence, that means your brain is working correctly.)

One thing I underestimated was his sheer size, jdcarling, the fellow TFW2005 board member I bought Tako Tank from, did a commendable job packaging him up for the trip.

Now, before we get to the figure — really, the squid is nice but it’s all about the Octopus Tank, let’s not lie — here’s the strange thing about this being a Holy Grail for me: I’ve never seen a single episode of the show he’s from.

Once Chō Seimeitai Transformers Beast Wars (Super Lifeform Transformers Beast Wars… oh Japan) ended, while America had moved on to Beast Machines, Japan put out two more Beast Wars series. Beast Wars II, pronounced “Second” not “Two”, and Beast Wars Neo, pronounced… like the guy in the Matrix movies. Anyway, Tako Tank is from Beast Wars Second, a show that has never been fully subtitled officially or unofficially. What the Japanese did was take some of the non-show Beast Wars toys we got here in America and re-purpose them as show characters for both the sequels. Along with these they also made all new molds — such as the glorious Wooly Mammoth alt-moded Big Convoy for Neo, a toy to be posted another day. Two of these new molds were larger-sized “Special” class, a tank and an aquatic base, that came with smaller toys. Tako Tank was packaged with its pilot, Ikard (a repaint of the Beast Wars Second character Scuba who was, in turn, an ever so slight repaint of the American release, Claw Jaw). It has been rumored that both of these larger molds actually were meant as part of a unreleased concept for the Microman line (also owned by Takara). Anything is possible from the only Transformers line that I’m aware of that actually had an official sausage.

The box on this thing is just huge but it’s pretty easy to see why. A good half of it was taken up by tentacles (there’s a Japanese anime joke in there somewhere, I’m sure). The front two are a rubbery plastic molded into joints to allow for movement controlled by two puppet rods in the back. This feature was declared by the TFWiki to be “one of the funnest play-features in Transformers ever”.  Normally my least favourite part of a toy is the “gimmick” but here I completely agree, though the degree of control is dubious at best, it leads to some fun hijinks for unsuspecting cats (and wives, but we’ll get to that in a moment…)

The Tank’s “head” opens and a transformable hoverbike/land-cycle is inserted to serve as the cockpit complete with two missle (torpedo?) launchers. There’s also a plunger that runs the length of the body to activate the water-bellows and shoot water from the front of the tank (not a feature I’ve investigated yet.)  Oddest of the “features” of the toy are eyes that rotate in unison, for what purpose I am completely unaware. The only real disappointment is the fact that, due to where all the pieces fold up, you can’t leave the pilot in the cockpit and close the halves of the head. Which is both an extremely minor thing as well as something I would have known had I actually read his TFWiki entry beforehand.

End result: this thing has lived up to its Holy Grail status. It is easily my favourite Beast-era toy, just undeniably Japanese in its self-deprecating bizarreness. All sausages aside, Beast Wars II is a series that does not in any way, shape, or form take itself seriously and Tako Tank is a shining example. I love him. Which is why the fact that my wife, Jamie, intensely dislikes him (going so far as to call him “creepy”) hurts my heart a little. Just like all of us, Tako Tank just wants to be loved. Well, that, and to be left alone to enjoy a good glass of wine in front of the TV.