After a relentless, and expensive, start to the year, the world of 3rd Party Transformers has hit its cruise phase. And don’t get me wrong, I needed a little break to restock the war chest, but it definitely has wicked off some of the incredible momentum these companies had built up. Now Fansproject and TFC, among others, have continued building their gestalt teams and there’s been some interesting stuff here and there…
Then BotCon and SDCC come along, and Hasbro trots out some damn big guns and does a fine job of reminding the collector community at large who Transformer’s daddy really is, giving mom’s new boyfriend, the 3rd partiers, a swift kick in the nuts. Now the race is really back on with Hasbro stepping up the quality, intensity, and even diversity of their products, no doubt in response to the unofficial guys. They now have to, in turn, up their game — and I’m hoping that means some quicker turnaround times and some more competitive pricing down the road.
MasterMind Collectibles ain’t skeered, though. They’ve made a name for themselves in tackling the Steam-Age locomotives, ironsides, and aircraft from Hearts of Steel, so they’ve never really had much to worry about in terms of direct competition. They serve as a “parent company” of sorts to Mech Ideas, and starting last year they have launched into their own contemporary Transformers figures. I like a lot of things about these guys, but one thing that really pleases me is how value-conscious they are — their version of Predaking, while no means cheap, is shaping up to come in at a significantly better value than their competitors.
And that pretty much brings us up to speed with Hexatron, give or take a several-month delay or two. Since this is such a damn big figure, with so many features and obviously alternate modes, I’m going to do another dreaded two-parter review. For my three fans out there (Hi Mom!), grab a cup of tea and let’s do this.
Sixshot (as I will refer to him as from here on out — trust me, he’s earned it) comes shipped in a big, solid, Masterpiece-esque box with some nice embossed details and some respectable artwork. He is a window box, so suck it, Acid Storm. You can actually check him out before you open him. I have no particular love for packaging, but I appreciate the thick cardboard used to get the figure here in one piece. He is packaged in robot mode, so that’s where we’ll spend part one.
While Sixshot is of all-plastic construction, there is no mistaking the heft out of the box. He is massive, a full head taller than MP-10 Optimus Prime, with a thickness closer to MP Grimlock. I have no problem considering him Masterpiece scale, and the only reservations I could potentially see for others is his overall IDW-inspired style, and possibly his proportionately smaller-than-MP-Prime head.
So what all do you get with this $130 monster ninja consultant? You get weapons. Proper weapons. he comes with two sheathed swords that, at a glance, appear to be lifted from Drift, but are actually a bit longer with their own unique kanji on them. Best I can do on translation, and with them being referred to as “Essentiality”swords in the stereo instruction booklet is “No matter how much one changes, his essence remains,” or words to that effect. Very cool.
Next up, he has two concussion blasters, which look very close to the G1 versions. And as a surprise (to me, at least, since I forgot all about them), he also stashes six shuriken, that hide as hubcaps on his vehicle wheels. Absolutely brilliant.
As I mentioned, he is a big figure. But the scale thing is a bit of contention for some folks because Sixshot hasn’t exactly had the most consistent appearances in fiction. In his only US cartoon appearance, Sixshot does his toy commercial in a size damn near twice that of Cyclonus, making him at least Skyfire-big.
In Headmasters, he’s usually depicted as a “big” bot, like Galvatron and Ultra Magnus, but he sometimes seemed more “average” sized, consistent with the other Headmasters — this was somewhat common in the series, with sometimes everybody but the tapes and the Throttlebots appearing roughly the same height. In the IDW-verse, he appears mostly “leader” big, sometimes smaller than Megatron, but still slightly bigger than Optimus. In the Marvel books, he showed up. Once, I think. Moving on…
Articulation is no problem where Sixshot his concerned. Tilting ankles, ball-jointed wrists, ball-jointed head, thigh swivels, bicep swivels… most all the articulation buzzwords are accounted for. The arms are limited somewhat by his big ol’ chest wings, but they are hinged, so you can move them out of the way for extreme sword wielding.
Of special note is how the hands incorporate a small groove into the palm to allow good gripping of his weapons, instead of just relying on the fingers to sloppily hold them tight. This should be a standard feature from here on out, and it works significantly better than even the peg system other MP figures use.
So the ‘bot mode delivers for me as an absolute lock. I know there were some folks that were hoping for a bit more traditional appearance, more in keeping with his G1 look, but I think these days the smart money is on IDW. And there are many elements on this guy that look like they came straight from the Spotlight issue.
That should get us a heady start on properly reviewing this beast, but let not your review-OCD be troubled, I’ll be back shortly with a breakdown of the other five modes of pain Sixshot brings, and a look at some other possibilities that this mold might see down the road.
