Autobot Scoop - Generations - Deluxe Action Figure


Height: 13cm (head height).

Articulation: 20 total points - ball-joint neck; 4 points each arm: Universal joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow; swivel waist; 5 points each leg: Universal joint hip, thigh swivel, double-jointed knee.

Colors: Molded orange, lemon yellow, clear blue, canary yellow (Caliburst) and Blue (Holepunch). Painted blue, gray, yellow, and orange.

Accessories: Nebulans Holepunch and "Caliburst."

Release Data: Released in the United States in January 2014 at a retail price of US$14.99

Author: RAC

The fearless resolve of Autobot Scoop makes him one of the most relentless warriors on the battlefield. There's no such thing as danger when you can blast enemies with the combined firepower of Targetmaster Allies like Caliburst and Holepunch.

IDW Scoop is largely not these things, or at least those have not been his most prominent traits so far. He's an ex-Autobot turned handyman, and a firm believer in Primus, whose belief is notable in-story because Primus' existence in IDW continuity has not been explicitly shown. When Starscream was revealed as the Chosen One who would unite Cybertron, Scoop believed in him with all his spark... even after Rattrap and Starscream framed him and had him thrown in lockup. Supposedly he was causing problems so he could fix them and make himself look good. He wasn't! He was actually helping people for the sake of helping them, and that both baffled and worried the Schemer-in-Chief and his rodent apprentice.

On the G1 side, Scoop was a Double Targetmaster, one of a line of smaller, cheaper Targetmasters who came with two Nebulan gun/men, and one of the figures I had as a kid. He had a lot going for him back then: for one, he was a bright orange earthmover. For another, he had small, realistic fists with no 5mm sockets and so used his Nebulans as arm-cannons. Megaman and Megatron both had arm-mounted cannons, so they were generally extra cool to 9 year-old me. Prior to Dark Cybertron he was never used for all that much and I managed to miss his few other comic appearances. He was just this cool orange guy who I lost the smaller guys for.


Robot Mode

Scoop is true to his original toy by being a very simple robot with a wheel on each limb and a big namesake on his back. The details have changed, and 25 years of changes in design sensibilities mean that he's no longer just a rectangle with hands and feet that turns into a rectangle with wheels and a scoop. Many of the original sticker details, like the chest vents and the shapes on the front of the feet, have been incorporated into the sculpt. His face is changed a great deal, with the round things on the sides of his head reduced in size to about the size of Gundam head vulcans, and he now has eyes instead of a visor. Interestingly enough he's still frequently drawn with one in the comics. His light-piping works well enough, but it's not as strong as many other recent figures', and it's obstructed by his backpack at many angles. The lightpiping extends down to form his neck, and that glows better than his eyes sometimes. He's retained his hardpoints on his forearms, so if you still think arm cannons are cool you can still use his Nebulans for that.

Man, is Scoop orange. He may be the most vivid orange Transformer I've ever owned. And there's a lot of orange too- even moreso than on the original. The original Scoop's head and scoop were both yellow, and I really liked the look of that. The orange head isn't bad or anything, but there's going to be a part of my brain shouting wrong wrong WRONG whenever I look directly at him. I don't even want to think about how difficult it would be to paint yellow onto this orange, either. The paint coverage is a concern too, especially on his face. On the gray details on his arms it's not as big of a deal (though it doesn't look great not wrapping around the edges of the 5mm ports), but the face just looks incomplete. What it looks like is a guy with an orange face who just did a very messy job of eating an oil-based confection.

The head swivels stiffly but freely on its ball-joint. It has some upwards tilt, but not much. The shoulders swivel once you manuver either them or the you-know-what out of their way. They're also a bit stiff due to angled ball-joints, which are mounted on a swiveling piece for transformation and are supposed to be kept in place by the chestplate. But the chestplate is the path of least resistance if the arms catch on the scoop. It's not as irritating as the exercise in futility that is keeping Classics Grimlock's torso pegged together, but it's still something that's going to happen when you try to move the arms sometimes. The arm swivels and even elbow are obstructed in many poses by the big chunky wheels on Scoop's shoulders. His hands can now actually hold his guns, and are molded slightly open with some nice details- good to see he still doesn't just have stock Transformers hands. The swivel waist can swivel freely, but I bet you'll never guess what needs to be moved a bit to allow it to do so! The hips are very square, and are up just a millimeter or two too far, meaning that at some angles they butt up against the lower torso and make posing more difficult. I hate that. But the ball-joint itself has plenty of forward and sideways range- it's just the points in-between that argue. The thigh swivels work fine. The main knee joint gets a solid 90-degrees of flex and is very tight, but you can also press the transformation joint into service to make for a double knee joint. Balance hasn't been much of an issue yet, but the backs of Scoop's lower legs are very, very hollow, and from any angle but straight-on it shows. They've at least molded some interesting details in there, but it still feels kind of cheap-toy, if you know what I mean.


Transformation

It's reminiscent of the original, but of course more complex. It's also one of those transformations that relies on the correct configuration of very small tabs and slots to keep it all vehicle shaped. It's not the worst of its kind, but it's also not difficult to misalign things or have them pop loose once in vehicle mode. While the scoop arm is now part of the driver compartment piece, I'm happy to say Scoop's head is still inside that compartment. That was always neat.




Vehicle Mode

Scoop turns into a small loader. It's similar to the original, but now it has fenders! It's still extremely rectangular of course, but as a vehicle it looks fairly good. It rolls incredibly easily, too. It's peppered with 5mm hardpoints for attaching his weapon-guys, and they retained the ladder on his left-hand side, which always lent the original toy a bit of character. What lends this Scoop an amusing bit of character is the fact that, while his head is still stored in the driver compartment, that compartment is now made of clear plastic. So there's Scoop's stern face, always staring out of where there should be people. That's probably my favorite part of the vehicle. The shovel's arm is articulated enough to do all the shovely things you'd probably want to do with it if you were a little kid, but because it's attached to the driver compartment piece, you have to keep a finger on that when you're posing the shovel. (I wanted to take a break from typing "scoop." Break's over now.)

There are two things I wish this vehicle had. One is the 5mm socket in front of the driver's compartment that the original had. It was always fun to pretend he was some kind of hybrid shoveltank. The other thing I'd like is, again, more yellow. The original figure broke up the orange of the vehicle mode with a bright yellow scoop, and that would be great here- but it seems as though the parts layout during molding didn't allow for it. The package art shows a half-yellow bucket, and even though I'd like more color here I'm kind of glad they didn't do that since it's just kind of ugly. But even so, the monochromity of Scoop's vehicle mode will test your love of orange. Or make you think about converting him to G2 Scrapper.

Accessories

Holepunch and Caliburst(formerly Tracer) are Scoop's Nebulan partners. Holepunch got a half-sentence worth of description in Scoop's original bio, which revealed that he was formerly an office manager before joining the military. It's as good an explanation for the name Holepunch as any- though even without explanation that's a great name for a gun. Tracer didn't get even that much, and while it's a good, gunnish name I'm just as happy calling him Caliburst. While both were originally double-barreled guns- Tracer was a laser-guided ion blaster and Holepunch was a dual compression cannon -Caliburst is upgraded to three barrels, one large one on his back and a smaller one (the laser guides?) on each shoulder.

Both figures are functionally identical, but have been sculpted entirely separately, with only their 5mm pegs seemingly sharing a mold. They've done a great job of matching the detail on the original figures, down to what looks like quilted pants beneath Holepunch's armor. Naturally as Targetmaster partners they weren't loaded with articulation originally- in fact, the hinges on their gun barrels were the only moving parts- but they're upgraded to moving arms here! This is largely because they're full figures here that look like small humanoids as opposed to pictures of humanoids sculpted in relief onto the bottom of a rectangle. And now we see where most of Scoop's paint applications went, because both figures have every single paint application they had in 1988!

To transform either figure into a gun, lock their arms together behind them, swing the barrel over their heads, and turn the 5mm peg between their knees around. From the front or top, they look pretty gunlike, especially near the end with the barrels. Pretty much any other angle makes them look like a person pretending to be a gun, but that's been true of many, many such figures so I don't hold it against them. To combine them, you unfold the arms on the one you want to be the base and plug the tab on the top figure's barrel into the body of the other figure. It works well, though of course not as solidly as the original's combining two rectangles via a 5mm peg. The one thing I'm trying to figure out here is the orange adapter on each figure's legs. The 5mm pegs work fine, but there's also a 5mm socket that is simply not compatible with the other figure in any sensible combination. And the socket is molded in such a way as to have a small notch, too small to work with Miyake Joints. I have no idea what the purpose of these extra connectors is, but they don't seem to allow the figures any greater functionality with one another or Scoop.

Scoop comes with Dark Cybertron Chapter 2, which features him sitting in jail and dishing out the Dark Prophecy to an impatient Starscream. Maybe not the best spotlight for a figure, but better than Skywarp's cameos in his own comic.


Closing Remarks

Scoop is Very Good on the Figurereviews.com Non-Numeric Rating Scale. As a robot he has some shortcomings in the shoulders and some mild difficulties centered around his life-defining shovel. His transformation is not difficult in general but lining everything up properly and getting it to stay can be. His vehicle mode never feels as solid as I'd like it to because of that, and it's a little bit monochromatic. But, his defining gimmick- the Double Targetmaster partners -have all the G1 accuracy and paint and functionality I'd hoped the whole figure would have. It's a decent figure of a character nobody expected to ever see again, and it's cheaper than replacing Holepunch and Tracer on eBay to boot.



ReviewerRAC  
DateJanuary 31st 2014  
Score 8 stars (8 out of 10)  
Reads13662


Back to Reviews Index
Advertise on TFormers.com








This site uses cookies for site configuration, advertising, and analysis. By using this site you accept our policies - Read Full Site Policy OK
Sign Up For The TNI Newsletter And Have The News Delivered To You!


Forums Communities: Toy Fans - Marvel Fans - Transformers Fans

@ToyNewsI Socials: Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

@MarvelousNews Socials: Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

@Tformers Socials: Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

@JediInsider Socials: Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

Entertainment News International (ENI) is the #1 popular culture network for adult fans all around the world.
Get the scoop on all the popular comics, games, movies, toys, and more every day!

Contact and Support

Advertising | Submit News | Contact ENI | Privacy Policy

©Entertainment News International - All images, trademarks, logos, video, brands and images used on this website are registered trademarks of their respective companies and owners. All Rights Reserved. Data has been shared for news reporting purposes only. All content sourced by fans, online websites, and or other fan community sources. Entertainment News International is not responsible for reporting errors, inaccuracies, omissions, and or other liablities related to news shared here. We do our best to keep tabs on infringements. If some of your content was shared by accident. Contact us about any infringements right away - CLICK HERE