Phil's
Armada Longarm & Powerlinx Longarm,
Micron Legend Hook & Sparkhook
Energon Longarm
and
Movie Longarm
Review

Longarm

Longarm is a crane - six wheeled with two at the front and four at the rear. There's a driving cab at the front with a crane arm that lifts & cab mounted on a turntable at the rear. The colours used on Longarm are:

Black is used for the crane truck body, crane cab and wheels - the same as Red Alert's wheels.
Beige is used for the crane arm and robot legs - the same as Red Alert's elbow joints and his functional Minicon port.
Blue is used for his chest - the same as Red Alert's limbs and the moulded colour of his head.

He has one Minicon socket underneath the crane in the middle of the vehicle. However you mount him on a robot he still looks like you've attached a crane to them, but some fun can be had with the crane arm and turntable.

TF: Fold the front half of the crane arm back on top of the back half. Fold the cab forward and down to form the lower legs. Stand. Fold the sides of the vehicle forward to form the arms.

At this point I need to introduce the Longarm segment from my original Red Alert review: "Longarm the Minicon is more traditional MM"

Ha ! what I didn't know at the time is that Longarm effectively *is* a Micromaster. Compare the pictures linked above to Iron Lift's TFU entry (part of Six Build). He's the Micromaster combiner that would end up as Hightower (Hook) in the Micromaster Constructicon Devastator. Exactly the same form, TF, robot.... even the way the crane arm bends

You've got turning shoulders, independently turning hips and bending knees. The crane cab forms quite a hefty backpack. Yes he might be a Micromaster, but sometimes the simple stuff works and here it definitely does. A good addition to your Minicon collection.

As well as appearing with Red Alert Longarm showed up in a giftset exclusive to K-Mart also containing a painted gold Armada Superbase Optimus Prime with a normal Sparkplug, Powerlinx Jetfire with Powerlinx Comettor and the Adventure team.

Longarm & Red Alert were sold as Hook & Ratchet in Japan in Micron Legend pack MC-02.

Powerlinx Longarm

Longarm receives a Powerlinx repaint in Armada. Along with Red Alert's changing colours the beige becomes orange and the blue becomes grey.

Powerlinx Red Alert & Longarm were available in Japan as Micron Legend MC-12: Ratchet Super Mode & Sparkhook.

Energon Longarm

Red Alert was repainted in Energon as Prowl using a colour scheme similar to the earlier Energon deluxe Prowl. This was available as an exclusive for Sam's Club stores which was later sold through the Entertainer in the UK. As well as a repainted Longarm - which swaps out beige for blue and blue for white - they were packaged with a repainted Starscream and Zapmaster (Mirage)

Movie Longarm

Four years after his last appearance Longarm returns with Red Alert repainted as Movie Inferno in an exclusive for Toys R Us - this exclusive did show up at Toys R Us stores in the UK. Beige becomes grey and blue becomes dark grey on this slightly lacklustre repaint.

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