Toybox & Games Room

Originally I was going to pass Longarm by as I had inspected the package in the shops form afar and it just looked like a flat white tow truck. One day though, I went up close and had a good peer through the bubble in which Longarm was encased and saw two words, “Orson’s Towing.” That sold it for me! Having a nice little link to Orson Wells(*) was all it took and after spending 5 minutes in the checkout line, my wallet was lighter but my heart was full.

I am glad that I did get this now. The vehicle mode is a little flat and the paint work although interesting really doesn’t do it for me, however the robot mode is where all the love is. Starting from the ground of course we see his feet. What a good pair he has too. Since they have used the bonnet as his toes and the bonnet has to flex for transformation, he has a lot of movement in each foot.. Out of the grill of the vehicle mode, a heel spur comes out and together with the large toes, Longarm has an excellent base for balance. The ankles are a little bit thin looking, but they need to be to folded up for vehicle mode and an advantage is that they can rest right up next to his shins allowing for some solid crouch posing. His shins are solid looking and have some nice orange paint to break up the plainness of them and extend just slightly over the top of his thighs. In the middle of the thigh is a swivel join allowing for left-right turning and added with the hinge join for his knees, allows for a lot of movement. Considering how the swivel join in the thighs could have been left out, this is a nice addition. At the top of the thighs the usual ball joint.

His groin area is pretty thin, but at least it doesn’t get in the way of the leg movement and by no means detracts form the look of the figure. I really like how his chest has a galvanised look to it, like the steel that is used for floors with the little grip marks in it, looks very cool and industrial. Now we have his shoulders, his awesome awesome shoulders. Due to transformation, he has the ability to bring his shoulders forward where his collar bone would be. The arms are connected by ball joints and the chest has a snazzy looking swivel style joint to bring the arms in front of his chest. This gives him the ability to reach across his chest, which is something I get excited about, because not many Transformers can do this and it looks great when holding a big gun. Wreckage can do it, but his stomach gun gets in the way, none of that for Longarm! Just under where his pec “muscles” would be, there appears to be a ball joint connecting the torso to the waist. This is great, as the waist doesn’t move at all but the torso has a limited up/down/left/right movement, which can be just enough to add some more drama to a posed look. It doesn’t move a lot, but just enough. On his shoulders are the flat bits of the truck backing. One thing that is noticeable on Longarm is that the robot is kind of skinny looking and yet bulked up by the vehicles kibble. It’s a good look and reminds me of armour for him. As his arms are skinny, but the side and back panels make him appear armoured and tough.

Now for the head, I really like his noggin’. It’s done form black plastic with white paint and a sexy Autobot insignia stamped on his forehead. The back of his head is a large orange bit of plastic that makes for some excellent light piping into his eyes (Man I just love the light piping gimmick!!). It doesn’t need a lot of light to work well and if you do have strong light behind him it looks fantastic!! His face doesn’t have a lot of detail, yet there are lines moulded in, again giving the impression that it’s a helmet or a mask ( going back to the armour thing in my mind) but the way the eyes are angled, it looks like he has a bit of a frown going on and he is a serious Autobot.

Speaking of big guns, Longarm’s is a ripper! Made from the hook parts for the truck, the barrel is hidden underneath the vehicle. The barrel has some good moulded details to make it looks like a robot’s gun and the kibble of the crane actually adds to it. The lights form an aiming sight of sorts above the barrel and the crane section folds away nicely to not be noticeable. Oh and it’s REALLY HUGE! My only complaint was that it was screwed into his right hand, but a quick screw driving later and it is easily freed from its shackles. There is a peg to hold in the left side of the gun so he can easily hold it in his left hand and when in the vehicle mode, the screw doesn’t really add anything because the crane wiggles around a little bit with the screw in and both arms are connected to the handle to hold it. Why they didn’t just adjust his hand a little to allow for a larger peg from the gun I don’t know. If the left hand had been replicated for the right, it probably would have worked just fine.

Generally a really really cool figure the Vehicle mode may look a little drab, but the outstanding robot mode makes up for this in so many ways!! Obvious complaints? Well, I would have liked to see a little more moulding detail in the tires, but I have noticed that all the movie line seems suffer this problem and let’s face it, I am probably the only one who thought that. As stated before, the gun being attached to the hand by a screw, easily rectifiable, yet it could have been made redundant with a slight change of design.

* (Orson Well’s voiced the character of Unicron (a planetoid/robot, that devours enerything in its path) for most of the 1986 Transformers Animated Movie, after his death that same year, Leonard Nimoy almost seamlessly completed the recordings for the role - he also voiced Galvatron) - edits by Ark-Ivor