Death's Head
08-09-11, 08:18 PM
The Powercore Combiner line has been a great concept with a flawed execution: the two-pack figures are all largely a great bunch of toys (including Skyhammer here), but the five packs have mostly been ... disappointing. Whilst the drones the five packs come with have been fun little things, the main robot has tended to be a little on the lacklustre side. They are still enormous fun, but I think Hasbro have missed a trick by not selling the drone vehicles separately.
Skyhammer is a pretty funky looking robot. He's oddly proportioned and a bit weird looking. He seems to look like a bit of a cross between Armada Cyclonus and IDW Jihaxus (Do you think Furman was trying to tell us something by including him in his Transformers stories..?). He's a nice sturdy, colourful robot and perhaps the only PCC robot where the connector pegs actually blend in with the colourscheme of the robot. He has all the usual points of articulation so can strike some decent poses. The scowl on his face is awesome, making him look like he's just trod in dog mess and he has some nicely designed limbs, which are pretty streamlined which gives me high hopes that air craft mode wont be the usual sleek looking top half and bulky jumble of robot parts underneath.
The Minicon Targetmaster Airlift (rubbish name) isn't two bad, but again falls prey to the same problems as all the other PCC Minicons - the overuse of transparent plastics which smothers any detail. He's a pretty decent looking fellow, all the same. He's stocky, has a good headsculpt but is perhaps spoilt by the gun-barrels-for-arms look. He cleverly folds up to form a weapon (his torso is double sided and twisiting his legs/waist around to form a weapon - this causes his head to rotate 360 degrees to disguise him a bit better - nice touch!), which - hold the front page - can actually be held in the larger robot's hand! Hooray! Still, its taken us four waves and 22 figures to get to this obvious innovation. The armour mode for Airlift is utter crap. Basically, you arrange the robot to look like he's run into a wall and plug him to Skyhammer's chest. So I've just gone for attaching the weapon mode and moving the gun arms about a bit.
Skyhammer's jet mode is pretty slick. I like it. It's a slightly chunky, stubby looking thing with a weird blobby attempt at a camo paint job, but it works. A good effort has been made to conceal the robot mode parts underneath, but it's still a bit messy looking, being the usual arrangement of neatly folded in robot arms and the robot legs awkwardly twisted about. To attach Airlift in this mode, you do have to move the tail fins out of the way a bit. Which brings me to something else I noticed about Skyhammer - he feels strangely rubbery. The jet parts - the wings and bodywork - seem to made out of a softer plastic. It doesn't harm the toy, but it'll be interesting to see how this stands up with age. Will it be prone to the discolouration we now see on the Pretender toys of the late 1980s...? A quick shift about of Skyhammer's robot mode - including sticking a Biggles-style flying helmet/ googles over the top of the robot head (!) - gives you the torso mode. It's not bad. It fits together snugly, but the odd arrangement of the legs and that sloping aircraft body do make him look slightly hunched over in this mode. His legs are also a little difficult to pose and do much with without unbalancing the gestalt form too, which is a bit of a shame.
As ever with the PCC line, you either like these or you don't. They are very much a Marmite line. For what he is, Skyhammer is an above average Scout Class toy with a superb paintjob and great play value. His Minicon isn't a lost cause and actually adds something to the package by (finally!) tapping into the old Targetmaster technology properly, which makes him worth seeking out above his case mates.
691692693694695
Skyhammer is a pretty funky looking robot. He's oddly proportioned and a bit weird looking. He seems to look like a bit of a cross between Armada Cyclonus and IDW Jihaxus (Do you think Furman was trying to tell us something by including him in his Transformers stories..?). He's a nice sturdy, colourful robot and perhaps the only PCC robot where the connector pegs actually blend in with the colourscheme of the robot. He has all the usual points of articulation so can strike some decent poses. The scowl on his face is awesome, making him look like he's just trod in dog mess and he has some nicely designed limbs, which are pretty streamlined which gives me high hopes that air craft mode wont be the usual sleek looking top half and bulky jumble of robot parts underneath.
The Minicon Targetmaster Airlift (rubbish name) isn't two bad, but again falls prey to the same problems as all the other PCC Minicons - the overuse of transparent plastics which smothers any detail. He's a pretty decent looking fellow, all the same. He's stocky, has a good headsculpt but is perhaps spoilt by the gun-barrels-for-arms look. He cleverly folds up to form a weapon (his torso is double sided and twisiting his legs/waist around to form a weapon - this causes his head to rotate 360 degrees to disguise him a bit better - nice touch!), which - hold the front page - can actually be held in the larger robot's hand! Hooray! Still, its taken us four waves and 22 figures to get to this obvious innovation. The armour mode for Airlift is utter crap. Basically, you arrange the robot to look like he's run into a wall and plug him to Skyhammer's chest. So I've just gone for attaching the weapon mode and moving the gun arms about a bit.
Skyhammer's jet mode is pretty slick. I like it. It's a slightly chunky, stubby looking thing with a weird blobby attempt at a camo paint job, but it works. A good effort has been made to conceal the robot mode parts underneath, but it's still a bit messy looking, being the usual arrangement of neatly folded in robot arms and the robot legs awkwardly twisted about. To attach Airlift in this mode, you do have to move the tail fins out of the way a bit. Which brings me to something else I noticed about Skyhammer - he feels strangely rubbery. The jet parts - the wings and bodywork - seem to made out of a softer plastic. It doesn't harm the toy, but it'll be interesting to see how this stands up with age. Will it be prone to the discolouration we now see on the Pretender toys of the late 1980s...? A quick shift about of Skyhammer's robot mode - including sticking a Biggles-style flying helmet/ googles over the top of the robot head (!) - gives you the torso mode. It's not bad. It fits together snugly, but the odd arrangement of the legs and that sloping aircraft body do make him look slightly hunched over in this mode. His legs are also a little difficult to pose and do much with without unbalancing the gestalt form too, which is a bit of a shame.
As ever with the PCC line, you either like these or you don't. They are very much a Marmite line. For what he is, Skyhammer is an above average Scout Class toy with a superb paintjob and great play value. His Minicon isn't a lost cause and actually adds something to the package by (finally!) tapping into the old Targetmaster technology properly, which makes him worth seeking out above his case mates.
691692693694695