CYCLONUS

TRANSFORMERS WAR FOR CYBERTRON: KINGDOM (HASBRO)

Yesterday, I kicked things off in a decidedly not G1 fashion for this week’s Transformers reviews.  Today, however, I’m flipping the script, and going for the decidedly G1 fashion.  See, in addition to this year’s focus on Beast Wars, the main line is also splitting that focus to take a look at the other notable piece of media with halfway notable anniversary, Transformers: The Movie.  While most of the ’86 focus is in Studio Series, it’s overflowing a touch into Kingdom as well.  One of Galvatron’s two lieutenants, Scourge, made it into the Studio Series line-up, but his other secondary, and today’s focus, Cyclonus is instead part of the Kingdom line-up.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclonus makes up one half of the first Voyager Class assortment of Kingdom, alongside Optimus Primal.  He’s designed to be compatible with the Studio Series figures, so his design is generally closer to animation accuracy than prior main line figures.  In his robot mode, he stands about 7 inches tall and he has 25 usable points of articulation.  In contrast to the two Beast Wars figures I’ve looked at from the line, the articulation on this guy is pretty nicely designed and laid out.  The movement is pretty smooth, and he’s got a good range of motion.  The sculpt is very cleanly rendered, and followed the animation model very closely.  He’s appropriately sharp and angular, which is really how Cyclonus should be.  The kibble from his alt-mode folds up nicely into the robot mode, and doesn’t impede his movement.  Generally, it’s a nice, very solid sculpt, and the figure really has a nice heft to him.  Additionally, thanks to the design of the legs, it’s possible to adjust the height of the figure a little bit, thus replicating Cyclonus’ slightly variable size from the animation, which is certainly a cool touch.  Cyclonus is packed with his “Oxidating Laser” weapon, which is a pretty nifty looking sci-fi-esque gun.

Cyclonus’ alt-mode is a space jet fighter, just like it was in the movie.  It’s a pretty reasonable transformation process, that isn’t too difficult to get through.  It’s certainly not as fiddly as some of the Studio Series figures.  I did get a kick out of the Russian nesting doll-esque nature of unfolding the nose cone over and over again.  The end result is pretty decent, though I did have some trouble getting the mid-section to clip into place just right on mine.  I’m not sure if that’s an across the board thing, an issue with my figure thing, or an “Ethan’s not always great with Transformers” thing.  It’s certainly a minor thing, so there’s that.  Like the robot mode, the jet fighter mode is fairly animation accurate, and even has some fun little touches, such as fold out landing gear.  The Laser can be mounted to the top of the jet mode, for a more offensive set up.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

With the ’86 guys, I’m generally more of a heroes guy than a villains guy.  Because of that, I opted to pass on Scourge when he hit.  Cyclonus is a slightly different story for me.  He did have a tendency to get paired off against Ultra Magnus, and he’s also notable in the small handful of Transformers comics I’ve actually read.  Plus, there’s no denying that he’s got a pretty slick look.  All of that made it pretty hard for me to pass this guy up.  I’m glad I opted not to pass on him, because he’s quite a nice figure, and makes me feel not quite so bad about Kingdom as a whole.  Definitely my favorite piece of the figures from launch.

Thanks to my sponsors at All Time Toys for setting me up with this guy for review.  If you’re looking for Transformers, or other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.