MMC Spartan

Review by Ender10000

Spartan is MMC’s take on Impactor, the legendary Autobot and member of the Wreckers, an elite Autobot strike force.Spartan comes packed in the standard MMC Window box. The box is medium weight cardboard with a plastic clamshell insert and magnetic flap on the front. In the box you will find the instruction manual with comic, and a heavy weight plastic info card with Spartan's stats on it.

Spartan has more than the average paint applications for an MMC bot and they are all very well applied. I am particularly fond of the blue panel lines on his chest.

Spartan stands almost exactly 7 inches tall in robot mode from head to toe, and 6 inches long in tank mode from plow to rear bumper.

As with most MMC bots, Spartan's articulation is above average for a Transformer. He has a wide range of motion in all of his joints with the exception of his knees where he has just shy of 90 degrees. He is also missing an ab crunch joint which I have come to expect from MMC. Regardless, it’s still very easy to get Spartan into some very dynamic poses.

Spartan is very, very solid. None of his joints are ratcheted, but everything is nice and firm. You can pick him up and give him a good shake and nothing is going to move. On top of that, Spartan has nice big feet, and he carries a lot of his weight in his legs. This makes him very stable and easy to balance.

Spartan comes with two interchangeable weapons for his hands, a harpoon, and drill as well as two standard hands.

He also comes with a pistol and his shoulder mounted cannon. The cannon pegs into either the left or right shoulder via a standard 5mm port and can also be held in either hand. The pistol is very comic accurate and was a nice addition in this release.

Kibble is very minimal in both robot and tank mode. Spartan has a bit of a backpack in Robot mode but it’s very manageable and doesn't get in the way.

The transformation to Alt mode is a lot of fun. Spartan's arms fold up to form the plow in front, his legs split in half and wrap around his torso to form his treads, and his shoulder cannon forms the tank’s cannon. The first time I tried transforming Spartan, the plows on his elbows kept popping off, which seems to be a widespread issue. Thankfully it’s an easy fix with a little bit of superglue.

One of Spartan's really cool gimmicks in Alt mode is that he has working pistons that connect the turret to his bottom half. Unfortunately they are a bit of a double edged sword. While they look really cool, they prevent the turret from turning left or right. Of course you can always leave the pistons unhooked if you want to swivel the turret left or right.

In closing, Spartan continues MMC’s track record of high quality, nicely articulated 3rd party transforming robots.