KO Korner: Double Dragon (Monsterbot Doublecross)

I can't exactly remember when or who I acquired this nice little piece from, but it's one of the few boxed G1 Transformers KOs that I still have in my collection. From what I can tell, this is a Korean release and is obviously based off the Autobot Monsterbot, Doublecross. In small print across the bottom it says Dae Dong Co. The box is made of a very thin/cheap cardboard. The colors are still quite vibrant. The large black front at the top of the box translates to Tususa Ssangyong Robot, however I'm not sure how accurate that is. The diagonal font across the middle reads "Dragon, the son of fire, who fights for justice!" "He came to us to preserve peace on Earth."

The figure comes nestled inside a very cheap plastic tray. This insert is so brittle you have to take the utmost care removing or inserting the figure. The plastic in the bottom of each recessed area is very thin. You can see the figure comes bundled with two accessories the original Doublecross did not come with, a large red sword and a blue shield. I have no idea of these accessories were "borrowed" from another toy release or are unique to this release. The sticker on the shield appears to be some type of unicorn?

Double Dragon comes molded in a very bright huge of blue, red and yellow. The plastic quality is surprisingly better than I expected. It's not oily or too light feeling, but of course not on par with the plastic Hasbro/Takara were using at the time. The only paint apps are a small black blobs of paint on the eye visor, eyes of the dragon heads and nostrils. There are 3 stickers pre-applied to the chest, but the adhesiveness of these is all but gone on my copy.

Once you wield Double Dragon with his weapons, it's a great looking piece. If you prefer a gun, you're in luck has he can also wield Doublecross' original white blaster.

You may have noticed the lack of wings on Double Dragon and those wouldn't be the only changes made. Other than the missing wings, the top half of the robot is molded very closely to that of the original. The front of the shoulders are missing the raised circles and there are some molded details to the abdomen area that are missing (replaced with the sticker). Even the dragon heads are very close to Doublecross. The KO obviously does not contain the sparking gimmick of the original so you won't find that mechanism inside the dragon heads. The trigger fin on the back of Doublecross has also been omitted on the KO.

The major differences in the mold comes in the bottom half. Double Dragon features a set of generic robot legs and does not have the ability to transform at all, thus no dragon legs or tail halves. The upper legs/thighs however do seem to be the same.

Overall I find this KO to be a quirky, charming addition to my G1 KO collection. I wish that it had the ability to transform, but it's unique colors and weapons helps it stand out as a highlight piece. I haven't really sought out this figure on the secondary market so I can't really comment on it's availability or price, but if you are a fan of KOs in general or just a fan of the Doublecross character, I do recommend this toy.

KO Korner: Poison Dragon - Transformers G1 Skullcruncher KO

To kick off the 11th year of Random Toy Reviews, let's take a trip back to the KO Korner. Ever since I created an Instagram account I've seen a lot of great vintage G1 KO toys posted. Most of these come from countries in the east. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone as copyright laws are more lax outside of the U.S., especially 30 years ago.

Everytime I'd see one of these awesome G1 KO toys I'd always wonder just where that person found them. Was it a recent acquisition from a store in some other country? Was it old stock that was recently found? Or has this been sitting on someone's shelf for the last 20-30 years? Whatever the case, most of the oddly colored KOs I've never seen for sale. If I would happen to come across one on eBay, usually the asking price was far outside my comfort zone.

Luck would finally be on my side as I ran across a listing on eBay for Poison Dragon, an obvious KO of the G1 Transformers Headmaster Skullcruncher. The price was much more reasonable than I thought so I bit the bullet and made the purchase. Then the waiting game had to be played as the toy was coming from Malaysia I believe. Man, I think the last time I bought a Transformer from Malaysia was when I bought a complete, MIB Transformers Blue Bacchus for $50. True story, I swear...but that'll be for another time.

When Poison Dragon finally arrived at my doorstep, he was crammed in a small box with a little bit of newspaper padding inside. The backing card is cheap cardboard and had already shown some wear. However what I didn't fully realize before I made the purchase was that the bubble (which was very close to cracking apart) had started to lift from the backing board. At some point someone stapled a portion of the bubble back down, but not before the gun must have slipped out. Bummer.

The back of the blister card seems to have been lifted straight from the actual instruction booklet that was included with the legit Skullcruncher toy. The back of the packaging even refers to Poison Dragon as "Skullcruncher" and the Headmaster "Grax". Best that I can tell there was never a label sheet or tech spec decoder included.

Once I was able to carefully fish Poison Dragon out of his flimsy packaging, I could immediately tell that the quality of this KO was rather good. That's the thing with KOs, especially toys as old as this. You never know what the build quality is. Will it be shampoo bottle quality plastic or the good stuff? 

Poison Dragon features a similar color scheme to his G1 counterpart, however where Skullcruncher had green this one features blue. The pink sections are similar and even the shade of pink used is very close to the G1 toy. As far as I can tell, there are no differences in the mold. Even the factory applied stickers (minus the rub symbol on the gator's head) are the same as it's G1 counterpart. One of the main differences that you can easily spot is the addition of some gold (or is it copper?) paint applied to the ridges and notches alongside Poison Dragon's gator back. Being as old as this toy is, I was surprised to see that some of this paint has already started to wear off.

Where as Skullcruncher came with his Headmaster trainer, Grax, Poison Dragon comes with this "Headmaster" figure. He's not named and he's not a 1:1 KO of Grax or any other Headmaster figure that I recognize. 

This nameless Headmaster figure still retains the ability to ride inside the mouth of Poison Dragon if you so choose to. The figure seems to be just a smidge taller than Grax so I had to slide him down a little bit to get the gator mouth to close all the way.

Once I really started to inspect the Headmaster figure I could tell the same quality that went into the main figure was not used here. This plastic felt cheaper, almost slick to the touch. I had to shave off a few plastic spurs on the feet just to get him to stand up in robot mode. If you look at the right knee joint, you can see that it's bulging out a bit. I was worried when I transformed into head mode that the lower leg may pop off. Since I don't plan on transforming him much (if at all) I guess I shouldn't be too worried.

I gotta say this has to be the happiest looking Deception Headmaster I've ever seen! The facial expression really doesn't match the toy, let alone the red and yellow used. Ah, gotta love KOs is all I can say!

The transformation is spot on to the vintage G1 toy. Transforming Poison Dragon from gator to robot was one of the scariest things I've done in awhile. He was far tighter than my original Skullcruncher. The hinges of the tail section that splits apart were so tight I didn't think I was going to get them to split and fold down. Once I got them moving, I just knew something was going to break. I noticed what appeared to be small, flat excess pieces of plastic just above and below the hinge. I thought these were adding to the resistance so I took my pocket knife and carefully jimmied them out. I don't think it really helped loosen up the hinges, but it couldn't have hurt to remove them. The upper half of the toy seemed to transform just fine. I did find that the arms were a little loose, but nothing too bad.

If you remember both the Autobot and Decepticon (large) Headmaster toys had a gimmick where you could see partial stats of the robot once the head was plugged into the body. Not surprisingly this play feature was removed on the KO. The flip down chest plate is still there, but as you can see where the meter once was is now a solid piece of plastic.

As I mentioned earlier, the gun was missing from the packaging however he can wield the tip of his tail as a sword just like his authentic counterpart. I did notice the holes in the fist were a little tight. This made it a minor challenge to fit the peg on the underside of the tail piece into the fist hole.

On it's own this is a great KO. I love the colors (minus the Headmaster) and it reminded me of just how awesome this mold is. Now it's time to get the KO alongside the authentic toy for some comparison shots.

As great as Poison Dragon is, I love seeing these two side by side. They compliment each other so well. I may eventually try and pick up another Skullcruncher gun just to complete the look.

Last, but not least I was curious if Poison Dragon was compatible with his G1 self. Without any issues I was able to swap the heads just fine.

With the notches on the bottom of the KO Headmaster being different lengths than on Grax, when you plug him into Skullcruncher's body you get different ratings in the Speed/Strength/Intelligence categories. 

If you are a big G1 Transformers fan such as I and you enjoy a good quality KO TF then I highly recommend this bootleg toy. While I've seen several packaged and loose pictures of this toy before, I've never seen one for sale until I ran across this one a few weeks ago. I know Chromedome was KO'd in a similar fashion, as well as Highbrow (in an awesome Sprite "lemon & lime" color scheme!), but I don't know if any of the other larger Headmasters received KOs. I know for one I'll be on the search. Pictures will probably surface on Instagram at some point!

KO Korner: Toy Galaxy Transformable Robot "Sunstorm"

Knock off G1 Transformers are nothing new, however sometimes they can be hard to find. I'm guessing with the US' laws and such is why we don't see as many of these toys in the US, however people living in other countries seem to find a wealth of KOs. For this reason alone I love to follow certain people on Instagram because of the crazy toys they post. I've always found KO toys of the Transformers I grew up with to be oddly fascinating. My collection of KO TFs is small as not every one I acquire meets my requirements. Today's specimen is one of those that didn't quite make the cut.

From what appears to be a Canadian toy company, Toy Galaxy, we have their line Transformable Robot. There is no individual name of the toy, but come on...this is the G1 character Sunstorm. I believe I picked this up off of eBay some time ago for right around $10. The blister card was cheap and flimsy and I have expected the blister bubble to be falling off the cardboard backer. I also just assumed it would be G1 size since the toy appeared to be based off the original G1 seeker mold.

As you can see in the first picture, "Sunstorm" is just a bit smaller than an original G1 seeker. Plastic quality is sub-par as expected. There wasn't a sticker sheet included as all of the stickers were pre-applied. What's odd is the stickers that were applied to the wings should be applied to the legs/thighs of the robot.

Transformation is the same as the original mold, albeit pieces don't always stay in place as they should.

The accessories are near replications of the originals, just smaller. The launchers are not spring loaded, but I wasn't expecting that they would be.

While this was an interesting piece to play around with, I decided that since it was smaller than the original mold that it didn't quite fit into my G1 KO collection so off it went to my eBay store. Not surprisingly, someone else snatched it up pretty quickly. Since then I've seen this one and other colored versions for sale in the range of $10-20. I'm sure there are some collectors that love these and had it been 1:1 with the original mold then I perhaps would've kept it.

KO Korner: Dinosaur Corps Tyrannosaur FS-204 "Goryu D-322"

One of the hard things about collecting vintage toys for myself is knowing that in some cases I have chunks of plastic sitting on my shelves that can bring in a decent amount of money. The vintage Japanese Transformers G1 Dinoforce toys are just one example of toys I bought for song and eventually sold.

I was planning to do something really nice for my wife and I's 10th wedding anniversary a few years ago, but like any father with kids I was low on money. My wife really wanted to go on another cruise so we started to price them out and it was clear I was going to need to make some sacrifices in order for this to become a reality. As much as it pained me to sell my complete, individually boxed set of Dinoforce Pretenders I knew they would fetch enough for me to pull off a really nice gift for my wife.

A few years later I really got the itch to replace them, but like many things I've sold in the past the current prices were just too prohibitive of me doing anything. After all, it's hard enough at times to keep up w/ the current Transformers toys and my other hobbies, yet alone go out a chase some hard to find elusive TFs like the Dinoforce toys. I was aware that there were at least two different KO versions of these toys that were produced in the 90's that share the same size and a very similar color scheme to the originals. With a little searching I found that these toys appeared to be originally available in parts of Italy, particularly Greece. I eventually found a Greek eBay seller that had one of the boxed specimens for sale. These toys also came packaged in a blister card, but many of the colors on the dinosaur shells had been altered whereas the boxed version seemed to resemble the original color scheme more. After I moved some items in my own eBay store, I finally pulled the trigger and purchased my first Dinoforce KO, Tyrannosaur FS-204...or better known as Goryu.

Ironically enough Goryu was the last Dinoforce member I purchased to complete the set and now he's the first of the KO versions to be bought. I'm still unsure of the company that made, or should I say knocked-offed this figure. I was surprised however at the quality of the packaging and overall quality of the toys themselves. That made swallowing the 3 digit price tag a little easier!

You can refer back to my original review of the vintage Goryu Transformer to compare the two, but you should see that this packaging somewhat mirrors the original. While the art for "Dinoking" is very striking, I do miss the individual art the authentic packaging offered.

Instead of an actual instruction booklet enclosed in the box, the simple transformation sequence was printed on the back of the box. Towards the bottom the rest of the Dinosaur Corps team was displayed. As a reminder, you can click on these pictures for an enlarged view.

Here's a close up of the sticker on the back of the box, I'm assuming Zaharias is the company responsible for these Dinosaur Corps? Notice how the R is backwards, just like the R in Toys R Us. Coincidence?

Additional shots of the packaging

Long gone are the days when Transformers, or even KOs were packaged in styrofoam. These Dinosaur Corps figures come a very cheap, flimsy plastic tray. One end started to rip as I tried to pull the tray out for the first time. The figure and the dinosaur shell are housed in their own compartment in the tray, along with a section for the weapon, combiner part and sticker sheet.

Contents

The first thing I notice upon removing the toy from it's packaging is that the dinosaur Pretender shell wasn't oily to the touch! While many Transformers collectors may not have had the chance to own or even handle the Dinoforce toys, collectors should be familiar with how certain pieces on G1 Pretender toys (Monster Pretender shells) are oily to the touch. Sometimes it's just the arms of the humanoid/monster Pretender shells, but the Dinoforce shells are notoriously for having that oily or sticky feel to them. I suppose this is due to some sort of chemical breakdown of the plastic or the chemicals in the plastic reacting to the oil in our skin. Whatever the case, this t-rex shell wasn't oily or sticky at all.

The other thing I noticed pretty quickly too is the excess plastic on the horn of the shell's armor headpiece. I'm not surprised, after all this is a KO. From what I can tell from my own pictures and from my memory, this toy is pretty spot on for the original. The colors of both the robot and the shell match well. However the chest of the shell isn't painted gold like the original. Even the stickers match the originals, minus the Destron symbol of course.

The shell functions the same as the original. The combiner foot pegs onto the back of the dinosaur. There is also a smaller peg hole for the hand gun if you wish to plug that in. The figure itself fits inside the shell just fine and is just as snug as I remember the original being. The hard plastic cover is a tough fit however on the shell, but I never at any time felt the side tabs were going to break as I put the cover on or removed it.

 

The robot itself is pretty underwhelming...just like the original. Plastic quality is rather good and I didn't find any defects on the figure. Even the splash of red paint on the robot's face was applied pretty good. To this day however I'm still unsure of what the alt mode is supposed to be.

Just like the original, "Goryu" forms the left leg of "Dinoking". I couldn't find anywhere on the packaging if the combined form was given a new name like the individual members have.

Since I purchased this figure, I've been able to acquire two more boxed versions of the Dinosaur Corps. They don't appear to pop up for sale very often so it may be sometime before I'm able to complete the set, but it sure is nice to know that I've purchased 50% of this pretty cool combiner team for about the same cost as one of the vintage pieces commands now on the secondary market.

Is it the same as owning the original? Well, no. However there are times when you as a collector just has to make sacrifices and cut corners where you can. I don't regret selling the original vintage pieces as it was worth the gift to my wife and the time we spent together...but I do have to admit it's nice to "almost" have these toys back on display in the collection.