Back in 1996, Hasbro had rebranded their Transformers line with a new toy line and animated series called Transformers: Beast Wars. What made Beast Wars such a huge success for Hasbro is that it stayed true to the Transformers Generation 1 continuity that began in 1984. During the 3 years (1996-1999) that Beast Wars aired, we saw several 1984 Autobots and Decepticons make an appearance including Starscream, Ravage, Megatron, Optimus Prime, among others, including the Autobot spaceship The Ark itself. Add all of that with some great voice actors including Scott McNeil, Garry Chalk, David Kaye, Ian James Corlett, Venus Terzo, Alec Willows, Doug Parker, Don Brown, Richard Newman (played Rhinox), among others, you have one of the beast Transformers series of all time.
While the show was excellent, some of the toys just didn’t match the character designs seen on the series. Hasbro had made Airazor and Terrorsaur basic sized action figures instead of deluxe sized, and Rhinox had a poorly designed head, and one spinning machine gun. Over the years, the 1996 Rhinox mold has been reissued several times, but never given any new tooling. Now, jump ahead to the end of 2013, Hasbro had released a show accurate Rhinox action figure as he should have been done back in 1996 with two spinning Gatling guns, a show accurate head and body, and done as a Ultra Class sized action figure (Ultra Class was the term used back in the mid/late 90’s for $20 priced figures, which is the size of this Rhinox figure. Now they are called Voyager Class).
Rhinox is not the only Beast Wars character to see an update. Hasbro also just released a show accurate Waspinator action figure and will be releasing a show accurate Rattrap in 2014, which might have something to do with these characters appearing in the latest IDW comics. Never had we thought that Hasbro would bring us any newly tooled Beast Wars action figures roughly 14 years after the show ended and became Beast Machines in 2000-2001.
While an update to these toys are great, there are other Beast Wars characters that want to see get new molds and released in the Transformers Generations line as Deluxe and Voyager class figures including Tarantulus, Blackarachnia, Dinobot, Airazor, and Terrorsaur.
Availability: December 2013
Sculpt:
Rhinox uses an all-new sculpt made out of plastic with some parts made of rubber including the ears, tail, and horn, and features two spinning Gatling guns as seen in the show. Rhinox is big, bulky, and comes loaded with two spinning machine guns that are ready to fire at Predacons.
His legs need to be stabilized so he can stand up without falling over. Due to his size, we noticed this is the only real problem with him.
His beast mode is simply excellent with an articulated mouth, both smooth with some rocky parts, and connects perfectly like a puzzle piece.
Paint:
Rhinox is painted beige for the Rhino skin, with some green and gold robot parts as seen in the animated series.
Articulation:
Ball jointed head, hinged shoulders and elbows, ball jointed hips, swivel knees.
Accessories:
2 Gatling guns.
Overall:
Rhinox is simply excellent. This is the Rhinox figure that fans have been waiting for since 1996 and you truly do not want to miss out on him.
Highly Recommended.
Purchase:
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