It’s the end of an era.
Today, fans are receiving the final figures from Fun Publications, the former operators of the official Transformers convention and collectors club. Subscription Service 5 ends with the arrival of the last two releases, Counterpunch and Toxitron, who form the final two parts of a combiner named Wreckage along with Fractyl, Impactor, and Bluestreak. The pair are also accompanied by a bonus “mystery” figure, who uses a mold tooling not previously released in the US and also references a theme that has become synonymous with Fun Publications’ run on Transformers.
Read on after the break for the identity of the mystery character and some in-hand images care of TFW2005 member SeiberBirdR.
The bonus figure for Transformers Figure Subscription Service 5.0 is Combiner Wars Shattered Glass Starscream, using the Starscream head tooling of the Combiner Wars Skydive mold previously released in Japan as a part of the Grand Galvatron set. He is the second figure to bear the red and white “Jetfire” deco of Shattered Glass Starscream, the first being a part of the 2008 Shattered Glass set which formally kicked off the infamous mirror universe theme that Fun Publications revisited many more times with their exclusives.
SeiberBirdR
I have the exact same issue with mine. I was originally going to return it, but I ended up out of town and forgot to do so. One of these days I need to try and pry it open to see if I can fix it.
BigPhill
I'm pretty sure that's a painted area, so it's likely just solid paint. If in doubt I'd say to dismantle it as much as you can and see how things look once in pieces.
I'm sure one of the Radicons here can give better tips.
Tankhunter48
Sorry to reignite this thread after so long, but I just picked up Toxitron Secondhand and encountered the issue where his waist won't rotate. Anyone have any ideas at all on how I could fix it?
T-Hybrid
I'm not saying he won't get a good price, I'm just saying by opening the box and carving up the foam you're removing the "MISB" and "MIB" buyers from the equation. Those are the people who would be most likely to pay top dollar since they're seeking near perfect condition and expect the price to be higher.
That's not to say they won't buy it anyway, but you may lose them if you ask the same price as an unmodified item.
G.B. Blackrock
These kinds of questions don't have a single answer. It's all about what buyers (plural) decide they want to care about. In the case of these figures, the value (with or without adjusted foam) may not be so high that the adjustment matters.
Or. It might. You have to make the call for yourself.
(This is the kind of post that really makes me dislike TFWs default to remove nested quotes…)
T-Hybrid
I would say "Yes" in that you'd likely lose the buyers willing to pay top dollar. It wouldn't be truly mint to them.
BigPhill
For something like that I'd personally say No, but you know how some people are about authenticity and keeping things as original as possible.
Carnage73
Does damage to the foam in the TFCC boxes affect the figure's value? For example, if I cut out a space in the Toxitron/Counterpunch/SG Starscream foam for Toxitron's sword, am I negatively impacting the value?
Purple Heart
Combiners can indeed hold the Armada Star Saber. I have the Dark version and I give it to Superion sometimes.
The reason cross-combination between combines doesn't happen is because of their gestalt mind. The combiner itself is a sixth person, both comprised of but seperate from their components. As it's been shown in IDW, a gestalt would have lingering mental effects of a person. If you remove a component you remove part of the gestalts mind, it would no longer be whole. The death of Scrapper effected Devastator, the Constructicons, and even Prowl. Imagine it like another part of your subconcious is parted off and when combined, creates a new concious being from the subconious of the components.
It's a lot like having a ghost in the back of your head.
In other fiction though Gestalts don't always seem to be a thing. When Optimus combines with Jetfire in Armada he just seems to gain control over his body as if it was his own, like the nerve endings split and re-connected.
Hardly. Less of it is pulled out of peoples asses then you would guess, and a lot of it could be theoretically possible. For example, it has always been proposed that Cybertronians aren't made of metal and are instead made of cells like us, it first appeared back in a G1 comic I believe(don't ask me what issue), even though most fiction has always disregarded it in favor for the metal robots concept. I honestly doubt they writers of the movie knew of it when they re-introduced it in the 2007 movie however. It also later appeared in AOE(despite it also contridicting itself to a degree, but thats Micheal Bay.)
Dramatic Spoon
It should be, they're both 5mm.
Clearance is another issue.
I gave my Galvatronus the Arms Micron Galaxy Launcher and it fits fine.
I'd like to get the Dark Saber and see how that fits, though.
T-Hybrid
Armada Starsaber should be compatible with the standard 5mm ports. Question is of the sword handle would have enough clearance to get over the knuckle and still have enough peg in the hole to hold.
Carnage73
So I have been thinking of what weapons would go best with Wreckage 1 (Alpha Bravo, Bluestreak, Counterpunch, Impactor, Off-Road) and the best ideas that I can come up with is CW Shockwave and the Star Sabre from Armada. What do you think of this idea? Would the Armada Combiner weapons be compatible w/ the CW/TFCC hands?
Smitty.1981
That's because we've tried to think of it as science fiction when it's really more of a science fantasy.
T-Hybrid
Man, TF continuity is weird.
Knightsword
They can make artificial combiners in IDW, but they all have serious flaws and problems, Monstructor, Menasor I, Superion I, Devastator I and II and they don't have unified minds. In IDW it requires the Enigma to over come that issue. Ultimately Devastator I did work the best because the 6 Constructicons had unified goals.
The Enigma of Combination is what let Nexus Prime lord over combination as it was to him as the Matrix was to Prima. Without it he was just another Combiner.
In IDW the Dinobots just took beast modes, much the same way the Maximals and Predicons do, to avoid radiation from unstable Energon (Shockwave's Ore 13). The experiments was in FoC/Prime.
T-Hybrid
Since the cost of a single Botcon 2016 Ratchet is often more than an entire Lynxmaster, I wouldn't begrudge people who want to exercise that option.
Especially since you'd also need Medix to get the job done. That's really just a cruel joke on FunPub's part.
griffin-of-oz
Since Modulus is a Hasbro character, you would need the BotCon Ratchet (G1 comic or G1 cartoon version)… but if you mix and match your Hasbro and TakaraTomy combiner parts, then I guess the Japanese one could stand in for it.
T-Hybrid
That's kind of disappointing, as I'd prefer combination to be a "thing" that Cybertronians could be capable of through something akin to training or rebuilding. Rather than something that must be forced upon them or activated via a glowing Macguffin.
Maybe they'll explore that down the road. Kind of like how IDW Arcee was the "first" female Cybertronian (created via Shockwave's experimentation) until we were later introduced to a whole slew of other female Transformers who had been living on other planets throughout the Universe.
Heck, isn't Shockwave's experiments also the reasoning for how the Dynobots became the Dinobots? Until, again, we discovered a planet filled with animal/bio Transformers.
There's even a member of the Thirteen who lords over "Combination". Which to me suggests it's a natural thing that out there in the universe a race of Transformers is capable of without the need for the Enigma.
Knightsword
IDW isn't going to buck the trend of nonmodularity that has been part of Combiner fiction beyond what they did with Prowlstator. In Marvel lore, it was kill any component and you kill the Combiner. It will be the same for the Enigma created Combiners. To replace a member they would need to exposed the new and old members to the Enigma again, which will create a new combiner, that may be similar to previous one, but will still be fundamentally different, as seen with the 3 Devastator's and the 2 Menasors and Superions.