Arcee

I remember a friend that I grew up with telling his Mum she’d know when he was bored of Action Force figures because he’d tell her he wanted Lady Jaye. ‘EW GIRLS’ was probably a common expression from the mouths of many boys in the 1980’s and it doesn’t seem like such a massive presumption that this might be why an Arcee toy never got past the concept stage.

So, yeah. Arcee. The pink one. As far as enlightened attitudes towards gender go, Arcee has always been a bit of a blot on the landscape for the Transformers franchise. It’s often been noted that Gobots handled gender a lot better by making no real big deal about. Crasher and Pathfinder are female Gobots but don’t really look all that different from Turbo or Cop-Tur. Whereas Arcee is pink, curvier than any other Transformer, and has Princess Leia buns.

There’s nothing particularly bad about Arcee’s characterisation in the movie or the cartoon, though some of the dialogue between her and Daniel in ‘The Rebirth’ is…ill judged, but the old comics had at least one really bad story (Prime’s Rib) and the less said about those early IDW stories the better. Kudos to John Barber for his work in, quite frankly, cleaning up what was a very messy and stupid take on the character and, by extension, gender.

Maybe it’d be an exaggeration to say that Arcee’s release in Thrilling 30, some 28 years after her debut, was as big an event as getting Metroplex. It was certainly a big deal. A no shit, G1 faithful, Arcee toy.

It’s a truly excellent figure. It really looks like a perfect mix of the old G1 and the new IDW character models. Part of me doesn’t want to actually go look at how close the toy is to either version, as I’m kind of happy with how well she aligns with my ‘mind’s eye’ ideal of Arcee.

The articulation is excellent. She’s one of the most poseable deluxe figures I won, and was certainly the most poseable deluxe we got in Thrilling 30. And she comes with some really great accessories. Two guns and two swords, a homage to her fondness for a blade in the IDW depictions. I don’t normally note stuff like this, but the weapon storage is excellent.

The car mode is wonderful! It feels appropriately retro futuristic, and in this mode all those curves don’t seem quite as…awkward. Admittedly she’s a bit of a shell former and the wheels are a bit tiny, but none the less it’s nice to see a vehicle mode that, much like the ‘bot mode, feels like the alt mode from ’86.

If there’s anything that’s not great about this toy, it’s the facesculpt. They were probably going for kind and friendly but unfortunately they got derp. A more neutral expression would have worked a whole lot better.

Titans Return Arcee came as a bit of a surprise. She’d been rumoured from the early days of Titans Return, but those rumours often seemed like wishlisting. Towards the end the general consensus was that we were going to get Titan Master Arcee head that would come with the vehicle that Siren/Loudmouth came with. The reveal of a deluxe class Arcee that came with a diecast Magnus and artwork that felt like it was cropped from a larger scene fuelled speculation that what we were seeing was some refugees from an aborted ‘intelligence’ boxset.

This is yet another rejigging of the Blurr mold. The fourth use, if I’m counting right. In some ways it’s nice to see some changes to the mold around the shoulders and a new car front, but in other ways I feel a bit cross that Nautica just got some clip on wings. It’s a damn fine quality figure but to me it doesn’t actually feel that much like Arcee. Thrilling 30 Arcee was maybe a bit slight, but she did a good job of capturing the character. I guess the big attraction is that fans of ‘The Rebirth’ can finally complete the full line up of Autobot Headmasters.

Addendum: War for Cybertron: Earthrise Arcee

Has the clock struck three and bit years already? Then it’s time for Arcee to get another take! Let’s hope it’s hope it has the fandom up in arms. Oh, no need to worry. They’re already on it.

Ok, it can be easy to take the mickey out of the fandom’s…shall we say…more vociferous responses, but it is usually borne of something truly faceplam worthy. And we all saw that backup-cum-hoverboard you could feel continents wobble from that collective faceplam.

Yeah. ER Arcee was going to be a shell former with an enormous backpack. Yay! I remember how much people hated the T:30 version’s back pack, and that had nothing on this. Adding…something to injury some of this shell forming backpack could detach to form the aforementioned hoverboard. You know. Arcee’s famous hoverboard. None of this bode well for a good figure.

Turns out that in hand, Arcee is more than a good figure. She’s a great one! They’ve really gone to town on the articulation on her. Truth be told, she hasn’t got that much more than the T:30 version (a wrist swivel here, and waist swivel there) but the engineering is much more elegant and stable. It felt like there a million fresh and exciting poses to find, all of which she held so well.

The deco, while being a bit plainer than the T:30 version, works very well. I always felt the pink faced and lipstick of the T:30 version was a little OTT. That said, her pistol has suffered a little through being translucent plastic. A bit of paint could really have jazzed this up a little. And it’s a meager comparison to the arsenal that came with the T:30 version. Where’s my sword?

ER Arcee’s proportions are also a lot better. Looking at her with fresh eyes, T:30 Arcee looks like a different figure either side of her waist. Those legs just seem so crazily big compared to the rest of her. ER Arcee gets the balance just right. Unfortunately

I couldn’t stop playing with this figure when I got it. And what could be a better recommendation than that? “You couldn’t stop playing with her and she wasn’t a shellformer” replies the shrill greek chorus.

So, hey. She’s not the first shellformer we’ve had in WfC. and I don’t know about you, but I kinda liked those tertajets. So let’s give her a chance and see if it’s all worthwhile.

Ho’way man, it looks like a pink slipper. As I sit here at my desk, quill in hand and laudanum within reach, I compare this with the T:30 version and truly shake my head in despair. Where the T:30 version is sleek and shapely, the ER version is blocky and ill-defined. Where the colours of the T:30 version provide eye-catching contrast, the ER version looks like the cheap Morrisons vodka where they wouldn’t splash out for 3rd colour on the label (‘Moskova’, as I recall). Where the windae on the T:30 version is clear, the ER version is cloudy. I could go on, but you get the idea; this does everything worse. Including the transformation. The panels don’t even tab together solidly.

But despite how crappy that vehicle mode is, I can’t dislike the figure. The’bot mode is just too good. There really isn’t another Generations figure I own that can sit cross-legged so confidently and comfortably. I know I’m going to have plenty of fun posing this ER Arcee over the months and years ahead. So there we go; she’s a toy of two halves, one much better than the other. A lousy Transformer but a fantastic action figure.