Originally written December 2018.
IDW’s been in the Transformers comics business since 2005, and spent the years since then developing its own complicated, sprawling universe, until it decided to bring it to an end and reboot the whole thing in 2018. Over its 13 years of existence, some really special, unique stories were told, and one of the most popular ones was the award-winning More than Meets the Eye ongoing series by James Roberts, and, as it was called after it was relaunched in 2016, Lost Light. It was an eccentric, offbeat tale of a crew of misfits on a starship, on a quest to find the mythical Knights of Cybertron.
Most of the Transformers characters that appeared in the comic received brand-new redesigned looks, and thanks to the popularity of the series, a number of figures in Hasbro’s various Transformers Generations toylines were specifically designed after their appearance in the book. But there was one fairly major omission in the official releases: The captain of the ship, and one of the series leads, Hot Rod, or as they were called at the time, Rodimus. Blame it on the fact that Hot Rod, unlike a large chunk of the comic’s cast, was a fairly well-known A-lister, most famous as the main character in the Transformers movie from the 1980s, so any new toys of them were designed after their classic look, instead of his MTMTE/LL design. Notably, when the series was relaunched as Lost Light, Rodimus had suffered several personal tragedies that led them to change their colorscheme from their usual lively red and orange, to a somber purple, black and blue, hardly traditional Hot Rod colors, unless you’re an evil duplicate. That’s where Mastermind Creations comes in.
MMC’s an unofficial transforming-robot toy company that produces figures designed to fit in with Hasbro’s Transformers Generations line of collector’s figures, focusing on characters absent from the official releases, with a heavy emphasis on IDW comics characters and designs. Calidus is their take on theMore than Meets the Eye iteration of Rodimus, creating a figure the same size as a Generations Voyager. This figure was released in red and orange, but after the aforementioned color swap in Lost Light, a blue and purple version was released as a TFcon Exclusive, Calidus Asterisk. However, demand was so high for it, that Mastermind Creations gave this version a mass release, which brings us to Calidus Luminus, whom we’re looking at here. The photos are, as before, courtesy of Venomously Addicted Photography, who you can follow on Facebook and Instagram, who technically shot the Asterisk release, though it’s nigh-identical to this one.
Robot Mode
I’ll start here, since odds are this is the form you’ll leave them in most often (a fan criticism of Lost Light was that characters tended to remain in robot mode most of the time). Calidus is, as mentioned before, the exact same size as a Transformers Generations Voyager, literally going eye-to-eye with Generations Springer, or a bit taller than a Marvel Legends figure. Amusingly, they’re also the exact same size as the official Masterpiece Hot Rod figure. A quick note coming out of the box: Their shoulders are packaged oddly separated from their body, held on by a long, thin joint that makes them look really awkward. You can compress their shoulders closer to their body to make them look far more sleeker, as the box and instructions show them.
Their design is something of a departure from Hot Rod’s traditional look, with a few recognizable bits here and there. They’ve got their upward-facing spoiler on their back, three metal pipes on the end of each arm, but aside from that, they’re quite different, which is a point in their favor, since it accurately depicts how they looked in the comic itself. They’re a slender, sleek, tall-looking robot that’s also composed of a lot of sharp spikes on their arms, knees, and even head. It’s those spikes that prevent them from feeling like an official product. While you won’t poke holes in yourself, it’s definitely sharper than Hasbro would allow. They also feel a lot heavier and stiffer than an official product, though not to the point of feeling bad in-hand. As mentioned before, they’ve got a unique colorscheme for the character, composed of black, two shades of purple, powder blue, and bits of painted silver and white. There’s also a tiny bit of clear orange on their back, from their vehicle mode windshield. It’s somewhat dark looking, but the blue makes it avoid registering as outright villainous. Overall, it’s a nice-looking design.
My one complaint is that his headsculpt feels off, in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s as though their facial features are a bit too mushy and undefined, when on a licensed figure, they’d be sharper, and more expressive. The fact that their head feels oddly narrow doesn’t particularly help. They come with a second, swappable head that’s supposed to have a slightly cocky grin to it, but unless you squint, it’s hard to notice the difference.
Still, the whole is better than the sum of the parts, and looks good on the shelf, helped by their great poseability. They’ve got fully-articulated feet, knees, hips, a waist, double-jointed shoulders elbows, wrists, hands (though their lower three fingers are a solid piece) and a head. The head’s a bit restricted due to them having something of a raised collar. Generally, their joints are extremely tight, much tighter than an official figure, but not to the point where I’m struggling to move them. It helps that their ratchets (which, as far as I can tell, are just in the hips) aren’t rough, clicky nightmares. Additionally, while their arms can look good, posing their shoulders and elbows makes the joints do strange-looking things, and I find myself having to rearrange them every time I move something.
They’ve got three accessories. First up is the barely-different alternate head I mentioned, which you need a screwdriver to remove. Their second accessory is a black laser gun, niftily styled after one of the original Hot Rod’s weapons. The third, and most interesting one is a robotic bow, colored two kinds of purple, with a pair of silver tips at the end. It’s also got some joints along the bow to compress or extend. It fits nicely in their hand (like the gun does), and while I’m not exactly sure how they’re supposed to fire it (since they’re holding the bit the arrow is supposed to be lined up on), it’s really cool looking, and they pose well with it.
There’s also a hole on their back that you can peg the bow onto for storage, and it does interesting things to their silhouette.
Transformation
While both of Calidus’s modes look good, this is definitely the figure’s weak point. This is a more complicated transformation than it looks. One big word of warning: The instructions tell you to turn their head around backwards. Thanks to clearance issues, the figure cannot actually do this, and trying to force it will damage their chin, and the paint on his collar (I did this.) However, you don’t actually need to turn the head around to transform them, so I’m not sure why the step was even there. Aside from that, the challenge lies in parts seemingly needing to occupy the same space at the same time, leading to me moving and twisting stuff out of the way, despite what the instructions tell me. One positive: Both halves of the spoiler pop out of their sockets, seemingly just to get them out of the way. I’m also fond of the way their long legs fold away and compress. Finally, it can be a challenge to get the area around his cockpit to snap together. About four transformations of this figure, and I still can’t quite get the pipes that descent from his cockpit and continue down the sides to properly line up as a result.
Vehicle Mode
Tough as it was to transform Calidus, it was all in service of a nifty vehicle mode. If the robot mode was a departure from the traditional Hot Rod design, this is a long way from their usual futuristic race car alternate form. While they’ve still got that signature Hot Rod spoiler on their back (rendered in powdery blue on this guy), the rest of this vehicle mode is a bulky, armored car that makes me vaguely think of the Bat-Tumbler from the Dark Knight trilogy, though that might just be the black and purple colors (On top of those, the orange cockpit really pops in this form). This looks like it can bust some walls down, and, despire my trouble pegging it all together, this Hot Rod Tank rolls really nicely. Another nifty feature is that the bow clips under the front of the car, creating a sort of spiked bumper, while the gun pegs into a hole just above the cockpit.
Overall
While I generally like this figure, it does have a few issues, namely their tough transformation, odd facesculpt, and a bit of joint stiffness. That being said, Calidus Luminus poses well, looks great, fits in with my official Generations collection, and faithfully replicates a design from one of the finest Transformers stories ever told. If you’re looking for a Rodimus representative for your Lost Light shelf, they’re a solid choice, so long as you’re okay with the few issues he has. Let me put it this way, and bring up those size comparisons from earlier: While Calidus Luminus is not as strong as Generation Springer, I actually consider them to be a stronger figure than Masterpiece Hot Rod, or at least a nicer-looking one, and they’re priced about the same as them (2022 Update: Well, not anymore) so consider picking them up if you’re looking for a co-captain for your Lost Light crew.
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