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Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Highbrow

Like most of the original Headmasters, Highbrow hasn’t gotten a proper update in a while. There was a pretty neat Highbrow back in the Hunt for the Decepticons sub-line of Revenge of the Fallen, though his alt mode for that line was a Lockheed P38-Bomber style plane, and he was mostly green instead of his original blue and white. It’s a neat toy mostly for using a cool alt mode, but it’s not very Highbrow and it wasn’t a headmaster.

Like most of Titans Return, Highbrow is a much more faithful remake of his G1 iteration. He has the same colors and turns into a dual prop Cybertronian helicopter. It’s not a toy without some pretty bad flaws though, mostly due to the helicopter blades. This is one of those areas where the lessened budget of newer toys actually become a bit of a hindrance. The helicopter blades don’t have any way to lock into place in robot mode and don’t fold out of the way in any meaningful way. They just sort of flip around, which wouldn’t be a problem except they tend to get locked up in his massive helicopter cockpit backpack.

He also suffers from a severe case of “wobbly head” syndrome, which seems to plague a few of these Titans Returns figures. Part of the problem seems to be that the hook for his head sticks out from his neck a few millimeters. On the plus side, it means he can sort of look up and down a bit, but it doesn’t make things lose and floppy. Something that was most common in the Wave 1 figure Scourge, which brings up another interesting bit…

Back in my review of Chromedome, I made a comment about how Chromedome looks like he is a remold of the Combiner Wars Breakdown mold, but isn’t, he just shares a transformation. Highbrow here has a similar sort of situation going, because technically, Highbrow IS a remold of Titans Return Scourge. That said, they share almost zero actual parts and their transformations are “reversed.” Where Scourge’s front form by joining his legs together, Highbrow forms the rear of the helicopter. The tell tale bit that these are remolds lies in the pull out section on the hips/legs used during transformation. That, and that they are part of the same lines, it’s actually pretty uncommon to have a remold cross over between lines the way Chromedome and Dead End would have done.

The toys are definitely different enough to warrant owning both of them if you are interested in both. The transformation results in a pretty near little helicopter. The cockpit is functional to allow for the Titan Master to fit inside. The two guns can attach to the underside of the wings to give the chopper some artillery, though they attach via the non round pegs, which is slightly against what you commonly see but it allows for the use of the molded landing wheels. There’s a third flip out landing gear that isn’t super obvious on the under side of the cockpit.

The helicopter mode looks good and holds together very solidly. It’s definitely a good addition to the vehicles for Titan Masters. If your interest in this line lies more with the Titan Masters and their vehicles and bases, Highbrow is definitely a good addition, even if his Robot mode is a little clunky.

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Chromedome

Wave 2 of the Titans Returns line wraps up the redesigned versions of the original 7 Headmasters from G1. Today’s review is for Titans Return Chromedome with Stylor. There haven’t been a whole lot of easy to get options for an updated Chromedome since the original Generation One release. There was a repaint of Transformers Prime Wheeljack for the Collectors Club, and at least one 3rd Party figure in Fansproject CODE. He’s a fairly popular character in the IDW comics but he is admittedly kind of a bland design with all of his squareishness and brown shades. It’s understandable that he’s not the first choice for a toy.

If you’re familiar with the previous Transformers line, Combiner Wars, you might look at this figure and see it as a remold of the overused Breakdown/Prowl mold. While Chromedome certainly has a lot of design queues from that figure and a very similar Transformation, he is a very different figure and doesn’t seem to actually share any parts with that older mold. It’s an understandable mistake, but it’s not an accurate one.

The differences are kind of similar to the old complain that Transformers Cybertron Starscream was the same toy as G2 Smokejumper, which share a transformation but are totally different figures. I feel like Hasbro does such a good job of making every transformation unique despite how many Transformers there are, it tends to just stick out on the rare occasion that they reuse a Transformation.

He’s a nice solid toy as well, there have been some budget cuts on the Transformers design process in the last few years (mentioned by the design team) which resulted in a lot of hollowness and weirdness for a few years but it’s starting to really be apparent with this line that the designers have managed to get a good hold on working within these confines. It kind of feels like it’s helped the line as well, we’re starting to get a lot of good designs that still have simpler transformations with less random flippy bits.

The headmaster Stylor is identical to all of the other Headmasters. The fit on the head peg is solid, which tends to be the biggest issue on some of these figures (say hello Scourge). The fit of the smaller robot in Chromedome’s cockpit is nice and solid as well, the cars are particularly great for the little guys to drive around in.

The colors are definitely Chromedome’s colors, but it does make him pretty bland. He’s not a flashy sports car, he’s not a sleek looking car, he’s just a very, brown car. There is a bit of an issue with his hood being a little tricky to get lines up but otherwise it’s an alright design and rolls along easily.

Titans Return Chromedome isn’t an amazing entry to the Transformers line but he’s not a bad one at all either. He’s pretty middle of the road with no major flaws but nothing that makes him stand out.