Review – SuperModified Mod1 Wi-Fi

My first encounter with the SuperModifiedStudios Mod1 designer toy was, like almost all designer toys, online. A post at Tomopop got me excited with the photos of the toy and:

“The robot-like MOD-1 figures feature multiple points of poseability and come in five different versions: blank, Wi-Fi (green), CTRL (red), COIN-OP (black), and Zero7 (yellow). Each is 13 inches high by 7 inches wide, and they are limited to 200 units worldwide for each.”

Limited to 200 copies? I was absolutely certain that there was no way I was going to get one of these. Just imagine how surprised I was when I got lucky enough to find one of the green models (Wi-Fi) online for less than the retail price. After a few hours of thinking it over — during which time I poked around online and tried to find as many comments about the toy as I possibly could — I decided to go for it. The toy’s design was just too cool for me to ignore.

The excitement of waiting . . .

You know that feeling of anticipation after you order something cool online? Yeah, I had that big time with this baby and I even went so far as to show others the online photos of the SuperModifiedStudios Mod1. The mail couldn’t run fast enough to keep me happy.

Poking around online, while waiting for the mail I still couldn’t find any specific, detailed reviews or comments about the toy. That’s not really all that unusual for a designer vinyl toy, since a lot of the chatter about designer toy’s takes place in forums and I don’t have a lot of time to spend with forums so it’s very likely I was just missing the discussion.

Less than a week after I placed the order, Mod1 Wi-Fi arrived.

First impressions . . .

Wow, the box is huge! That was pretty much the first thing I thought as soon as I picked up the box that the toy was shipped in. After cutting away the tape, dumping the packing peanuts, and finally working my way down to the toy’s actual packaging I had exactly the same thought: Wow, the box is huge! Measuring about 9″ tall, 14″ wide, and over 6″ deep — with an attractive window-box design (see the photo above) — I couldn’t wait to cut the tape and get inside.

A sinking feeling . . .

Professionally-packaged, the first second at which I found myself worried was when I discovered that Wi-Fi was taped into the clear packaging with huge rolls of tape on his feet. Twisting and yanking, he eventually came free but the bottom of each one of his feet was covered in sticky tape residue. Very sticky. It was going to take some serious work to clean this goo off of his feet.

Okay, picking at the tape residue wasn’t working so the next step had to be Goo Gone. The perfect tool for cleaning off price tags and general gunk, I should have known that it was also do an excellent job of eating away at the stamped number on Wi-Fi’s foot. About a second after spraying the feet I immediately started wiping, as I worried that the attempt to remove the sticky was going to result in removing the paint.

Not a good start to the toy’s new life in my collection.

Disaster averted, the next problem surfaces . . .

With the Goo Gone cleaned off (and the gunk still stuck to his feet), I started actually playing with Wi-Fi, checking out his articulation as I posed him in multiple positions just to see what he could do.

With articulation at the hips and shoulders, and elbows and knees, Wi-Fi’s actually got a lot of options when it comes to posing his blocky body. Each point of articulation is a ball joint that gives each limb an impressive range of motion. As you can see in the photos I took, you can position him in some pretty neat poses and, after playing with him a little while, I placed Wi-Fi in a menacing pose and left him standing in one of the display cabinets where he looked great next to the Revoltech Starscream (which I reviewed here), a couple of Autobot mini-cars, and a few G.I. Joe figures.

The next morning, Wi-Fi’s other problem sat there in the display case forcing me to rank him even lower than I already had. The joints aren’t strong enough to hold the toy in position and, over night as I slept, every limb sagged until the arms touched the legs and the body shifted slightly back. Wi-Fi can’t hold a pose! Damn.

Closing Thoughts

What started out as a toy I was very excited about quickly grew into a letdown once I opened the box. An excellent robot design was basically ruined by poor choices during packaging, an unforgivable design flaw with the figure’s articulation, and a general sense of “this could have been so cool.” It makes me sad to see that someone put so much time, energy, and money into a great-looking design only to have the end product be such an inferior piece.

Wi-Fi’s going to stay in my collection, because he has a great design, but I won’t bother trying to track down any of the other figures in the series and I’ll ask for reviews before I buy another toy from SuperModifiedStudios.

For more photos of the Mod1 take a look at this post at Plastic and Plush.

Philip Reed should really take a two or three weeks off from work one of these days and design his own toy. He certainly couldn’t produce anything worse than Wi-Fi.