Blog #424: Toy Reviews: Botcon 2013 Hoist & Electrons

Botcon 2013 Hoist & Electrons

If you haven’t read my full review of Botcon Toys, Merchandise, and news from Botcon and San Diego Comic Con, click here.

I really like the Machine Wars concept this year.  I’m not crazy about the inclusion of Strika and Obsidian because I really never liked them as characters and they have nothing to do with Machine Wars.  If they had to be included, I would have preferred they be Decepticons instead of Autobots.  Since the toys are both molds that I really like that doesn’t bother me too much though.

What does bother me is ridiculous coloring on some of the toys.  Let’s be honest, the reason Machine Wars was created was so that Hasbro could maintain trademarks.  Some names like Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Hoist, Hubcap, Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Starscream hadn’t been used in several years.  The toys were all reuses of existing molds (though a few had not been seen before due to the cancellation of G2).  The art was all reused and didn’t match most of the toys.  I don’t see how you can conclude that it was anything other than a bunch of random toys and art thrown together to maintain the trademarks on the names.  This being the case, it’s clear they didn’t put much thought into the color schemes.  That’s why we have toys that do not match the characters color schemes in any way.  (Even if they are supposed to be different iterations of the characters, they should still have had the correct colors.)  What Fun Publications really should have done is make the “second wave of Machine Wars toys” match the proper color schemes for the characters rather than continue to do them wrong.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Mold Used: Transformers Generations Deluxe Kup (Repainted with a new head.)

Well, by now most people will have heard that all the Hoists and Electrons have a part assembled incorrectly in their chest making it so their upper torso does not fold up into position in robot mode.  Also, Hoist has his shoulders installed on the wrong sides, so his arms do not bend correctly.  The chest problem is fixable, but only if you want to take screws out of a really, really expensive toy.  The shoulders are riveted in making then nearly impossible to fix.

The Generations Kup mold is a good one, and the head sculpt is really nice.  Both have pretty great paint jobs, but I would have liked an Autobot logo on Hoist’s hood.  If not for the fact that both are defective, I might like these a lot more than I do.  Electrons was supposedly going to have gold paint but the factory didn’t do the gold paint.  It might have looked nice.

As to the name Electrons, they couldn’t use Electro because of the character from Spiderman.  That is completely understandable.  What is not understandable is that they call him Electro on his autograph card.  They probably did that in the comic too, but I didn’t look.  When you give a toy a name, you stick with that name.  Calling it something else in a comic, on autograph cards, or anywhere else makes no sense whatsoever.

Hoist Grade: B

Electrons Grade: B-

Thanks for reading!