Darkmount

Height: 13.5cm to top of head, 15cm overall height.

Articulation: 24 total points - ball joint neck; 7 points each arm: Double joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, double-hinge elbow, ball joint wrist, hinged fingers; Swivel waist; 4 points each leg: Ball joint hip, thigh swivel, hinge knee, ball joint ankle.

Colors: Molded blue, red, grey; Painted gold, red, blue, white, black, silver.

Accessories: Battle-axe, clip-on weapons x3

Release Data: Released August 2010 in the US at a retail price of US$11.99

Author: ExVee

(more...)


Few robots achieve the same legendary status as Megatron, but Darkmount is one. He is just as famous on Cybertron as the impenetrable fortress that bears his name. From there, he ruled his small corner of the machine world with an iron fist, controlling his subjects with an equal measure of fear and pain. So terrible was his rule that even Megatron gave him a wide berth, and treated him with the respect due to an equal.

This is possibly a bit downplayed. Straxus made other Decepticons look good. He was a bit unstable even before Galvatron made it fashionable, acting more on whim than reason. The most infamous product of his reign was the smelting pools wherein Transformers would be melted down alive, in some cases for just having the misfortune to exist in the first place. Straxus was the first image we were given of Decepticon rule on Cybertron after Megatron and Prime's departure. While it wouldn't be the last such peek at the war at home, it's certainly one of the most memorable simply for Straxus's completely remorseless, brutal approach to rule that was tyrannical even by Decepticon standards.

He also seemed to get himself new paint jobs frequently. Even in the middle of sentences.

And of course there's the matter of the name. I don't know. Maybe calling him Straxus would have led to issues with Marvel. I'd be shocked if it weren't possible to secure rights to the name Straxus otherwise, but that's not really a matter to speculate over here. I'm gonna use Darkmount in reference specifically to the toy, and Straxus is reference to the original character. Even though they're functionally interchangeable.

(man, I can't believe they made a toy of Straxus.)

(And yet I'll never get an awesome modern retake on Ratbat that isn't the Sideways recolor. *sigh*)


Vehicle Mode

Personally I'd have been fine with a flying space cannon. But since War For Cybertron Megatron was in the same assortment and essentially transforms into a space cannon, I can see why Darkmount wasn't. So now he's a halftrack. A HUGE halftrack, if the little cockpit above one of the front wheels is any indicator.

What's immediately notable is that this vehicle mode is solid. Like, roll it, shake it, maybe even toss it across the room, and it'll probably come out in one piece. It's a feeling of structural strength that I love to have in my Transformer vehicle forms. But I guess the really big deal here would be that this toy is extremely compatible with the clip on weapons gimmick introduced with the movie's Recon Ironhide. Besides coming with three of its own weapons, this toy has at least 9 of its own hardpoints to attach weapons from other toys. And I may be overlooking one or two since in some cases they're pretty well blended into the toy. I regret that I do not have Recon Ironhide nor his weapons, nor in fact any other compatible objects to clip all over Darkmount. Oh well, maybe next time. But it's notable because to my knowledge Darkmount is the first explicitly non-movie toy to be compatible with this gimmick. Hopefully it will lead to more expanded support. And weapons. Lots and lots of weapons.

As far as moving parts go, the rotation of the turret and limited elevation of the main gun are about it. Still one step more than Galvatron managed in vehicle mode, I guess. Darkmount does have one other moving part, but it's not quite for this mode. The turret can pull up from the body and sit in a raised position with reasonable stability. This is for a third mode featured in the instructions and nowhere else. Generously referred to as a "battle station" it's basically the vehicle mode opened and split apart to form a tripod-ish base for the turret. Theoretically, a Scout sized Transformer could also stand behind the toy and appear to be operating the battle station. Though I should think nobody would want to try, surely Darkmount would see this as an offense warranting a trip to the smelting pools. There's probably days when breathing was a smeltable offense. Perhaps this battle station mode is even cause for tossing somebody to the smelter.



Transformation

A good bit is straightforward, and even a bit neat, like how the wheels for the tank tracks pull away with the arms. It can be a little confusing or even mildly frustrating to get the torso all pinned down together, but once it's in you'll feel dumb for not figuring it out right away. (or maybe that's just me)  What can become a problem is trying to slide the arms and treaded vehicle bits past each other. I wouldn't exactly say there's a trick to it, it's really more about positioning everything as carefully as you can since it is possible to get just enough clearance that they wouldn't even have to scrape across each other. What actually seemed worse to me was trying to go back to vehicle mode the first time because it feels like an awful lot of force when trying to open the torso back up.

Oh, and don't forget to close the leg panels!


Robot Mode

For the longest time, whenever I'd see a picture of the robot mode my mind immediately flashed to Jason Alexander. I suspect that indicates some deeply rooted psychological issue or something. I'm pretty sure his voice wouldn't even work ironically for the character.

...what was I talking about again..?

Anyway, the robot mode captures the appearance of Straxus very well while balancing it against the need to actually transform. Not to mention balancing two rather distinct colorations. It must have been very difficult to be a colorist on Marvel's G1 book. So, with the addition of things like parts that can move without being magic bendy-metal as well as a healthy dose of surface detailing, surely one must wonder how Darkmount is visually similar to Straxus, who was largely just a big stack of blue, white, red and yellow boxes in the comics, depending which month it was. But the major element of the character design is that Straxus is thick. Like, in the heavyweight wrestler way, not in the way of being dumb. Or possibly you could more appropriately compare him to medieval executioners. I'd be surprised if axe-carrying headsmen were not at least a vague inspiration for the design, what with the strange mask-face especially.

...the point I will eventually reach is that the toy Darkmount is not just built to match his counterpart's proportions, but even exceeding them. The upper body is as a Bruce Timm character: anatomically-improbable broad shoulders and chest with a waist reduced to the opposite extreme. Versus the comic's barely-defined body shape befitting of someone who simply gains bulk through regular manual labor like driving a pick axe through someone, or crushing one of a kind (now it is NONE OF A KIND AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!) special arms, the toy Darkmount looks like a body builder more suited to be a comic supervillain type. Continuing the Timm-style comparison, the toy's arms are similarly massive, with huge, beefy hands. If you've ever met someone who has worked as a laborer his whole life, you'll understand exactly the comparison I'm drawing here. Meanwhile the parts of the legs not specifically made from vehicle parts are if anything completely underemphasised. The vehicle parts themselves do not contribute to an appearance of muscular mass so much as just looking like thick boots.

Actually, I'm overall really impressed with how dispersed the vehicle parts are throughout the robot mode. For whatever else I can say about the movie line design styles, I think the designers and engineers are developing some useful talents in spreading alternate mode elements evenly and naturally over the body of a toy. It's not perfect, though. Darkmount has a shell made of his tank tracks and a small portion of the rear of the vehicle mode as a backpack. But the pieces are able to snap together and form a solid unit in robot mode which can fit fairly close against the toy's back, as well as allowing two of the weapon hardpoints to rise above the shoulders giving the toy an effective place for two weapons. In robot mode the rest of the hardpoints become part of the legs, which is at the least less ideal.

The ways the figure can move are interesting and surprising. Naturally after Drift, there may be some changes in what people would expect of Transformer articulation (although like other cases we've examined in the past I doubt it'll really be followed up on...), but Darkmount is far from disappointing.

To start, the shoulders are worked in such a way that the figure can reasonably reach halfway across its chest. Given the overall bulk, this is impressive enough. But a lot like Drift, the articulation in the arms is geared toward the end goal of being able to pose two-handed with the axe weapon. What I like is that Darkmount goes about it in a completely different way. For anyone who jumps around the action figure realm like I have, Drift's arm jointing was fairly obvious, and similar to efforts seen elsewhere, and used to excellent effect. With Darkmount, everything is much more subtle, and doesn't fit a particular pattern I recognize.

What looks like a single hinge elbow is actually a really unusual double, with the second hinge bending perpendicular to the first. This also has a side effect of somewhat making up for not having a proper forearm swivel since the inward elbow hinge can take over the function of the upper single hinge if needed for certain poses.

What took me by surprise was the wrist joint. At first it doesn't even look like the toy has a wrist joint at all, and then you might happen to notice one hand is swiveled compared to the other. But in fact this is a very well disguised ball joint. So hidden in fact that even if you accidentally bent one or both fists out of alignment with the forearms you still might not realize the joint is there. None of this offers quite the extent of range Drift's jointing does, but this all works in different ways to get the same excellent effect.

One additional bit of interest is that Darkmount manages to combine articulated hands with 5mm peg compatibility. It's not perfect, but it's certainly a good early attempt down that road. Most of the holding is done between the immobile thumb and palm, with the curled fingers mostly wrapping around to help stability a bit. It also gives the toy this cool fingerless glove look. The toy has a considerable flexibility for holding objects, both larger and smaller than 5mm. While it's not perfect, it's the best balance between articulated hands that can't generally hold standard accessories, and 5mm fists that can't hold anything else. There are of course objects Darkmount can't hold, but the range of items the toy can hold is really impressive. A small variety of these possibilities is demonstrated in the figure's gallery.

This toy has big parts - I've covered that point in some detail up to this point, of course - so in any case it will have some limits to how it will pose. It won't be doing any stupid sword tricks, for one thing. But just that they could engineer a toy this shape to not only double-hand grip its weapon, but be able to hit some reasonable posing using both hands? I am honestly impressed.

The legs are a bit less special. It may be my example only, but the hip joints and thigh swivels are a bit on the loose side. Given that the connections are ball joints and open-sided swivels, it'd be possible to correct both with superglue or other tightening tricks. Hopefully this isn't a systemic parts fit problem, though.

The articulation here is basically standard. The hinge knee can only bend 90 degrees, and the hips have a slightly restricted outward range, due to mechanical detailing around the waist as well as a kind of shallow socket. The ankles... ...the ankles.

The ankles in photos put me in mind of Ironhide, though I didn't understand the scope of this ankle design until handling the toy myself, and it's really weird. The ankles are ball joints, sticking sideways into the foot. ...from the inner leg. (refer to this picture if you're not clear on my meaning) Since there is no other moving part in this ankle design, it seems that the only thing the ball joint would let the foot do is angle out from the body, as if to stand with legs crossed. That's the general impression you get, but actually the foot sits almost flush against the inner surface of the ankle, and the ball joint actually seems to have been employed as a slightly cheaper swivel joint. Thankfully the flap of plastic the foot is attached to is of reasonable thickness and I don't really feel like there's a danger of breaking from normal use. If you start trying to force the ball joint to behave as a ball joint, you may be asking for trouble, though.

Speaking of restricted ball joints, I'm pretty sure that's what connects the head to the neck here, but I have no way to tell for sure short of attempting disassembly. Just in case I'm wrong I don't really want to break the head off the so far one and only Darkmount I have ever seen in person.

The sculpt of the head is another example of why I really favor the design team Hasbro has on staff currently. There is a basic logic to how to represent Straxus's head: A mask with an empty mouth opening. There's also a flared aspect to the head that more than slightly makes me think of the typical idea of a pharaoh's headdress, but it's mostly that particular mask shape for a face and no mouth at all. Just more neck where a mouth should be. Most art of Straxus has the headdress-like flares of his helmet very large and pronounced. Most certainly too much so to fit in a reasonable space within a transforming toy. So while these features are downplayed, the spirit of the appearance is not lost. But most importantly, he still doesn't have a mouth. A bit of added detail on the head makes things seem a bit more of machine, but it's still the general effect of wearing a mask over no face. The one thing they could have done to drive this point home is a dab of silver paint on the topmost segment of the neck detail, over the blue plastic of the head in order to try to tie together with the grey neck.

And it's been a while, but Darkmount actually manages to have a waist joint - and of some solidity, even. For some reason I've been kind of missing waist swivels lately. Possibly because the majority of Transformers I've bought recently have lacked them.

Accessories

-Axe

Though it's two pieces that can be taken apart, it's not really necessary. It stores as a single unit in vehicle mode and it's easily possible to remove it in one piece during transformation. Most of the axe is rigid plastic, including the handle. All the more reason to be thankful for the hands opening to accommodate it, really. The head is partly normal rigid plastic, but the points of the axe are separate, rubbery pieces. They're on the thick side, but you'll still need to be mindful of potential warping. There's also a sliding ...pommel, I guess you'd call it for weapon mode. Since this is the main cannon in vehicle mode, it's the coaxial gun mount for the halftrack's main weapon, such as a spotting rifle. Or four of them, in this case. Anyway, it's a snug fit on the cannon barrel, such that it probably won't slide freely, but there are notches at either end of the track it slides along to act as catches. Be warned that at least in my experience it's a very tight fit and it'll take a good bit of pressure against tiny edges to get it back loose again. If yours isn't slipping around by itself I'd suggest leaving well enough alone.

The instructions indicate that the weapon can be stored on the toy's back, but you have to open the backpack halves first. I think I'd rather keep the stable backpack and lose the weapon storage, but your mileage may vary.


-Clip-on weapons

Darkmount comes with three: A mounted machinegun such as an anti-air gun that might be at the commander's post on a regular tank; A six-tube missile launcher; and a three-barrel multi purpose discharger. Devices like this generally launch some form of countermeasures, be it chaff, smoke, flares, or other types of defensive measures. Being the character this is, though, I suspect it sprays shrapnel, acid, napalm, or other such offensive ordinance.

As noted earlier, there are at least nine points to clip these weapons on. Each clip attaches to the weapon by way of a ball joint, allowing for variance in angle and direction of mounting to accommodate the numerous hardpoints which will have different orientations, especially after transformation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the machine cannon and missile launcher are the easiest to integrate with the robot mode, using the two over-the-shoulder hardpoints mentioned previously.

Closing Remarks

No, seriously. I cannot believe they made a toy of Straxus. And they did a fantastic job of it, even. There's only a couple of things that I have a particular issue with. First is the ankles just because I see the potential for a problem if an extreme lack of care is applied. (could that sentence have been more awkward?) The other is that on a toy that otherwise manages its vehicle elements so well, that a section of rear end becomes a backpack, albeit a fairly unobstructive one. There's nothing else here that I can blame on honest fault of the design. I have to say that I am really pleased. Which is good because you don't even want to know the lengths I had to go to even get this thing.

Anyhow, Darkmount is easily an Excellent toy. And if I weren't sold on a Pretender homage out of the gate, this would have fully convinced me to pick up Skullgrin later on.

-ExVee