Code Red

Van, pizza, the '80s... you're never going to convince me this is anything other than a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collaboration that fell through at the last minute and had to be repurposed, like that Volvo Optimus Prime. Whether you’re craving a pizza pick-me-up or a monster-fighting Autobot, you can count on Code Red to deliver food - or firepower - in 30 minutes or less. Now, I freely admit I (still) haven't watched Stranger Things, but I contend that "the Surfer Boy Pizza van" is nowhere near the same level of recognizability as the other Collaborative releases have been. If you haven't seen Ghostbusters, you still know Ecto-1; if you haven't seen Back to the Future, you still know the DeLorean; if you haven't watched Stranger Things, you have to have it explicitly pointed out to you what this is supposed to be. The vehicle mode is a fully licensed Volkswagen Vanagon, done in pale yellow with light blue windows - the windshield and front and middle windows are translucent plastic, while the rear windows are simply painted. The color between them actually matches better than these things usually do. The sides are tampoed with the Surfer Boy logo and "delivered hot to your door" slogan, as well as the big "pizza" that's supposed to be on the door but is too small and in the wrong spot. They completely skipped the telephone number over the rear wheels, despite that being a number you can call to hear a message from one of the characters on the show. To convert the toy, remove the surfboard sign from the van's roof, fold the side panels back, hinge the two halves of the rear roof apart, drop the legs down and rotate the waist around, fold the feet out, close the shins, raise the side windows, tip the arms out and extend the hands, drop the roof down, and raise the head. The pieces all move smoothly, and notch into place to keep them secure in both modes. We've seen a few attempts at van-based Transformers recently, and while Code Red's conversion process is better, the robot mode ends up very leg-heavy, with giant stems and a comparitively small upper body. There has to be a middle ground between those two extremes - and a way to not have big ugly hinges on the outside of the altmode. Coming right on the heels of JP12, Code Red's head doesn't feel very creative: it's a big round shell with a visor and a microphone headset hanging down the right side of the face. It's not literally a shared sculpt with that last figure, but stylistically it might as well be. It's possible this design means something to Stranger Things fans, but if so, it's a pretty obscure cut. Up above, we compared Code Red to Ironhide, which makes sense since he's got a van's windshield for a chest. There's not a ton of ornate tech detailing on the exposed robot parts, but that just means the car parts doesn't look plain by comparison. The body is mostly blocky, and the plastic used to build him feels nice and thick, making for a sturdy toy. Thanks to his giant legs, the figure ends up 6⅝" tall, which is sizeable to say the least! He goes from Deluxe size vehicle to Voyager size robot. The kibble behind his head and sticking out behind his back isn't the greatest, but the rest of the design is pleasant. Big chunky feet mean plenty of stability even in big poses. Code Red has rocker ankles, hinged knees, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge hips, a swivel waist, swivel wrists, hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders (with notches on top of the shoulder to leave room for them to tip all the way up), and a balljointed head. He's got plenty of weapons, too. We begin with an axe and a spiked bat molded in translucent blue like his windows, then with the grips painted black. Those can be stored on his back kibble or held in either hand, and they can plug together to form a single, longer weapon. The sign from the top of the van changes into a blaster that can be handheld or plug into the outside of either shoulder. A fire effect can plug onto the barrel, too. Finally, there's an in-scale Surfer Boy Pizza box that can load into the slot on top of the gun like ammo. The box is real neat, too. Code Red is a really nice Collaborative figure, one of the best released so far. The robot mode's proportions are a little wonky, and the altmode shouldn't have those hinges sticking out the sides, but the process of changing between the two is intuitive and fun, and the accessories are decent. None of that, however, helps this toy shake the feeling of being a last-minute replacement for what Hasbro really wanted to do. Like we said before, if you got the Stranger Things license, the "iconic" choice would be to make Deputy Dadbod's Chevy Blazer, not a pizza van; you would need to be personally stupid to think a pizza van is your #1 choice. This would be like if, when they got the Back to the Future license, they'd started not with the time machine, but with Marty McFly's lifted truck - yeah, it's technically part of the property, but not one anyone particularly remembers or cares about. So yeah, in my head? This was meant to be either a Channel 6 News van or a Party Wagon and it got repurposed into the first thing available when the deal fell through. -- 03/05/24

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