Tankor here is a triple-changer, and meant to be an updated version of Octane, who was also a triple-changer with similar alternate modes. However, for whatever reason Hasbro couldn't secure the name Octane, so Tankor it is. Tankor's first vehicle mode is a cargo plane, and it's very impressive, particularly for a triple-changer. The proportions are very good for the most part, though the main wings are a tad small (though it looks much worse in pics, for some reason). The tail fin is also a little undersized, as well, and a bit of the tanker truck front bits show through on the back end of this mode if you look at this mode from the back end. Tankor has four spinning miniature propellers, which is quite impressive for this scale, and he has two guns which are stored on the undersides of the main wings in this mode. Tankor also has a long gray piece that attaches to the underside of this mode and provides this mode with three miniature wheels to roll along on a flat surface. It becomes his "claw weapon" in robot mode, though it's ever-so-slightly wider than the main body. Still, overall the lack of extra parts from other modes is very impressive, and Tankor's mold detailing is excellent-- panels and the like are visible everywhere on his chassis. Tankor's color scheme is also straight off of his G1 toy. The off-white and black don't do much for me, though the few bits of purple and dark blue give this otherwise monochromatic toy a bit of a color "kick". It's still a fairly dull scheme overall, however, though at least it's not loud.
    Tankor's tanker truck mode is the weaker of his two vehicle modes, but not by much-- it's still quite good. The proportions are quite good and fairly realistic, though the front with its swept-back windows looks oddly futuristic for a Universe 2.0 toy. It's not the most solid of modes-- from the back end, you can see into the rear of the vehicle mode quite a bit, and some parts of the side don't have truck detailing on them so much as they're Tankor's various other parts folded into a truck-like shape to fill out his sides. The plane propellers also are on the bottom side of this mode, near the front. Normally this wouldn't be a bad thing, but considering how close they are to touching the ground and what delicate little pieces of plastic they are, I worry about them popping off or snapping when you drive Tankor along a surface that may have an ever-so-slight bump in it, for example. What largely makes this mode work, however, is the claw-weapon slapped on top, which hides any Tankor's various other vehicle parts from being seen. It may be a bit of a "cheat", perse, but it works quite well. Tankor's two guns peg onto the back end of this mode, which also helps to keep his molded-in robot hands on the side from being so obvious.
    For almost every Transformer triple-changer, there's one mode that really suffers, and for Tankor, his robot mode is it. There are a few good things about it-- the chest/waist design is very well done, and the head design is molded excellently. The added purple on the arms and head also spices up the color scheme a bit, and Tankor's legs are decent for the most part. However, his arm design is simply atrocious-- they attach to his body in a very odd manner, and the long/high shoulders look odd compared to the relatively small, skinny lower arms. There's also just a small plastic bit attached to one of the wheels on each shoulder that his lower arm connects to, so he has practically no upper arms to speak of-- just his shoulders and lower arms. His hands are also oddly shaped, though they can still hold Tankor's two guns and claw weapon well enough. I'm also not fond of how Tankor's wings just hang off of his back without really locking into place anywhere. Some Transformers can pull off this look, but not the oddly-proportioned Tankor. In addition, the wings pop off a bit easily during transformation, which can be a bit annoying. Tankor's feet are also rather poor, consisting of just the front parts of the tanker truck but with little panels flipped out on the front side. They barely look like feet at all, and his lower legs are much larger and longer than his upper legs proportionally. As for his articulation, Tankor can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows, wrists, hips (at two points), and knees. It's not extraordinary articulation-- and his claw weapon can weigh down his ball-jointed arms-- but it's decent. His odd proportions get in the way of good poses more than anything else.
    Most triple-changers have one vehicle mode that looks really bad, and to Tankor's credit, he's not one of those triple-changers. However, instead his robot mode has gotten the short end of the stick, particularly his arms, which are just some of the worst arms I've ever seen on a modern Transformer. If he only had two modes, he'd get a considerbly worse score, but I'm cutting him some slack since he's a triple-changer, which is always difficult to pull off. If you like the multi-changers, I'd mildly recommend Tankor, but if you're in it for cool robot modes, you might want to pass this guy up.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers: Universe 2.0 Index