Review – Transformers Quintesson Executioner

“The Quint Executioner is a mantis-like, roughly anthropoid creature. He is distinguished by nonprehensile claws and large splayed feet. The Executioner’s evil presence is propogated by his seething red eyes and a forked goatee (if the Executioner had fingers he would habitually stroke the goatee whenever he hatched an evil plan).”
— from the back of the box

After the truly impressive Quintesson Prosecutor, and the fun Quintesson Scientist, I went ahead and ordered the Quintesson Executioner as I continued searching for the Judge. Well, as I mentioned a few days ago the Judge is now on his way which will leave me with just one more toy to purchase and I’ll own all five of Impossible Toys’ Quintesson toys. While we wait for the Judge to arrive, though, let’s take a look at the recently opened Executioner toy.

The Quintessons

I’ve spent a little time in each of the previous reviews discussing the Quintessons and their role in Transformers, but nothing is as sweet a summary as this short video on YouTube:

Notice that we see several robots — both Quintessons and unusual Sharkticons — but not once do we spot the Quintesson Executioner. As I poked around online, the only really good animated shot I could find of the Quintesson Executioner was in the following clip from Transformers The Movie (at the 24 second mark):

As you can see, the Executioner in that image is quite slender and has towering shoulder spikes . . . unfortunately, even though the guys at Impossible Toys did a great job capturing the look of the Prosecutor and the Scientist they basically failed when it came to the executioner.

The Executioner Toy

At about 5.5-inches tall, the Executioner is the shortest of the three Quintesson toys that I’ve reviewed so far (if he were about an inch taller, and not any wider, his proportions would be more in line with the animation and the Executioner would be a much better toy than he is).

Where the Prosector had minimal articulation and the Scientist had almost non-existent articulation, the Executioner goes the opposite direction and actually has more points of articulation than the I initially expected. With swivel joints at the hips, hinge joints at the elbows and knees, ball joints at the shoulders, and minimal articulation on the feet, hands, and head, you can actually pose the Executioner in several different positions (including the one leg bent forward and one leg bent back pose that you see below).

(You can also get a look at the shoulder spikes in that shot. As I mentioned they’re out of proportion compared to the still shot from the movie but, when compared to the comic book illustration below, the overall figure is closer to the image. It appears that the Impossible Toys staff went with the comic version, rather than the movie version, when designing the toy. I think that was a poor choice, especially when the Judge, Prosecutor, and Scientist figures follow the movie and television series designs.)

As with the other two Quintessons that I already own, the toy is quite durable and shockingly well done for a garage operation toy. Most of the joints are solid, without being too stiff, and the figure stands in a variety of poses; it’s balanced quite well and, in fact, stands better than toys I’ve bought from much larger companies. And the face sculpt is fantastic, even if it is closer to the comic image than it is the animated movie.

Complaints

Yes, I have complaints beyond the unusual proportions and the (apparent) choice of model. For one, the arms tend to fall off, separating from the figure at the ball jointed shoulders. Also, the paint job isn’t quite as nice as on the Prosecutor and the Scientist, with a little sloppy work on the purple details. Since this is “Quint 04” in the series, should I assume that the line is going down in quality with each release? I hope not, since I still want Quint 05 and hope that it’s better than this figure.

And the final issue with the toy is, I think, just a mistake with the packaging. The side of the box clearly states: “With Light-Up Action!” Unfortunately, this particular Quintesson toy (unlike the other two I’ve already reviewed) has no light-up action at all. I can live with the lack of lights, but the mistake on the box was a little of a let down (and required some time as I tried to figure out where the switch was hiding). It’s minor, but worth pointing out.

Closing Thoughts

A minor character from a minor subgroup, the Quintesson Executioner should probably be the last Quintesson toy that a Transformers collector tries to locate. He’s decent enough, but subpar in comparison to the Prosecutor and the Scientist and, to be honest, is probably only going to stay in my collection because I’ve decided that I want to own the complete set of Impossible Toys’ Quint series.

Philip Reed sad that each new Quintesson toy he has purchased is less exciting than the one before . . . but there’s still hope! The Judge is in the mail and should be the best of the bunch!.