Here we have Vortex in his helicopter mode. This is an approximation of the UH-60 Black Hawk he took form of in the G1 cartoon, down to the stripe going down the middle. I'm sure many fans would probably look at this and expect a retool of Protectobot Blades, and even fewer would anticipate Alpha Bravo at some point. There'll be more to that as we get near the end so stay tuned. The altmode otherwise looks good with a couple of things that do mess up the design a bit, but I love the way you can have the gun in the front and simulate the old toy that way. I'm sure the altmode having the protruding gun in the nose cone makes others think of Movie Blackout.
The kibble management is mostly good, though you do have some gaps on the sides where the legs would separate during transformation. That and the head is somewhat visible underneath the tail. You could hide it with the other guns assuming they would also work for combat in vehicle mode.
For a chopper comparison, here we have him next to Siege Vortex, now colored to be more comic accurate from the Marvel days. I'm kind of finding the comparison amusing since Deluxe helicopters were so common back in the older lines probably for how much cheaper it was for Hasbro to make those figures in smaller scales they have been a less common thing of late. Also the fact that Spinister and Vortex tend to share molds with other helicopters, such as the HFTD Tomahawk mold with Vortex getting a TakaraTomy DOTM release and Spinister via FunPub, while the Alpha Bravo figure was reused for both characters, though Vortex was mass retail while Spinister remained a con exclusive.
Transformation is a more involved version of the old toy transformation while attempting to streamline the robot mode in a more cartoon accurate design. From what I can gather, his cartoon model matched the toy decently compared to the more made up Combaticon models, but given how basic and primitive those old toys were, Sunbow and Marvel definitely had to make them easy to animate somehow. The resulting robot mode we end up with is generally good, though I know many fans will complain about the kibble hanging off the arms and the lighter blue on the thighs. The former is somewhat rectified by HasTak designing the pieces to be removable from the hinges, yet whether or not that would be recommended for longevity reasons is up for debate. As for the light blue, it is cartoon accurate though I could see some wishing it was a darker shade of blue. Vortex's bot mode otherwise looks the part, and I like the turbines on the shoulders that could double as cannons if you want; the propellors are neat and could resemble a sword sheathed on the back, even if they spin freely. While they don't have much presence at this point, you can get four of those swooshing effect parts and tab them onto the propellor blades if you really wanted to.
His head sculpt is basic with a boxy head to match the old toy's peg head (with visor and mouthplate to boot), but it does a decent job at not being too similar to other fully concealed robot heads. Articulation consists of a ball joint, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, bicep rotation, hinged elbows, waist rotation, universal hips, thigh swivels, hinged knees, and ankles that can hinge slightly as well as pivot. He can use the two smaller guns for arm mounted firepower in addition to the main rifle.
For another size comparison, he is a shorter figure than Spinister given how one will serve as a combiner limb while the other instead works as a trend of making certain Deluxes taller than others. While they are separate molds, you can see some of the similarities they share with the cockpit legs, the vaguely similar torso details, and the propellors in the back. No wonder HasTak made them occasional mold mates
If you're familiar with the way the combiner limbs made since Legacy Menasor's Stunticon arms work, then you should expect Vortex to split in half at the front and back of the altmode via locking the parts into the tabs associated with a skeleton frame's arm components. As with prior combiner teams, you would think we would leave it there for the review and wait to form Bruticus later on, right?
Wrong! Vortex has surprise compatibility with Superion, sharing the same slots that were found on Slingshot and later Fireflight. Now I'm starting to wonder if an actual Alpha Bravo retool is in the works for the Generations Selects line, a probability that could be slim given the subline has had fewer releases in each subsequent entry, but who knows what they could cook up as a tribute to one of the most common sculpts found in Combiner Wars. That being said, Vortex is already an even more interesting start to his combiner team's incoming figures, and I can easily predict how great Bruticus will be judging by how well this figure works on his own AND as a combiner component more than any of the Constructicons, Aerialbots, and even Stunticons. Other than the stupid approach of removing the tail kibble from the arms and some of the gaps in the sides of the altmode, Vortex gets a huge recommend from me.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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