Sergeant Kup

Height: 14.5cm to top of head in Robot Mode, 14cm long in Vehicle Mode.

Articulation: 23 total points - Ball joint neck; 6 points each arm: Universal joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, double joint elbow, swivel wrist; 5 points each leg: Ball joint hip, mid-thigh swivel, hinge knee, double joint ankle.

Colors: Molded metalflake turquoise green, turquiose green, silver, dark green, gray, clear, and clear blue plastics. Painted silver, orange, gray, and metallic light blue.

Accessories: Laser Musket.

Release Data: Released in late 2010 at an MSRP of $11.99.

Author: RAC

(more...)

Sergeant Kup is the oldest soldier any of the Autobots know. Even before the war he was a career military ’bot, dedicated to defending Cybertron against all threats. His long service has supplied him with an endless array of war stories, which he never hesitates to share with his comrades no matter what else is going on. 

I remember the time back in 1986, and again in `87, when I should've bought Kup but didn't. So I'd get to wait another 25 years. Luckily, before we segue into the Dark of the Moon line, Hasbro has put out or is about to release practically everything on my G1 wishlist: Kup, Thundercracker, Windcharger, Wreck-Gar... it's a long list of stuff, and most of it is great, or great with a few small qualifiers. I think Kup is largely the latter.


Vehicle Mode

Unlike the original Kup, who was basically an angular bedroom slipper with wheels a futuristic pickup truckish thing, Generations Kup is an actual, recognizeable truck! I have some mixed feelings on this with some characters, and Kup is one of them. I liked the designs of the movie characters' Vehicle Modes, even though they were not particularly recognizeable as any kind of vehicle you've ever seen. That said, a lot of the subsequent G1 toys that followed the movie characters down the road to vaguely-futuristic vehicular abstraction were boring. So if Hasbro has a policy of "everything has to be based on a real thing," I do understand why, and I think it will do the brand more good than harm. That said, it would've been well in keeping with Kup's character to base him on an older model of truck, maybe something from the `80s or `90s when they were nice and angular. There's just something about the streamlined nature of the truck that bugs me a little compared to the original design's hard angles.

The truck rolls pretty well. It doesn't look too bad either, though it has a couple of strikes against it in my opinion. It's got a milder version of the same problem that Universe Ironhide had, which is that the seams on the side of the truck where it comes apart for transformation don't really mesh very well with the natural lines of the truck design. It's nowhere near as severe as Ironhide, but it's still noticeable. Another, more minor problem is that Kup's rear bumper isn't entirely painted, just the sides of it. I think his feet, which comprise part of the bumper, are probably made of unpaintable plastic. On the upside, the foot transformation (seemingly) intentionally gives us a working tailgate, and I like that a lot.

For storing the laser musket, you have two options: if you're looking to hide it, you can disguise it as a tailpipe if you slide it through a hole in what will become Kup's heel, and fix the peg on the underside of the truck to one of the holes in the stock. Or if you prefer you can attach the musket laser to one of the C-joint rails on the top of the truck cab, in what I have to assume is a nod to Targetmaster Kup.


Transformation

Truck to Robot is pretty easy once you've got the arms and truck sidepanels pulled loose. The nose of the truck spins around 180 degrees to become Kup's torso, and the fenders are mounted on springloaded pieces to become the angled parts on his sides. They have some details too, on the inner green part at least, so they don't look too bad in Robot Mode. The biggest pain here is a pair of small panels from where the back of the cab joins the truck bed: you have to align those very carefully, or otherwise the legs won't close properly.

I find the Robot to Truck transformation a little more taxing, primarily because lining up the tabs and panels on the arms correctly is a bother. With practice it's getting better- he's far from the most overcomplicated or difficult thing I've ever transformed.


Robot Mode

Considering he actually has to turn into something recognizeable now, the Robot Mode is a pretty fine likeness. He looks kind of beefy, but that's a consequence of the head being a little on the small side, and the truck-parts that make up his flanks being very broad. He's also got very long legs and huge feet- it doesn't look that bad, but I'm used to the idea of Kup being built basically like an average person. Because he has a real-world alt-mode now, he also has some kibble. The bits on the arms are the most irritating parts- you'll be turning those one way or the other depending on what you want to do with his arms at any given time. The backpack, which is rather high-up, is a holdover from his original design and is basically unobtrusive. It also reminds me of Universe Ironhide's, except it doesn't cripple the toy.

The face looks a lot better in person than it does in photographs. It's definitely recognizeable as Kup. The big problem is that there are spaces to the sides of the mouth that are recessed, and when they don't catch enough light it makes his face look unnecessarily long and narrow. When you see those spaces and take them into account, he looks right. But they're too recessed, and so he looks really weird and wrong in pictures. The other thing that doesn't help is that there is some subtle curvature to the cheekbone area, and Kup is all hard angles in the animation. There's some tiny vents in those recesses as well- that and the Gundam chin seem to be imports from IDW Kup, which given the "Sergeant Kup" name is to be expected I guess. But honestly I could've done without them. I didn't care much if I got IDW Thunderwing, but I don't want IDW Kup. I want friggin' Kup. I'm glad the likeness is otherwise good- the iGear head is even more IDW-derived than this is, and while it's not badly done, it's not quite the Kup I want and is in fact further from what I want than this face. I would also have liked the two-tone helmet of the animation, but as far as I can tell only the E-Hobby and iGear versions have it. Bah.

The head has a fair range of movement, good front-to-back tilt and almost a complete 360 degrees of swivel. The chin hits the two halves of the hinge of the backpack, but who poses their Transformers looking straight back? The light-piping doesn't work so great here- I can't actually get it to make his eyes look lit-up. Brighter eyes might've helped the look of the face too. The shoulders can swing outwards up to shoulder level if you move the tires out of the way. The tires attach to the back of the shoulders so they don't restrict swivel at all. The upper-arm swivel works fine, and the single elbow joint gets slightly more than 90 degrees. The elbows fall a little high, but since you can pull the arms further down, it kind of balances out. Still, I wish there was some kind of locking mechanism to keep the shoulders at a specific level. There's also a second joint here below the elbow to turn the arm inwards- I want to call it the Darkmount Joint. I'm not sure it's necessary for the figure here, but it does mimic the original Kup's sideways elbow joint. It does help with some poses with the musket laser though. The wrist is a simple swivel, but you may need to move the arm kibble to use it. Or do anything else with the arm. Embarrassingly, I didn't notice the C-joint rails on the door-panels until ExVee mentioned them.

No waist joint because of the complexities of the torso construction. There's a rail on the back of Kup's lower torso that you can use to stow the laser musket via the C-joint. The hips are great- moving 90 degrees forward or to the side, and almost that far backwards. The thigh swivel is unimpeded. The knees are probably the worst joint on the figure, getting only 45 degrees. Worse yet, they're much stiffer than the transformation joint for the legs that's directly beneath them, so you're more likely to distort the legs than you are to bend the knee if you don't put a thumb on that as you bend the leg. The feet are the recent sideways-ball-joint type that have plenty of front-to-back range, and a wee little bit of side-to-side range. But they're plenty stiff enough as to not fold up like Tracks' did.


Accessories

-Musket Laser Musket

It doesn't particularly matter which way you put it: there's no practical way a musket could be a laser or vice-versa. I mean, what would that be? A laser that, reloaded by an expert, can be fired three times a minute at maximum and is only accurate for about 200 feet? Either way you like to say it, unlike the G1 version it looks a lot like a musket. Which is neat, but raises a problem I've seen on firearm-shaped toy weapons before. There's no way for Kup to hold the weapon in the way you hold a musket or long rifle. (If it were a good bit bigger, Darkmount might just barely be able to get away with it. But I'm not sure I've ever seen a toy that did it entirely correctly, even in 1/6 scale.)

But, this is why it has a 5mm peg coming off the bottom in front of the solid-molded trigger and guard. It's got a ridged design, so at least it doesn't just look like an inapprorpriate peg hanging off a musket. This does mean it's not entirely compatible with the 5mm standard however. Between the peg and the Darkmount Joints, Kup can hold it in a way that seems mostly appropriate for a long rifle. Just as soon as you get the giant forearm kibble out of your way. Of course it also has a C-joint clip, but that's largely for use in storage, which you can achieve any number of ways in a sturdy and convincing fashion. Or you can give Kup a cannon backpack if you really want.


Closing Remarks

Kup isn't perfect, and he's also not quite exactly what I would've wanted from a Kup toy in some respects. But none of the issues he has cripple the toy, they just irritate the owner on an off day. The biggest problem with the figure is the big sidepanels on the forearms- and yeah, they're annoying. But you can generally manuver them out of your way. Overall I think Kup is Very Good, and I'm glad to finally have one.

-RAC