I am a child of the ’80s. Growing up in a time when educational programming was a quaint notion, I was marketed to, hard. I liked my cartoons like my cereal on Saturday mornings: blatantly obvious toy advertising that may or may not lacerate the roof of my mouth. As a result, I have a serious weakness when it comes to the toys of my youth. Case in point, Transformers. No, not the origami nightmares that Michael Bay foisted on the public, but chunky, brightly-colored, 2-dimensional, Generation 1 Robots in Disguise.
The Loyal Subjects share that love and have dedicated vast expanses of vinyl to making awesomely detailed super-deformed G1 Transformers figures. They’re on Wave 3 of their blind-box toys and have broken the three Constructicons from that wave out into their own SDCC Exclusive (Wave 4 is merely theoretical at this point, but at least it theoretically could contain fembots like Arcee!).
The SDCC Constructicons set is an eye-blazing Generation 2 yellow (G2 happened on the cusp of the ’90s, when neon yellow was a perfectly good color, thankyouverymuch). They’re some of the biggest figures from their wave at 3.5 inches. And Scrapper even retains his electronics, which means you get to play this over and over for your eldest child, day and night, until he finds himself humming the original theme song the next morning on the way to school:
The non-exclusive oversized Grimlock is an upscaled five-and-a-half inches of vinyl goodness. The original debuted in the first blind box wave and is one of just a handful of figures to receive the size upgrade. Ol’ Grimmy gets a few extra details and accessories as well. The dino-tail kibble on his legs caught my eye first. But it’s the giant T-Rex-head backpack accessory that really sells this edition. Does it make him totally back-heavy and hard to keep on his feet? Possibly. But T-Rex-head backpack accessory. Your argument is invalid. The only thing that could make this version more perfect is a removable crown.
These toys are crafted with more detail than you’d expect from a vinyl figure. And it’s obvious that they’re designed to be deeply faithful to the original ’80s toys. If you remember smashing together die-cast, transformable robots in front of Saturday morning cartoons, meet your newest obsession.
If you can’t get enough G1 Transformers goodness, make sure you check out Will James’ review of the just-released Transformers: Devastation.
Now it’s time to win ’em! The Loyal Subjects has been generous enough to put both a Constructicon set and a 5.5″ Grimlock up for grabs. Fill out the form below before 11:59 PM EST Friday, October 23, letting us know which prize you prefer (very Sophie’s Choice, I know–if you’re OK with either, you can say that too) and we’ll pick two lucky winners from the entries. Good Luck!
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Josh A. and Ari B., congratulations! Your vinyls will be on their way from Loyal Subjects soon!
Thanks for entering, everyone!