Bumblebee Strikes A Blizzard

The Dollar General Kreon Iceberg continues as we take a look today at Blizzard Strike Bumblebee. As the name implies, he's the Blizzard/White version of the Armor Up Bumblebee I spoke about earlier this week. I've yet to find the Night Strike variation... and hopefully I will soon. It's stealthy. 

Blizzard Strike Bumblebee however is fantastic looking. Like the other color variations of these guys he's a straight recolor of the regular toy. His armor is white to match his arctic theme, while the rest of it as well as the standard kreon is this WONDERFUL translucent/clear yellow that just POPS. There's sharp, and then there's this.

I've always been a fan of translucent colors on Transformers and this is a prime example of why. It just looks marvelous. Of course the Microman resemblance is strong here. The standard Kreon looks a lot like a Microman M10X type or with the armor a little like a Rescue M25X type. It's funny how just a few colors can make a recolor look like a different Microman, but it does. When Hasbro first got the Micronauts license, I said they should use them in Kre-O.

I was so right.

Armor Up Of The Bumblebee

Continuing on our Custom Kreons found at the Dollar General adventures on what's apparently a Bumblebee heavy week... man that was a long sentence. Here's Armor Up Bumblebee! Bumblebee is a bit of a standout from the other figures in this selection. Instead of having ornate armor, BB has two big chain guns just hanging off his shoulders. I mean, why not?

I didn't go into these expecting everyone's favorite little yellow guy to be carrying the heavy weapons, but I ain't complaining. It looks great. Just for good measure they gave him a standard laser gun. Just to make sure he REALLY kills somebody.

In all honesty, as good as he looks, he doesn't make me think of Bumblebee at all. The Kreon makes me think of a Saram from new Microman. Those are from the Microchange era of Microman, which ironically is where the original toy mold for Bumblebee comes from.

These resemblances can't just be a coincidence.

Night Strike Sideswipe Cosplays Baron Karza

Earlier this week I talked about Armored Up Sideswipe from the Custom Kreon selection at Dollar General. Today I'm going to be talking about the Night Strike version of the toy. Which as you can see here, almost looks like a completely different figure. Something as simple as different colors can go a long way, even more so if you add a new part here or there. In this case, it's a straight repaint that just looks amazing.

As a Transformers fan, the first thought that'll pop into my mind would be G2 Sideswipe when the subject of black repaints comes up. If you mixed parts from the standard red Sideswipe kit you'd probably get a good little version of that idea. Even the facial expression screams G2 comics. However, you guys know that uncanny Microman/Micronaut resemblance I've been talking about with these guys?

In this color set, in this armor, he looks so much like Baron Karza that it's almost impossible to ignore. Like, maybe a few different parts and it would be a Baron Karza figure. As Sideswipe however, he's a straight repaint of the one I talked about earlier. So it's a good toy in another good color set. A very Baron Karza color set.

Grimlock Is Armored Up And Ready

Continuing on my exploration of the Custom Kreons from Dollar General is Armored Up Grimlock! Like Sideswipe yesterday, Grimlock is from his 2015 Robots In Disguise appearance (incase you thought he looked funny). I won't mix words here, aside from the colors, I don't think he looks anything like Grimlock here. G1 or RID 15. 

That being said, I do think he looks cool. The claw shaped spike armor combined with claw shaped spiked club is thematically awesome. Like most Kreons, this Grimlock doesn't transform, but still looks primitive despite being an alien robot from outer space.

I dig it.

The extra parts look pretty great here. Adding extra height , body mass, and articulation. It's really neat how you can take the basic Kreon figure and make a much nicer toy by snapping on parts. Like the others, Grimlock makes me think of a Microman. Cosmo Spark to be specific. As a basic Kreon, a Spy Magician MX14.

Armored Up Sideswipe And Nowhere To Go

Not long ago the wife picked me up some more of those Kre-O kits that make me think of Microman. So it's going to be a accidental Microman Kreon week here on Zone Base! These fancy Kreon kits are seemingly exclusive to discount chains here in the US and so far I've only seen them at Dollar General. After taking a bit of a Kre-O break for awhile I'm admittedly a bit out of the loop on these guys. I couldn't find much info about them other than they fall under the custom Kreon class. Which I guess is as good as any for classification. If that's your sort of thing.

The line up is Optimus Prime, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, and Grimlock from the 2015 Robots in Disguise Transformers series. each figure has three different color variations. Armored up, or traditional colors. Blizzard Strike, is arctic themed. Night Strike, in black/stealth colors. You can mix and match parts for some cool color combos. Or leave them stock for a pretty good looking toy. 

Like I said, I get strong Microman vibes from these guys. Armored Up Sideswipe makes me think of Flame Micro Knight and a Spy Magician. Though the toy has some character of his own as well.

Robots in Disguise's incarnation of Sideswipe had a great martial arts flair that carries over here with katana and shuriken star armor. Not to mention the sai he carries and the kanji on his chest. The katana and sai's can be swapped out if you choose. As you can see in the pics, the base Kreon can be built up with the additional parts. This makes for a fancier robot action figure. It not only looks great, but now features additional articulation.

Kre-O was pretty addicting for me during it's time. Only when it became a discount line did my interest start to decline. The initial batches of discount toys were mostly repacks of sets I had already gotten. Add that with the spotty distribution of discount chain toys and it was pretty hard to keep up with leading to my mental disconnect. I gotten some since then, but these are the first Kre-O product I'm actively seeking out in some time. 

The Microman similarities are fun, but I'm digging these on their own as well. They're just fun toys to play around with. The build is simple, really just adding a few parts onto a figure. Like most Kreons they don't Transform... but that's never been an issue for me.

Kreon Blizzard Strike Optimus Thinks He's A Microman

Remember that Soundwave I talked about yesterday? While at the Dollar General that day, the Mrs. saw the kreons and grabbed me a neat looking Optimus Prime. I was a big fan of Kre-O during it's run but slowed down during it's last years as a discount chain line. She saw these more deluxe Kreons with the add on parts on the pegs and grabbed me one. The Optimus Prime was differently colored than what his art depicted and she thought he looked neat. She was right, he does look neat.

While I have admittedly slowed down on the Kre-O stuff, it was fun revisiting it and frankly this Optimus was pretty cool. The toy is mostly in translucent blue and clear plastic with some solid white colored pieces. He's pretty dang sharp looking.

I had a hard time finding this version on the TFWiki, so I have no clue what they're actually called. They've had them at Dollar General for a while and I've just now gotten this one. Basically you get a Kreon with the parts to add on to make a more 'deluxe' figure. With all the parts added the figure has knees and elbows and stands a little taller. It's a neat little thing and I'm pretty tempted to get more now.

The funny thing about this figure is the base kreon. Without any of his extra parts, you pretty much have a Kreon Microman/Micronaut.When Kre-O was more of a thing, I thought Hasbro should have made Micronaut Kre-O sets. It seemed like the perfect fit to me. Years later, Kre-O technically still exists with a small amount of product available and I guess they just wanted the Micronauts name. Hopefully something will eventually come of it.

He could be a Henshin Cyborg as well I suppose, but my mind goes to Microman first. I've taken to calling him Microman Orion. A different helmet for the more 'deluxe' figure and he'd make a fine Acroyear. Now that I have essentially that Kre-O Micronaut I wished I had all those years ago, I really wish they would have made that line. The proportions are just right as is the sculpting.  Oh well, at least I have a cool Optimus Prime.

Transform Squadron 26 - Accidental Micronauts

LISTEN NOW

Rob’s back in a post-Halloween hangover to tell you all about the Transformers. Well, Transformers SCF to be specific. He also talks about various Universal Studios stuff, the hidden Micronauts Kreon he discovered, and how he became a creepypasta by accident on Halloween night. There’s a lot to unpack here and don’t you just hate it when people say that? 

Mutant Beast Wars

The year was 2000, and even though Beast Wars was technically over and replaced with Beast Machines, there was still plenty of Beast Wars toys on the shelves. Since reruns of Beast Wars were steadily running on Fox Kids on weekday afternoons, it was natural to stock Beast Wars figures with the Beast Machines figures. The Fox Kids versions of Beast Wars toys were neato recolors of BW toys that took advantage of kids who saw those reruns and wanted a Transmetal Cheetor. With this and Animorph Transformers toys stocked with Beast Machines, there was a lot of beast themed Transformers on the shelves.

Animorphs wasn't a successes (I mean, I liked the toys... but that was something I found out after they went on clearance), however a company doesn't start out to fail at something and there was a few Animorph Transformers toys designed that went unused in the line. Somebody had the idea to remold the human bits into robot parts and release them.

So there you had the Mutants of the Beast Wars, The Mutant Beast Wars! What made them mutants exactly? Well, thanks to a virus unleashed by Megatron, these Fuzors were lost in their beast modes. Transforming from beast mode to beast mode with the robot lost inside (but maybe you could find their robot head peeking out). In case that description and the picture above doesn't clue you in, they don't have a robot mode. Icebird, for example, turns from owl to bear.

Like Animorphs, they were great toys, but now they were actual Transformers (not just in name). Though like their Animorph heritage, they were misfits in the Transformers fan world. As one could expect the G1 Purist crowd obviously despised them. A good deal of the beast era fans also wasn't fond. Though a handful of us did, and personally I loved them.

I was all over the figures the moment they arrived at my local Walmart. In fact the first one I grabbed was Icebird (my favorite of the bunch) one Friday night. I had the night off and took a quick stop to check out the toys and grab a bite to eat. An excited jump in the air lead to grabbing Icebird and a pack of chicken wings. That evening was spent with a toy I couldn't put down and messy homemade buffalo wings. Mutant Beast Wars didn't have any fiction outside the text blurb on the packaging. If I was a better writer, I probably would have written tomes of terrible fan fiction. The Mutants DID however appear briefly in 3H's BotCon comics. While they didn't get the biggest starring role, I was glad for something. Later they made some various low key fictional appearances in IDW comics and Fun Publications Fan fiction. Soundwave even made appearances in E-Hobby and Kre-O manga.

The Mutants never got any extra members, though some fans speculated Savage/Noble (Beast Changer) could be a Mutant. The 'Ask Vector Prime' Facebook Page (ran by Fun Publications) said in some realities he was and in some realities all BW characters were Mutants. Which I suppose in some reality is an answer and in some reality the alternate reality trope isn't played out yet (but Thanos still wins). All jokes aside, I've never considered him to be a member, but if you want to go ahead. There's a multiverse shoehorn for that.

Another would be new member is Leatherhide. A planned repaint of the Soundwave mold for the ill-fated Halloween Horrocon sub-line (that's a nifty name, huh), Leatherhide would probably be released as an Autobot, but a Mutant in any fiction. Leatherhide fictionally did appear in The Allspark Almanac volume 2 and in Fun Publications fiction meaning I'm not the only person who really wanted this toy.

Mutant Beast Wars over the course of time has managed to remain obscure in the greater world of Transformers with a little nod here and there. An odd team of misfits loved by some and despised by others. I suppose for the opposing team it's a good thing they didn't take off. Though as someone who came close to buying a test shot at a BotCon, I would have loved for them to take flight. The little nods here and there are great (and appreciated), but in some alternate universe I have a display of Mutant Beast Wars Masterpiece toys.