A millennium ago when I began chiseling my personal Word of God upon Poe’s stone tablets of wonder and virtue, I reviewed a very special toy, one that had elluded me for some time until I finally chanced upon it and had it delivered to my front doorstep – the Thomas the Tank Engine Voltron, Voltromas. This caught the attention of kind reader Onigaijan of the fantastic site Fanboy’s Closet, who emailed me to say he’d come across two of Voltromas’s children! He very kindly sent me them to me, to review for Poe’s site as a follow-up to the grand original. Presenting: Deformation TrainRobot!

Packaging: If there’s one thing Doc Thomas loves, it’s “Fun” things “bring you unlimited happiness”, and that is exactly what is promised here! The bright and colorful front shows off the two painted in their Sunday best, complete with wonderful text letting us know that these “Fun” toys were made by “Funny Toys”! The images on the back show how the assembly works, for guaranteed unlimited happiness!

Design & Sculpt: The sculpting on these toys is great – they’re identical aside from their color scheme and perfectly represent smaller Voltromases! In their robot form they stand up straight and look stunning, if a little rigid. In their train form, well… their train form doesn’t work too well. The instructions don’t actually work to turn them into trains, leaving a bunch of spare parts behind as well as lacking the cohesion of the original Voltromas. Still, they get points for trying, and look very nifty standing tall!

Plastic & Paint: Ooooh boy – the original Voltromas wasn’t the high benchmark for this kind of thing, and the Deformation TrainRobots don’t up the game. The plastic isn’t the highest grade, but they’re especially let down by their paint – it’s odd that the detail showing off their amazing Decepticon third eyes looks so good but the rest of the paint is a tad splotchy. Do’h! Fortunately these guys are durable durable durable, having come with me in my backpack on many different adventures, both illegal and illicit!

Articulation: Also not the strongest point, these guys have articulation in the neck and arms that works well – giving them a follow 360 degree rotation on their arms, which can spin around splendidly – then only at the knees, which causes them to topple over. Keep em standing straight, boys!

Accessories: As I consider both of these accessories for Voltromas, they earn top points here. Their little hands are sculpted for pegs, meaning they can hold other guns and weapons from your accessory box, that can be used to do his bidding! Father knows best, children!!

Quality Control: –

Overall: There’s little in life that guarantees unlimited happiness, and the Deformation TrainRobot delivers in spades! Whether posing with their dad or punching Twilight’s Edward in the face, bootlegs rarely come in such delightful packages. The transformation/Voltron feature so spectacular in the original might be lacking here (in that it doesn’t work) but that doesn’t stop these guys from earning 5 Ravens in my book.

[raven 5]