Titanium Grimlock

Prelude: Ah, Grimlock. More specifically G1 comic book Grimlock. Usually portrayed with the same speech impediment as cartoon Grimlock, but smarter, more brutal, and so incredibly bad ass. So bad ass, in fact, that both he and several characters around him will constantly subtly remind the reader how bad ass he really is. And by subtly reminding I mean Grimlock shouting at others “Me, Grimlock, Bad Ass!”. Yeah, that was how it was back in the early 2000s and the Dreamwave era of comic books. But it did give us some really cool figure designs and War Within Grimlock was among those who were brought to life in the Titanium series. Here we go!

Robot Mode: If you’re doing a Grimlock figure, there are certain characteristics you just have to include. He needs to be grey and golden (or orange in this case). He needs a black head with a visor (blue or red), teeth optional. He needs to have some form of grey wings on his back, too. Preferably he should come with a sword. Titanium Grimlock ticks all of those boxes and is immediately recognizable as Grimlock, despite the fact that he does not transform into a dinosaur. Instead of the halves of a tail, he has tank tracks on his legs. Instead of tiny little T-Rex arms sticking up from his back wings, he has exhaust ports. But he is still undeniably Grimlock.

Like every Titanium figure Grimlock is partially die-cast, giving him a nice, heavy feel. His articulation is quite good in theory, though some of the joints used always feel like you’re going to break them when you pose the figure. Also, the way the arms emerge from the big tank tracks limits their movement. Grimlock comes with a sword and rifle, though why they didn’t make the rifle twin-barreled, I don’t know. The detailing is quite good, too. Just about the only thing to complain about here, apart from the strange feel of the joints, is the scale. Grimlock is about Deluxe-scaled, which is a bit small for the Dinobot leader. He should be at least Voyager-sized. Otherwise, though, Titanium Grimlock is a good robot.

Alternate Modes: For once Grimlock does not transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex (however inaccurate-looking), but rather into a Cybertronian vehicle. It’s not really a tank, as its missing a big gun, but it is a tracked vehicle with a big grey dome in the front with triple exhaust pipes on each side. Okay, basically it’s the robot lying on its belly, more or less, but from certain angles at least you don’t immediately notice. Grimlock’s sword can be attached to the side and the gun to the back of the grey dome, either pointing upwards or backwards. So... yeah, that’s pretty much all I got. The vehicle is pretty accurate to how Grimlock looked in the War Within comics during the few times he actually was in vehicle mode, but that’s pretty much it. Much like Titanium’s War Within Optimus Prime, the vehicle mode is a bit lackluster.

Remarks: It was the year 2006. There was a live-action Transformers movie somewhere on the horizon. Hasbro tried doing a special line for collectors called Classics. And then there was the Titanium line, produced by Hasbro’s Galoop subdivision, originally consisting only of die-cast Star Wars vehicles. Why not add a few Transformers into the mix? And while the Dreamwave era of Transformers comics had already ended, there were still a lot of fans of the “War Within” series around, depicting characters back on Cybertron, long before they came to Earth. So included in a very wild and eccentric mix of figure choices, Titanium included the first and only War Within figures. Such as Grimlock.

I acquired Grimlock on a trip to San Diego and bought him mostly because I’m kind of fond of the old Titanium figures. They have their drawbacks, yes, such as all of them being the same size and the strange joints they’ve used for all the figures. Still, the figure design is cool and the actual figure is good. Objectively, though, the figure is limited. It’s a Grimlock from a rather obscure series and the alternate mode is lackluster. Really the only reason to buy it is that it’s Grimlock, that’s it. So if you’re a fan of Grimlock and/or the War Within series, you might want to take a crack at finding this rather rare figure. Just be aware that there are better Grimlock figures out there, as well as better figures with Cybertronian alternate modes.

Rating: C+

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