Phil's
Cybertron Thunderblast,
Galaxy Force Chromia & Chromia Minerva-Type
and
Botcon Elita-1
Review
Thunderblast is a speed boat - Lets take a look at what you could have won, ooh it's the speedboat, Lovely, super, smashing, great ! Again, memory may be failing me, but I don't remember another dlx boat for a long while, perhaps even back to Broadside. And certainly not a speedboat. She's a purple 2 seater job with a little gun on the prow that rotates from side to side and a HUGE off white missile launcher with 4 moulded missiles mounted on a rotating and elevating base to the rear. Pop her Earth Planet key (Cybertron #dh62) into the back of this missile
launcher and the front pops off and top pops out to allow you to use the actual
working missile launcher inside - missiles - clear orange like her windscreen -
are stored just to the left and right side of the hull.
To TF split the hull down the middle, fold out to the sides and straighten out the
robot within. Remove the freaking huge missile launcher and attach to her arm. And
that's it.
Robot mode looks kinda like TM2 Blackarachnia with a folded out boat stuck to her
back. Lots more purple with the off white used for head & forearms and black for
the upper arms with the upper legs painted gold - later versions suggest these are
moulded in the off white plastic. Knee, Hip, Waist, Shoulder, Bicep, Double Elbow
and neck articulation. She hasn't got standard size holes in her hand - they're a
kind of open grasp - but she has got standard holes in her forearms - into which
the missile launcher plus, there's a mock handle for her to hold.
As a toy she's quite fun, works as a vehicle, works as a robot albeit one with the
largest piece of kibble ever.
Thunderblast was sold in Japan as Galaxy Force toy GD-11 Chromia and was not sold
in the UK (another skipped deluxe wave)
Chromia was the second toy to be offered in recoloured form with a Galaxy Force
video. As the name suggests the purple and off white are swapped for white
with
red paint on the both top, upper legs and chest. The clear orange becomes clear
blue and the Planet Key remains the same.
The toy looks female already so adding the right colours makes the toy look like
the Japanese G1 Character Minerva (their repaint of Headmaster Nightbeat). For
another Cybertron Minevra alike see Override.
At the time of writing Thunderblast has just been reused again as the Botcon 2009
toy Elita-1. Here we swap purple for bright pink, almost lilac and the off white
for a pale pink with clear blue once again replacing the orange. She now comes
with a clear dark blue Cybertron Autobot planet key which has a red Autobot symbol
and pink painted border.
I don't get this Elita-1 nonsense. Another toy which appeared in the cartoon for
five seconds and she's ended up with two toy versions and an appearance
in T:Animated. I dunno.....
Email Philip
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