Thursday, April 20, 2017

Toyworld Combustor - Ramjet

The one thing I have always enjoyed about Toyworld is that their figures are usually playable. They may not always have my favorite aesthetic amongst the various offerings, but I don't worry about breaking them either. Except for one thing, Toyworld Combustor could easily replace Masterpiece Ramjet in my Masterpiece collection.

His jet mode looks really good. I remember having a little trouble keeping the wings on Ramjet leveled and tabbed together; I have no issues with Combustor. The red paint on his wings has metallic flakes, giving it a higher end look. Unfortunately, the paint stripes on his air intakes and wings are a bit sloppy and the white of his body is a little dirty with stray paint in places. His canopy can open to reveal a two seater cockpit with a hint of a control panel. Like on Masterpiece Seekers, the air brake flap can be deployed. He has three landing gears. The rear ones are easy to pull out, but I had to use tweezers to pluck out the front one. One nice touch is that all the landing gears have shock absorbers. He rolls about very easily. His null rays can peg under his wings in one of two positions. His rear thrusters are on ball joints.

I found the transformation to be pretty easy and more satisfying than the Masterpiece Coneheads. The legs unfold like Combiner War figures instead of that yanking mechanism found on Masterpiece Seekers. The chest conversion mechanic is also done very well. There is no fuss and everything fits neatly into place. Yes, there is a bit of parts-forming with the null rays, but I'll take that over the problems of the official Coneheads and Seakers. Reversing the process back to jet mode was pretty easy too.

Unlike Ramjet, Combustor only has a single cone in the right place. He doesn't have flappy panel along his backside. His torso feels solid. The propellors on his chest can spin and the panels can open to reveal missile pods. Too bad there is no paint on the missiles. I like the metallic paint on his face. He has light-piping, but it doesn't work because of the cone. He has Die-cast in his feet and his knee covers. If not for the scale, I would happily use the entire trio of Toyworld Coneheads in place of the Masterpiece versions. I do have issues with balance though. His feet tend to collapse on their ball joints. Despite his jet thrusters acting as heel spurs, they can't be angled sufficiently or placed far back enough to keep him from falling over backward. His wings don't touch the ground so can't be used to prop him up. I find that if you don't slide the wings up all the way, the red pointy parts can help with his balance.

His head is on a ball joint. He can look up but not down. His shoulders are on swivels and hinges. He can raise his arms outward and upward to 90 degrees. His null rays peg onto the shoulder flaps and can swivel about. He swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and knees. His double-jointed elbows can almost achieve full curls while his double-jointed knees can only curl a little past 90 degrees. His thumbs are on ball joints and his fingers are single-pinned. They also hinge at the second knuckles, but lack third knuckles. His hips are on universal joints that allow him to achieve full side and front splits. He also has inexplicable and unnecessary hinges at the upper thighs. His feet are on ball joints that don't do anything for his stability. His thruster heel spurs don't really help too much either.

His accessories include his null rays, a gadget, two flight stands, and some screw covers. His null rays also serve as spring-loaded missile launchers. One launcher had a bent spring so the missile wouldn't even stay in place. Fortunately, the null rays are easy to disassemble by removing the caps on both ends. The bent spring was easy to straighten out, but then I found both launchers have overly sensitive triggers. I stuffed some museum putty into the barrel to keep the missiles from inevitably disappearing behind the shelf. Putty is a bit messy but less permanent than superglue. The included gadget is two pieces joined at a hinge, like a flip phone. I think it's a device of his from the comics. It has some line work and dabs of paint. The two flight stands are black and can be connected. The screw covers go on the side of the cockpit. Make sure to line up the contours and panel lines to the appropriate holes. One piece kept falling out during transformation because of where I was holding the nosecone. Museum putty kept it from falling out again.

Combustor will stand on my Toyworld shelf alongside his slightly too large brethren. I can't say I'm all that enthused about this new scale Toyworld has introduced. Although Megatron 2.0 and some of the car bots probably don't look too far out of scale, he's way too tall next to a Seeker. This figure does highlight how crappy the Masterpiece Coneheads are. Combustor has a few flaws, but he gets so much else right. Now I can't wait to open up the other two Coneheads. Hopefully, Toyworld will give us the first season Seekers as well, but after fixing those feet.











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