Toy Review: Activator Class Starscream & Dirge

Transformers Animated:
Activator Class
Starscream & Dirge

The “Activator” Class was a special size/complexity class of Transformer created for the Animated line of toys. They shared the same size as the “Scout” Class figures from previous lines (about 4 inches in height) but with an added action feature; a spring-loaded transformation. You basically pressed a button and POP! they became a robot.

This isn’t a new concept. As early as the 2nd year of the original Transformers (as much as you can say original when talking about toys that were just copies of Japanese lines) line in the 80’s, we saw the Jumpstarters. These were toys with pull-back motors that would zoom forward and at the end of their run, a catch would release and they’d pop up and flip over, landing on oversized feet in their robot mode. It was a hell of a lot of fun until the gears and things wore down.

The Activators don’t have the pull-back motors, but their spring-loaded coversions work pretty well. Some work better than others. Starscream and Dirge fall somewhere in between.

The figures come in an asymetric bubble pack that should be familiar to collectors of the Deluxe Class Animated figures. It’s not the best packaging and it’s a pain to store, but it serves it’s purpose. It’s got some nice cartoon art and some passable product photos that display how the figure transforms. It’s all very easily understood, though if you’re really thick, there are some instructions included.

The toy itself is small (there is a lot of wasted space in these packages) and there are no accesssories that aren’t already permanently connected.,That doesn’t mean it’s not a fun toy. In my view, accessories are what makes something like GI Joe fun, while the transforming process are what makes Transformers fun.

Dirge is just a repaint of Starscream. If you’ve seen the show, then you may be familiar with the episode where Starscream gets clones who each display one of his character traits brought to an absurd conclusion. In his case, the trait Dirge has is greed. There’s a third Activator seeker, Thundercracker, who was Starscream’s pride and egomania. Unfortunately, all of them are pretty hard to find. I got lucky with these two, but I haven’t seen a Thundercracker around.

The figures are boxed in their robot mode, so you’ll need to do some work getting them into their jet mode before you can enjoy the pop-up feature. It’s a lot like the conversion process of the Voyager Class Starscream in that you just need to flip his wings over and most everything else follows suit. Fix his legs in back and his nose cone out front, then make sure his arms are attached to his undercarriage and you’re done. The Jet doesn’t look all close to a real plane, with tons of kibble hanging off, but at this size, I don’t really mind.

Once you have him in the plane mode, you can then go nuts. Press the button on top and snap! The wings flip over and he’s pretty much done. All you need to do is flip over his blasters and shoulder armor, then straighten up his legs.

If you’re a Macross/Robotech fan, you’ll be happy to know that unlike the Voyager Class toy, these can easily mimic the gerwalk mode of the Veritech fighters. Because the arms don’t fold back like the bigger toys, they can hang down below the wing like they’re supposed to. If you can get a few of those transforming Revoltech Veritechs, you can have yourself a gerwalkathon.

These toys are really a joy to play with. Not only are they high quality figures, with strong plastic, breakaway parts and good paint applications (for a mass market figure at least), they are relatively well articulated. The shoulders, elbows, hips and knees are balljoints (though the knee is limited) while the head is on a hinge to let them look up and down. At this scale that’s enough to get them in a number of good poses.

Plus, if you are looking to complete an Animated Seeker army, then you’re probably going to want to buy a few of these. Since they’re small, they’ll be relatively cheaper to purchase and customize.

Value wise though, they aren’t that good a deal. Sure they’re great toys, but when they were first released, they were Php 500+ at suggested retail price. This was close to the price of a Deluxe figure. Even considering the action feature, I don’t think the price is on par with the amount of plastic used here. Towards the end of 2009, Playkit released some stock that it had found in some warehouse somewhere at Php 200. The figures flew off the shelves before the announcement even had time to spread.

You can resort to the bootlegs, but having seen and played with both, I have to say that the original really is better in terms of plastic quality, paint, casting, and the strength of the spring. These days, you’ll be lucky to find them via collectors at about Php 300-500. If you can find them at the low end of that range, I’d say buy ‘em.