Review – Convertors Neptune

“Defender robots created by Earths central computer as the main defense against invaders from other galaxies designed to convert to other forms until alerted to impending danger whereapon they convert back to the Defenders.”
— from the front of the card

Those of you who have been following this site for more than a few days no doubt know all about my love of obscure, bad transforming robot toys. So far I’ve posted reviews of Lanard Ro-Bots, Marchon Roadbots, and the Convertors Maladroid, Volcan . . . all of which are bad transforming robot toys from 1984. Well, it’s time for another 1984 transforming robot toy (and another Convertors toy at that). Let’s dive right in.

Robot Mode

Convertors Motorized Defender Neptune — not exactly the longest toy title, but certainly long enough — is a cheap plastic robot that transforms into an ugly battleship. Actually, he transforms into an ugly transforming battleship. In robot mode, Neptune stands a little over 4.5-inches tall and has movable arms — pivoting at the shoulders — and legs, though moving his legs into anything other than perfectly straight causes him to topple over.

Neptune’s cast of gray, dull-colored plastic (which is appropriate for a ship), with chrome pieces forming the (crude) face, tower, and prop. His retractable hands are cast out of a blueish-colored plastic, and all of the other colored details on the toy are the work of pre-applied stickers. There’s a little more detail in his transformation than in most Autobot mini-cars (the hands), but for the most part he’s no more complicated of a design than Windcharger (same basic transformation).

As with many cheap transforming robot toys from that magical time during which Transformers were big business — namely, 1984 through 1986 — Neptune is both ugly and junky. Transforming him from robot mode to ship boat involves flipping the hands in, rotating the arms so that they’re straight, and then jamming them as hard as you can into the ship’s hull — the upper arms cover the robot’s face — and rotating the legs back to form the fore hull.

The card back, above, clearly shows how to transform him, just in case my description didn’t make any sense.

Boat Mode

Neptune’s biggest problem in boat mode, at least from a collecting standpoint, is that he’s a toy boat which means that he doesn’t sit too well on a shelf. The windup device, beneath the boat, doesn’t help things any, since it leaves him unbalanced and he constantly winds up laying on one side. Amazingly, everything comes together in boat mode; Neptune actually floats and his windup motor putters him nicely around the sink.

Unfortunately, the designers made the poor choice of placing some of his stickers in a position that’s submerged when he’s in boat mode. I dried him off quickly, but any extended time in water is going to completely destroy his stickers. Also, the motor has enough juice to move him for about twenty seconds. That’s not exactly enough time to do anything, but it sure beats the hell out of Seaspray. Take that, Hasbro! Select has a transforming robot boat that actually floats. What have you got?

Oh yeah. Hasbro — and The Transformers — is still around today. Well, Select did the best they could.

Closing Thoughts

I don’t remember if it was this exact toy that I had when I was a kid, but I do remember owning a transforming boat toy. I don’t remember the motorized action, but after looking at this page at www.toyarchive.com I think I had Atlantis (the coloring looks right). It really doesn’t matter all that much, though, because it seems to me that owning one bad boat transforming robot is pretty much like owning them all.

Neptune is as bad in person as he looks in these photos, but I know that there is someone else out there who has a love for bad transforming robot toys who is sitting there thinking “he’s not that bad.” Sorry, but he is that bad. Don’t bother searching for him, but if you stumble across him for $1 or $2 then he might be worth adding to your collection.

I’m not letting mine go, though.

Philip Reed probably has too many toys from 1984, but there’s still space in the game room so maybe he doesn’t have enough toys from 1984.