Cynicus, MMC’s first offering in the Reformated DJD Lineup.
Brand: MMC
Size: 5 & 3/4 inches in bot mode from feet to tip head. 10 & 1/4 inches long in gun mode
Price: Currently $85
Release: May
Where to buy: Preorders are up all major retailers.
Included in the Box: Base figure with back pack and sniper rifle, alternate head and face-plate, instructions / comic book, collectors card.
- Sharp sculpt
- Packed with articulation
- Nice color separation
- Solid paint apps
- Alt mode can be held by a variety of toys
- Price
- Parts forming
- Minor issues with weapons
Knowing what I know now, would I buy it again? Yes, even at the increased price point.
Cynicus is the much anticipated first offering in MMC’s Decepticon Justice Division line and one of my most anticipated figures of this year. That being said, I was very anxious that Cynicus would not live up to the hype that I had built up around him in my head. Having only handled MMC’s feralcons up to this point, the first thing I noticed upon taking Cynicus out of his box was just different he looks and feels compared to them.
Where as the Feralcons have large ares of solid colored plastic broken up by tons of sculpted detail and a few sparse paint apps, Cynicus has more flat panels and color separation. For instance, Cynicus has dark grey plastic panels inlay-ed into the sides of his light grey thighs, and his forearms are made up of two different colored pieces of plastic. All of Cynicus’s paint apps are spot on and do an excellent job of highlighting his sharp sculpt. I personally think his head in particular looks fantastic.
MMC is known for making bots with tons of articulation and Cynicus is no exception. Cynicus has double jointed shoulders and elbows, a double jointed neck, a ball joint in his chest (obstructed with is backpack on) a ball jointed waste and universal joints at the hips. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Cynicus has double jointed knees. In the promo pictures, it appeared that he only had around 90 degrees of movement at the knee, however I’m happy to report that the double joint allows for an impress range of motion. Everything else is what you would expect from MMC, ball jointed wrist, ankle pivot and toe and heel tilt.
Cynicus is extremely stable, I had wondered how well his small frame would support him but all of his joints hold up well and his legs are nice and solid. His large feet create an extremely stable base which is very nice when posing Cynicus with his enormous sniper rifle. There are two issues with the guns worth noting. First, that the grip for Cynicus’s rifle (wich breaks down into a pistol) is 5mm at the top of the grip and 4mm at the bottom, This allows bots with a 5mm grip to hold Cynicus’s sniper rifle, which is a good thing, but it also means that Cynicus can only hold the bottom half of the grip which can look kind of awkward. Second, Cynicus’s wrists have a 90 degree inward bend which is used in his transformation, unfortunately, this can lead to Cynicus having a case of limp wrist if he’s not holding his gun at the correct angle. I suppose you could probably tighten his wrist joint with some future, or super glue, but it wasn’t enough of an issue for me to want to bother fixing it.
In the IDW comics Cynicus’s character (aka Vos) can remove his faceplate, to reveal all manner of nasty spikes and drills which he can attach to other bots as a torture mechanism. MMC included an extra head and spiky faceplate which allows you to simulates Cynicus’s torture action should you so chose. Its worth mentioning that the extra head and face plate are two separate parts and do not combine to form one complete head.
The transformation from bot to rifle was fairly easy and actually pretty fun, Cynicus’s abdomen splits apart and his lower torso folds in half which I found interesting. Some of the back bits confused me at first and I found it easier to simply remove the entire backpack while transforming him and reattach it only when it was needed, luckily it easily clips on and off. There is some parts forming involved with the gun barrel wich might put some people off, but being that its designed to wielded by Cynicus in bot mode, I’m not sure there is any way around it. An interesting side note, cynicus’s backpack and rifle can be combined and used as a stand alone turret which isn’t mentioned anywhere in the instructions, but I found kind of cool.
(beam sabers not included)
Once you get Cynicus into rifle mode, hes fairly solid. I had one or two issues with his arm coming un-pegged while trying to get other bots to grip his forward handle but other than that, everything pegs together nice and solid. The rifle mode has several areas where he can be gripped which allows him to be wielded by a wide variety of other bots.
Of course the main attraction is using a Cynicus as a combiner weapon, and in that, his alt mode really shines. The larger combiner grip (more parts forming) is designed to be pegged into MMC’s Feral Rex’s hand, but I found that my Maketoys Giant could grip Cynicus very well and actually looks REALLY good holding him.
Cynicus’s flaws are few, and in my opinion greatly outweighed by his positives. In fact the main thing that might put people off is the current MSRP of $85. All in all, I think Cynicus did a good job of living up the hype that I had built up for him and makes me all more anxious to see the rest of MMC’s DJD line up brought to life.
