One thing that many people were annoyed about when the Titan Class releases of Metroplex, Fortress Maximus and Trypticon came out was that they felt incomplete. Parts of it came from just how many accessories they came with in G1, but while many could look past missing radar dishes, or a base mode that does not look like Fortress Maximus' base mode (I certainly cannot), many were annoyed about missing objects. Metroplex originally came with two small Transformers called Scamper, a small car to interact with the play functions, a small, non-transforming tank, and Six-Gun a Transformer made of excess parts, such as some of the guns and tower pieces, with the Generations release only coming with Scamper. Similar story for Trypticon, though he was missing a futuristic tank that used to come with his G1 toy, and for Fortress Maximus, two small vehicles could combine into the Transformer Cog. While I am not sure if any third party company made a Cog and the tank for Fort Max and Trypticon, there were third party Six-Guns popping up since the Generations release. It is fair to say though that originally, all three of these things were accessories, and mixed at best ones at that, and normally they would not see a general release as a result (the tank especially as it did not have a robot mode). Maybe there was a way to make them being accessories into a feature though?
Enter the Weaponizers, a sub category of the Deluxe Class in Siege, which borrowed a name from Robots in Disguise 2015. It gave the tank a robot mode in the form of Brunt, and allowing Hasbro to get away without straying too far away from their origins, to the point where all three are still parts formers, transformers you have to take parts off to go between modes. These things have exploded in popularity with the fans thanks to how creative you can be with them, to the point where all three are going to get repaints as all but forgotten Powerdrivers. I guess it shows that the designers are bigger nerds then the fans are at times. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that we live in a world where the G1 craze is giving us a Red Wing, Galactic Man, and the Powerdrivers. How well do the originals work though?
Starting in their vehicle modes, we have one or two tank looking vehicles for Cog, an awkward looking airship for Six-gun, and a cool looking space tank for Brunt. I will get this out of the way now, if you are looking for whom I think the best one out of the three are, it is Brunt. All three of these go for the hard G1 accurate look, but these are three that I am perfectly fine with that because all three of them are absolute nobodies, who probably will not get toys again for another 34 years. From what I have seen, all three do look good alongside their respective Titans (I do not have any of them so I cannot speak from experience). While Cog and Brunt's vehicle modes are accurate, Six-Gun has a completely original alternate mode..., which looks ridiculous even for a space jet. Six-Gun has always had an air of overcompensation to his design, from once being made up of guns and buildings, to his new look that has a jet mode with two VTOL engines, eight rear thrusters two wing mounted guns, eight missile launchers, and four underside canons. It is bad in a good way, because as much of a NRA on steroids as this jet is, it is like a hyper charged flying tank, which is somewhat awesome. Brunt's sci-fi tank is more toned down by comparison (which is a shame because you would think overcompensating would be the Decepticon's MO), though he's still packing a giant canon, which does have a working turret swivel. For reasons I will get more into in Robot Mode, Brunt is the only one of the three Weaponizers that I have been tempted to get multiples of, as he remains just far enough in the ambiguous Decepticon camp to be unique without being an individual. I could see a tank battalion of Brunts guarding Tripticon from Autobot attacks thanks to this small but menacing looking purple tank. Cog on the other hand I find to be the weakest of the three in vehicle mode. The two vehicles look awkward, and the combined vehicle mode does not lock in together at all, making it feel like a useless gimmick, even though out of the three, he's the most G1 accurate thanks to having both a vehicle and robot mode to begin with.
What I always enjoy about the Generations line is the amount of care that goes into characters that no one really cares about. These three are a lot of fun, and make other characters more entertaining to play with. The amount of creativity you can get from these three alone is impressive, almost like a version of Lego's Galidor that actually works and is interesting, and not one of the worst jokes in the company's history. It would be interesting to see this gimmick for larger characters, it could be a good way to release the Takara versions of Godbomber and Powermaster Optimus (that box set does not count due to it being almost impossible to get outside of America if you didn't want to spend a fortune on shipping). Another character with a potential for the gimmick Victory Leo, if those theories about Commander Class Jetfire being able to be retooled into Star Saber turn out to be true (I'd personally be happy with a Leader Class one). There is a lot of potential here that I would like to see explored more going forward, I would love more of these. I wish I could say mores coming, but SDCC was somewhat mediocre in reveals aside from Unicron. Up next will be Refraktor, and then Movieverse Devastator gets another foot.
