Review – Transformers Timelines Invasion Metalhawk

A repaint of the Transformers Generations Sky Shadow* and Transformers Generations Thunderwing*, Metalhawk was packed inside the Timelines Invasion box set that I got at Botcon last month. And as excited as I was to get this toy before the convention, now that I’ve held it I can admit that I could easily see myself selling this. It’s not nearly as cool as I expected now that I have played with it a few times . . . and my complaints all come into play because of the ugly, ugly head.

Great Colors

As you can see in the photos, Metalhawk’s red and blue colors look fantastic and he makes a really nice companion — in jet mode — to Sky Shadow and Thunderwing. And since the jet design was already pretty nice — see my Thunderwing review from 2010 for another look at the base mold — all these colors do is give us another instance of the same mold in a great look.

And seeing all three of these together made me wonder if the unofficial transforming drone for Thunderwing (mentioned here) would be created in colors for Sky Shadow and Metalhawk. Going back to the older post, I answered my own question; the teaser image for the drone clearly shows colors that will work with all three of these molds. Nice, but even that’s not enough to save the toy from . . .

Ugly Face

Metalhawk here was based on his Japanese Transformers Pretender version that was released in 1988 (see the TFWiki) so I understand why the decision was made to give him a human head, but the execution gave us one hell of an ugly toy. G.I. Joe action figures have better head sculpts and paintwork than this guy and the final toy looks horrible in robot mode all because of the bad face. Frustrating, because other than the face this looks good; it helps that I really like the Transformers Generations Sky Shadow* and Transformers Generations Thunderwing* mold.

What Would Save This?

I’ve got my fingers crossed in hopes that someone produces a head for Metalhawk that’s inspired by the original toy’s robot head and not the human head. I’d be more than happy to drop some cash on a replacement head — and new weapons would be a cool way to change the design up just a little more — and any of you unofficial Transformers add-on makers out there please take a close look at this toy and consider a new head. I suspect I’m not alone in being happy to swap this ugly human face out for a robot face.

Closing Thoughts

I’ll admit that it’s a little unfair of me to focus on the toy’s ugly face, but being made of two easier-to-afford Transformers toys that were in stores — Transformers Generations Sky Shadow* and Transformers Generations Thunderwing* — means that most anyone with an interest in this probably has the basic mold or has already passed on the basic mold.

I like that Botcon tried something new to make this toy different, but the ugly face execution takes what should have been a great exclusive and gives us an ugly toy. That face sculpt just doesn’t have the detail it needs and the face looks distorted and weird rather than cool. And I’d be willing to look at someone else’s attempt at a new human head sculpt, but a robot head would fit best with the rest of the line. Thunderwing gets away with his face sculpt because it’s not a human (more alien than human) so any oddness is concealed by the fact that I’m not expecting a human-like design.

Philip Reed is way behind on reviews . . . and he is still very busy at work. But he’ll try to get back in the rhythm of posting reviews now that he’s done traveling for six weeks or so.