Always Blame your Tooling

Reveal the Shield Grapple (Solar Storm Grappel on the packaging) is a retool of the single new Voyager mould from the 2008/9 Universe line. Inferno was a fantastic figure, but the design of his vehicle mode seemed to render a Grapple retool impossible. The shape of the truck didn't lend itself to carrying a crane arm, and anything on the top of the vehicle would end up attached to the robot's arms, not the right place for the crane to be.

None of this has stopped Hasbro from giving us this figure though, and it has come out surprisingly well. A few new side panels replace Inferno's water pipes with more suitable detailing, and the water cannon is replaced by an extending crane arm. The yellow is bright without hurting the eyes, with details in black and a nice grey. The roof lights are orange to complete the conversion from fire engine to construction vehicle.

Robot mode also gets a selection of new parts. Grapple has a new head, new arms, hands and even new toes. Unfortunately, he is somewhat of a step down in articulation from Inferno, the crane mounted on his right arm severely hinders movement and the wrists are moulded onto the arms and are unable to rotate like Inferno's. Besides this the robot mode is every bit as nice as Inferno's, the legs have a fantastic range of motion, the shoulders are strong and the head is mounted on a nice balljoint. Both modes share the feeling of solidness that made Inferno so popular, in fact the solid arm panels give Grapple the edge in this area.

It is hard to see this guy without directly comparing him to Inferno, and Hasbro has obviously put a lot of effort into ensuring that Grapple feels different. As an update to the character design, Grapple falls slightly short due to the layout of both modes, but he is still a great toy, particularly if you missed Inferno, but recommended even if you didn't.