Review – Hercules Purple Mixing Barrel
If there was ever any question about whether or not TFC Toys’ unofficial Devastator, Hercules, was a success or not I think the question vanished as soon as other third party manufacturers started creating upgrades for Hercules. Last month we looked at the Dr. Wu “Eyesight†Hercules Upgrade (review here), a simple LED attachment, and today we’re diving into a purely cosmetic kit that replaces several green plastic parts with purple pieces.
An Easy Upgrade
Madblender, the unofficial Mixmaster, comes with green barrel parts. They’re more Generation One toy accurate than purple barrel pieces, but fans of the original cartoon who want a purple barrel can grab this set from Crazy Devy and then get ready to spend some time swapping out parts. The photo below shows Madblender in vehicle mode with the green barrel in place. Looks good, but all of that green is a tad overwhelming and the toy really could use a little extra color.
Well, after taking the barrel apart into its eight separate pieces and grabbing a small screwdriver it was pretty painless to swap the green parts out and drop the purple parts in place. The photo below shows the pieces during the conversion; each of the eight parts has two screws and the entire process only took about ten or fifteen minutes to complete.
Back to Vehicle Mode
With the parts in place it was time to transform Madblender back to his vehicle mode to see how well the color change helps the look of the toy. I was happy with the original green barrel, but after getting my hands on this upgrade I can say that the purple barrel really does look better; I can’t wait to get the combined robot together to see how the spot of purple on the leg affects the overall look of the toy.
Expensive, but Quality
At about $30 for the upgrade this is a pricey add-on, but the plastic feels every bit as good as the original green barrel parts and Crazy Devy did an excellent job matching the purple color of the barrel skin to the other purple parts on Madblender. There are a few rough spots where the barrel pieces were separated from the sprue, but those are minor and aren’t all that noticeable when you have the conversion completed.
Closing Thoughts
For a look at the robot using green-skinned barrel weapons check this post from February where I shot pics of the toy with the barrel weapons in various forms. This is a completely unnecessary upgrade, but if you’ve got a complete Hercules and want your Madblender to look more like the animated Mixmaster this kit is easy to use and does the job. Recommended only if the $30 price tag doesn’t bother you and you really want the purple barrel.
After all, this set doesn’t do anything to actually improve the playability or functionality of the toy. This is purely a cosmetic upgrade.
Philip Reed knows that he has been neglecting the site for the last week, but between work and the Transforming Collections book his hours are kinda full at the moment.
I picked this up right away, for me, Mix Master looks FAR better with a purple barrel.
I agree, I think the purple looks far and away better. Even in combined mode, I don’t think it’s too much purple.
The price is the only sticking point, $20 would be a much better price, but even $25 would be less hard to swallow than the $30 it is.
But, Madblender is my favorite of the group and I didn’t really have any problem buying this to improve his look.
@ryanlb – As much as I like Madblender — the barrel/weapons make him far cooler than I expected — I think Heavy Labor is my favorite of the group.
I prefer the path I took; Reprolabels.com produces sticker sets for all of the Hercules/Devastator pieces. Included in the sheet for MadBlender/MixMaster are purple barrel stickers which are much cheaper, and give the barrel an appropriate mixture of both the green and purple colorations. Solid purple didn’t look good to me, so Reprolabels.com was a better choice for me.
@JustimusPrime73 – I still haven’t decided whether or not I should grab the Reprolabels set for Hercules. If I do I’ll probably leave this set on and not use those stickers.