CONCEPT ART DECPTICON RUMBLE

TRANSFORMERS: STUDIO SERIES (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0051:  In 2018, there was a blue humanoid cassette bot released to tie-in with the Bumblebee movie, who was named Frenzy.  In 2024, there was a blue humanoid cassette bot based on concept art from the Bumblebee movie…named Rumble.  There has as of yet been no Bumblebee movie red cassette bot.

My love of Soundwave extends, at least somewhat, to his cassettes.  They’re his little buddies, and you always have to have at least a few of them, right?  What I’ve settled into is a desire to have certain ones in every style, and those certain ones are Laserbeak and Frenzy.  The trouble is, there’s some confusion about who’re Frenzy and who’s Rumble.  Now, I’m a firm supported of the blue guy being Frenzy, and I’m not about to let a label on a package tell me otherwise.  Okay, I might let it tell me otherwise, but I’ll still go to great lengths to file a formal complaint…in my mind.  The point is, sometimes, if I want a Frenzy, I have to convince myself a Rumble’s not really a Rumble.  Case in point.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Concept Art Decepticon Rumble was released in the ninth Core Class assortment of Transformers: Studio Series, which serves as the first Core Class assortment of 2024 for the line as well.  He’s alongside Mohawk and (humorously) a re-pack of the 86 Frenzy, who’s red, so as to be animation accurate.  In his robot mode, Rumble stands a little over 2 inches tall and he has 18 workable points of articulation.  He’s actually surprisingly mobile; the articulation scheme here does a lot in its small space.  The mold is all-new, and it’s a fun one.  I really dig this design; it grabs all the classic cassette boi vibes, but also modernizes a bit.  I love working the thumper weapons directly into the arms, even if it’s at the cost of him not actually having hands.  He gets two guns, which he can’t hold, but you can mount them on his back, I guess, so there’s that.  Like Ravage before him, Rumble turns into a prism thing, which can be fitted into the Voyager Soundwave’s torso.  I found the transformation on Rumble a lot simpler, and a lot less fiddly than Ravage, so I far preferred it.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

Since there were no cassettes beyond Ravage in the movie, I didn’t expect to get anyone else to go with my Bumblebee Soundwave.  This was a pleasant surprise.  He sort of fell into a different batch of figures I was buying when he came in, so I forgot about him, and wound up opening him while in the car for a long road trip, which was another pleasant surprise when I realized just how much fun he was.  Sure, his name may be wrong, but he’s still an awesome figure.

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