Giant Robot Review: Dollar Store Haul!

 

I was ready to take a break from movie reviews today, and I realized it had been a while since I did a robot feature post (apart from Bigger Than Godzilla). Fortunately, it happens I made a nice little haul earlier this week visiting a dollar store, where I picked up not one but three new bots. Though only one is in the neighborhood of "giant", I decided to cover them together here. For fans of toy packaging, here's the big one on card, and a few more in the wild.

I have to say I love this, though I certainly wasn't saving it for posterity. The only way they could be more direct is to say, "FOR BOYS NOT GIRLS." A bot broken while still in the package is a nice touch. The back of the card shows the name of Greenbrier International, Inc (see below). Judging from the wild disparities in style, they bulk-bought from one or several Chinese factories and put the ROBOT name on anything resembling one.

As for this particular guy, he has the feel of a toy made for toddlers, and as such, he's impressive enough. The plastic is hollow and unmistakably cheap, but just as clearly sturdy. If he got knocked off a shelf, chewed on by a dog (see the Big Red Robotech Guy) or winged by the family car, he'd keep on fighting. Unfortunately, he's not that giant, a little shorter than the Truckstop Queen, though it should be clear by now that that's a high benchmark in itself. He could still have done the job well enough, especially among Star Wars and GI Joe. Here's a few reference shots of the two together.

Okay, it's a tie.

The apparent selling point is that the limbs can be removed and interchanged with other figures. It's an empty promise, as my inspections confirmed that all the figures were entirely the same except for colors. On the other hand, kid me would certainly have loved being able to pull off parts for a demolition-and-dismemberment bot fight, and for once it works quite well. Here's a demonstration pic.

Only a flesh wound...

What was of most interest to me were a couple smaller guys I picked up. These were transformer/ knockoff bots, of a clearly interesting design but less certain quality. Here's pics of them on card.

Of the pair, the tank was unremarkable. I'm satisfied it's modeled on a G1 Transformed I might feature sooner or later. The battleship was much more interesting. There have been some transformers based on watercraft, but the only one I can think of based on a naval gunship is a Gobot from way back when. They are obviously small, though if the ship is assumed to be full-sized, the bot mode would have to be several hundred feet tall. Here's some more pics.

If you're a battleship, I'm Galactus!

Finally, here's a lineup of the bots with Bossk and IG88, the tallest of the Kenner Star Wars figures. Needless to say, the new guy is bigger than the vintage figures. What's noteworthy is that a figure this big can now be had from a dollar store rack. As always, time marches on.

That's all for now, more to come!