TFC Wings of Uranos

Prelude: The Wing of Uranos upgrade set is a third party product, meant to make another third party product (TFC Uranos) look more like G1 Superion. Thus it is not an official Transformers product. Legal stuff out of the way then.

Upgrade Set – Wing Mode: The Wing of Uranos upgrade set is supposed to go with the Uranos team in all their various modes, so when the boys are all in their individual jet modes, the upgrade parts have to fly along some way. Now the set includes a number of small missiles for the various jets to go under their wings. All the other parts, though, combine into a vaguely aircraft-shaped thing that you can reasonably expect to be flight-worthy. It’s also probably the source of the set’s name, as this is a “flying wing” thing. Yeah, that sentence looks strange. Anyway, this transportation mode isn’t really all that great, but not the point of this set, either, so let’s move on.

Upgrade Set – Weapon Mode: Among other things the set contains a number of new hand weapons for the Uranos team members, modelled after the small handguns of the original G1 Aerialbots. Each of the four smaller guns is supposed to go with a specific Uranos member, but you can just as easily mix and match as you want. The big rifle that’s also included is really meant for the combined mode (see below), as it’s a tad too big for Blackbird / Silverbolt to hold. He can store it on his back in robot mode, though, and use the chest plate as a shield of sorts. So bottom line here: much nicer weapons than those missile pods the Uranos members originally came with, but still not really the point of this set.

Upgrade Set – Combiner Mode: The point of the set is, of course, to improve the Uranos Combiner. Mostly by getting rid of the highly unstable chest plate that is formed from X-45 Phantom Ray and replace it with one that is a whole lot more cartoon accurate. And speaking of cartoon accurate, G1 Superion looked a tad different in the cartoon than it did in toy form, so for all cartoon fans this upgrade set includes a mouth plate for Uranos’ head (the toy had a nose and mouth, the cartoon character had the plate) and you can either put the big black rifle in his hand (like the toy) or attach it to his forearm (like in the cartoon).

Additionally the set includes a new waist plate (note: you have to turn Uranos’ waist around 180 degrees so that the screw hole is in front in order to plug it in) and two little pieces of plastic that I had no idea what to do with (due to the lack of an instruction sheet, see below) but are apparently meant to go around the neck in order to... I really have no idea. Hide some of the kibble? Not really a problem for me. So anyway, the point of this set is the vastly improved look in combiner mode and here it succeeds fantastically.

Remarks: Is it possible to love and hate this upgrade set at the same time? Certainly. I very much like the end product here, as the set does make Uranos look a whole lot better. I do hate, however, that the parts of this set weren’t included with the original Uranos figures as they came out. It seems little more than a way to scam some more money off collectors, especially since TFC has pulled this very same trick once before with the “Rage of Hercules” set for their Hercules team, though it wasn’t quite as obvious there as Hercules works just fine without the set, too. Oh, and to add insult to injury: the set comes without an instruction sheet. Not that you need it for most of the parts, but it would have been nice to know exactly how the chest plate attaches to the combiner, for instance. Would have saved a bit of trial and error here.

Thus it is very hard for me to give an objective rating here. Fact is, this set makes your Uranos combiner better, no doubt about it. The figure works without it, but looks a whole lot cooler with it. The individual weapons and missiles for the jet modes are not really all that important in my book, as I guess most people will display this guy in combined mode most of the time. So the bottom line: if you want to perfect the look of your Uranos and don’t mind dishing out additional cash to make it so, this set works fine. Just be aware you’re really just buying it for roughly half of the parts included and that it would have been easy for TFC to include those with the figures as they came out.

Rating: B-

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Update 2012-12-20: Added some more pictures of the Wing of Uranos set, including the packaging, the card, and the collar plate.