Heroic Decepticon: September 2009

29 September 2009

D-333: Killbison - the gold-plastic-sydrome 'con?

Introducing D-333: Killbison, the Brestforce member that is composed almost entirely of gold plastic - the bane to toy collectors.

Gold plastic syndrome (GPS) is a situation where toys made of gold plastic, become over time, brittle and would or could break without much provocation.

It has, I was told, something to do with the gold additive in the plastic compound that causes GPS. The additive does not mix well with plastic in general and cools at a different rate from the plastic after molding - this results in micro pockets of air within the internal structure of the plastic that greatly weakens its overall strength.

Since the gold plastic is inherently defective and not strong enough, it breaks apart even under a tiny application of force; sometimes gold plastic even crumbles without an provocation.

Transformers renown for suffering from GPS include Bristleback, Skyhammer and Slog among others. Of course, Killbison, being composed almost entirely of gold plastic could very well be prone to GPS as well.

Oddly enough, Killbison does not seem to suffer much from GPS, if at all. I can safely say this because I own four Killbisons in total - 3 here and one MIB that is shown below. I transform them roughly sometimes and they hold up pretty well.

Who knows, maybe Liokaiser members are so powerful they are immune to common ailments like GPS...

Enough rambling from me, I shall get on with today's highlight: C333, Killbison MIB.

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Detailed pictures and commentary on individual Liokaiser memebers:

28 September 2009

Monday blues - Targetmaster Triggerhappy (whom is blue)

According to Cybertronian: The Unofficial Transformers Guide:

"For no currently discernible reason, of the three new-mold Decepticon Targetmasters, Triggerhappy seems to be the hardest one to find."

I do agree with the authors' conclusion because as 'early' as 1999, when the craze was for TFs from series 1 to 3 mostly and the later TFs like Headmasters and Targetmasters were in a lot less demand, Triggerhappy was already quite rare.

I say this because Triggerhappy was the last G1 Transformer a fellow collector and friend of mine needed, and he just could not find it. He was willing to swap a complete Liokaiser giftset with me if I got him a complete (loose) Triggerhappy. Needless to say, I became very, very interested in finding a complete Triggerhappy. I managed to acquire one for SGD$110.00, a darn hefty price back then when usually only the series 1 and 2 TFs cost that much (before the deluge of reissues).

The rest, as they say, is history.

Like my collector friend, and like Dlin, I too have no idea why Triggerhappy is the rarest of the 3 new mold Decepticon Targetmasters. Perhaps it was short-packed like TM Scourge?

In any case, I count myself fortunate to have obtained a really fine Triggerhappy MIB (thanks to Ken!) together with my other Targetmaster acquisitions, like Misfire below.

Here are some pictures, enjoy!

MIB Targetmaster Triggerhappy. There are 2 price tags on the front of the box, which I will use my method of removing price tags and stickers to remove when I have some time.

Slight damage to the box at the bottom left corner.

Beautifully smooth and glossy.

Triggerhappy and Blowpipe still in their bubbles

Blowpipe

Slight flap crease on the back of box

Triggerhappy and Blowpipe are not sealed on the bubble, but they have been so slyly removed that one can hardly see any trace of where the bubble has been sliced open to remove them.

Dlin & Tietjens commented that "the hinges for the dual cannons tend to loosen quickly with use, so the cannons' weight makes them sag down". Fortunately, this is not the case for this Triggerhappy!

26 September 2009

Targetmaster Misfire MIB

Today, I'm taking a break from showcasing the Liokaiser Brestforce members in favour of showcasing the first of a number of Targetmasters and Headmasters I recently acquired Mint in Box.

Today's spotlight falls on Misfire, my favourite Decepticon Targetmaster. I know, he's such a dork according to his tech specs, but hey, he transforms into a really sleek Cybertronian plane and has a Targetmaster partner that is unique in design among the large new mold Decepticon Targetmasters.

In fact, Aimless is unique among all Targetmasters - where Targetmasters are sharpeshooters, Aimless cannot aim to save his life. (yup, that's unique too).

Another reason why I'm fond of Misfire is because I actually thought him to be a lady Transformer when I was young - "Miss Fire", I thought. My misreading of his name coupled with his generally reddish-pinkish colour scheme actually made me think that Misfire is a female Transformer.

How cool was that. The first figure of a female Transformer was not Minelba but Miss Fire!

MIB Targetmaster Misfire

Box still smooth and glossy

Slight tear at the bottom righthand corner

Hint of a flap crease on the back of box

This is the original bag Misfire's paperworks came in. Interestingly, the catalog is not folded into a square but is rectangular.

25 September 2009

Liokaiser torso, D-332: Jarguar

I'm not going to feature the Brestforce individual robots in numerical order, but rather slightly randomly just to mix things up a little.

Today's feature is C-332: Jarguar or 'Jallguar' as his bio card calls him. A brief description from Wikipedia:

"A stealth warrior, he transforms into a black-colored missile buggy. His specialty is ambushing his victims. His breastplate transforms into a miniature mechanical jaguar."

Among the other members of Brestforce, I actually quite like Jarguar. He is a nice sleek black and transforms into a really cool dune buggy (ok, yeah, pretty shallow reasons). His toy design is also unique- his chest compartment is spring loaded and pops up to form his chest when his 'brest' master jaguar is removed. The other members of Brestforce do not have any such 'mechanical' function.

Also, since I'm a sucker for box art, I gotta say that Jarguar has one of the nicest pieces of box art among the Brestforce (although to be fair, all of the Brestforce's box art is very nice, as is consistent with Transformers from the Victory series).

Here are some detailed pictures (where what I'm going to say about each picture is more generic, I've copied over my comments from my Leozack post).

Front of box - As with the rest of the Transformers in the Victory era, the box art is simply stunning.

The individual boxed Brestforce members features bottom of the box art unlike earlier year Transformers which features a representation shot of the toy on the bottom of the box.

Flawless glossy box without creases, dents or rips.

Top of box - Unlike earlier year Transformer boxes which featured transformation sequences of the toy, the box tops of the Brestforce members show instead photos of the toys featuring the 'brest-former' function that is unique to this sub-group (with the exception of Deszaras of course); notice the description actually says "Transforms from baggy to robot and back again" - one of the quirks of Japanese transformers is their English translations I guess.

Back of box

Jarguar's bio card is not included in the paperworks packet but is actually one of the inner flaps of the box. His name is actually spelled "Jallguar" here. Check out that box art, really, really nice!

The other side of his bio-card is actually another flap of the box. I suspect that the printing on each flap were meant to be printed on respective sides of a card, but Takara for obvious reasons cannot do that (ie: print on both sides of the same box flap), so they did the next best thing which is giving us the characters' picture on one flap and then the bio on the other flap.

The contents of C-332, Jarguar

Instructions and unapplied sticker sheet, plus full plethora of all paperworks like catalogues and other promotional material all sealed in its original bag. Due to the box size, the entire packet had to be folded to fit into the box, but this is how it originally came.

Minty Jarguar toy, jaguar 'brest' and missiles. Like Leozack, Jarguar has some parts other than his 'brest' master partner - he has a set of missiles which can be attached to him in robot and dune buggy mode. The missiles are attached to Killbison's gun turrets and together, these form Liokaiser's weapon.