The problem with combiner releases is that you're effectively put into a no-win situation as there are three main ways of release. You can either release the individual bots in a whole wave of toys, having shelves be dominated by basically one character and one faction. You could release the combiners as a gift set that would be hard to sell because many shoppers are easily fooled into thinking 4 $50 toys is cheaper than 1 $200 toy, or you can do what Power of the Primes is doing, and drip feed combiner teams split up between two (or potentially more) waves. It's why you haven't seen a full Volcanicus review yet (the Wave 2 deluxe aren't out on brick and mortar shelves yet). In this case, we have a combiner who gets a torso and an arm in wave 2, and the rest of him in wave 3. Meet the Terrorcons, heralding from that mythical year of 1987, where gimmicks were starting to become more apparent, and ideas started to get crazier. This is the year where we got the Headmasters, Targetmasters, Monsterbots, Horrorcons (triple changing Headmasters that people are still bitter about not coming into the Titans Return line), Duocons (Battletrap will be coming soon), and Six shot. It got weirder from there. While the Technobots were released during Combiner Wars as a gift set (along with a standalone release of Scattershot to form Betatron?), the Terrorcons, their considered counterpart, was nowhere to be seen until this year. As a fan of this team ever since seeing reviews of the third party version of Abominus released by Unique Toys called Ordin (hopefully a review candidate one day, 3P combiners are expensive, especially older ones), I was excited to learn that we were getting a new official one in Power of the Primes. How well does it hold up? Well, a team is only as good as its leader, so let's see how Hun-Gar holds up.
Starting in the dragon mode, Hun-Grr does look like a nice retool of Combiner Wars Silverbolt, in the same vein as how Titans Return Broadside is a retool of the previous wave's Alpha Trion. However, the big problem with Hun-Garr is that he's kind of boring to transform. He puts his mass to good use, but it's obvious what's going to become the robot mode legs and robot mode arms. You basically move a few things away, reveal the robot head, then stand him up by dislocating his dragon mode heads to use as feet... that sounds morbid now that I think about it, though still not as bad as Brainmasters requiring humans to impale themselves on their own legs. For Kids! Getting back to Hun-Gurrr's dragon, the paint details are fine, not much intricacy to them, but the pink does help break apart the sea of white and dark grey. The stickers are also more tasteful here in comparison to someone like Starscream's, with the main ones being protected by sculpting, being recessed a little in the dragon necks/ robo shins. Hunger also has two small stickers on the dragon heads, two Decepticon logos on what will be the robot mode shoulders, including one meant to look like an old rub sign which I find interesting because this is the first character in the line to do that, and finally two on the backs of the front dragon legs meant for torso mode. Unfortunately, these ones are starting to peel off for me. So close! Articulation is lacking in major areas of the dragon mode, mainly in the necks. Due to these being the robot mode legs, they have the articulation needed for the legs and not much else, except for some movement for the heads. It feels limiting at times, mainly for if you want the dragon heads to be further apart without looking at an angle, I wish there was either an inward hinge in the robot thighs or the heads to be on ball joints, rather then the hinges they're currently on. The front legs are also pathetic compared to the back legs/ robot arms, being just one static piece on two hinges for transformation. The tail also doesn't move, which I can live with, I just wish the tail itself was a bit longer because it looks tiny in dragon mode.
Before going into robot mode, a fan mode I have a bit of fun with on this guy is what I call the "Demon crab mode". Flip out the Abominus head, and move the dragon necks to your desire.
To robot mode, and unfortunately, Hun-Gur comes off as an almost basic bot, except for the combiner kibble that makes up his backpack and most of his dragon gut (the front legs fold up into the backpack for robot mode). There isn't much of a flare in his design except for the hot pink accents, and the fact that he has a dragon tail for a chest piece. Articulation is pretty standard for a combiner boss, with the exception being all the foot articulation he gained from the dragon heads leading to ankle tilt in all four directions. Unfortunately, on mine, the shoulder ratchets on his left shoulder feel weaker than the right, and feel like they could pop off at some point due to a small gap that isn't in the right. I'm curious to see how long the shoulder will last because I don't want it to end up like Perceptor's lens arm slider being so tight its a nightmare to move. There are two plugs on the robot arms/ Dragon mode hind legs that are used to plug the combiner feet in as gauntlets (ala Grimlock), and like Grimlock, look stupid in both forms so leave them off.
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| Someday, you will be mine... |
The torso mode for Abominus has some more flare to it compared to the Robot mode, thanks to the hot pink and silver chest piece which even has a place to hide the Terrorcon Enigma in it... and like the Dinobot and Seeker Enigmas in Grimlock and Starscream respectively, its just a bit of molded plastic with some paint on it. The head sculpt is really well done (something I would love to say about Hun-Garr's head, but that one's just pink with some silver for the visor and a hard to see mouth). Most of the dragon mode parts are put to better use here, with the exception being the back claws (you can thank Silverbolt for that), and the tail which, granted, is trying hard to hide the gap made by using the Abominus head, but it it doesn't do a lot to help. To go back to that part about the tail is short, while it works for robot mode, I wish there was a way they could have engineered it so that the tail becomes some sort of spine for Abominus, just to give it some extra flare. The only other noticeable gap in the hole between the robo thighs and the Abominus chest piece, but it's a gap that's very easy to ignore. I can't wait to get the limb-bots on him to see what he looks like in all his glory.
Like with a lot of combiner comparisons, the argument for these Combiner Wars/ Power of the Primes Combiners can be summed up with one question. Do you want to pay potentially $600 or more for a very nice looking, but delicate and complicated to transform combiner? Or would you rather pay around $170 for one that you can play with? These are a lot cheaper and come with the sacrifices of being cheaper. I would love to get Ordin, I would love to get Feral Rex (don't expect a review of that Predaking set anytime soon, if at all), I would love to have thousands to pump into Transformers. I don't, so I settle with these releases. Hun-Gurrr himself is fine for a Voyager, just kind of boring compared to other combiner bosses I personally own. He hasn't got the presence of someone like Motormaster or Grimlock, nor the insanity of someone like Sky-Linx, nor the gravitas of someone like last week's Starscream. He's just kind of there if that makes any sense. I want to love this figure, and he might get better when with the other Terrorcons, but for now he's just boring. See you on the main site for The Greatest Showman, and up next here? How about a monkey with a hoverboard? It's time to let out your inner beast.
Oh, and before people bring it up as spelling errors, the constant name changing of Hun-Gurrr in the review was intentional, a stab at all the times he's been given different names in Transformer history (though no, he hasn't had the name Hunger).
I should also say that there is going to be a bit more variety coming soon, next week's is the start of it, and some later plans include some mini aliens, some opinion pieces, and to start off a new line of reviews, some ink-tastic figures.
