Welcome to Kimia Room 113 Generations Springer

It's my first review of November and this month sees the release of SINS OF THE WRECKERS!
So I thought I'd do something special for this month (well part of it any way). I realised something a few days ago, in my small Florida based collection I have a small amount of Wreckers right here. So why not do a theme month? So for a good chunk of November, IT'S WRECKERS MONTH!  

Where do I start on this weeks subject? His chest? Big enough to fit ten Matrixes? Shoulders that would put Metroplex to shame? An entire upper body that is a bold visual testament to the power of unchecked width? Or his infamous midsection?
​So this week I'm talking about one of the few instances I can think of where a figure has been lifted directly from art work.
I'm going to be talking about Generations Springer.
So where DO I start?
Springer transforms from a helicopter to an armoured car and a robot. He's made up of greens, yellows and greys. The colours mix well and really do a good job of evoking the original toy.  

As a helicopter Springer does a pretty good job, he doesn't like any particular model of helicopter, more of a Cyberton chopper which of course suits him to the ground. Springer should always have Cybertronian Alt mode/s in my opinion. There's a lot to like with this mode, it does a great job of hiding away the obvious car parts, you can still see them a little, like the front wheels poking out and the front parts of the car becoming the sides of the chopper. The robot arms do a nice job of clipping together and giving this mode some nice little stabilising wings.
The legs come together nicely to form the tail of the chopper and the sculpted detail on there and it looks like it does something that helps him fly.
The gun clips into the nose of the chopper and sits perfectly, I sometimes have problems getting it in and out. I worry that it'll wear down and not clip in at all but it's OK so far. It has a decent set of rotor blades, the hole you peg them into is a little tight and the first time I pushed it all the way through I was really worried I'd got them stuck in there.  

As a car Springer looks pretty good, there's no obvious helicopter parts on display, the roof/cockpit does a nice trick of lifting back and clipping in. It takes what was a stubby nose on a chopper and turns it into a decent length hood/bonnet. One of the few things I don't like about the figure is revealed when you do this though, there is a chunk of painted yellow plastic right next to several moulded yellow plastic pieces and you can see the difference. It's not a massive problem though.
The sword/rotors store under the car, it's not a great method of stashing it as it loosely clips onto the rear landing gear of the chopper before they fold up. It's a problem for me as the landing gear joints on mine are fairly tight but one is a little tighter than the other so it makes things a little awkward at times.
One really cool thing is how the wind shield “expands” when you turn him into a car. A panel from each arm folds out and clips into the roof. It does a really nice job of helping to differentiate between the two modes.
All of the colours are nicely blocked together. Car mode looks good and could only be improved on by adding some form of giant, sand capable, rear wheels.

Let's talk about the robot mode. A lot of this figure is HEAVILY inspired by Nick Roche's art in Last Stand Of The Wreckers (LSOTW). He's not an exact copy of how he looks but a LOT of the elements from that design are here. The wheels in the legs, the wings on the forearms, the knees and that head has been pulled right out of the comic. It's exactly the same, the “Mohawk”, his nose, everything is perfect on that head. I loves it!
The rest of the robot mold is pretty awesome, starting with the chest. It does a neat trick to make the chest a lot beefier, the parts that connect the shoulder joints are mounted on yellow parts that clip in nicely to the nose of the helicopter/hood of the car. It bulks it out nicely and it's such a simple trick. The Yellow backs of the shoulders give you a few different options for how you want your Springer to look. They slide back and forth so you can either have them sat low, part extended, fully extended or fully extended and pointed out (it's how I pose mine). Little things like this are great, adding your own personal touches to a figure is always a good thing and I wish more figures did it.
The legs are yet another example of the fine work on this figure. No waist joint unfortunately but we do have some nicely jointed hip with some sweet sounding ratcheted knee joints, his feet are angled so that he naturally has an “A” stance, there's no articulation in the feet unfortunately but it's not a bad thing, I can get him in some decent poses despite the feet.  

I really want to talk about the two weapons a little bit more than I normally would. Springers sword and gun are a couple of neat additions.
The gun has a twin missile that works of a pressure system, the reason I mention it is that it's tooled to fire one missile then the other, nice touch.
The sword... Oh this is the clear winner here, the sword, much like the G1 original, transforms into his rotor blades for helicopter mode. It does a really cool trick to hold everything in place. There is a solid green piece that slides between modes locking them in either mode.
I want to compare it to another triple changing voyager with a sword, Blitzwing.
Blitzwings sword is a solid piece of plastic, it only serves one purpose and in at least one mode it's a weird looking attachment. In comparison Springers sword serves a purpose for the helicopter and it stashes away in car mode.
I love the sword, it's scaled perfectly to the figure, it even has the nice touch where you can peg it into Springers back for storage or you can peg it into the gun to make a HHHUUUGGGEEE bayonet (do it at least once, it's super silly but it's worth it).

​I better wrap this review up or I'll spend the next half hour gushing over him.
I had to wait over a year to finally get my hands on Springer, Slick nicely got him for me when I was out of work and stored him until I got to Tampa, and he was certainly worth the wait. He was the first one I opened when I got here and he's not been far from me since then. He's a great pick up and mess with toy and I encourage everyone to get him or his remould Sandstorm.
Well that's enough for now, this weeks review is done. I want to say thanks to James Roberts for the inspiration for this weeks intro, if you don't know where it's from, get “Bullets” read, it's in the LSOTW graphic novel and it's an awesome little read. Especially when you realise who Rotorstorm's teacher is......

Stu "Darkageis" Murray is a founding member of The Old Oilhouse, a lifelong transformers nut and collector of Sentai and Kamen rider in most of it's forms.

He sometimes takes epic trips and tells tales of these sagas often. 
When not watching people in spandex fight each other he paints miniatures, go HERE to take a look.

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