Toysday: Triple Protection

     We didn't see autobot triple changers until the 1986 movie, with Springer being first- I had him in his G1 toy, and Sandstorm as well. I never had Broadside.

     The Autobot triple-changers didn't get a lot of love over the years, with occasional Springers being re-molded out of whatever Hasbro could turn green, and none of them triple-changers- The last example of this was GDO Springer, Retooled and recolored from HTFD Tomahawk. Don't get me wrong- Tomahawk is a great figure, but Springer he ain't. So when the rumor came out, and spread that there was a real Springer on it's way...

     As part of the "Thrilling 30" line, celebrating the 30 years of the brand(1984-2014) we got:

I love this figure- I bought two, did a little paint on this one, and bought aftermarket weapons to make him look even better. This is what Springer is about. Big, powerful, Bad-assed. His helicopter mode is the weakest of the three, but still passable

     Sandstorm was in the same boat as Springer, getting various sad recolors over various lines until the GDO Sandstorm. Then, as part of the "Thrilling 30" line, they did a fairly extensive retool on Springer to make him. Rather than a helicopter, his flight mode became closer to a VTOL craft, and he kept his Dune Buggy mode. His 'bot mode has poor balance and could have used larger feet in some way, so I have to call the 'bot mode the weakest.

     And then there is Broadside- I had looked at 3rd party versions of him...well, A 3rd party version. Talk about a character not getting any love. He was in G1, and the had a minicon appearance in the Classics line and then...? Finally, they did him up for Titans Return as a headmaster. I bought him aftermarket stuff from Nonnef as detailed here because he should have an axe.

He's a little weird because he is a mass-shifter- he goes from big robot to fighter-plane to full-sized aircraft carrier, of the Essex class, per info found here. Mass-shifters mess with my head-canon a bit, and that may be why I never had his G1 figure, or it may just have been timing. he came out in 1986, and that was the time when my toy-collecting was waning, before it waxed back up again in my adult years.