Toy Review: Machine Robo Series 06 - Blackbird Robo/Gobots Masterpiece Snoop

And we're back to entries which make a bit more sense. Blackbird Robo was one of the more prominent 'guest' Machine Robo frequently flying as wingman to Blue Jet after overcoming an early appearance where his face melted. There's added notoriety for the American market too; there Tonka named the character Snoop and Hanna-Barbera made the Renegade a female. As usual she followed the standard female Gobot pattern of looking like the male characters in terms of not being pink and curvy, one area where Challenge of the Gobots deserves a little credit. Despite featuring in a handful episodes in respectable roles no toy was forthcoming, the Snoop figure getting beyond no more than a couple of sealed samples in the USA, though it was issued in Canada. 

The reason why it was skipped are still a bit of a mystery; the closest I've been able to come up with is that the shape of the SR-71 complete with the figure's diecast quotient gave Tonka's legal teams some worries becuase you could probably stab someone in the eye with the thing but that never stopped similar toys coming out and the figure was released in Europe (with some releases naming it as Sky-Spy, though Robo Machine is a nightmare so I'd hate to speculate how many). Whatever the reason, it's long given Snoop a certain mystique among American fans, so Blackbird Robo could well have been produced with an eye on export sales.

Blackbird Robo's robot mode is probably the most faithful in the line so far in terms of the actual toys; as it already looked good in the toyline Ashii didn't overly stylise the animation model and therefore this is very, very close to the look of the original figure, just neatened up. What is redesigned greatly helps, flipping the fins the other way around and attaching some proper feet, improving the proportions and eliminating some of the clumsier alt mode parts while retaining the figure's key parts, notably a near-identical head design and the cool spire-topped shoulders. It all pegs together well and naturally is less prone to collapse than the 1985 attempt while most of the details are carried across - I do miss the silver ring around the shoulders but that really is nitpicking.

Being the sixth in the series there's a feel Action Toys are really getting into the swing of things; articulation is superlative and the figure also has the balance to make proper use of it. The relatively unfettered robot mode helps but so does having the design savvy to keep the head full mobile, the independent feet that aren't limited by the jet engines on the outside of the legs, the free shoulders and the work put in to make sure there's still a waist joint. Even the accessories aren't that weird; a pair of clip-on blasters for the hands, which works really - in Challenge of the Gobots Snoop was one of the few Gobots to actually use a rifle (though it didn't look much like this). It's one of the more normal Action Toys additions, certainly.

Like most of the figures in the range so far Blackbird Robo's transformation loosely follows the original, just with extra steps to accomodate the increased complexity. This to me speaks volumes for just how good the engineering of the originals was for their time and size. Getting the head with its' mounted back panel in just the right place can be a black art but overall it retains the great flow I'm coming to expect from Action Toys; worthy of note are the upper fuselage panels which fold neatly out of the back and reduce the clutter around the waist and hips plus a flip-out tail section so the part isn't dangling off the figure's bum in robot mode. Good work, overall.

The one downside is that as a result the Blackbird mode has a lot of join lines on the upper fuselage - more than the original figure, where the aircraft mode was largely made up of a couple of large blocks. It still looks very striking and has less clutter on the underside than the eighties figure, giving less of an impression of being an SR-71 model mounted on the back of a robot, though the underside is still less than clean (especially compared to Eagle Robo), with the robot head obviously visible alongside most of the torso. It's still a fine alternate mode (if, also like Eagle Robo, badly crying out for a couple of USAF decals). the only other fault is there's only a nose wheel - instead the guns clip to the underside of the fuselage as landing skids, though the figure rests just as well without these in place.

A couple of minor niggles aside, this is a fantastic figure. Good looking and faithful in both mode with a fantastic transformation and very much feeling like an ultimate version of what was already a striking figure. If you were going to pick one from the line as a taster you probably wouldn't find a better ambassador for what Action Toys' Machine Robo Series is capable of.

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