Bot Reviews: Transformers: Retro Hound

Retro Hound’s a figure that I picked up out of the sheer oddness and novelty of its release. But let’s back up. The last time I talked about Hound was way back in 2019, when his Siege figure came out (I sold it, which I regret, but it’s apparently getting a Buzzworthy Bumblebee retool soon anyway). As a character, Hound’s in that odd zone where he’s a 1984 original, so he automatically gets a fair amount of merchandise, but he never really had a central role, or a big moment in a lot of media, despite showing up a fair bit in both the original cartoon and Marvel comics. Like I said last time, he’s green, friendly and amicable, likes nature and the planet Earth, and can project all kinds of holograms, and that’s about it. He did have a good role in IDW’s 2019 rebooted Transformers continuity, though, with a story focused around him trying to help aliens on Cybertron escape on the eve of the start of the Great War.

Hound’s original 1984 figure was one of the many Diaclone-derived car robots that formed the backbone of the early toyline, and unlike most of his brethren, Takara and Hasbro have seemingly been disinterested in reissuing him. Takara did a re-release in 2009, and that’s the only time the tooling’s come back, with Hasbro never getting around to it. It’s odd, because most of the 1984 and 85 range (and select 86-ers, like Hot Rod and Ultra Magnus) have been reissued multiple times at this point, with most of the exceptions being toolings that have been lost or broken (Sunstreaker, Mirage, and the Dinobots are examples of this), or non-Takara toolings with complicated rights issues (Jetfire, the Deluxe Vehicles and Deluxe Insecticons). But with Hound, outside of that lone Takara release, seemingly no one cared. Which makes him popping up in the Retro line especially peculiar.

The other peculiar thing is that the Retro collection, so far, has focused entirely on animation-accurate reissues of characters from The Transformers: The Movie, and Retro Hound’s sold as a toy from the film, with its logo prominently up top on his box. And, yeah, technically, he was in it. He just….stood in the deep background of a single shot (see above), and that’s it. Heck, he was block-colored in that shot because of how far back he was, whereas this figure has specifically repainted him in his G1 cartoon colors. Why they decided to finally dig this tooling up for his first North American reissue ever, do an animation colors repaint instead of a standard release (admittedly, the Vintage collection that was doing that seems to be dead now), and sell it as a The Movie toy is beyond me. But that weirdness, combined with the fact that I’d never handled a G1 Hound before, was enough to make me bite. So, let’s unfairly critique a 1984 Transformers toy by today’s standards (not really, I grade on a curve with these).

Vehicle Mode

So, another interesting thing, according to the back of the box, this Hound reissue is now an officially licensed Jeep product, the first time this tooling has carried that branding. As someone that once wrote an entire article on the oddities of licensing vehicles in Transformers, it’s another interesting addendum. And yes, G1 Hound changes into a very detailed scale model of an army Jeep (the Wiki names it a Mitsubishi Jeep J59). And that scale is small, because this guy’s surprisingly tiny. I always forget how small Autobot Cars were, especially in light of how Retro Hot Rod, an unusually large figure for the scale, is about the size of a modern Deluxe in altmode.

Hound, by comparison, is about the same size as the deliberately-undersized Earthrise Cluffjumper/Hubcap/Bug Bite/Bumblebee/Goldbug tooling, or an old Beast Wars Basic, or Movieverse Scout.

Still, it’s a good-looking Jeep mode, with a lot of sculpted detailing all over, including a bunch of techie stuff up front that probably means something to a Jeep aficionado, molded seats, and other bits and bobs. It manages to be pretty tidy in terms of robot parts, too, with the only visible bit from above being his robot thighs beneath his seats.

Curiously, underneath, he’s actually got a 2023 copyright stamp, meaning this is a new version of the tooling, for whatever reason (mold restoration? The “licensed Jeep” thing?).

For colors, this is a complete repaint into Hound’s G1 cartoon deco, with all the stickers gone (I’ve read they really borked the stickers on the original Hound, so this feels like a plus to me). He’s mostly a muddy, army-camo green of a noticeably lighter shade than the original, with a bit of very light green upfront for some parts, a little yellow army star below one headlight and an Autobrand over the other, more yellow on the vehicle sides black seats and tires, gray wheel rims, and a clear plastic windshield. It’s not as ornate as his original colors, but it looks good, and feels complete. One thing I’ve heard others grouse about is his lack of chrome parts (namely those light green bits upfront), but I find that I don’t miss them here, the way I missed them on Retro Hot Rod, though I’ll admit that might be due to having handled a previous reissue in the original colors in the past.

In terms of construction, I’m happy to say that Hound has a rock solid brick of a vehicle mode. I’ve handled Diaclone-era Autobot Car Toolings in the past where this wasn’t the case, and they felt very flimsy and fragile, but that’s not what’s going on here, this whole thing holds together super well. Part of it is the diecast metal in him, with pretty much the entire back chunk of the vehicle, aside from the seats, wheels, and underside being made of a solid block of it.

Like I said with Retro Starscream, I get the appeal of having a metal machine that’s properly cold to the touch, though I’m not going to start campaigning for modern figures to bring it back, that’s how you get Titanium Series. I am pretty impressed at the color-blending of it, though, I wasn’t initially sure where the metal ended and the plastic began, I had to literally feel it out, and any color mismatches you see here are in photos only. Meanwhile, his tires are made of rubber, though it’s a very solid, plastic-y rubber. Given how rubber tires sometimes split with time (the bane of every Car Robots/Robots in Disguise 2001 collector), this feels like a preventative measure.

There is one bit of instability, though. When you pick him up, he rattles, and it took me a minute to figure out that it’s his robot head, hidden in the Jeep’s hood. It’s not really secured, and slides around pretty freely (and pops up when you tip it upside down). Just a little bit of 80’s engineering jank for you.

For accessories, Hound’s got a few, and they’re pretty neat, because they really push the “this is a scale model of a real vehicle” angle, another lost art in Transformers. He’s got a black spare tire that pegs onto the back of the jeep, and a green gas can that pegs in next to it. They don’t do anything, they’re literally just there for flavor and realism, and I dig it.

Meanwhile, he’s got a gray laser cannon that plugs into a hole on his truck bed. It’s got a nice sculpt to it, and it’s jointed so it can raise and lower a little bit, and also rotate at its mounting point.

It was originally cast in chrome, and I appreciate it being plastic here, because I’d be worried about breakage and chipping otherwise.

He does have a very classically G1 problem, though, with what he doesn’t do. See, he has several extra accessories meant for his robot mode (I’ll get to them later), and they’ve got nowhere to stash in this form, meaning the odds of them getting lost are much higher than a modern figure. It’s not as bad as Retro Starscream, but it makes me appreciate how modern figures handle it.

Finally, he’s got his seats, which, in the very original conception of the figure, were meant to fit Diaclone pilots. He doesn’t come with any, but if you’ve got any Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron minifigures, you can sit them in there, like I did in the above pic, though it’s a loose fit. What’s not a loose fit, though, is any Titan Masters or Prime Masters you might have.

Between their slightly bigger size, and their backpacks, they actually fit in both seats even better, providing an unexpected bit of cross-generational fun. Oh, and the Jeep rolls really well, between wheels that are extremely spinny, and a ton of ground clearance.

Transformation

This is the good kind of G1-simple transformation. It’s not as fast or pleasing to the hands as Hot Rod’s (but what is?), but it has the same vibes of moving big chunks around, as you flip his truck bed down into feet, and flip his hood forward to make his chest. There’s a step where you yank the torso to extend it that feels particularly nice to do. There’s also something that took me by surprise here, that I haven’t heard anyone talk about: This 40-something year old toy actually has auto-transformation gimmicks as you convert him. First of all, flipping his hood down into his chest automatically makes his robot head pop out.

Secondly, and more niftily, moving his front wheels backwards causes his arms to slide out, into robot mode position.

Both gimmicks work really well, and genuinely impressed me. Just be sure to move those front wheels back into place before squeezing the arms back in, or they won’t move into vehicle mode position.

Robot Mode

Okay, I know I said the vehicle mode was small, but this robot mode is really, really small. He literally goes up to Retro Hot Rod’s waist, and these two were the same size class and pricepoint in the 80s.

I double-checked via photos, and Hound was even short compared to his 1984 Diaclone-derived brethren. In terms of modern figures, he’s actually the same height as a Core-class figure (but a lot, lot thicker and denser). Not gonna lie, it leaves an immediate bad impression, even if he does contain a ton of concentrated mass in his body.

Another odd thing: His arms are really, really small compared to the rest of him. Not so small that they read as T-Rex arms or anything, but they don’t look great.

What does look good is his (tiny) head. Beneath the square helmet, he’s got that same Mecha-esque facial aesthetic as Hot Rod, it’s a good energy.

And looking at his sculpt, there’s that same interesting phenomenon as the other two Retro figures, where you can see a lot of the specific details from his cartoon model (particularly around the midsection on this guy), just kind of funhouse-mirrored into something less elegant. Oh, also, his huge feet keep making him look like he’s actually standing on a platform, to my eyes.

For colors, there’s a lot more paintwork visible, and it’s gone to great lengths to copy his cartoon design. On top of the colors from his altmode, they’ve added some really nice yellow striping to his wrists and waist, more black and light green on his torso and hands, and they even managed to paint the miniscule eyes on his tiny face in blue. Again, I’m not missing the stickers, though I’ll admit there’s screw-holes on his feet that would otherwise be covered up.

For construction, he makes for an even more solid brick in this mode, thanks to that rattling head being locked down. And thanks to all the metal being situated on his huge feet, he’s never going to topple over. I will say that while he’s small, he’s very dense when you pick him up, so they didn’t skimp on materials. Having handled other 84 and 85 Autobot cars that were really loose and flimsy in their robot modes, I again appreciate his solidity.

Of course, being a G1 toy, there’s almost no articulation here. He’s got shoulder joints that can move his arms along a small range between pointing straight down, and pointing straight forwards, and even then, those are also transformation joints. I’m not going to ding him for that, though, it was the style at the time.

His accessories are an odd mixed bag. Again, he’s got no storage for his vehicle mode ones, you’ve got to discard them, though I’ve found I can attach the gas can to one of his feet. For his robot mode accessories, first, we’ve got a green shoulder-mounted launcher that uses a bracket to fit nice and tight on either side. The odd bit about it is the gray missiles he comes with. They’re on a sprue, and my “I sell things at conventions” instincts made me debate breaking the sprues, until I twisted one off while idly fiddling with it, so that’s that. Here’s the thing: The three missiles fit in the shoulder launcher, and the launcher has a trigger you can flick, but there’s no spring, so it doesn’t shoot.

This makes sense, the missiles are too small for safety standards, and the original 1984 Hasbro release of this also omitted the spring for the same reason. But it feels odd to even include the missiles, when they don’t do anything. See, Retro Starscream’s missiles could launch, and Hasbro retooled them to be bigger in response to that, but that first happened for his 2002 reissue, so I guess there was no safe-for-modern-kids tooling to fall back on for Hound (but then this is a new tooling anyway, so why not give him bigger missiles?). I also said when I reviewed Starscream that I’d rather they neuter his launchers because of how sensitive they were, but on Starscream, the missiles still had a function (you swapped them out for a different set when you transformed him to change the shape of his weapons). Here, these ones don’t really serve a function, outside of making his launcher look more like the show’s design, where he always had one loaded.

Hound’s last accessory is a very long, gray rifle with a tiny peg that fits into his tiny hands, and it’s here another design problem appears: He can’t actually point it straight up, because it bumps into his hood.

So, he’s stuck pointing it at the ground in front of him, which is a real disappointment. I did figure out that you can just mount it on the underside of his fist, though, to turn it into an underslung weapon that actually can point forward, so there’s that.

Overall

Well, this is a weird one. There’s a lot of stuff I like about him, like his cool vehicle mode, with its real-life accessories and Titan Master seats. And his transformation astounded me with its automorph gimmicks. And, I guess, his cartoon accurate paint job does look nice. But it’s hard to overlook the shortcomings (hah) of his robot mode, between how small it is, how wonky its proportions are, and the issues with his accessories. It’s G1, so I try to keep that in mind, but at the same time, he doesn’t stack up well next to Retro Hot Rod, or Decepticons Forever Ravage, or Vintage Optimus. I’d say he comes out a bit ahead of Retro Starscream (if only because he’s not a huge partsformer), but then we get into the issue of price.

See, the first two Retro figures both had fairly hefty price tags, but I can see where the money was going. They’re both made of dense non-hollow chunks of plastic, have diecast metal parts in them, and have extensive paint apps. It didn’t feel like markup for markup’s sake. With Hound, though, this is the first time where I genuinely don’t think it’s worth the premium price tag, because there’s not enough here, and too many issues with what is here. I’d say “see if you can get it on sale,” but these Retro figures don’t seem to have been released in large numbers, so I don’t expect them to go on clearance. Instead, I’ll just say to skip this one. That is, unless you’re a fan of Hound, specifically, in which case it’s the best way to own a version of his original figure. Everyone else, though, there’s better uses of your Transformers cash, like that Buzzworthy one, if it ever finally comes out.

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