Wolf Fang was introduced in episodes when the Decepticons arrive onto the Jungle Planet in the search for the Cyber Planet keys. Before that, he was one of the two warriors protecting the Dragon temple and was a loyal servant to his Animatros leader Scourge. It was only when he got to know the evil plan of Megatron that he decide to turn against Scourge and join the Autobots to stop the Decepticons.
Beast mode:
As his name imply, his alternate mode is a wolf. Look further at his body parts and you can conclude that he is not exactly organic. He
is more like a "Cybertronia" Wolf; a mixture of robot and creature. There are dark blue fur details on his body which I find a very nice touch to make him look beastly.
The color scheme of
Wolf Fang are mainly shades of blue, yellow, silver and milky white. I
do not favor much about this scheme as I find them too soft for a
fearsome character like him. A dark color would be more appropriate in
bringing out the wild side of him. I think Hasbro did this on purpose as
this would give him a softer touch since he is afterall an Autobot in
the show.
Looking around Wolf Fang, you can see the designer did add a fair share of details on this beast. I like how the rear legs are design and also the use of dark blue for the furs.
If you
can tell by now, this is actually a Takara version. The main difference between the Hasbro and this is Takara version is the color scheme where for Takara, the crawl is yellow while Hasbro
is blue. There are some other differences which you can find out if you search the internet.
From the front, his alternate mode looks thin especially on the limbs. The back pretty reasonable.
Wolf Fang certainly looks better from the side. The esthetics of a wolf were captured well. I especially like how the body curves; joining the front portion to the rear. The head sculpt is amazing and one of the best beast head sculpt I had seen.
Details
The hip areas are packed with details. There are many fine details enhanced by the cleverly paint apps. There are also a couple of unique features on both side having a clip where you can hold the cyber key on the right and the Autobot logo painted on the left.
The Jungle cyber key can be held on the right clip as seen above. If you collected all galaxy force figures, you will know that the keys are designed according to their planets.
For this Jungle Cyber key, it is colored in clear green probably an indication of the greenery found in the planet. The rim of the key is an animal crawl which looks as if the crawl is holding the key. In the center is a logo in the form of an animal crawl probably the logo of the the Jungle Planet.
More indication of a mechanical wolf with the fur in dark blue and white yellow mechanical parts at the lower part of the body. If you look careful enough, you can also see some details which look like muscles between the rear hip and his tail.
There is a slot at the back of his beast head for the cyber key to be inserted. Unlike the rest of the Galaxy Force characters, the key does not held in position after insertion. It puzzles me why Hasbro wants to do this.
Upon insertion, Wolf Fang's mouth open up to reveal his steel fangs in the shade of clear yellow. The fur on the side of his head also rotates upwards which is really cool and this makes him look even more fierce.
After playing around the gimmick for some time, I discovered that even though the key could not held the mouth open, you can do so without the key inserted by rotating both side fur downwards towards the cheek after you activate the gimmick. By doing this, the mouth can be held opened.
Articulation:
Wolf Fang in his beast mode is nice to play with. There are multiple joints on his legs making him easy to pose with.
This is the trademark Wolf howling pose. I wish I can bend the head further up but that is already the limit.
If you can recall, this pose is part of the Wolf Fang transformation. See above.
The steps are pretty standard for a beast character with the rear legs forming the legs of the robot and front becoming the upper body. Despite that, it is easy to miss a few steps if you did not refer to the instructions. I find the transformation of the arms particularly clever with the head area separating into both arms with no sights of ugly split line.
Overall:
Wolf Fang in his alternate beast mode is fun to play with. The multiple articulation at his limbs makes him easy to pose for shoots. The amount of details are also good. The only con that I can think of is the inability to hold the Cyber key. However since this can be fixed by rotating the side fur, I feel that this can forgiven.
Next week: Wolf Fang in Robot mode
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