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!

Transformers 3rd Party: Headrobots - Cobra (Headmaster)

QUICK INFO:
Name: Cobra
Line: Head-On!!! (Headrobot)
Year: 2010
Price: $17.95 (TFSource)

It seems that ever since the first live action Transformers movie hit the big screen the Transformers property has been hotter than ever. The old Generation One (G1) toys have always been popular with people who grew up with them like myself and a quick scan on eBay will show the toys can bring in a pretty penny. With the current success of Transformers there have been several "garage companies" overseas that have popped up that produce unofficial/unlicensed Transformer action figures, accessories or add-on items for official Hasbro/Takara Tomy Transformers. Some fans hate the stuff, some fans love the stuff. The quality of the items range from craptacular to spectacular. Love 'em or not it appears this stuff is here to stay (at least for awhile). So today we'll take a look at one of my favorite "fan made toys" to be released in the last few months, Headrobot's Cobra.

Headrobot's first release is called Cobra. From what I understand the idea behind this toy is that it was an unused idea back in the 80's in Japan that Takara never used. Takara did manufacture and sell several Headmasters figures separately in Japan (3 robots, 3 beast Headmaster heads), but Cobra never made it past the drawing board. Cobra is a traditional sized G1 Headmaster head. Instead of a robot mode however he has a beast alternate mode...of a Cobra. Never would have guessed, huh? Cobra comes packaged in a really nice re-sealable clam shell case. Headrobot even made additional inserts for the clam shell so you could mix it up if you chose to display the figure in the packaging. The default packaging mimmicks the original Japanese G1 Decepticon Headmasters packaging. To avoid copyright infringement the usual Transformers logo has been replaced with "Head-On!!" which is a direct homage to the Japanese Headmasters animation where "head-on" would be shouted at the time of transformation.

The back of the packaging isn't nearly as beautiful as the front, but it does offer up some information about the toy in both English and Japanese languages! Also note the Robo Points in the bottom left corner. A very nice touch. They even re-create the ST logo albeit slightly changed. Underneath the ST logo it reads Seibertronian Made Figure (designed in the USA). If you are wondering what the information is read on:

What is Head On Cross?!

The evil Headrobots started training to further strengthen themselves again the good robots. Headrobots can connect to the Transtector after they master the art of combining. The Power Meter on the chest shows their abilities.

Now, it is your time to cross head on to D-85 Crocodile, D-86 Wolf, and D-87 Bat!

The references made to the animals of course are the Decepticon Headmasters Skullcruncher (crocodile), Weirdwolf (wolf) and Mindwipe (bat).

Let's take a look at Cobra out of the packaging. The head module of Cobra is mainly comprised of a creamy white and a light olive green while the visor is painted yellow. You'll notice that the shape of the head is quite different when compared to G1 Headmaster heads in that it features a sloped look. It was hard for me to capture the detail on the face with my camera, but a great deal of detail went into this sculpt. The "mouth" has two vent like features right underneath the visor. You can tell a lot of care was given to this form. The Transtector nub on the bottom of the head is also sculpted differently than most G1 heads in that it is almost entirely square like a peg. The notches on the right and left sides are barely noticeable, but they serve the same function as we'll see shortly.

Now let's plug Cobra onto a G1 Headmaster body and see how well this new toy blends in with the old.

I chose Skullcruncher here for several reasons. First he is one of my favorite Headmasters, but more importantly I thought the green used on Cobra would better match than the dark purple on Mindwipe or the yellow on Weirdwolf. As you can see he attaches to the body just as any other Headmaster head would. I think this body is a really good match and at least to me Cobra doesn't look out of place.

Here's a better close up of Cobra attached to Skullcruncher. You can also get a better idea for the level of detail on the head module as well as see how well he blends in. If I didn't know better I may have thought this was the original or intended head for Skullcruncher.

Here we get a glimpse of Cobra's "abilities" once attached to a Headmaster Transformer. First we'll take a look at Grax attached to Skullcruncher (top photo). You can see that Grax's Speed is around 4, while Strength is maxed out at 10 and Intelligence is probably a 9. Plug Cobra into the body (bottom photo) and now we can see that Cobra's Speed is around 7 while Strength is 5 and Intelligence is 6 or 7.

Enough time spent on Cobra's head module form. Let's take a look at his namesake's form...the cobra.

Cobra has a unique look. Top half cobra, bottom half tank. The tank treads are molded in the same creamy white plastic as the top half of Cobra. Transformation is rather simple.

1) From head module, flip up the flat white portion of the head.
2) Flip over the middle portion forming the snake head.
3) Pull up on the snake assembly and pose as you like.
4) Underneath the treads is a white tail piece, flip it out.

I forgot to pull out the tail portion before snapping this side view of Cobra. Oops!

This is a fun little toy and I have no regrets with my purchase. I'm not a huge fan of the olive green color scheme, but it does blend in very well w/ Skullcruncher. The original pre-production colors was a darker shade of gray. I've found one on-line retailer selling this version, though I'm not sure how many exist or if the quality is the same as this final version I hold in my hands. Headrobot did a fantastic job making this forgotten idea reality. The level of detail is quite good. The quality of the plastic and materials is top notch. While $18.00 may seem like a lot of money to some for such a small toy it really is worth the purchase. Headless G1 Headmasters are easy to come by @ flea markets and on eBay and when matched up with Cobra the toy really shines. If you are on the fence whether or not to buy Cobra I say go ahead. Not only will you be getting a cool little toy, but you will be helping Headrobot financially. They have already stated that if the sales of Cobra are good enough then they will release another Headmaster beast (Iguana). If you are looking for a good Decepticon Headmaster to match up w/ this version of Cobra then I highly recommend Skullcruncher. Head-On!!