Zen and the Art of Transformer Maintenance. Vector Prime!

Unlike most posts where I get about three fourths the way in before I stop slobbering praise over a toy long enough to say, “Oh yeah, here’s what I don’t like about it,” I am just going straight to my one nitpick about Vector Prime.

Floppy bits.

No, not some sort of euphemism for robot genitalia, parts of the toy made of flexible plastic that are way too easy to bend out of shape. Usually it’s done for safety, such as Drift or Bludgeon, and Banzaitron’s swords, which is most likely also the reason for Vector Prime’s sword and his wings. I do like having his wings cast in the translucent blue, but unfortunately it can lead to this.

Just disgraceful. He’ll never fly with those wonky, misshapen wings. So, how do we get them back to this,

Step one: Get water very, very, very hot.

Step two: Stick the offending piece into the hot water until it becomes flexible.

Careful of any sensitive electronics and/or sensitive human fingertips.

Step three: A lot of time, the plastic will automatically return to the correct, straight position it was originally manufactured into. If not, simply bend the now malleable plastic into the correct position and keep it there until it cools.

Step four: PROFIT!!!

Even Primus himself isn’t as Cybertronian as Vector Prime. Just look at him. Seriously, from his helmeted head with that protruding chin and sunken eyes to his cape wearing, knight-like armor, he is every single Ancient Cybertronian stereotype rolled into one beautifully brown, white, gold, silver, and teal robot. Then you attach his mini-con, Safeguard, to his arm and equip him with his sword and he’s ready to disabuse you of any preconceived notions that “ancient” somehow means “fragile”.

"Safeguard" apparently means "really big gun" in Ancient Cybertronian.

Add in his status as one of the Original Thirteen Primes,  guardian of time and space itself, capable of existing outside of time, and you begin to understand that he is actually immensely powerful. His sword alone is so powerful — able to open dimensional gates — that it gets its own name, Rhisling. He is accompanied by his mini-con, Safeguard — whom I liked so much that when Vector Prime was repainted into a hideously gaudy bronze colour, I hunted down the accompanying repaint of Safeguard, but not bronze Vector Prime himself. I’m also trying to get my hands on the third Safeguard, a brown and silver repaint that came with the equally hideous Universe re-repaint of Vector Prime.

I'm actually surprised that this repaint of Safeguard hasn't already been claimed as Shattered Glass Safeguard.

Safeguard essentially transforms into a huge (by Mini-con standards at least) winged cannon. Being a Cybertron toy, Vector Prime has his very own Cyber Key, mimicing the geared clock motif that is also predominant on Vector Prime’s body.

Inserting the Cyber Key into his chest turns his electronic blaster sounds into electronic sword slashing sounds (yaaaaaawn!). A nice touch is that his key has the symbols of the other planets, Gigantion, Earth, Velocitron, and Jungle Planet, as well as a tiny little Autobot symbol on the front of it.

I can imagine Vector Prime is the kind of toy that designers love to have as assignments. They get to make this tremendously cool robot mode and aren’t restricted too much by the alt mode because it is “Cybertronian” rather than a normal Earthen alt mode.

One Cybertronian Space Cruiser coming right up.

Looking closely at the surface of this mode, you can see they just went to town with the molded details and paint applications. Note the clockwork gears on the top and along the front edges. You can see an inset area with a Mini-con port behind the cockpit where you can attach Safeguard. Also, just in front of the cockpit you can see the trigger that fires a missile from the front of the ship. The depth of detail doesn’t stop there either, it continues onto the bottom side as well.

There are a lot of Transformers that I absolutely adore that I can completely understand if others do not like, but honestly I don’t understand anyone that doesn’t have this noble guardian and his little Mini-con companion in their collection.