MMC R-23 Dicamus

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Maz

If you’ve got a good mould and good ideas, why not make use of them? Mastermind Creations have already demonstrated some clever and quality re-uses of moulds. Not everyone agrees, but I thought getting Anubis, Jaegertron and Boreas out of the same mould was pretty darn good. Azalea’s sculpt certainly got some excellent mileage, and let’s not forget the excellent Spartan-Commotus body share. It should not surprise you, then, that MMC have taken the mould used for Titanika and delivered the rather lovely Reformatted R-23 Dicamus.

Dicamus, a toy who is inspired by a character featured in transforming robot comics over the last few years, comes with two rocket launchers and a laser rifle. If you pre-ordered the figure from Planet Steel Express, you received a second laser rifle, but a slightly different mould (Titanika’s). He also comes with two heads, so you can choose which style/original source material you prefer when displaying him. The colour scheme for Dicamus is highly evocative of his original inspiration and depiction in media, and the sheer bulk and broadness of this sculpt suit the figure to a tee. You can read my thoughts on his mould-mate Titanika here, and aesthetics aside, Dicamus is pretty much the same story. You might notice that compared to Titanika, the larger portion of the foot on Dicamus is supposed to act as the heel spur, with the main feet being the smaller, flatter green parts. I didn’t like that, and so from this point onward, for most pics I have them oriented as they are on Titanika.

Dicamus has a number of display options for his accessories. The rocket launchers can be placed in the holes on top of his shoulders, but depending on how you position the arms, they could be obstructed or become the obstruction themselves. They can also be mounted on the outer forearms or even the outer legs. Like Titanika, the rocket launchers can also be attached to the gun itself, but I found out the hard way that this may not be all that wise. In attaching and detaching one of the launchers from the gun barrel, I managed to weaken it to the point where it snapped off. At least with Titanika’s weapon, the whole barrel and most of the gun were one piece. With Dicamus, his gun barrel is a segmented piece towards the front, and may not withstand repeated attaching/detaching. So be aware of that.

In a way, I feel as though Dicamus experiences more posing obstruction to the arms as a result of the shoulders rubbing against the giant folded wheels on his back than Titanika did. Even so, none of his dynamism in posing is affected. It helps that he has ball-jointed shoulders, double-jointed elbows with swivels, wrist swivels, waist swivel (have to lift the butt flap), various leg swivels and ankle tilt in all directions. This mould is one of the absolute best at pulling off The Run at the first attempt that I can remember. It is almost as if it was built specifically for this pose! You can also see he has the same studded ball-hands that Titanika did, and as much as I would have struggled to believe it, they suit him every bit as much as they did her. Not sure if that’s so much the case in vehicle mode.

Great balance and effortless kneeling really do not harm his posability scores, either. There’s a double-joint in the knees that is necessary for transformation, but it can be utilised for posing too. He does have an individually articulated index finger for pointing, and the gun grip is plenty solid enough. He can even hold it when inserted into the underside of his fist. Don’t forget, the gun can also be attached to the thin orange panels on ball joints behind his back. If you point those panels downwards, the gun can be stored facing downwards also. I did find that when posing him, the backpack did occasionally unclip and had to be pushed back into place. The chest stays attached very firmly, though. Dicamus is very solid on the whole, apart from the gun barrel I had zero concerns about damaging him.

You can see Dicamus with his alternate head here, and that gorgeous green eyebar. Despite not being accurate to the material I know this character from the best, I do prefer this head configuration for him. However, the square and larger nature of this second head means it cannot be posed at all angles, there is an obstruction by the surrounding vents on his collarbone area. I do love how Dicamus can look intense and mid-battle, but also completely passive and relaxed in a walking pose. Effortless and natural, real strengths of this sculpt.

We already know the transformation for this mould is easy and enjoyable, although depending on the kind of collector you are, you may be irked by the fact that most of the time, the clipped-in arms are not perfectly straight or aligned. The hardest step by far is getting the legs to behave and clip in along the side, but once you get just the right amount of bend in the double-jointed knee section, it holds and clips beautifully. The vehicle mode is solid, well-held together and the armoured car that is Dicamus, rolls superbly with those good-looking cavernous green wheels.

But do we actually like it? Well the original version of this character didn’t really have a roof at all, so I don’t suppose one can pick too many holes in the fact that he has no windows to speak of, just painted or barred details on the cockpit section. The original was also a mobile cuboid, so any addition of contour and shape here is welcome. He is every ounce of muscle and brute you’d expect from the character in alternate mode, and you can even mount his weapons appropriately, and in various spots too. Even better if you have the PSX exclusive extra rifle. I have shown him with the rifle and even launcher on the roof, but neither fit there snugly, they wobble about a lot there. Like Titanika, the launchers can be mounted on the front to act as a bumper. So with that relatively simple conversion and with characteristic features evident, I’d say I like this mode.

He certainly scales well for a Generations/Classics collection. He is depicted in the pages of Nick Roche’s masterpiece as having quite a good deal of mass compared to his teammates, so seeing him stand out in a crowd of CHUG-scale toys is no surprise. It’s quite awesome, actually. I must admit, his depiction in the implied comic book story left such a mark on me that I have not even considered giving the comic that comes with Dicamus a chance. That’s not a good way to review things, but I was quite disappointed in all of the recent chapters, and Titanika’s was so badly edited that I felt no need to explore this one. I don’t believe it can add to my appreciation of the toy or character, Nick Roche has already seen to that with great class. Good for Dicamus, really.

Generations, Titans Return and even Generation 1 figures stand in harmony with R-23 Dicamus. This dynamic monument of a robot is steeped in mech history, thanks to his origins and journey to this point as a toy, not to mention the gorgeous fiction that surrounds him – all managed without ever being part of the G1 cartoon. Dicamus does that some quality justice, and he is ready and willing to slide into an established official Generations or Wreckers toy display right from the unboxing. I should mention, he comes packaged in vehicle mode, always a bonus! I do wish MMC would work on easier head-swaps. Unscrewing and screwing again seem almost outdated now, MakeToys and TakaraTomy have shown us this.

As long as you keep an eye on that laser rifle barrel, twist those lower legs around and accept that you are not getting die-cast metal, many painted surfaces (quite happy about this after recent robo-dandruff experiences!) or an array of weaponry, I think you’ll be most happy with Dicamus. Well done to MMC for taking the 6-wheeled Titanika mould and so convincingly squeezing another recognisable character out of it. Well done to MMC for continuing to give fans genuine comic character alternatives to the official stuff, and for keeping the Reformatted line so well-respected in this Masterpiece era.