Crossover Venom Review

[Stompy]

Iron Man's conversion was excellent. I was really surprised how they turned a wide and flat jet into a thin bot mode. Very impressed.

As for the Venom's botmode... I really love the engineering and conversion but I wasn't too happy with the gigantick lower leg and the rather loose ankle hinge. Still looks nice and beefy though. And certainly gives Movie Ironhide (quite similar) a good run for his money. Hulk is still my favorite bot mode followed by Iron Man. For the alt mode, Venom wins hands down.

These figures surprised me, since their quality is well above SWTF standards, which were just horrible.

[GoktimusPrime]

Mmm... I dunno. I'm not really finding Iron Man to be substantially better than most SWTFs. I think that SWTFs are a lot more ambitious because they were aiming for movie-accuracy with the vehicle modes whereas the Marvel TFs aren't. Having much more freedom with the vehicle modes gives them far more freedom with the overall tank design. A lot of SWTFs are kinda shellformery because of the intention of their design. For example, Commander Cody has to transform from a metallic grayish Turbo Tank to a white robot with prominent orange accents. Given that mandate I think the toy was reasonably well designed. None of the Marvel TFs' vehicle modes are based on real vehicles (and in the context of Star Wars their alt modes are "realistic"). So it's a different level of accomplishment.

Now if they were to make say Cyclops transform into the X-Jet - where the vehicle mode had to be accurate and the robot mode needed to resemble Cyclops... it'd be difficult to engineer that without making it a shellformer to some degree. Ditto Captain America/Quinjet.



I like SWTFs and Marvel TFs for different reasons. Neither of them suck nearly as bad as Transformers Animorphs (which IMO is the single worst TF crossover concept ever).

[Stompy]

I understand what you mena in having something to base the alt modes on with SWTF. The Marvel crossovers I guess don't really have that going for it as the robot modes aren't that realistic to the source. The shellformer quality of SWTF is understandable due to the source material needing to be faithful and just shoving a forced robot mode. I see the Marvel Crossovers having more freeform design for the engineers. Which in the end, for me anyway, catered for the engineering aspects I like.

No one is really right, its all down to personal matter. Personally I'm in it for the engineering and complicated but graceful conversions. So far the Marvel Crossovers have fulfilled those for me so far. Although wave 2's colours really hurt the alt modes.
As for SWTF I love them but only about half of them can stand up in bot mode. Death Star and Mill Falc is awesome-sauce though.

I like the idea of the Xmen Jet turning into cyclops. I'd rather it turn into Prof Xavier on the wheelchair .

[GoktimusPrime]

I personally dislike how the SWTFs robot modes all attempt to resemble the pilots. I think that was a conceptual mistake. Had they given designers more freedom with the robot modes then I think the execution of those toys would've been better. When you look at SWTFs, most people lavish praise on the alt modes but are more reserved on the robot modes - and it's really the robot modes where a lot of their shortcomings crop up.

But having said that, it's clear that the pilot-like robot modes is an established core concept with SWTFs (for better or worse) so when appreciating these toys and comparing them with other Transformers I think it's only fair that one keeps that concept in mind.

As for SWTF I love them but only about half of them can stand up in bot mode.

Most Star Wars action figures can barely stand up! I really wish Hasbro would include stands as a standard accessory with all Star Wars figures. Actually, most action figures don't stand well... the human body frame is just very prone to falling (and humans are the only species that stands fully erect). Transformers stand better than most other action figures because they're not human - compared to human proportions they have far more base-heavy proportions which helps to balance them in a fully erect stance.

Because SWTFs' robot modes are based on their more human-proportioned pilots they also share the same basic flaw of humanoids in terms of balance. The fact that a lot of them are shellformers to some degree exacerbates the problem by adding more weight, usually on the upper part of the body making an already thin frame more top-heavy.

Death Star and Mill Falc is awesome-sauce though.

I don't much like Darth Vader/Death Star as a Transformer toy. It's got to be the mother of all shellformers - which essentially makes it a Pretender. (-_-) But then again, it can't really be helped considering the intended alt and robot modes.