It seems weird to be having the first new Figure Friday of 2021 midway through February, but here we are. Lucky for you that I spent a fair amount of my time away acquiring new toys to write about so I wouldn’t be struggling for something to write about right now. Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason why.
Transformers Studio Series 86: Hot Rod
If you ever want proof positive that we’re living in the best possible timeline for toy collecting, the Studio Series Hot Rod is it. I’d like to say that I can apply that statement to the rest of the line (all made up of characters from the 1986 Transformers: The Movie) but to date they’ve been notoriously hard to find. In case you’ve forgotten, there’s still a pandemic raging out there and I’m doing my part to stop the spread by staying indoors and only going out for essentials. Before you ask, I found Hot Rod here while I was picking up supplies at Target…a happy coincidence!
The figure is surprisingly diminutive for the $30 price tag, but what it lacks in stature it more than makes up for in accessories and other little bonuses. For starters, the figure comes with dual pistols and “blast” effects that can be attached to the pistols or to the character’s wrist mounted blasters, and a couple of alternate hand attachments. He also comes equipped with the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and a snap-on “energy” effect to light your darkest hour (The Touch by Stan Bush sold separately). Hot Rod also has a cool little flip down visor, a design that was cleverly cribbed from the far more expensive Transformers Masterpiece edition.
That being said, the figure really does feel like a mini-Masterpiece with all the neat little additions and with how cleverly the figure transformers from car to robot and still manages to look like he came right out of the cartoon. The only, only, nitpick I have for this figure is the lack of shoulder articulation. It all makes sense in context of how the figure transforms but I would have preferred a ball-jointed shoulder. It should also be noted that while I mentioned how small the figure is, it IS in scale with the rest of the current Transformers figures and by extension their animated counterparts.
I’m super stoked to collect the rest of this line if and when I find them!
Now, I’m not sure if I wrote about this figure specifically (I for sure wrote about the glow in the dark variant, because it’s awesome) but this is a figure I preordered well over a year ago….and it was totally worth the wait.
I first became aware of Hiya Toys through their Injustice DC figures that were being carried at my friend’s comic shop. I picked up a really cool and very detailed Red Hood figure in the 3.75 inch scale for only TWENTY BUCKS. Based on how well done that figure was I decided to preorder the RoboCop when the listing for that went up. As I mentioned above, I ordered it quite some time ago but it finally showed up this week.
First off, this figure is super poseable…for a RoboCop figure. RoboCop isn’t exactly known for doing the splits and if you’ve ever watched the behind the scenes features on the first RoboCop then you’ll know that Peter Weller couldn’t wear the bottom half of the costume when shooting driving scenes because he couldn’t fit in the car. At any rate, all the articulation for the figure is cleverly hidden in plain sight because it’s right were the joints were for the costume.
The paint application on the figure is also top notch, mirroring how RoboCop appeared in his second outing. I may be showing my hand slightly with regards to how obsessively observant I can be with regards to things I’m interested in but the first, RoboCop had an armour that was basically silver and in RoboCop 2 the armour had a slightly blueish/purple iridescent tint to it…which Hiya Toys managed to replicate for this figure. My figure possibly leans a bit more towards the purple end of the spectrum but I can assure that I’m the ONLY person who will notice this.
Ever since my McFarlane RoboCop figure fell apart some years ago I had been in the market for a new one and I could not pass this one up for the price, the detail, and since I live about a mile from Detroit…a misplaced sense of regional pride for a fictional future robot-cop that doesn’t really exist. But hey, we’re allegedly going to get that RoboCop statute that no one here asked for and was successfully crowdfunded over a decade ago.
The figure comes with alternate hands, RoboCop’s pistol, and Cain’s brain module from the climax of the movie. The last item was an unexpected bonus since it wasn’t advertised as being part of the figure when I ordered it. In fact, the listing and box art depicts the figure with an alternate “data spike” hand that was not included. I can only assume this was an 11th hour change and it matters very, very little to me since I got a cool brain-in-a-jar accessory. The figure also comes with a base that can interlink with other figures from the line.
If you’re a RoboCop fan you cannot beat this figure for the price.
