Phil's
Transformers Eject & Rewind,
E-Hobby Flipsides
and
Kiss-Player Rosanna
Review


Eject

The first time I came across Eject was in the first issue of Marvel's Transformers Universe handbook series in 1986. "Ooooh, Autobot Tapes!" I thought.

Eject is a blue & grey cassette with a striped red sticker. It's a little hard to find anything interesting to say about the alternate modes for these fellows!

Transform: Put the mainly blue side of the tape towards you. Pull each side of the bottom out to the sides to form the legs, but be careful not to pull too far or they'll come off. Fold down under the tape and turn so the flat blue side faces out. Fold the grey feet out from the bottom. Pull each side of the tape out to the sides which automatically raises the head. Rotate the grey panels containing the tape holes back 90 degrees so the holes are behind the robot. Fold down the robot's hands and peg the guns into the tape holes.

Inevitably Eject (& Rewind) invite comparisons with the Decepticon robot tapes Rumble & Frenzy. The Autobots are a little shorter than the Decepticons and lack the holes in the body that allow the weapons to be mounted on Rumble & Frenzy's backs. Eject has 4mm pegs on his weapons so he can't trade guns with the Decepticons whose peg holes are the Microman/Microchange 5mm standard. The holes for inserting the guns are now found on a lump on the back of the forearm which just looks odd. A little additional articulation to let this lump be folded down and thus to act as a hand would have been good. His articulation as it stand is that his shoulders turn, he's got a bicep joint, hips that bend the wrong way as art of the TF and the legs turn at the hip. By contrast Rumble's shoulders shrug upwards, he's got a bicep swivel, double bending elbows, a hip swivel & swing to the side, bending knees and bending ankles. So really Rumble wins hands down despite being an older toy.

Eject was sold in the USA in 1986 where he was packed with Ramhorn. The Eject & Ramhorn 2-pack has a major variation where it's available with either silver or gold chromed weapons. The card art depicts gold weapons so I'd say that this is the definitive version. Neither version of this 2-pack was sold in the UK at the time but it was later available in the UK in the early 1990s as a grey import of the Chinese version.

When Eject was released in Japan, he was sold by himself as Transformers toy C-68 while his pack-in Ramhorn was sold as toy C-66.

Eject has been reissued in Encore 15: Cassette Big Mission 1, where he had silver weapons, with Rewind, Ravage & Buzzsaw. Eject was also included in 2010's San Diego Comicon Exclusive Blaster, where he again has silver weapons, and appeared with Ramhorn (who has silver weapons) & Steeljaw (who has gold weapons).


Rewind

Rewind is a simple colour swap of Eject with the blue becoming black.

Rewind was sold in the USA in 1986 where he was packed with Steeljaw. This 2-pack was not sold in the UK at the time but was available in the UK in the early 1990s as a grey import of the Chinese version. Both toys in this 2-pack are subject to a weapons variation coming with either silver or gold chromed weapons - both toy's weapons are the same colour.

Rewind was sold by himself in Japan as Transformers toy C-67. His pack in Steeljaw was initially sold in Japan as Transformers toy C-65.

Rewind was reissued in Encore 15: Cassette Big Mission 1 with Eject, Ravage & Buzzsaw. Like his brother Eject, the Rewind in this set has silver weapons.

Rewind misses out on being part of the 2010 SDCC Blaster reissue pack unlike Blaster's other 3 1986 cassettes. This has lead to some friction between him and his brother.


Flipsides

Flipsides is a recolour of Eject with the blue swapped for white, the grey for a maroon red and the chromed for a chromed pink. Flipsides has a sticker showing the location of weakness on Scorponok similar to that shown on the Steeljaw originally supplied with Twincast. Place the tape in Twincasts's tape deck and the red plastic of the door highlights where the weakness is on the sticker in a similar manner to how the G1 tech specs worked.

Flipsides was an E-Hobby exclusive sold with Twincast - a re-colour and minor remould of Blaster - who was released to complement the release of Transformers Collection 21 Blaster with Steeljaw.


Rosanna

Rosanna swaps Eject's blue for white, the grey for neon pink and the chrome for chromed blue to create this truly shocking repaint.

Rosanna was part of the Kiss Players cassette pack with Sundor, a repaint of Laserbeak, and Glit, a repaint of Ravage.


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