| When a new character toy or released as part of the Transformers franchise and brand they appear on the animated series or in the comicbooks. Rarely, you’ll ever appreciate a “non-show” character that gets immediately forgotten. With the resurging nostalgia and interest of the Beast Era through the War for Cybertron toyline some only knew a few characters that only scratched the surface of the 1990s series.
As the Chinese Lunar Year inches close by here’s a spotlight for an unsung character that is typically unknown and immediately forgotten. If you haven’t heard of Longhorn then you only know what’s popular with Beast Wars that gave a renewed interest for the Transformers brand, but with Beast Machines then you’ll be surprised. |
Longhorn only appeared in the bits of comicbook panels and not really the character that changed the narrative or the story, but was given a spotlight that for new Beast Wars fans would barely notice his impact. But for long time Transformers fans that eat, live, and, breathe all about the brand Longhorn’s presences in their collection display would give him a rare space for its significance.
IDW Publishing featured him in Beast Wars: Uprising, a side story connecting the CG animated TV series as part of the canon. Though not impactful it gives a look about the character. Longhorn is considered a non-show character that deserves a spotlight despite its not-so favourable design concept, and since 2021 is the year of the Ox its fitting that this Maximal is front and center to represent this New Year.
Technorganic Features:
- Cybertronian Beast Aesthetics
- Translucent teal-Green Body
- Detailed Nose-Ring
- Translucent Light-piping Eyes
An Organic Bull with a Metal Ring
Released as part of the Second Wave under the Basic Class assortment in 1999, Longhorn came packaged in a blister bubble in his beast mode. Longhorn transforms into the organic bull with translucent teal green eyes and that includes a metal ring in its bull nose. Hasbro designers definitely had given us Transformers that change into a bull that is in dark red, gold, and translucent teal green accent.
Longhorn could have been a Deluxe or even a Voyager Class, but around that time Hasbro has not established yet the uniformed class assortment. Basic Class is considered the Scout, Legends, and presently Core Class designation for small figures that seems out of scale for a transformers that turns into a bull, but for those who have grew up owning this character is thankful to have him in their collection.
The details of Longhorn in his beast mode are not just about the color accents, but the design incorporating an organic bull with cybernetic aesthetics as not entirely an organic animal. But it merges the best of what Lognhorn would become even though small for its size Hasbro design team incorporate the little things from the design of his rib cage down, the hidden spark crystal (that reveals his allegiance) to that signature nose-ring.
Charging Action Feature
In beast mode, Longhorn has this action feature by pressing down on his "mane" in beast mode raises up his head as a "ramming" attack on a spring-loaded "see-saw" mechanism. Though over time that spring mechanism gets too loose (as explained in robot mode) but that doesn’t make any hindrance to the aesthetic of the animal form.
Quickand Basic Transformation
The transformation is fairly simple and basic as the entire chest folds down, but you have to rise up the head to unfold the shoulders. The face of the bull becomes his chest while the upper part of the bull’s head reveals Longhorn’s head with the horns. Its lower part doesn’t make any change by the lower front legs rotates to the back and unfolds his robot feet while the tail folds to the rear part.
Featured Articulation:
- Rotating Head Movement
- Ball-Jointed Shoulder
- Swivel Ball-Jointed Elbows
- Ball-Jointed Hips
- Ball-Jointed Knees
Robo-Bullish Maximal
In robot mode Longhorn seemed to appear like the devil with the bull’s horn as part of his head design. The face appears to have Native American design inspiration. The light piping in the bull mode also gives the robot eyes some effect as you see Longhorn grins in anger ready to charge in battle.
His chest now clearly shows the translucent teal green color, while the arms and upper hip are colored in gold. The head and shoulder has a huge gap that doesn’t lock together since there’s no tab or any way to connect for a stable look, which doesn’t give credence to the robot aesthetics.
Longhorn doesn’t even have weapons although his front hooves are sculpted as permanently-attached melee weapons in his robot mode hands. It must be the budget constraints at that time design-wise it is better that his melee weapons are permanent to avoid it being lost and having a front leg-less bull. In today’s standards that would be unacceptable, but the longer you look at it does make a little of sense of the way the weapon was incorporated at the same time part of the alternate form.
Overall Longhorn is one of the non-show characters that can be easily forgotten due to the limited exposure in other forms of media with comicbooks and animation. But for a Basic Class figure he stands out despite the lack of scale as something you’ll never see in the present Transformers brand. But since 2021 is Year of the Ox this might be Longhorn’s year to take a look at how Hasbro run with it and made it one of the interesting characters in the Beast Machines series.
Product Rating:
Transformation (Difficulty): 1
Aesthetics: 8
Quality: 8
Robot Points: 8.5
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Some of the Product Description Courtesy of TF Wiki
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