Transformers Robots in Disguise 2001 Rail Racer review

As we get closer to the 25th anniversary of Transformers Robots in Disguise, or Car Robots to any Japanese purists, we should start revisiting any remaining figures from that line. What better choice than to take a look at the trio of trains known as Railspike, Rapid Run, and Midnight Express? Or if you really want to call them by their more boring yet harder to remember names, J-Five, J-Seven, and J-Four. As members of Team Bullet Train, their self-explanatory alt modes help transport human passengers across Japan until duty calls. Railspike is the oldest of the trio and tries to make sure his teammates stay on the same page, while Rapid Run focuses more on his strength and Midnight Express instead acts more like a C-3P0 type of character and is the doof of the trio. When in doubt, they combine into the powerful Rail Racer, or JRX in Japan. Without further ado, let's see how these figures hold up for today's action figure climate!

Here we have all three bullet trains together. Kept in scale with each other and beautifully recreating the real world equivalents of a 500 Series Shinkansen, 700 Series Hikari Rail Star (no nothing to do with that gooner bait gacha crap), and an E4 Series "Max" bullet trains. The color schemes on each not only go perfectly with the realism, but they also have their own uniqueness from each other beyond the general design traits. My favorite has to be Railspike due to the indigo and white combo, while Rapid Run looks decent if a bit plain, and Midnight Express being somewhat ugly and almost resembling a duck at the front (though that's how the altmode looks irl). I'm not familiar with the model train scale these are compatible with, but HO seems close. For anyone wondering, the Takara versions do not have their windows opaque given they are translucent plastic, though they are said to have poor QC. Early Hasbro copies had unpainted white windows, but they later had metallic blue ones instead.

The trains each utilize their weapons as couplers so they can all be linked up as a single unit, which is always neat to see when you got all three of them together and want to play with them in their vehicle modes.

For anyone wondering about a size comparison, they're roughly Deluxe size in height but being trans, the Deluxe you're using varies from the area or size associated with a specific figure. And of course, this is way out of scale.

Transforming Railspike is pretty straightforward; split the front in half, straighten the arms down, extend the legs, rotate them 180 degrees, and form feet and chest. The resulting robot mode looks mostly interesting in terms of color scheme and the general concept of design, but the shoulder spikes are as wide as they are hollow. His lower legs are super thin yet they are super deep like he's walking on cereal boxes. His bulbous chest also totally isn't any major combiner piece don't pay attention. Still, for a combiner piece made super early in the 21st century, it's hard to knock him when he's balancing his role as both a combiner component and an individual Transformer better than what we got before.

His hair sculpt is similar to Wedge's where it's a smaller version of the combiner head, but colored differently. He could use some silver to make the face stand out better given how soft the white plastic makes him look. His articulation consists of neck rotation, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement on the swivel where the screws lie, double ball elbows, ball jointed hips, hinged knees, and rotation below the knees.

The gun is not a missile launcher but instead uses an LED to light up the barrel...which makes no sense if the former is red and the latter minty green a la Energon Megatron. Using cell batteries, this thing had to be cleaned out to remove any corrosion given it's 25 years old.

For a size comparison once again, here we have him with Jazz, showcasing that the TBT members are somewhere between the average Deluxe and Voyager. Again, keep in mind this varies from line to line in addition to the size they had given production costs = later shrinkflation. Hasbro once said that given they didn't have Takara's flexible pricing for dedicated figures, they either had to use the Deluxe or Mega size; the former was too low for their cost while the latter made them insufficient for the price.

Transforming Rapid Run is a little more like a normal car former (front section becoming the chest and all that), but rather than shoulder pads that stick out very far, his chest will easily give Warpath a run for his money. He is the more balance out figure, and I like that Hasbro replaced the yellow with gold, as it fits better with the grey and black. His legs look a little more defined than Railspike at least.

His head sculpt feels eerily familiar to another Japanese robot not from Transformers but I can't quite put my finger on it. Articulation is mostly similar but his shoulders are on ball joints while his elbows and hands are on hinges. He also has a baton style weapon from his coupler as well as a shield made up from part of the altmode.

Though mostly reserved for Rail Racer, this can double as a missile launcher. Thankfully, the accessory isn't bent like a banaenae.

Transforming Midnight Express is fairly asymmetrical, due to the face that his bot mode is mostly built from the side of the altmode rather than it be facing forward. I will have to take points off for how easy the shoulders come off given they're less secure than the tabs and slots used between the legs and the flaps. This is due to him serving as the legs of the combined mode, but boy does he look clunky. Between the thunder thighs, tiny torso, lanky limbs, and nearly nonexistent noggin, he comes across as goofy as Titanium Soundwave only with flaps for shoulder pads. Still, if his legs are meant to be all-powerful, why would he be a fusspot when he could stomp his frustration on any Cons? Thankfully a skirt flap is used to break up that side section so he looks a little more like a proper robot. However, be warned that his pelvis and lower legs are on sliding joints for extensions, meaning that age will make them collapse unless you tighten with screws. For as uneven as my copy's feet are, at least he doesn't need to stay upright by sticking a foot out like he's too cool for school. That being said, given the phrase "shooting oneself in the foot" existing, who's to say that the weapon storage results in him being a literal victim of the idiom?

His head sculpt  may be small, but it's the most painted of the set, from the use of blue and yellow to the grey face paint and the pink eyes. Articulation consists of ball joints for the necks and shoulders, double jointed elbows, ratchets for the hips overall, thigh rotation, and hinged knees. His gun is made up of the coupler base, the barrel and the missile.

Now it might be tricky to remember which robot has which weapon, so here's a rhyme I totally didn't steal from Thew. 

Railspike is the one with the light!

And Rapid Run, well, he has the one that's not much fun when used as a gun.

Midnight Express can press button and yes the yellow thing can will fling like a wing.

And the captain goes boom.

You can't hide your slurs, Thew.

Chimminy-chim-chim-cheroo!

Combining them together is thankfully intricate and easy to understand despite the 3-man nature of similarly sized robots and the unusual nature of these designs. While their roles are balanced 2/3 (Railspike and Midnight Express are thankfully present while Rapid Run is barely visible from the front), they do at least transform uniquely into the specific components they turn into. Railspike splits from the waist down to become the torso and arms, while Rapid Run fills in the back and at least forms the midriff; Midnight Express is already halfway there but hey, the legs and skirt panels are convincing enough. The resulting combined mode manages to be surprisingly sleek and robust; whether it's due to the 3-bot approach having better engineering than Landfill being made up of 4 robots or just the general designs of Team Bullet Train, this somehow feels like he carries the best elements of all 3 characters and fuses them into a taller, better version of the individual characters. The swift and nimble nature of Railspike, the sturdiness of Rapid Run, and the admittedly robust legs of Midnight Express all merge into a robot that, at first glance, is a single character who can turn into a train by himself. And of course, we have the Autobot insignia facing every side possible while being oriented right side up, even on R&R where it's upside down in robot mode. The "wings" on the back tend to either point upwards or downwards, and while I prefer them facing up, they're down for accuracy sake. The train front end for a butt is funny, though.

His head sculpt, much like with Landfill's, feels like a powered up version of Railspike's, and it only makes sense given he forms the upper body and would therefore have the head. It's larger, more detailed, and has the clear plastic to make it more like the proper windows while adding a "layered" look to him. His articulation is similar to all 3 members, but given this is an entirely new mode, let's instead cover what he has. His head is still on a ball joint, shoulders rotate front and back while what were the hips on Railspike now move in and out for the rest of the shoulders. He rotates above the elbows, while they bend given they were also his knees. New to this mode is finger articulation, while the legs work the same as with Midnight Express. While Rapid Run's shield can still be used as such, the guns for Railspike and Midnight Express are able to combine into a larger gun.

For a super robot size comparison, here we have Rail Racer alongside Ruination, Landfill, and Omega Prime. These multi-bot combinations each have their own traits and influences, from Ruination's Scramble City heritage as a repaint of Bruticus to Landfill's rotary-based limb mode swap motif, and Omega Prime starting the trend of Optimus combining with an equally sized robot when his super mode isn't enough. I find Rail Racer to be the best combiner of the quarter; Ruination does have the versatility of limb mode options, especially if he has land and air configurations depending on who's an arm or leg, but being an old G1 toy doesn't do him many favors compared to the then-new molds with higher articulation and engineering. Landfill does have those attributes that the Decepticon set lacks in addition to his aforementioned option to switch between different arm set ups, but posing him can be tricky given the position of his joints on the link system, and you either get symmetrical Hightower/Heavy Load legs with crappy Grimlock arms or a pair of decent arms but Grimlock is stuck being an equally crappy leg. Omega Prime is the nicest example due to his chrome, high articulation, and the addition of lights and sound gimmicks to make him fun every time Optimus and Magnus ar together, but he isn't that stable given the weight of the two toys versus the pressure applied to the joints. Rail Racer has his own issues, mainly with the possibility that age could cause the legs to collapse at the sliding joints, but he manages to be more stable than Omega Prime, looks just as nice as him even without the chrome, and has an underrated design that feels like a true extension of his individual members. Overall, Rail Racer is the best combiner from the original Robots in Disguise line, but he will not be an affordable one to get. Granted, a lot of RID2001 toys are far from the easiest to get, especially if they're complete let alone MISB, but not only will you need to have all 3 characters together, but make sure they have their accessories to boot. Railspike and Midnight Express almost work without their weapons, while Rapid Run needs his shield given it forms part of the altmode. I don't know if we'll see them get a Generations update, but if we do, REFRAIN FROM MAKING IT A HASLAB THAT COSTS MORE THAN IT DESERVES!

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

McFarlane DC Multiverse Batman Returns Batman & Catwoman review

For anyone wondering, Batman Returns is my favorite of the old Burton/Schumacher quadrilogy mainly due to the unique identity it had from Tim Burton's gothic aesthetic, combined with the layering added on the relationship between Batman and Catwoman not seen before in non-comic media as well as making the Penguin more than just a cooky criminal. With Bruce Wayne continuing his role as the protector of the city and Selina Kyle going out on her own instincts and goals, it certainly made them comparable to a forbidden couple despite their few similarities. As we get closer to Christmas, why don't we pair these two costumed freaks together and review their latest figures courtesy of McFarlane Toys?

Here we have Batman in-hand, and he is almost an entirely new sculpt. Only the waist down is generally reused, and while the belt and thighs make sense, the boots were actually different from what he wore in the 1989 movie. While some could argue it's not the end of the world given the Batsuit's in solid black, I know more dedicated fans will point out the lower half deserves as much new tooling as the upper half. Thankfully, the reused legs don't clash with the upper body, as we still retain the physique these rigid suits had, especially with a seemingly broader torso that fits the superhero physique despite Michael Keaton not exactly being as built as Bale or Affleck. Other positives include the black being matte on him instead of shiny plastic without any finish to make it less toyish, as well as adding a black outline on the logo (though it seems to be slightly crooked). Batman's cape is made of cloth goods and is wired, but the length appears to be inaccurate for him and are almost more appropriate for an Adam West Batman. I might try swapping capes with the Platinum version of the character but that's assuming I'd even get him easily since I don't have the Hugo Strange Batman whose cape should be swapped with Regular West. So as far as looks are concerned, this is mostly good but the cape length and the reused legs will take some points away.

His head sculpt is much better than the original McFarlane Keaton Batman, both in terms of having a thicker neck for the cowl and a stronger likeness to the actor. Granted, he has a hint of a Val Kilmer look to the mouth, which sort of makes sense given they're supposed to be the same character if we ignore the recast and Kilmer looking younger than Keaton, but it has me worried that this will be an excuse for Todd to either not make a Panther Suit Batman or use the head for a hypothetical one. However, while the rest of the articulation is the same across the McFarlane DC Multiverse line, Batman's neck articulation only allows for side to side rotation, meaning he can neither tilt nor look up and down. While this is odd at first, the lack of head movement is accurate to the action figure. At least the neck rotation is a good balance, though I know some will wish the head was static so he could have swappable faces with eyes looking in either direction. What h does have are alternate hands meant to hold his grapnel gun and Batarang, though he could use a few more accessories related to the movie since the last 1989 Batman we got had a shitton of accessories at $10 less. Granted, that is an entirely reused figure, but the point still stands.

Here he is with the previous Keaton Batman I'm talking about. He previously came either in a Batmobile set or the 6-pack featuring other portrayals of the character in live action. This is the one that came with all those accessories as well as a cape that looks uneven of all over the place because it lacks a wire; instead, Batman has two poles he can hold that go inside the pockets to simulate him spreading the cape like bat wings. The older buck felt more like the Arkham Knight DLC skin rather than truly capturing the way the costume truly moved around. In spite of any issues I have with the concept of the new toy being a Theatrical Deluxe, it's still better than the previous Keaton attempt. In fact, he looks even better next to Christopher Reeve Superman, who still has better value for money with his accessory count than Keaton as a regular Collector Edition. Ignoring that, it's cool to have both of them together line this since we already got Cavill and Affleck's Superman and Batman as early as when they made the Snyder Cut figures. Now we just need a Brandon South Superman to go with Christian Bale Batman; for anyone wondering, absolutely no plans for Robert Pattinson nor David Corenswet.

As for Catwoman, she is thankfully an entirely new sculpt, which is only fitting if we were going to get her silver stitching in the tight leather costume.  It's so tight you could see the pronounced cup size and butt crack for that sex appeal Catwoman's known for. The glossy black at least makes sense for her given it's suppose to look like latex in-universe. However, while most of the costume details look nice, I have to question why the stomach region had to be an overlay like on any McFarlane figure wearing a suit or jacket instead of making a middle torso piece that is tucked into the crotch piece. I guess McFarlane didn't want to disrupt the sculpt of the stitching down the middle of her stomach, but as it stands, she looks like she's wearing the top as a shirt rather than have the entire thing look like it's all one rubber suit. I guess it looks slightly tolerable in black, but that hasn't stopped people from either pointing it out in reviews, either with genuine critique or going full Redditor by reeing "THIS ONE FLAW RUINS THE ENTIRE FIGURE!!!"

Her head sculpt is undeniably Michelle Pfeiffer, from the facial structure to the makeup applied onto her. Given the size of the eye and mouth holes, it's easier to nail her likeness better than with Keaton, but the design overall makes her seemingly into BDSM. That's short for Batman's Ding-a-ling Squeezing Misfortune if you remember she squeezed his balls while making out with him. Parents complained about their little Timmy seeing that, meanwhile we have the stupid genius of the DCU talking about how important Pissmaker Season 2 being set between Supermid and Flop of Tomorrow truly is without mentioning the orgy scene kids should NOT watch. As for her accessories, she comes with a whip that not only has a thicker handle than the radius for the grip of her hand, but it could really go for a bendy wire built in to make it articulated. She also comes with the stun gun that she used to kill Max Shreck while kissing him at the end of the movie, and since she can only use one accessory at a time, I left it resting on the left hand. Swappable hands would have went a long way for having her with clawing hands and anything else to justify the price somewhat.

Here we have them along with fellow poster face, The Penguin. I'll cover him before he shows you all his flipper trick, but regarding my thoughts on the Bat and the Cat: Batman is easily the best of the set so far, but even he could use some improvements, mainly the longer cape and additional accessories that would make his price bump justifiable given how much less he has than the regular release version of the 1989 suit. Catwoman, meanwhile, should have had alternate hands, at least an unmasked head that would be easier to swap than Keaton's, and better execution of sculpt and articulation in the stomach region. There is very little "Deluxe" going on with these figures, other than maybe the better likenesses and McFarlane using the price tag to stop scalpers from going overboard with preorders selling out. Spoiler alert, that still didn't deter them. If you want to get at least one figure from the wave, just get Batman. Waiting for a sale on these would be hard to do given how likely these are to disappear again.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Batman)

⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Catwoman)

Transformers Power of the Primes/Siege Orthia limbs review

About 4 years ago, I said I had no plans to complete Orthia because the fembot mold was ass for how it integrated the combiner engineering while also being samey as hell, arguably moreso than the Aerialbots. On top of that, even with the knowledge that we have a complete set of limbs, Hasbro sure as hell made it difficult to own Greenlight given how scarce she became, demanding money in the triple digits throughout the aftermarket despite being a mid toy! Now, fast forward to the end of 2025, after being able to collect any WFC Trilogy repaints I never got thanks to my long time buddy Ernie and his collection purge, I now have the two Siege repaints from him; afterwards, I later got Novastar and Moonracer from eBay, being some of the first Power of the Primes purchases I made in a long time alongside Punch/Counterpunch, Rodimus Unicronus, and the Battletrap duo I reviewed a while back. Let's see if these four fembots are worth going back to after just owning the torso bot known as Elita-1!

For anyone wondering about my thoughts and opinions on Siege Chromia and Power of the Primes Elita-1, feel free to check out my older reviews here and here. Just keep in mind that my way of writing these older posts is different from how they're done today, both in photography and overall approach towards critiquing action figures.

Here we have the four fembots in their functionally identical Cybertronian vehicle modes. While far from what they looked like in the source material (aka the ever-inconsistent G1 cartoon), they do at least look decently convincing as far as alien/futuristic alternate modes are concerned. You have a general sense of where the headlights and the windows should be, and I also appreciate that they can paint up their front sections differently, so they can be mostly distinct from each other without the need to retool them. That being said, they have their hands and chests visible from the back, and oftentimes they don't really do much to conceal the hinge joint meant for the canopy.

Here they are with their  Elita-1, who is a jet this time around, probably because Hasbro needed to retool some figure to make her a Voyager torso. Part of the cockpit is open, not to house a Titan Master but an Enigma instead. Because, you see, POTP had this idea where either those, Prime Masters, or Matrix Cores can be placed onto combiner kibble, Matrix frames, or a Voyager robot, as some sort of barely decorative gimmick that's somehow less enticing than Energon Stars.

The transformation is the same for all four figures, resulting in functionally identical robot modes, with a few minor differences. Other than their paint jobs, they each have a unique robot head, while Greenlight and Lancer have new shins, forearms, and torsos to further distinguish themselves from the first two iterations of the mold. For some reason, they lose the wrist hinges for transformation AND the 5mm ports in a line that was as crazy for 5mm ports as the Dark of the Moon toys. Moonracer has a sniper rifle, Novastar and Lancer come with the same gun but colored differently, and Greenlight is meant to hold a barely different redeco of Lionizer named Dazzler, but he kind of sucks as a weapon. They all function the same with the articulation: Ball joints for the neck, shoulders, elbows, and hips, the waists and thighs rotate, and the knees, as well as the feet in general, hinge. They thankfully don't have the detachable bikini of Chromia, but they still have the same giant kibble on their backpacks that totally doesn't come off as distracting. Not helping is that the Netflix WFC cartoon had Chromia keep that toy aspect in a way we haven't seen since the CG models for the Cybertron cartoon, but nothing compares to the decision to make a teal Chromia and name her Moonracer despite her already having a toy made 2-3 years before the show was made. Stupid Netflix show.

Here they are with their leader once again. Normally, I would use the Legacy version since she scales better and is a generally nicer figure for Elita-1, but for the sake of completing Orthia, this is what the team looks like. It's funny how I got to complete this set while I don't have any of the Terrorcons other than Hun-Gurrr. Maybe someday, I'll cover them before we get redoes of them past Age of the Primes?

After years of not having a chance to complete Orthia, I now get to finish the set AND revisit the old ways Hasbro used to do combiners. Bringing them together is very different from the approach we have nowadays for 5-piece components with Legacy Menasor and Age of the Primes Superion. No skeletal frame, no door system, no splitting two Deluxes to make them arms, and all Deluxes use the same ratchet joint for either shoulders or knees. If you remember the one Combiner Wars set I reviewed in completion, they used to have HFGs, or Hand-Foot-Guns for short, which served as the sole bit of partsforming for these modern sets. Here, each figure has a unique Prime Armor that serves as hands (which are color-matched to the fembots this time) and feet exclusive to Elita-1, with heel pieces to boot. As for Elita's torso mode, the homage to Movie Starscream is something we previously got with his G1 counterpart; it made sense for him, it's a cross homage between different continuities, but it comes off as a bit unfitting for Elita-1 since she's less the type to appear monstrous and inhuman in shape. Thankfully, the color scheme she sports, along with the combiner limbs, tries to make her a little friendlier than the traitorous seeker, though the limbs themselves have issues of their own. Firstly, as arms, the Moonracer mold doesn't have a decent spot for the canopy to stay, meaning it's either going to stick out, allowing for free bicep/elbow rotation, or keep it decently flush to the forearms, which limits any forearm movement. Also, unlike the HFGs from Combiner Wars, which used a single thumb that can be hinged on either side depending on where the arm is, two thumbs are included and require you to have one facing backwards and under the hand if you want it to be "hidden" away. As for the legs, the pegs for the feet are far too loose to keep them in place, and whether it's due to poor tolerances or the design itself, Hasbro should have refined the pegs to ensure they stay in place. They also seem to have a hard time getting the slots around the knees to stay in place, so the rest of the body doesn't collapse at the ankles, given the added weight. Also, the thumbs sort of clash with each other when the hand-Prime Armor pieces serve as heels.

Orthia's head sculpt is a larger, more stylized version of the regular Elita head, similar to what we had with Optimus Maximus from the original Combiner Wars version of the character. I don't mind this since it adds some synergy between the romantic partners when they're serving a non-traditional role as combiner torsos. They don't need to function the same way as other combiners who have diminished IQ points, so I'll go for a smart Prime/Elita duo anyway. Articulation is honestly frustrating for a giant combiner like her; the neck can rotate and look up and down, no problem, and the shoulders can ratchet front and back as well as in and out. Forearms rotate somewhat and can bend at two points if you choose to bend the lower legs. However, do mind the kibble surrounding the forearms. As for the hips, while they move on ratchet joints in any direction, front/back motion is EXTREMELY loose! See, Hasbro was wise enough to leave springs out for the ratchet system for that motion, yet moving them in and out is nice and sturdy in comparison. Who designed these figures, and why did they neglect such important pieces for stability?! As a result, her legs flop around harder than a tiny Power Core Combiner, and combining that with the loose rotation at the foot pegs or even thigh swivels, you have a recipe for disaster. Thankfully, the ratcheting knees and the ankle rockers are fine, but how hard should it be to pose a modern combiner? I thought Combiner Wars Menasor was bad. What is this?!

For a size comparison, here we have Orthia alongside the most recent 5-member combiner team in the form of the Aerialbots' Superion. I know it's not fair to compare these two because of contrasting design philosphies, budget differences, etc, but honestly, after having issues with these older sets, I would gladly pay a few extra bucks for a Commander Class figure that turns into a regular Voyager figure with a trailer or some extension piece to expand on the altmode or make the skeletal frame without issue. Sure, it's pricier, and I know it limits any Scramble City potential apart from switching Deluxes on either arm or leg, but fuck it, Legacy and AOTP did combiners way better than Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes. At least this nearly 5-year-long wait to complete Orthia is over since getting Elita-1, and it's at least cool to complete the general line-up for Generations Selects. IF you want to get the Female Autobots, I recommend you don't bother with Orthia and get the characters solely to represent their appearances in the G1 cartoon along with Legacy Elita-1.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (each limb)

⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Orthia)