TFC Warning Line

Prelude: Legal stuff first as always. Warning Line is not a toy released by Hasbro or Takara-Tomy and thus not officially a Transformer. He hails from third party company TFC Toys and is clearly meant to be an updated version of the G1 Protectobot Groove, but for legal reasons he can’t be called by that name. How you get from Groove to Warning Line isn’t quite clear to me, though.

Robot Mode: Seeing as he transforms into a motorcycle, you rather expect Warning Line to be a pretty slim, streamlined bot. He isn’t, though. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t a beefy-looking powerhouse, either, but he looks pretty broad and strong. A rather boxy chest is topped by an excellently sculpted head, fully articulated arms and legs, and he has two of his four wheels as wings on his back, too. So really no room for complaint here, neither in terms of articulation nor detailing.

How strongly does Warning Line resemble his predecessor Groove? Well, considering that G1 Groove (the toy) was basically a big brick, the resemblance is superficial at best. They did get his boxy chest and the wheels in his legs (as much as the G1 toy had legs), the rest is basically extrapolation. In his few cartoon and comic appearances Groove was normally portrayed with a golden chest (basically the toy without the red stickers), but TFC decided to base their figure more on the toy than the in-media character, which is fine by me.

Finally, weapons. Much like Gumball Warning Line comes with two identical rifles, as well as a connecting piece necessary for mounting the weapons in vehicle mode. Unlike Gumball, though, the connecting piece is another, shorter rifle, giving Warning Line no less than three weapons. Thankfully he is able to hold two rifles in one hand, otherwise he would always have to leave one weapon behind. Nicely done. All in all, a very nice robot mode, no complaints at all.

Alternate Mode: Groove transformed into your standard police bike, which – through the miracle of mass shifting – ended up being just as big a combiner limb as the ones formed from a big ambulance, a police car and a rescue chopper. Anyway, Warning Line is a police bike as well, though not your standard variety one. He’s a four-wheeled model, somewhat similar to a Cosmos 4RW V8 Muscle Bike, making for a much broader silhouette than your average motorbike. He’s still out of scale with Gumball’s car mode, but not quite as terribly so as Groove was to Streetwise back in the day.

What else to write? Warning Line’s motorcycle mode looks very interesting and features nicely detailed steering handles, a seat (big enough for a Deluxe-sized figure) and you can mount his two big rifles on the back to arm the vehicle (though seating someone will be awkward now). Bottom line: a nice choice for a vehicle mode, much more fun than yet another motorcycle bot, of which we’ve seen quite a few these last few years between the various Arcees and (Animated) Prowls.

Combiner Mode: Warning Line forms the leg (left or right) of the Prometheus combiner. I’ll do a separate review on him once I’ve got all five component robots assembled.

Remarks: That police motorcycle that becomes a leg of Defensor. That pretty much sums up the extent of Groove’s presence in the various Transformers cartoons and comics so far. He’s never really done much except roll out with the other Protectobots and become a leg. His profile described him as a pacifistic wanderer, who isn’t fond of his role as a warrior, but that’s the most characterization he’s ever gotten, I fear.

Much like Gumball, Warning Line suffers a bit from portraying a character who has gotten almost no exposure these last three decades, meaning you’re only going to buy him as part of the Prometheus set, certainly not for his own merit unless you’re a fan of somewhat exotic vehicle modes. That said, Warning Line is probably the nicest reinterpretation of a motorcycle Transformer I’ve seen in a good long while, so props for that. Still, considering the price tag and all, you buy him to give Prometheus two legs, no other reason.

Rating: B