Toy Review - DotM Human Alliance Tailpipe and Whirl.
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Human Alliance is one of the stars of the Dark Of The Moon Line. The HA franchise has the best value Recommended Retail Price of DOTM toys on Australian shelves, and the value continues with Tailpipe, who comes not only with his human ally (the improbably-named Sergeant Noble) but also with Pinpointer, who is - like his G1 namesake - a Targetmaster partner.
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Sergeant Noble is a typical Human Alliance human remould who "has spent his career in the wildest places on Earth". And he looks absolutely petrified about it all judging from his bug-eyed-white-as-a-sheet facial expression. Unlike many humanoid action figures, the Human Alliance humans are brilliantly designed for riding vehicles, and Noble rides Tailpipe well in both motorcycle mode and speeder-bike/whippersnipper/floor-cleaner weapon configuration.
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Tailpipe's highlights include his wheel-blades and his head. The robot's face is not only articulated on a ball-joint, but also designed in such a way that his four eyestalk bits can look up and down independently of the rest of his head - it's a great feature. Tailpipe is a triple-changer without a weak mode and with only one incredibly minor flaw. The (unique) ports that attach Pinpointer to Tailpipe in vehicle mode are designed so you have to really jam that Targetmaster in there. It should have just been a simple 5mm hole on the back of Tailpipe, which would have made the connection more secure and 'MechTech compatible'. Otherwise, the Tailpipe/Pinpointer/Noble set is perfect and I recommend it unreservedly.
You'd be mad not to get him. Five whippersnippers out of five.
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Whirl and Major Sparkplug are less than perfect. Ironically, considering the heritage of his name, Whirl's helicopter mode is crap. The robot legs and skis don't lock in anywhere, the front of the cockpit is half-assed and a part that was clear in the prototype – the windshield - has been painted silver. (Roll eyes here.) Major Sparkplug either has a tiny hole to look out of or to stick his head around the side. Oh, and most of the brown parts seem to use Brown Plastic Syndrome swirly brown plastic (I guess time will tell as to how bad a fault this is). The particularly nice touch in this mode is the big transparent blue 'light' just under the helicopter blades. And the blades spin. Otherwise, helicopter mode isn't worth bothering with.
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What he lacks as a helicopter, Whirl at least tries to make up for as a weapon and robot. Aesthetically, he makes an impressive Chaingun Of Doom (although again not enough parts lock in for my liking) and looks great in the hands of Voyagers and Leader Class Transformers.
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Robot mode is by far Whirl's saving grace. The parts that should lock in finally do, he has a great-looking head with blue lightpiping, a spinning wrist-blade and his ski-feet are either a nice G1 homage or good for a fan-propelled day at the slopes. He's really a fantastic-looking bot. Whirl can't hold anything in his hands, but he has two impressive c-clip weapons that he can wear so they look like wrist-mounted launchers.
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And maybe I've worked out why Sergeant Noble is so scared. The expression on Major Sparkplug even petrifies me – he looks like a mass-murdering psychopath. Which is possibly a good thing since he has to hang out the side of his helicopter if he wants to see what's up ahead. (And no, I don't know if he's intended to have any direct link to Sparkplug Witwicky, who was a war veteran in the Marvel Comics and a military man in Dreamwave and IDW.)
Whirl isn't a necessary purchase, but he's good enough to keep in my collection. As a robot. He gets three brown plastic swirls out of five.
