Rest in peace, IDW’s Transformers license, you made some good comics. One of which was More than Meets the Eye, later retitled Lost Light. Taking place in the uncertain times after the end of the Great War, it starred a Ragtag Group of Misfits (™) led by Hot Rod (now Rodimus), as they jammed across the galaxy on the starship Lost Light, trying to find a lost order of knights, but really just kind of stumbling across all kinds of unusual nonsense (and drama). Beyond the story, More than Meets the Eye and Lost Light also provided a large number of brand-new Transformers characters, which, since they weren’t created with the intention of selling toys, have only gradually got figures made of them over the years. Nautica was one, Rung was another, and now the latest comics-exclusive original character has gotten his due: Tarn, the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division.
Seen here in both modes, quoting his idol.
Designed by artist Alex Milne, and written by series author James Roberts, Tarn was the ultimate Decepticon loyalist and Megatron fanboy, and would go around quoting his leader’s writings. His Decepticon Justice Division was there to root out and punish traitors, and their reputation for torture, along with their general strength, made them a feared set of boogymen. Of course, there was another angle to Tarn, namely that he was a tryhard edgelord, who was using his fake-deep attitude to hide the fact that he was just kind of a violent bully, but a lot of readers kind of missed that part. In particular, his design, with his Decepticon-logo facemask and two fusion cannons, was supposed to read as overcompensation, but it instead earned him a bunch of fans who just thought he looked cool (for fun, ask them to name any other member of the Decepticon Justice Division, without looking it up). Regardless of any misaimed fandom, it was enough to finally get him a mainline figure in Legacy (after he got a big expensive non-transforming Flame Toys figure first, which says something), and that Legacy figure’s one I’m eager to check out and add to my Lost Light shelf.
Robot Mode
Loomin’
So, one thing right off the bat feels a bit wrong about him: Tarn was a Big Guy, a wide, bulky bruiser of a ‘bot.
As seen here.
And while all the details of the design are correct on the figure, they didn’t nail his proportions, and he instead reads as skinny and lanky, especially around the torso, and really especially when viewed from the side, where he’s strangely…flat?
This could be commentary on the facade his character puts up.
This feels like a case of them spreading out the materials budget in the name of making him big and tall, which, to be fair, he is, kind of like how Legacy Jhiaxus was. He still looms pretty impressively, and I actually think the lankiness adds some extra creepy feelings to him.
The Substitute DJD, on their way to kill your traitors.
Outside of that, the design itself is still really, really good, and replicated very faithfully here. You can see why the fandom kind of glommed onto it. The tank-tread shoulders, the double-fusion cannon, the funky little antenna around the back, it’s all pretty dynamic.
He uses those antenna to tune into Megatron’s radio show.
Alex Milne has a particular way of designing characters, and it comes through on the sculpt. In particular, he likes giving characters glowing “Tron lines,” and those have been simulated here with small amounts of translucent purple plastic.
It kinda-sorta lights up, too.
Sharper eyes than mine have identified a few tiny details that don’t match up (from what I can tell, mostly small bits of sculpting on his limbs) that somehow point to an eventual Bludgeon retool, but I don’t immediately register it, everything looks like Tarn to me, even if he lost some muscle mass.
This Hapless Trooper certainly finds him strong enough.
Up top, he’s got that molded Decepticon-logo-mask over his face, looking equal parts cool and ridiculous. While it’s not removable, I do like that they managed to render the headsculpt in such a way as to make it clear he’s wearing it over a more standard noggin.
My voice-casting for him is Kylo Ren when he’s got his helmet on. It’s more appropriate than you’d think.
So, this is a really nice set of colors. He’s a bunch of different (mostly darker)t shades of purple (across his body) and gray (his limbs, and a very dark shade for his tank treads). It’s the accent colors that really pop, with bits of metallic gold (including a surprisingly restrained center-chest Decepticon logo) and silver that contrast well with the previous. And I already mentioned the tasteful bits of translucent purple. It’s extremely Decepticon. Like his sculpt, the colors match his comic look very well, maybe minus a few dashes here and there on his extremities.
He’s about to hit you with those extremities.
For build quality, that tall lankiness has left him feeling a bit on the lighter side. At the same time, they seem to have made a conscious decision to make no hollow bits that aren’t transformation nooks visible on him, to counter that feeling. That, and all of his joints are nice and tight, and he comes with big feet, for good stability.
“This is how we did it in 1994, son.”
That’s good, because here’s another thing he shares with Legacy Jhiaxus: Way above average articulation for a mainline figure, in a way that’s usually reserved for that whole “we’re selling a smaller figure at a larger price point” bonus. So, in addition to all the expected Modern Transformer Joints, he’s got opening and closing hands, multi-directional ankles, double-jointed knees, and just, generally, joints that extend way farther than you’d expect. In particular, his legs can *really* bend.
I just imagine this guy skittering towards you like a crab.
Between how long they are, and his general lankiness, it’s easy to make him look kind of creepy and cryptid-ish, which isn’t strictly character-accurate, but is certainly menacing, and gives him an expressiveness I appreciate.
He failed to keep his cool.
It’s really easy to make him look cool, even at rest.
Never disturb him when he’s re-reading “Towards Peace.”
I think the only bit of articulation that bugs me are his shoulders, you can’t move them sideways (i.e. into a T-pose) without raising his tank treads in a way that doesn’t look good to my eyes. They’d have needed a joint that broke up the treads to not have that happen, though.
Maybe it’s an intimidation tactic.
Tarn’s got three accessories, that are meant to be used a few different ways, and are surprisingly flexible: He’s got two cannons (cast in clear purple and painted over in dark gray), and a block with a rotating base, for mounting them in different ways. In the comics, he had a double-fusion-cannon on his right arm (yes, he was overcompensating), and the instructions have you combine the three accessories to peg it there into a weapon port, in a specific way, on the more forward of two ports on his forearm. The fact that the mounting block has four (!) ports on it means that, in these photos, I put one cannon on further up than the other, to simulate how the weapon is a bit asymmetrical in the comics.
“Two fusion cannons? AND they’re slightly askew? Look at yourself.”
There’s one big issue, and it’s that the base of the weapon doesn’t really lock in very well, and starts to rotate the moment I poke it. It’s a little bit disappointing, and I wonder if I can tighten it somehow.
Otherwise, this keeps happening. He’s as frustrated as I am.
For another suggested configuration, you can flip away the antenna on his back, and use the mounting block with a port back there to give him shoulder-mounted cannons, freeing up his arms to do other things.
Bracing for the big boom.
When the battle runs long, and cuts into your reading time.
Finally, for the silliest configuration, you leave out the mount entirely, and plug one cannon into the other to just make an extra-long gun, which the box touts as “EVO-FUSION!!” It’s just silly enough to work on this guy.
Biggus Gunnus.
That guy made a joke about overcompensating.
Really, there’s that same kind of surprising flexibility with his accessories that Legacy Skullgrin had, and I feel motivated to come up with different things to do with them, even if I still wish the rotating base on the mount was tighter.
For that John Woo action.
Now no one will sneak up on him!
But the real selling point here for me is that this guy’s just absolutely covered in 5-Millimeter weapons ports. I count eight in total, ten if you include shallow ones on his shoulders. And the mounting block alone’s got five more, plus a couple of pegs!
“Who’s overcompensating NOW???” (Don’t answer that).
As a deadly, overcompensating edgelord, it feels good and right to use these ports to just absolutely cover him in guns, and build him some kind of giant Battlizer mode. It’s what he’d do. And the lankiness of him just means he’s got room to bend and flex after he’s armed up.
Flexible enough to take on the crew of the Lost Light.
Transformation
I initially found this pretty challenging, if only because Tarn turning into a Made-Up Robotic Tank meant that it wasn’t immediately clear where everything went. But it didn’t take me long to memorize this whole thing, which basically just involves re-configuring his torso and arms so his tank treads cover them, and then flipping back his legs to cover up the top. There’s an oddly specific order of operations around his shoulders and chestplate, though, where doing basically anything in the wrong order will cause his chestplate to pop right off. It goes right back on, at least.
The fact that he’s empty inside is really just perfect.
As one last tip, rotate his head backwards before you flip it away. The instructions don’t say to, but doing so gives his robot-mode backpack/the top of the front of the tank the clearance it needs to actually lock in.
If you don’t rotate the head.
If you do.
Tank Mode
See, he’s got four treads, so he Tanks Twice as Good.
While it’s still very much a Random Pile of Parts with guns and treads strapped on, like a lot of Cybertron modes, there’s enough going on here to make this tank Look Like Something, especially the way his chestplate goes in the front, like a battering ram.
Smore N’ More tells him to burn the world, the way the world burned her.
Again, Tarn’s tank mode reads as being a bit too “flat” to me, or maybe a bit too spread out, the comic design was chunkier and more compact.
Exhibit B.
But most people don’t know him for the tank mode, anyway. And checking the comics themselves, this is, again, actually really accurate to the four-barreled, two-treaded Overcompensation Machine of More than Meets the Eye. I think the only thing it obviously lacks is wheel covers over the treads, which would have been tough to engineer anyway.
“Dude…leave me alone.”
I do wish they’d found a way to avoid having his hands just hanging out of the back of him, though, I think hiding them would have made the whole package come together more.
He hits tailgaters with the Circle Game.
For colors, not much has changed, but I do appreciate that they found the paint budget to put some silver on the sculpted wheels inside his treads, and the gold around the top of the tank does, in fact, pop pretty well.
Inferno’s tunnelling beneath the rest of the Substitute DJD.
Presuming you rotated his head around before hiding it away, everything in this tank mode, even the janky chestplate, actually does hold together pretty well (and if you didn’t rotate the head, the front will be a bit gappy.) It feels like the double-tank-treads don’t easily align straight with the ground, though, and I find myself adjusting them every time I pick this vehicle up.
He looks cool to distract from the fact that he can’t move.
For features, he’s missing a really big, obvious one: His treads don’t roll. Granted, I wasn’t expecting a fully-treaded figure, especially given how he transforms, but usually, they give guys like this small wheels to spin underneath the treads. Here’s the really odd thing, though: He has what appear to be fake wheels sculpted into the bottom of his fake treads, which don’t roll. I’ve got no idea what’s up with this, maybe they budgeted them out and didn’t remove them from the CAD file? Maybe in-universe, Tarn’s tank treads are fake? (This would be amazingly in-character). Maybe they just wanted a bit of clearance to prevent the tank from scraping on the ground, which is fair.
He’s glaring at me for pointing out his Weird Double-Fake Wheels.
Meanwhile, I know I ragged on how the little mounting block for his cannons has that rotating base that’s way too lose, but it does have utility here, as it serves as the joint that rotates the tank turret that his cannon assembly has now become. I’d still rather it was tighter, though. Meanwhile, the little guns on the front of the tank (formerly antenna) get a little bit of outwards rotation, thanks to the transformation joint.
Omni-directional pew.
Of course, again, the big feature here is customization. You can pretty easily pop the tank turret off, and move it up to the front of the tank for a different look.
It also doubles as a good People Platform.
And that’s just the beginning, as, if you remove his cannons, he’s got a total of fifteen weapons ports across him in this mode.
If he straps enough weapons to himself, he can travel backwards by shooting.
Like Legacy Skullgrin, I almost feel like this is here moreso to be a base for adding weapons than a standalone tank, and again, making him into an improbably shooty war machine is perfectly in-character, and really fun to do.
Lost Light Fight, Round 2.
Overall
Oh yeah, this is a good one. Even if you don’t like the character of Tarn, it’s a good figure with a really solid design, who cuts a good silhouette even when he’s just standing there, menacingly.
Like so.
He’s not perfect, I’d say he’s not quite on the same level as fellow overdue-comics-guy Jhiaxus, but he’s getting there. The lankiness isn’t accurate, but suits him, and he’s got one accessory that’s annoyingly loose, and that’s about all that’s wrong with him. That, and the funny double-fake non-rolling tank wheels. He’s fun to arm up, and there’s enough going on with his accessories that he has an air of flexibility to him, before even getting into his actual flexibility via his really good articulation. Not to beat a dead horse, but between his size, bonus articulation, and that flexibility, he really makes Studio Series 86 Ironhide look worse, this guy is infinitely better value-for-money.
These are the same price.
So, yeah, if you can find him, grab one. He’s a bit scarce, though, because both actual MTMTE Fans and The Tarn Brigade seem to be snapping him up online and in person. But it’s worth the effort to find one, and act like he’s Kylo Ren from that one SNL Skit (because that’s who he is, as a character.)
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