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Knockoff Spotlight!

By Anthony Brucale

Last time in Knockoff Spotlight, we featured the infamous Beast Tech Fighter series; showing off four very interesting basic-sized figures, all copied from the Beast Wars line with several noticable differences. Well, Beast Tech Fighters are at it again (and probably at your local Big Lots chain) with larger, more impressive figures; even an original mold.

First up in the spotlight is a great knockoff of Lio Convoy from the Japanese line Beast Wars Second. Here, they have swapped out his white for yellow and decided to go with the mane parts and colors from Flash Lio Convoy. He is shorted two missiles and two launchers, but the bulk of his gimmicks are intact, including the spring-loaded claws and the spinning mane-blade.

Also knocked off from Japan, from the subsequent Beast Wars Neo line is this sweet version of Heinlad. The original contained a clock in the center of his chest and was light brown; in the Beast Tech Fighter version, he is Black with a Yin-Yang symbol replacing the clock in his chest.

Next up we have two larger knockoffs, both based on the mold used for Optimus Optimus & Primal Prime. These versions are scaled down a bit and stripped of all electronics. Sadly, the robot head/gun section comes seperated, so you will need a screwdriver to properly assemble these guys.

 

Beast Face

The final figure we will look at from the Beast Tech Fighter is a completely orginal mold, obviously made to look like Beast Machines Optimus Primal. This figure does a great job in creating the look given to Primal by the animators at Mainframe and is quite bizzare for a knockoff, since they almost never create there own molds. It does leave one to wonder if the makers of the Beast Tech Fighter line developed this one themselves or if this mold was something in the works at Hasbro or Takara and later abandonned.

For a long time now, I have been interested in hunting down these neat little guys below. Known by many as the Toolbots, they used to be sold individually at various drug chains around the country. This time, Big Lots is carrying a boxed set of all six figures at a very low price; the drug store versions of these guys usually cost $3-4 each at retail. Overall, the Toolbots are somewhat boring toys individually, though they do come with a boatload of weapons. They are mostly parts-formers, requiring disassembly and reassembly to achieve either mode. However, these guys shine as a combiner, making them a neat cheap addition to any collection.

 

Mallet Tools
Plier Tools
Hand Tools

 

Also found at Big Lots are three nice Microcombiners; the first two of which are based on Sixbuilder and Sixwing. Both are differently colored than their recent Japanese reissues, both still in the same scale as Micromaster figures. Sixbuilder is definitely nicer one of the lot, with a unified color scheme fitting for a construction team.Sixwing, oddly enough, comes with a knockoff of the Tonka Gobot Waterwalk.

 

Chain Gun
Falcon
Flanker
Missile Run
Raker
Super-Sonic

 

 

Crush-Bull
Digger
Gran-Arm
Iron Lift
Mixing
Treader

 

Also in that color scheme is the third of these Microcombiners, a scaled down version of Devastator in a similar color scheme as the Sixbuilder. This is one nice toy, particularly at the price Big Lots is selling it for. Almost everything you can do with a full-sized Dev, save for a couple of attack modes, can be done with this one. All the individual guys transform, combine, and some even have their individual weapons. Plus, the colors are possibily better than any official version of Devastator we have seen over the past 20 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's all of this edition of Knockoff Spotlight. Hope to see you again next time. Remember, there's a surprise in every box!

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