Generations 30th Voyager Whirl

Yeah, I'm not done with the Generations 30th anniversary stuff yet. And this time it's another Wrecker. One who never showed up in the cartoon at all, made especially popular thanks to IDW's More Than Meets the Eye comic series. Everyone's favorite quite possible psychopath, Whirl. Let's see if the Autobots resident one eyed guy lives up to the hopes and dreams of a fandom. ...Oh, who am I kidding? Let's just see if the toy is good or not.



Whirl's alternate mode is a helicopter of some kind, probably a military one. He's primarily cast in light blue with yellow for the rotor and tail prop and translucent orange for the canopy. For paint, there's silver and a darker blue, plus some black and a bid old band of red on the tail. His legs are kind of hiding along the sides, but aren't doing that great of a job due to sitting to either side of the nose. This guy includes his own sticker sheet, just like the G1 toys did, however the instructions...don't make it very clear where everything is supposed to go. And some bonehead labeled two different sets of stickers #17 and #18. So forgive me if my sticker job looks atrocious, if you can notice the little things at all in my pictures. Anyway, the blades spin freely, though since the rotor blade is supposed to fold up later care needs to be taken not to cause it to accidentally start folding instead of spinning, and the canopy can open. He also includes four different weapons that can clip together and attach to the copter via the 5mm ports or the 3mm C-clip bars in various spots on him. Nice to see that come back, actually, and makes me wonder if Roadbuster will utilize this as well. But let's compare him with something!



Whirl's apparently similar in size to Springer in helicopter mode, though Springer's rotor is slightly wider from end to end. I'd go to robot mode, but the box calls out a third mode so I need to check it out...



GERWALK MODE! Okay, technically it's called Heloped mode, but for all the fanmode gerwalk modes this one's actually intentional and surprisingly well thought out. The hips only slide back for this mode, which brings them towards the center so it has a chance of standing, and the tail folds under and tabs in place so gravity doesn't have as much in the back to act on. The remaining stickers show up in this mode and robot mode. I admit, I put Whirl into this mode far more than I originally thought I would. Now let's get to the robot mode.



From the robot mode it's clear that this isn't exactly meant to represent IDW Whirl, but rather a modern take on his old G1 toy. And that's really not a bad thing, as this guy is gorgeous! No new colors show up in this mode, but now the landing skids are available for use as C-clip bars if you want to use them. One little thing with the transformation is getting the bar the holds his upper and lower leg together is very hard to get to fold out or back in. Be careful not to let it twist, or it will break. On the more annoying than terrifying side of things, the hollowed out side of his things faces out in this mode. It would have been visible in helicopter mode if they were on the inside, that's true, but...couldn't they have spared a bit more in the budget to make his things out of two pieces each screwed together? The instructions to forget to mention that the rotor mount can swing into the center, which looks much better than sitting off to one side. A strange little gimmick lies with the light-piping. His antenna can be moved forward, which moves a piece on the back of his head that blocks the light-piece. I'm not sure why it does that... Whirl features about 21 points of articulation, including double jointed elbows. His claws are geared together: when one moves, the other does too. His shoulders work similarly to Armada Starscream's, but with the backpack he's got just behind his shoulders there isn't much outward movement to be had anyway. If it really bugs you, you can just leave the shoulders extended and use the ball joint in there I suppose. But just how big is he in this mode?



Once again, Springer shows that Whirl is roughly the same size. And that the two Wreckers look awesome together.

Whirl is an amazing figure. The stickers are annoying to apply, but even just applying the Autobot insignias and red bands on the blades would probably be enough. He's not exactly perfect, but for the standard Voyager price, I think Hasbro has sent this one clear out of the park and is very much worth checking out. Definitely highly recommended for the G1 enthusiast and Wreckers collector alike.

Now hopefully he won't kill me...

I think I will pick up this guy at some point soon, we haven't gotten many helicopter bots that good pretty good, then again, we got more jets than any other aerial mode of transportation, the last helicopter figure I can think of, would be Generations voyager Springer and before that it was Deluxe Springer who was a retool of a DOTM figure, of course when I get him, I might not put all of the stickers on, maybe leave off the large Autobot symbol on his robot mode chest, it looks more intrusive to me!

Want more subtlety? You can put that sticker on the inside of the canopy. Then again, Whirl and subtlety I don't think are on speaking terms with each other... 

If you say so, just don't stand near to a pit edge with him, he likely to push you off into the pit, as he imagined in one of IDW's comics, within the last year or so (can't think which issue it was)! Anyway, I've bought him off Ebay earlier on, so at the mo, the only none movie figure I have a interest in who not on order, would be:

Sky-byte wrote:Who's the baddest shark around? Who's the smartest shark in town?
Sky-Byte, that's me!
Who'll drive Scourge into the ground? And never let old Megatron down
Sky-Byte, that's me!

Roadbuster, I'm not sure about, but then again, I've come to like his DOTM HA figure!

Oh, I could definitely go for Sky-Byte, and maybe Roadbuster, but I think we have to wait until the movie stuff calms down before they come out. Then again, TFSource apparently has Rattrap and Tankor available, so... 

Rattrap, I've not really taken a shine to that version, personally, I rather wish they gone with the Transmetal route, I got the BW figure of the TM thou I wouldn't mind seeing a more screen actuate version of him and Cheator (TM1 & 2)! Thou I have pre-ordered Rattrap, but the funny thing is, Forbidden Planet, (whom I pre-ordered him from) lists him as Beast Machines Rattrap, when clearly its Beast Wars, weird, thou they do list Tankor correctly!

Transmetal Cheetor is already incredibly accurate to the show model aside from the way his elbows work. TMII Cheetor is not as accurate, mainly in the lack of spots, but those elbows...really don't do much of anything.

I know about TM1 Cheator because I got him in my collection but I would like to see him remade without the flaw of droopy head!

SuperOmegaPrime wrote:I know about TM1 Cheator because I got him in my collection but I would like to see him remade without the flaw of droopy head!

Must...resist...perverted joke... 

Pledge floor finish can take care of that pretty easily. Just dab a little into the chest hinges. Then again, I don't know how easy it is to get that stuff in the UK or how willing you are to do any sort of fix like that...

that's not how I fix my droopy head

Detective Barricade wrote:

Must...resist...perverted joke...

no need to resist here at the Lair DB... all perverted jokes are necessary and honored here.

And now I have a new quote thingy in my signature.

  

Excellent review, DB!    I've had this guy for a little while myself and they done an excellent job with him. Anticipating RB, whom I have on pre-order at the moment. Wish Hasbro would give us a heads up on when they're shipping to retailers though. That's one thing I like about 3rd party companies...despite the delays, when they're finished we ALL usually know a little in advance that they're on their way to retailers. Few surprises there...

Sixshot wrote:Excellent review, DB!    I've had this guy for a little while myself and they done an excellent job with him. Anticipating RB, whom I have on pre-order at the moment. Wish Hasbro would give us a heads up on when they're shipping to retailers though. That's one thing I like about 3rd party companies...despite the delays, when they're finished we ALL usually know a little in advance that they're on their way to retailers. Few surprises there...

Then again, it's up to the retailers to get them into the individual stores and actually put the damn things on the shelves. But most clerks have their heads up their asses and would rather not take a little time to make sure pegs everywhere in the store are full and not barren. Barren pegs = no sales.

Empty shelves sell, nothing!

unless it's a shelf store that sales shelfs

Well, he is now MINE, in other words, he has arrived, after terrorising the post office from within a box and from within another box, all without breaking the box seal!