In 2015, a single appearance-character named Filch was introduced in the Robots in Disguise episode S1:E7 "Collect 'em All!" Filch is a gigantic robotic magpie who is single-mindedly obsessed with all things shiny to collect for her nest. The situation gets serious when she steals a conductor from an electrical tower and a metal beam supporting a bridge. I will state again that she is big.. roughly three times the size of the Autobots she encounters.. and animalistic, exhibiting almost no human-like traits. She reminds me of a blend of the G1 Insecticons with their all-consuming hunger and Nightbird with her single-episode fame. She is also monosyllabic, only uttering the phrases "Shiny!", "Mine!", and "Not shiny." I think she's amazing. This action figure is a fantastic retooling of the Kingdom Airazor figure. I never expected to see a one-off character like this get the full action figure treatment, but she is glorious. It gives me hope that other blink-and-you-miss-them characters could get toys someday.
I first learned of Filch when her small Tiny Titans figure was released in 2015. Of course, this was showing off her robot mode, which is only shown in a few distant frames of her episode when she's standing atop her tall metal nest. I think her robot mode looks so cool, but it exists mainly in model sheets and merchandise (and perhaps in RID storybooks released around this time). Speaking of the storybooks, it was in those pages that Filch was officially mentioned as a Corvicon, a subgroup of crow-like Decepticons. Filch never appeared with the other Corvicons in the show unfortunately. I would love to see an evil avian army. Let's check out Filch below!
I'm not exaggerating when I say that Filch's magpie beast mode is my favorite non-humanoid mode of any of my transforming figures. To be fair, I have a dislike for vehicles, so all the cars, motorcycles, and jets are already at a disadvantage in this competition. But this mode is awesome. It has attitude, it's very poseable, and the coloring is great. When I find another copy I will buy it to display both modes. And that is literally the first time I've ever done that. (She also reminds me of Screeech from MOTU).
The one thing I didn't like about this specific copy I purchased was the paint masking around her face. The edges of the blue portion of her head were left unpainted (lavender) and just looked odd to me. All the pictures past this point have those edges painted dark blue by me. The plastic is super glossy and doesn't take paint easily, so this was actually rather difficult.
This image below is her only robot-mode appearance in the show.
Take note of her feet in this image, the card that came with her Tiny Titans figure. (I will mention this image later).
So this mold (a retooled Kingdom Airazor) is meant to have her feet swiveled around with her pointy "human" toes facing forward. But I think she looks better with the bird talons facing forward. And the Tiny Titans card shows her that way which supports my aesthetics.
Time for some Group and Comparison Pics!
Here is Filch with her Tiny Titans figure from 2015.
And here she is with the Kingdom Airazor which her sculpt is retooled from.
Cheers!
Filch looks amazing! I missed getting her on the hasbro pulse shop. I will probably have to turn to ebay yet again.
ReplyDeleteShe should be showing up to Walmart eventually. My walmart preorders were cancelled in early August. I picked up mine in a store while traveling in London (I was surprised to see her on the shelf). I don't know if she's an exclusive in Europe or not.
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