Striking fear where weapons cannot in the Allspark Studios today is none other than wannabe Decepticon Kaiju, Abominus! Will he climb tall skyscrapers and sink ocean liners, or just spend his time eating the rest of the toys on your shelf? Tune in after the break to find out!



My first experience with Abominus was post Beast Wars, from one of those Easter Basket KO Specials from Kmart. The colors were off, the plastic was shoddy and waxy, and the stickers were worse than normal G1 stickers. Even so, each figure was strange and grotesque…creepy and monstrous. I loved them. I was way beyond playing with my figures, but I could not put them down. Hun-Grrr was the biggest surprise of all. Never had I seen a Scramble City combiner torso with such articulation. They remained on my desk in a place of honor for a long time…until they got lost in our move to a new home. I was ecstatic to find out we were getting the Terrorcons again in Power of the Primes. I was ready to relive the fun all over again.



Abominus Combined

One of the first things I noticed out of the gate was how much more “symmetrical” Abominus feels. I realize how strange that may seem, considering he is a hodgepodge of dissimilar components, but the core mass for each limb is fairly uniform. As such, he stands evenly when posed in the classic vanilla combiner pose of yore. Having him look so similar to the original in this mode is extremely pleasing to my veteran collector’s eyes.



Stability

Since the figure is built with straight hips that lock fairly well, he seems to stand well in poses. The additional sideways rotating joint at the ankle helps with this. I have not had too many issues posing him, even on a smooth reflective surface, but it can get trickier the farther apart his legs need to be placed. I would also like to note that while the leg limbs I used in this mode hold together decently enough, Cutthroat tends to split at the “ankle” section of his body when too much pressure is applied to the feet during posing. He is not as bad a limb as Swoop, of whom he is a significant remold, but he is the weaker of all four limbs.



Torso/Arm Integrity

A definite pet peeve of mine is when a combiner torso frequently snaps apart during posing, especially at the shoulders or the chest. This is what makes Abominus one of the best torsos yet. First off, the center of the body is locked together in an extremely solid fashion. The dragon mode necks tab into the combiner neck base, the neck platform tabs into the combiner torso, and the dragon mode front legs tab into the dragon neck parts. All of this inter-connectivity, paired with tight joints, makes for a torso that is the least likely to fall apart during posing or play. Consequently, this means the arms/shoulders are also very solid and can handle being moved without disconnecting. This is great and would be even better if the limbs did not have a slight tendency to pop apart at the forearms. Blot and Rippersnapper both seems to come loose there during posing, on both planes where the parts connect. Mildly annoying, but not nearly as bad as previous combiner limbs.



Scuplt

While I do not have the original Abominus (yet), this sculpt does a great job of pulling off the classic look of the figure. While the chest shield does not extend out or cover as much of Hun-Grrr as the G1 version did, having fully integrated parts there adds to the solidness of the figure and does not detract from the overall look. The head looks almost exactly like the original, varying slightly due to artistic license. That artistic license improves the look of the figure, because the original Abominus had lots of smooth surfaces. Though I often loath the way some 3rd party companies make their sculpts too busy with panel lines, break and bumps, HasTak have found the perfect balance, adding enough detail to have texture on most of the surfaces, while avoiding the overly busy look that I personally don’t like that much. It is the best of both worlds here, and just another reason why this is the bests combiner yet.



Recommendation

I give Abominus a 9/10 for being one of the best combiners to date. He is a very stable combiner that has great articulation and poseability due to the balance of the figure and the solid joints. The torso is masterfully designed and maintains its integrity during use. The sculpt hearkens back to the G1 figure, while updating it lightly in a way that brings out character of each component while not becoming a distraction from the overall persona. I think he is a fun toy, that even younger fans would enjoy and not find him frustrating. Now that Wave 2 is coming back and Wave 3 is hitting stores, make sure you get all the figures to make this must have Decepticon behemoth!









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