Originally written April 2020
Previously, I talked about the first G1 Arcee figure ever released, which was sculpted to resemble her original cartoon design, and Earthrise Arcee, which was even more faithful to that design. Now, it’s time for the one in the middle, which decided to put a twist on it. This version of Arcee was released during Titans Return, the 2016 Generations subline where, basically, everyone was a Headmaster, meaning every figure’s head could detach and turn into a Titan Master figure. I’ve talked about it before, but it’s one of my favorite of the modern Transformers lines, partially thanks to the fun head-robot gimmick. That means that this version of Arcee, when it comes to her main gimmick, homages “The Rebirth,” the final three-parter of the G1 cartoon, where Arcee became a Headmaster, with Daniel Witwicky as her partner. But more importantly the actual design of this figure homages a more significant version of the character: Her IDW comics iteration.
Arcee was a part of IDW’s Transformers comics from an early point, but was written, shall we say, problematically, in a hamfisted attempt to explain why female Transformers were a thing. However, by the time John Barber got a hold of her in 2012, she became a mainstay in his writing, and her true character came out: A tough-as-nails ancient warrior, older than most of the cast, who was always itching for a fight, was full of snark, and who was LGBTQ. Needless to say, her good writing combined with excellent representation made her a fan-favorite.
As for this figure of her, it wasn’t mass-released, but was sold as an exclusive, first at the one-and-only Hascon convention, then on Hasbro Toy Shop (before Hasbro Pulse was a thing), and finally later at Toys R Us, so it’s a bit pricey on the secondary market, even doubly so when you consider the popular status of this iteration of the character. Finally, she’s not an original tooling, but a heavily-altered version of Titans Return Blurr, though, as I’ll get into, she’s altered enough to have her own sense of identity.
Titan Master Leinad
For some reason, rather than call the Titan Master “Daniel,” they opted to spell his name backwards. Regardless of the name, this tiny figure is clearly sculpted to resemble the exo-suit first worn by Daniel in Transformers: The Movie, albeit as well as they could fit that into Titan Master proportions, so he’s got a bullet-shaped silver dome for a head, and fairly normal arms instead of the more fanciful TFTM designs. Titan Masters often had problems with low levels of paint apps, but between the silver head, and some extra paint on the legs, this one feels complete. Unfortunately, there’s a problem here that rears its head with the whole set: Yellowing.
Yes, despite keeping Arcee out of the sun as well as I can, several areas of the figure’s white plastic have acquired a yellow tinge to them. It’s just something that can happen to figures, and I’ve heard other copies of this Arcee have gotten hit with this. On Leinad, this means his central torso is a slightly different shade than his arms and legs. The good news is, it’s not too bad of a case of yellowing, but still, be aware.
Anyway, Leinad has the typical Titan Master poseability, with swinging arms, and jointed hips and knees. He also transforms into Arcee’s head with a simple fold of those legs.
This is a really nice Arcee headsculpt, and details like the spikes in along her cheeks, and the more shrunken “buns” on the side of her head specifically evoke her IDW version above all else. It’s also really well-painted, between the white, two shades of pink, and blue highlights. A general complaint about Titans Return making everyone a Headmaster is that every head was partially composed of a block of folded-up robot, and that this worked better on some headsculpts than others. Arcee’s head is a bit lengthy and blocky as a result, but she wears it better than many Titans figures (though she’s not the best at it). Plus, as has been pointed out to me before, the sticky-out bits of Leinad’s hands kind of look like cat ears.
Arcee Robot Mode
At about average height for a Deluxe of the era, the body that this head attaches to was originally Titans Return Blurr, and actually hasn’t been heavily altered. The only parts on the body that have been changed are the upper arm/shoulder pieces, which have been retooled into rounded, Arcee-like shoulders, with a pair of panels in the back that suggest parts of her G1 car mode. The other bit of retooling is the flaps hanging off of her forearms.
But between the paint (which I’ll get to), and the general design of it, the form works really well for IDW Arcee. It turns out that “lithe, athletic speedster” can pass for “woman warrior” really well, and captures the general proportions and feeling of her IDW self.
Blurr was one of the best Titans Return molds, in my opinion, and that shines through here. It’s a really dynamic-looking silhouette, with minimal vehicle kibble (mainly some bulk on her lower legs and arms), compared to Thrilling 30 Arcee’s giant backpack. More female Transformers should work this way. The only significant bit of vehicle parts is on her back, in the form of a removable shield piece you can hang there. You can detach it, but it leaves a bracket just hanging there. Still, like I said, it’s way better than the other mainline G1 Arcees.
There’s also some hollowness to this robot mode, mainly in the form of the legs being entirely empty. Plus, her torso’s hollow, but that’s because it changes into a cockpit. It doesn’t bug me, but I know it bothers some fans.
It’s a very poseable body, with all of the expected joints, including the waist and wrist swivels the Thrilling 30 one was missing. No ankle tilts, thought, but this was before Siege made them standard. Importantly, her big, stompy feet make her very stable in this mode, and her articulation and sculpt make it easy to make some dynamic poses. If I have one poseability problem, it’s that the Titan Master neck of hers, in that it’s a bit wobbly, and tends to come undone easier than a lot of Titan Masters, thanks to that weird dome-shaped head on Leinad.
For colors, she’s almost entirely pink and white, with only tiny bits of dark grey and blue on her. Interestingly, she’s color-matched really closely to Thrilling 30 Arcee, with the pink, white and blue being nearly the same shade (the grey’s a bit darker). At a time when thinning paint budgets were being noticed by collectors, this figure’s premium exclusive status meant they definitely didn’t have to skimp, and a lot of her whites are painted on. It’s interesting how different her paint apps are from Blurr, or any other of the retools this mold had, in terms of where they are, and what sculpted details are highlighted or de-emphasized the better to sell it as a new character. Sadly, yellowing struck my copy again, with many of the unpainted white parts acquiring a tint. The most distracting offenders are her robot mode thighs and elbows.
Her accessories are the other major change, in that they’re all new to this version of the character. Firstly, as mentioned, she has a shield that can be stored on her back, or pegged into either of her forearms. However, it’s shaped a bit weirdly, and doesn’t really extend past her hand, making it seem kind of ineffective, unless you put it on backwards, which looks kind of off, to me.
On Blurr, it was a totally different part, that seemed to visually offer more protection. I tend to just leave it on her back.
Her other, much cooler accessories are a pair of small grey pistols. She can duel-wield them, John Woo-style, or you can mount them on her forearms. They also mount underneath her shield, for convenient backpack storage, or some kind of gun-shield combo. There’s a bunch of things you can do with them:
That being said, she’s missing an obvious pair of accessories: Swords. IDW Arcee was rarely ever seen without a pair of energy blades, her signature weapon throughout the IDW run. That’s why the Thrilling 30 version of Arcee included a pair, as a homage, so it’s odd that the figure that’s a more explicit homage to that version doesn’t come with them. For most of the time I’ve owned her, she’s been using the Thrilling 30 version’s blue swords, and they really feel like they were meant for her.
I’ve also heard of people giving her contemporary line-mate Titans Return Windblade’s swords as well, but I think they look a bit too big and clunky for the sculpt myself.
Something else I noticed at the 11th hour: When she’d not using her guns, you can actually give them to Thrilling 30 Arcee, and thanks to their shorter handles, they actually fit well into her hands, unlike the base figure’s guns.
Transformation
Oh, man. This is why I like the Blurr mold so much. It’s got what I consider to be the perfect kind of transformation: You can pull it off in less than a minute, but there’s also lots to do, and it’s got a really good handfeel as you flip, twist, open, close, expand, compress, and click things together. And everything works, with no problem points. This is like, the platonic ideal of what I want out of transformations.
Vehicle Mode
Another tiny little bit of retooling appears in this mode, in the form of the fin on top of the car mode being changed to look like G1 Arcee’s.
Combine that with the shield forming the front of the car, and you’ve got a space-hovercar-thingie that’s definitely its own unique design.
IDW Arcee had, like, tons of different vehicle modes over the years of the IDW run, so this genericized one suits her just fine. It takes after the Thrilling 30 version a little bit, too, in that it’s also got blue-painted front headlights.
Let’s talk gimmicks, because this mode has a lot of them. Firstly, it rolls nicely along three tiny little wheels.
Secondly, it’s got an opening cockpit with a clear pink windshield for Leinad, or another Titan Master to sit in (it works best if you bend the knees first).
Next up, there’s a pair of tiny pegs, one on either side of the cockpit, sized to Titan Master feet, letting any two of them dangerously ride the car mode from the outside.
Her guns, meanwhile, can either mount on the sides of the car mode, or underneath the hood, for different attack modes.
There’s another cool secondary mode here: by popping out the hood-shield, putting the guns in, flipping it over, and extending out a foot for stability, you can create a little battle-sled for a Titan Master to ride in.
While it can’t roll, you can actually peg it onto either side of the car mode, as well, for a ride-along shooty little sidecar, the only downside being that it leaves the front of the car looking oddly hollow. This was the other neat thing about Titans Return: Vehicle modes that had a ton of little features built in, creating cars that did a lot more than roll. It just feels like there’s a lot to do in this mode.
Ultra Magnus
Okay, so, let’s talk about the other little pack-in in this set: A second Titan Master, of Ultra Magnus for….some reason. Another “for some reason” is the fact that he’s partially made of diecast metal. I’m not sure why, but these diecast Titan Masters were made of him, Rodimus Prime, Thunderwing and Scorponok, and peppered throughout the different exclusives and boxsets offered during Titans Return.
Whereas Leinad is a new figure, Titan Master Ultra Magnus is actually a retool of a Titan Master body and head that were reused a few times in the line, so he’s a pretty genericised faceplated robot. That being said, they didn’t skimp on the paint again, and colored him up in white, with tiny blue and red highlights, to resemble the core Optimus Prime-repaint robot of the original G1 figure. They’re tiny paint apps, and they look pretty good. Unfortunately, yellowing struck yet again, and his legs are a different shade from his core body.
His torso is made of diecast metal, and this introduces a problem: While his arms and legs can move fine, his head is really hard to twist and turn, which isn’t a big problem in this mode, but becomes one when converted into a head.
After a quick compression of the legs, we’re given a nicely-sculpted displeased-looking Ultra Magnus face that you can mount on any Titan Master-compatible figure. Maybe he’s displeased that he doesn’t have a dedicated body of his own.
However, there’s three problems in this mode: Firstly, in terms of how well the whole headsculpt works, this guy definitely looks far worse as a Titan Master-style head than Arcee’s head, with a disproportionately large chunk of his head being a giant white block in the back. Secondly, that aforementioned really stiff neck means his head can’t turn very well when it’s mounted on a body. Finally, the diecast metal that the nicely-painted face is made out of is really susceptible to chipping, compared to most Transformers, and I’ve already got a couple small dings on mine from only light use. I’ve really got no idea why they wanted diecast Titan Masters, it seems to only have introduced problems.
So, overall, weird concept, iffy execution, definitely the weakest part of the set, albeit a small part.
Overall
While I like the Thrilling 30 (and Earthrise) figures for what they are, this is my favorite of the G1 Arcees so far. Firstly, it’s a creative retool of an excellent, poseable, dynamic figure, with an insanely fun transformation, and a great amount of features for its size. Secondly, it specifically represents the best-written version of Arcee out there, instead of the Sunbow Arcee that most other ones are designed after, and it’s still the only version of this specific IDW take on the market. I really wish she didn’t have issues with yellowing, but it seems like there’s nothing to be done about it. But even with that, and a few other quibbles (like no swords), there’s too much fun in the set to let those rule my opinion.
However, and this is a big however, this figure is crazy expensive on the secondary market now, thanks to its exclusive status, and it being the only representation of IDW Arcee out there (as well as the only Headmaster Arcee out there). On eBay, boxed ones routinely run you three-figure prices. That being said, I got it online when it came out on Hasbro Toy Shop for a pretty big internationally-shipped markup, and didn’t feel ripped off, thanks to all the good stuff in the box, but consider the price before taking the plunge.
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