| SUPERION
PROJECT #210
CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURES: KNOCKOFF AIR RAID; KNOCKOFF SILVERBOLT; KNOCKOFF SKYDIVE
(x3)
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE, SUPER GLUE, ENAMEL PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: "THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA" PART 2
"Starship...in cloud...Quintessons..."
Preamble: I love it whenever the
original Transformers toys show up at retail. I don't care if it's
Combaticons being sold as Robots in Disguise toys or Mini Autobots
being sold as keychains...it's just gratifying to an old G1 fanboy like me
to see them in stores after all this time. Needless to say, I was pretty
excited back in 2002 when K-Mart stores were selling Easter baskets with
bootleg Aerialbots in them. Not only did I grab a set for my knockoff
toy collection, but I got a second one after the holidays were over and all
the Easter merchandise had been marked down. Perfect for kitbashing!
(Seems like Wal-Mart gets these in just about every year. It's
practically a tradition.)
The thing about Superion is that he's got a really
bizarre color scheme in the cartoon. For his original character design,
as conceived by Floro Dery, Air Raid and Skydive turn into Superion's arms
(this much is evident by the shape of their wings), while Fireflight and
Slingshot become the legs. When color key artist Phyllis Craig designed
Superion's colors, though, she got it backwards. It's true that the
arms and legs on the Superion toy are reversible, so maybe she was using
a Superion toy that was transformed differently for reference. In any
event, in the show, Superion's arms are colored like Slingshot and Fireflight,
while his legs are colored like Skydive and Air Raid. There's just
no way to reconcile this; if you watch Superion's transformation sequence
carefully, the Aerialbots all spontaneously swap colors as they combine.
Naturally, this means there's no way to combine the Aerialbot toys
together so that they look like Superion in the cartoon. Unless, of
course, you use a little paint.
Construction: First I had to do some
research to come up with a workable color model from the cartoon. The
fact that he got so little screen time made this a challenge, since he usually
just showed up long enough to kick Menasor's butt and then transformed back
into the Aerialbots. (The quote I selected for him above is perhaps
his most dramatic moment in the entire show, if that gives you any idea.)
I stripped the stickers off the knockoff toy,
saving a handful of them so that I could recycle them into wing decorations
for his legs. Since I intended to keep everybody in Superion mode
permanently, I glued the five individual toys together, trapping them in
their combined modes. I kept all the useful articulation, though, so
Superion still has about ten moving parts to his name. (He's a super-sized
Action Master!)
I ended up shelving this project for a while because
I just wasn't satisfied with it. Superion is actually drawn with identical
legs in the cartoon (even the jet parts on the back of his legs are the same;
the only difference is the colors and designs on the wings), so what I really
needed was to ditch Slingshot and Fireflight and get my hands on two more
Skydive toys. Waiting proved to be a fortuitous decision when Big Lots
started selling Scramble City knockoff 2-packs for $1.49 a pop; I got somebody
on the Dangerous Toys bootleg mailing list to send me a pair of them for
the project.
Even though I wasn't planning to at first, I ended
up making a bunch of physical modifications to the toys. The biggest
change I made was to Superion's legs, chopping the wings off of both Skydives
and reattaching them elsewhere to recreate those weird mini-jets he's got
on the back of his legs in the show. (I also cut the foot plates down
to size so they actually came close to matching the size of his legs.)
Also, in the cartoon, Superion's gun is mounted on his forearm, so
I chopped the wings off the rifle and drilled a hole in his arm so I could
mount it there instead. I cut off Silverbolt's jet nose, tail, and
wings, since Superion isn't drawn with any of those parts in the show. (I
removed Silverbolt's fists as well.) Finally, I made some structural
changes to the helmet, cutting away at the components to round out the shape
of the helmet as well as sharpening the antennas. (Good thing kitbashers
don't have to conform to safety regulations. These puppies are sharp.)
I also added a face plate, gluing it over his mouth and painting
it.
I painted all five of the Aerialbot components
in their entirety, actually, though you may not recognize them at first glance.
Air Raid (right arm) became red with white; one Skydive (left arm)
became white with red; the other two Skydives were painted identically, but
with black jet parts to represent Air Raid and grey jet parts for the real
Skydive. I had to paint Silverbolt, too, since the knockoff was made
of white plastic instead of light grey.
Comments: Well, this was fun.
Superion wasn't really on my list of characters who absolutely
needs a show-accurate toy in his likeness (that's mostly reserved
for the characters of The Transformers: the Movie), but his cartoon
model is just wonky enough that I got a kick out of "fixing" the toy to match
it. (Now I may actually have to go back and paint my Bruticus knockoff
into cartoon colors just to give Superion a counterpart on the display
shelf.) |
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