Dave's Transforming Toy Rant: Avengers Shapeshifters Captain America/Eagle Ant-Man/Ant Hawkeye/Hawk Thor/Pegasus The Avengers cartoon got axed while these toys were still in the pipeline, and so they have hit Toys R Us as automatic clearance, $2.97 each. And, I think, largely worth the price. CAPSULES (Note: do not consider these recommendations to be on the same scale as my Beast Machines recommendations. The $3 pricetag factors in heavily.) Captain America: Statue-like hero mode, pretty good transformation, okay eagle mode. Mildly recommended. $2.97 at TRU. Ant-Man: Nice-looking but rather immobile hero mode, really involved transformation, okay ant mode, if a bit floppy. Recommended. $2.97 at TRU. Hawkeye: Very nice looking but statue-like hero mode, involved transformation, nice technohawk mode. Recommended. $2.97 at TRU. Thor: Moderately poseable hero mode, clever if somewhat simpler transformation, okay pegasus mode. Recommended. $2.97 at TRU. Note that the main selling point on all of these is the inventiveness of the transformations. RANTS Captain America: The runt of the litter, he's only 6" (15cm) tall in hero mode. The only movable joint on his body is his neck, but his detailing and color are good. His shield is gimmicked up to shoot a disc, so it's rather bulky. It has to be pushed into the hole on Cap's wrist REALLY hard to stay there. Considering all the weird steps involved and the fact that the result still looks like an explosion at a mannequin factory, the transformation is both complex and easy to do once you've figured it out once. There's one step that seems to be pointless (panels coming out of the thighs), but that's really my only complaint about the transformation itself. The eagle mode has a wingspan of 9" (23cm) and is essentially unposeable, an eagle statue. Covered in humanoid body parts. }-> The shield contains the tail, so the eagle sort of has a circular module on its backside. Still, not a bad effort considering that it had to look like Cap in hero mode. The disc shooter's supposedly usable in eagle mode, but it just ends up shooting Cap in the buttocks. Ant-Man: 7" (18cm) tall not counting the antennae on his helmet, this is a big'un. His head turns, and his arms can move at the shoulder, except that his shoulderpads get in the way of most motion (and they're transparent, so you can see the bad shoulder joints underneath...bad choice of plastic there). He has a helmet which is more of a mask, and doesn't hold on very well. His missile weapon looks like a leftover Spider-Man idea, a little spider that fires a coil missile. While he has a bit of a kibble problem from the back, he looks pretty good front-on. Transformation is insane for something this size. Legs come out of everywhere, it sometimes seems. The only real problem I have with his transformation is that his shoulder pads, which form the back part of his ant abdomen, don't lock down on anything. They're supposed to snap together, but they don't hold. The 8" (20cm) long) robot ant mode isn't half bad, although the middle set of legs is so short that you need to pose the ant in a very splayed out way for the middle legs to touch the table. And the clear plastic at the abdomen doesn't really look good, it should have been opaque. Still, the ant can stand on its own, always an iffy proposition for robot ants. It's no Inferno, but it's definitely worth three bucks. Hawkeye: 7" (18cm) tall at the head, add an inch for the bow halves. The bow does not actually come off his back and assemble, though, his weapon is a doofy missile launcher that is supposed to peg on to his shoulder. Although as a side effect of his transformation, he gets Wolverine-ish claws on each arm. He's one of the more poseable of the lot, with hips, knees, ankles and some limited shoulder motion. His torso's a bit gappy, though. His transformation forced me to resort to the instructions almost immediately, and I still need them even after having done it once. He actually has a sort of transitional third mode, if you transform his legs but not his upper body. Hmm, okay, I guess I don't need the instructions the second time, but I almost did. }-> The result is a fairly nifty jethawk thing, with technobits, thrusters and only a few obvious human body parts. About the only jarring part is his human feet sticking out along the wings. The feather design at his wingtips seems to be going the wrong way, too, unless they're not meant to be pulled out all the way (this is unclear in the instructions). Wingspan with them acting as leading edges is 7.5" (19cm), or 9" (23cm) with them acting as hypercritical wingtips. Thor: He stands just a little over 6" (16cm) not counting the wings on his helmet (which bring him up to 7"), and has to sort of lean forward to stay standing, as his cape is kinda heavy. His head doesn't turn, but his arms move at shoulder and wrist, and his legs at the hip, giving him some basic poseability. His hammer flips open to release a coil missile. And he's scowling...I prefer happy smiling Thors. This was the only transformation I was able to complete without resorting to the instructions. It's actually quite clever in using Thor's costume details to generate hooves for the pegasus, although the front legs are pretty much just Thor's arms (the hands turn to grab pegs that keep them in place, a nice touch). As Shape Shifter quadruped transformations go, though, it's pretty complex. The pegasus has a wingspan of 14" (36cm), and the wings can be flapped or even fold against his sides. The rear legs are pegged into place, but the front legs can move at the shoulder, and the head can move up and down some. The pegs holding this mode together could be better, but it's not a half bad mode, especially since it can't resort to "technobits" like Hawkeye and Ant-Man can. Overall: Just about any of these is worth the three dollars TRU wants for 'em. And once the current batch is gone, they're gone forever, I doubt these will get a recolor/rerelease treatment. So snap 'em up. Dave Van Domelen, hrms as Thor's wings sag....