by Booda » Sun May 04, 2008 10:47 pm
I can't help speculate the possibility of an entire combiner set. However, before we even begin to question the engineering possibilites, there's business problems to discuss first.
There were no Ultra class figures in Classics. That's a nod in favor of combiners, since having four classes instead of three means that they want the product line to be more diverse, and therefore have more figures. The next hurdle is distribution. We've already seen copious amounts of figures, and it's a question of how to break down the wave assortments. Another thing is pricing. If Ultra class figures cost about $40, then you'd have one $40 Silverbolt and four $10 Deluxe class Aerialbots. Essentially, an $80 figure, sold seperately, some assembly required.
It's a cute gimmick, but one has to wonder if it will aid or hurt the marketability of the individual figures. As has been discussed, Silverbolt is looking unimpressive at the moment, which is particularly disdainful for a $40 figure. If the four othe Aerialbots turned out to be really good, would you want to spend an extra $40 on a brick just to have Superion? If you're not interested in Superion, you'd probably pass on an expensive, unexciting figure.
Now, moving away from Silverbolt, and from marketing and logistics, let's take a look at Onslaught. I've been oogling Onslaught since the beginning to see if there's any flaps or tabs where additional figures might snap on. So far, nothing, but it does look like his arms and legs could be folded up on him to create a larger torso, perhaps with openings for extremities.
If there were to be a combiner, I would expect that the gestalt at least the basic articulation that all the other individual figures have. Maybe with less degrees of freedom, but still not the brick with arms that the original combiners were. These joints would have to be accomodated for somewhere on the figures, likely the arm and leg figures, since the Ultra figure would have to comprise the torso; otherwise, the proportions would be out of whack. The engineering question is, if you have one figure, and two smaller figures joined to it at the knees of what would be a larger figure, how do you connect them at that knee joint and still allow the knee to bend?
Another aspect to look out for as more and more figures surface is accessories. As it is, Onslaught has no accessories that resemble the chestplate or headpiece of Bruticus. If these accessories existed, I would expect them to resemble parts of his alt mode, similar to Optimus Prime's guns that transform into the windguard and smokestacks. If anything like that was including with Onslaught, I'd bet money there'd be a combiner set.
Then again, there's the somewhat misplaced chestpiece accessory for Devastator, originally included with Scrapper. The other accessories make decent sense, but with the headpiece already included as Hook's accessory, I guess Scrapper was the next best choice (of course, the figure is originally from Diaclone, so I have no idea what other decision-making was involved).
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