First Ever Poll Winner Review! Generation 1 Decepticon Targetmaster Triggerhappy
(or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Pick Up Stuff in Plastic Bags)
There was a poll awhile back asking readers of this blog to choose what era a Transformer should come from for me to buy at Botcon. Generation 1 won the poll. Granted, I bought a lot of stuff, not just this, but this poll was to decide what I would do with this:
| Heavy Metal |
For those curious, that comes out to be this much before Coinstar takes their share:
| meh |
That gives a pretty fair budget to work with. Alas, Coinstar is really the only practical way I know of getting this much random loose change turned into something useful. In this case, something useful is cash. Banks only take loose change when it's rolled up, and I'm not rolling all that. Even rolled, many times pennies are not wanted. This left the budget for this project at around $65, give or take a bit. It was decided that something like a Targetmaster or Pretender would probably fit this budget. Good decision.
Enter: Triggerhappy.
| He doesn't look very happy |
Triggerhappy is my first ever large Decepticon Targetmaster, and joins the ranks of Quake, Spinister, and Needlenose on my shelf of other Decepticon Targetmasters. For reasons I don't understand, the Decepticon "Large" Targetmasters are significantly larger than the Autobot ones. Granted, lack of understanding does not equate to giving a crap about that in this instance. All I can figure is it's yet another way they tried to make up for 1) the Decepticon's Commander in 1987 (Scorponok) being significantly smaller than the Autobot's (Fortress Maximus), and 2) The Autobot Targetmaster ranks numbering at 6 rather than the 5 the Decepticons got.
| Rad visor bro |
The first order of business I had with this guy, and part of my excuse for taking so long to get this blog up, was to buy Reprolabels. They're very nice, and I love what those guys do up in Canada, it's an extremely valuable service they offer the hobby and please, patronize them whenever you can.
Here's confession time: Triggerhappy and the labels got to a total budget of $51 spent on this toy. The other $14 was used somewhere, sometime, on something else. That's right, this toy was picked up for the outstanding price of 45 dollars. Botcon is known for good deals, because of stuff like this, but let me be clear: this is an exception, and a bit of luck was probably also involved (or maybe good karma). This Triggerhappy was in a baggy on a dealer's table mixed in with a lot of Unicron Trilogy and Beast Wars stuff. It was labeled at $45 and I assumed something was wrong with it. The way it was packaged, I figured the small Targetmaster gun extension couldn't possibly be there. It was.
| Not a fan of the side view, but nothing's perfect |
I can't emphasize enough that while stuff like this can be found at Botcon, do not ever count on finding prices on stuff like this at Botcon. The majority of Generation 1 toys there are massively overpriced. It was difficult to find a complete Swoop for $100, which is essentially market value on that toy. Not to mention anything with a box, regardless of the box's condition, will be absolutely gouged to hell just to test the adage of there being a sucker born every minute.
Continuing on to the actual toy, I really like the head mold on this guy. The new toys just don't capture the imaginatively cheesy look that several of the bots from the 80s wear like a badge of honor. I think too often these days, the designers go for extremely stylized looks, and sometimes, that's a very good thing. Other times, it seems to be for the sake of it. Give me a blocky plain looking robot head sometime, with industrial looking craniums laced with bodacious orange visor sunglass looking things. To me, that helps ground Transformer designs on occasion and helps keep in mind that these are robots in disguise.
| 8 points of articulation, 0 creativity points for Scotty on this pose |
| Oh fun, a stress mark |
And yes, I realize that picture is blurry and the stress mark is hard to see in it. One day, I'll get a camera that isn't from 2007. Maybe. Possibly. I don't know, this thing is pretty serviceable for these posts and the manual mode is amazingly powerful for a little point and shoot. Oh Canon, I'll never go back to Kodak or Sony again.
Another thing worth mentioning if you're in the market for this toy - there are two small tabs below the folded up jet mode cannons that serve to clip them into the body in alt mode. These break very easily. Only one is broken on mine, and the broken off piece was actually in the baggy he came in! Of course, this doesn't idiot proof it, as this guy right here stuck it on his hotel nightstand, never to see it again after the maid came through. These cannons, which fold up adjacent to the arms, also have a tendency to sag over time, as the plastic is worn down by the pin that holds it vertical. Thankfully, that's not a problem for this one either. Finally, the gray can yellow a bit. Mine is just barely yellowing, which is hard to tell anyway since the front lights I use are incandescent (and therefore give off a warm color temperature).
| I don't know if this belongs |
I love the alt mode on this toy.
| Front/overhead |
| Front/straight on |
| Angled |
Blowpipe mounts above and manages to not be too intruding. I could care less about realism and aerodynamics on alt modes, especially so on G1 toys, but Blowpipe doesn't look like he'd be too in the way in cartoon non-physics land. Come to think of it, a lot of Targetmasters end up looking like what they are when you put them in weapon mode: a small robot trying to orally pleasure itself. Thanks to the way the heels stick up and the separate part extension, this Targetmaster manages to look a bit more like a weapon and a bit less like some kind of obscene symbol of a toy designer's sexual frustration. My apologies if I just ruined your perception of Targetmasters forever. One day, I'll work on not thinking like a 7th grader. Anyways, Triggerhappy does something a lot of Decepticon toys fail at in alt mode - he looks like a Decepticon, not just a plane. I can say the same for his buddies Misfire and Slugslinger, but I don't own them yet. Soon, maybe. Slugslinger is not at all cheap.
| In scale together? Yeah, basically. |
There's a shot of Triggerhappy next to/somewhat behind Scourge, who was another Botcon purchase. The two are basically in scale with each other, which, ooooh... that's probably why these are the size they are as opposed to the Autobot car Targetmasters. That epiphany really just happened while I wrote this blog. Better late than never? Forget my goofy theories stated before. I'm going to leave them though, so that you can see one reason writing is helpful - critical thinking.
In short, in case you don't like to read, Triggerhappy embodies a lot of what Transformers toys were doing right by 1987. Sure, the articulation is still lacking, but the overall design is great, the sculpting is more evolved than something from '86, the concept is creative, and you can really see some of the love and attention put into the second year of completely original Transformers designs reflected in this toy.
I give this toy my highest recommendation for G1 Collectors. If you don't like G1, this toy won't change your mind, but it will look very cool while it tries to.
'Til Next time, 'til all are one...
