REVIEW: 44008 Surge

[ZORK64]

Yeah, instead of letting you folks wait yet another week for the next review of mine, I'll do it now, just to make sure all my reviews are online before this wave is already about to be forgotten because of any leaks of the next wave (which are somewhat bound to happen soon, I guess - though I'm just speculating here).

After Frost Beast and Aquagon, it's time to review another hero now, and this time, it's Surge. I might be wrong on this, but so far, I got the feeling that Surge is the third wheel of the rookie trio, probably because he got only a Scout sized set during Breakout, while Furno and Breez made the jump to being Deluxe sets. Now with Brain Attack, the size classes got a bit mixed up. While Furno went XL, Breez got downsized to the Scout class. And now, Surge becomes not only a Deluxe in the second wave, his enemy Dragon Bolt is also the largest villain of this wave! He gets attention, yay!

But does this upgrade really improves Surge? Let's find out.

Set name: Surge

Set Number: 44008

Price: 12.99 Euro

Pieces: 66 (+ 3 spare parts)

Year of release: Summer 2013

Size class: Deluxe set

The bag

Surge is flying across the halls of the Brain lab, while some sort of crazy lightning is going on underneath him. Always remember kids: As soon as the electricity goes haywire, better fly away!

Surge got plenty of fancy features, and he can also combine with the ginormous Dragon Bolt for even bigger wings, as you can see on the back of his bag.

Inside the bag - the parts

As a Deluxe-sized set, Surge got a whopping 69 parts (3 of these are spare parts though). For a blue set, he got a surprisingly high amount of silver and grey parts, and his thunder theme is supported by many trans-green pieces. It's overall a good collection of parts.

Surge's new helmet doesn't look that jaw-like in real as it does on this picture. I was just unable to make a picture of it that shows that fact. Aside from this, I can say almost the same I've said about Stormer's new helmet: Surge's new helmet is a nice update of his original helmet which feels a bit thicker around a few spots. The only thing I really miss on his new helmet is the speaker-like section on the front. It looked very cool on the original.

Surge gets also a fancy recolour of the "generic flame/energy/spike thing" which was introduced with Pyrox and Furno XL in the past wave. It is cast in 3 instead of 2 colours like the other ones.

Then there's that gun-barrel thing. Aside from it's very Space-y colour, it gives off a strong TECHNIC vibe, so I'm sure it's not an all-new Hero Factory piece.

A few pics from the instructions

Ah, there we got the cover of the bag again. Very nice.

The picture for Surge's combiner actually manages to hide one of his wings, thanks to the slug in the upper right corner.

I'm myself not all that keen on the combiner. To me, it looks mostly like Surge just with Dragon Bolt's wings (which keep their action gimmick, more on that in Dragon Bolt's review) slapped on.

Building the set

If you've followed my past reviews, you probably already expected that Surge's build begins with putting somethin to his back. And yeah, you're right.

However, Surge takes this up to eleven, as he actually already gets most of his back (though not everything) even before he gets limbs.

The instructions practically stop right before he would get his wings.

Before he can start to fly, he needs to be able to walk, apparently (as usual, the left leg was left blank just for comparison).

Naturally, the arms are the next part to be built.

He also already gets the grip of his weapon, which is more TECHNIC-focused than that of Stormer's sword.

Also, if you've followed my past reviews, you probably already know when we'll finish his weapon, right?

His shoulders get transparent shells, unlike the legs, who are all solid (and mostly silver).

Wait, did I forget to take a picture of Surge's visor while I was rambling about the new parts? Oh well, let me do this now then: Surge's visor is trans-green, and it ist also printed. The printing is almost symmetrical, except for a small red lense on the left (from his POV). The sleek design really fits Surge's aerial theme as well.

After the head, he gets his torso done.

Now it's time to finish his back by adding the wings! The build itself is rather simple. Two TECHNIC parts, a flick-missile, and we're done.

It then goes of course on his back.

The other wing is of course a mirrored version of this. I won't even bother with making a pictur of adding it to Surge's back.

After the wings are done, we assemble Surge's thunder weapon. I guess the picture above shows how it's assembled.

Add the barrel then to the machinery he already holds, and we have...

The finished set!

With his thunder weapon and wings, Surge is ready to fly to infinity... and beyond!

Oh yeah right, spare parts.

Design and playability

Back in the original wave, Surge's associated element was thunder, and unlike some other heroes, he never went that far away from it as far as his weaponry goes. This time, his element is combined with a sky motif, which makes just perfect sense for him.

His thunder weapon works pretty much the same as Pyrox' flame spear in the first BA wave. It's a nice gimmick, but the weapon itself is quite large and feels a bit cumbersome.

Pew! Pew!

The combination of silver and blue with some bright trans-green thrown in results in a fine colour scheme, my only complaint here would be the gunmetal wings, which stand a bit out.

He also got some flick missiles on his back, which are connected to his wings. Aiming and firing these suckers is a bit hard though and not nearly as easy and enjoyable as it was with Stormer. I don't want to complain too much about that though, since it's not his only gimmick.

Oh, in case you haven't figured it out during the building process: Surge's wings can not be easily removed like Stormer's missile launchers without leaving any traces of them there. You'll need to alter a few things if you want to remove his wings (though of course, why should anyone want to do so?).

Surge's poseability is overall good. Nothing of his many parts really gets in the way of each other, and even his wings can moved downward. They rest in a 90° angle thanks to the TECHNIC piece between them, which I really like.

He is, however, not perfect in terms of design. His wings are a big offender of this in various ways. As I already stated, they're gunmetal, and since most of his other metallic parts are silver, I'd wish they were silver too. The other problem is of course their asymmetry, though we already expected that since that piece debuted in Furno XL as a shield. It may be also not that big of an issue, but symmetry is something very important to me, so it does bother me a bit.

Another thing that bugs me is, sadly, a visible gap between his helmet and his visor. It's noticeably large, so as soon as you look at Surge's head from the side (as in this picture), you'll notice it. But hey, at least the large eye holes on the helmet make sure that his helmet doesn't look so freakishly weird like Furno XL's helmet did.

Compared with his buddy Stormer, Surge is pretty much the same height. Stormer might seems to be bulkier and wider on this picture, but that's only because Surge's wings are folded downward.

Final thoughts

All in all, Surge benefits greatly from the jump to the Deluxe class. Despite using not all that much blue (just like Breez in the winter wave), he still looks clearly like Surge, and he comes with a fair share of very cool parts.

But still, Surge's design didn't amazed me as much as Stormer's mostly because of the minor design flaws he's plagued with. Because of that, Surge is only second to Stormer, but let me tell you, it's a very close second, and he's still a very fantastic set.

Edited August 12, 2013 by ZORK64

[Dorek]

I like his overall look, it's very streamlined, and the wings sell it.

But dat weapon... wasn't good on Pyrox, won't be good on Surge.

[MakutaDreadscythe]

Loving the colour consistency on this guy, he was blue, silver and yellow the first wave, glad to see that makes a return here. No more tacky lime green!

[Leewan]

Thanks for the review, ZORK. Personally, I like Surge better than Stormer. The helmet looks nice. My only complaint is that the trans-neon green could have been replaced with trans yellow.

Surge gets also a fancy recolour of the "generic flame/energy/spike thing" which was introduced with Pyrox and Furno XL in the past wave. It is cast in 3 instead of 2 colours like the other ones.

Are you sure there are three colours ? Maybe the trans-green is just an effect of the blue blending with the yellow.

Then there's that gun-barrel thing. Aside from it's very Space-y colour, it gives off a strong TECHNIC vibe, so I'm sure it's not an all-new Hero Factory piece.

No, this part is not new, it appeared last year in the Ultrabuild SuperHeroes line, and was used this year on some LoC vehicles and on the new UCS X-Wing.

[bacem]

thanks, ZORK64. good review as usual.

now i'm waiting for your DB review.

Edited July 30, 2013 by bacem

[ZORK64]

Thanks for your feedback guys.

But dat weapon... wasn't good on Pyrox, won't be good on Surge.

I also would have preferred something like a spear for him. It doesn't look that elegant in my eyes.

Are you sure there are three colours ? Maybe the trans-green is just an effect of the blue blending with the yellow.

That's a good question, actually. To me, it looks like the green is a colour of its own and not a mixture of the blue and the yellow, especially since the red/yellow flame piece doesn't really have some orange inbetween (which it should have in this case). There's also so much of that green, and it doesn't blend all that well into the blue part. Hmmm...

[Aethersprite]

Thanks for the review ZORK! Surge's my favourite Hero of the wave; in fact, he's my favourite Brain Attack set. I don't like his weapon though, I'll try to think of a way to mod it.

[Shakar]

So I'm not the only one who doesn't like his weapon. The tr. neon "gatling gun" piece, the yellow piece and the spinning function give off a toy-like look I really don't like.

And I agree about the wings. It's funny that the new blade/wing/shield piece exists exclusively in titanium metallic, yet it's been exclusively used in 3 Heroes (*) who always used silver as their main metallic/accent colour. Furno XL just couldn't decide whether to be silver or titanium metallic, so used both colours on him.

* = I don't count the single piece used as the tail of "Rocka's jet"

[Aanchir]

Good review. Surge is a cool set but I can't help but think his back would have looked better if instead of that Technic T-piece, it had used this piece. It'd make the back seem a little less gappy. Same goes for Stormer, really — I think a full-module gap between the back armor and the back surface of the torso beam is just too much in most cases, particularly with no other elements filling that empty space.

His weapon and wings are cool. The flick missiles are well-integrated even with such a simple construction. To be honest, I don't mind the fact that the wings are asymmetrical, but the way they're asymmetrical bothers me a great deal. Since only one surface of that shield piece tapers, they end up looking less than aerodynamic. If it had just been the "H" emblem or other textural details on them that didn't match on both sides I wouldn't have minded one bit. The fact that the overall shape of the part is asymmetrical presents more of a problem. The wings' color doesn't bother me since the wings are more of an accessory than a part of the armor, just as that part was on Stormer or Furno XL.

Surge's helmet looks cool and I don't mind the eyes sticking out past the edges of the visor much. Though if his visor really doesn't close all the way (which is what it sounds like you're describing with the "visible gap"; correct me if I'm wrong), that's a somewhat disappointing aspect of its design.

I love Surge's color scheme and he's very well-armored, as I'd expect at this price point. The transparent armor on his arms is a curious design decision but not one that I think hurts his design. It gives him a nice energetic feel, kind of like the heavy use of lime did on last year's version.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Aanchir

[ZORK64]

Good review. Surge is a cool set but I can't help but think his back would have looked better if instead of that Technic T-piece, it had used this piece. It'd make the back seem a little less gappy. Same goes for Stormer, really — I think a full-module gap between the back armor and the back surface of the torso beam is just too much in most cases, particularly with no other elements filling that empty space.

While it's only a minor detail, I can agree with you now that you mention it Aanchir. I might be wrong on this, but I guess they didn't went with the triangle piece because of the costs.

Surge's helmet looks cool and I don't mind the eyes sticking out past the edges of the visor much. Though if his visor really doesn't close all the way (which is what it sounds like you're describing with the "visible gap"; correct me if I'm wrong), that's a somewhat disappointing aspect of its design.

The gap exists because the sight of his helmet is wider than his visor goes. That's also the reason why it's only noticeable from the side, but not the front. It certainly is a bit of a bummer, but on the other hand, the wide eyes of the helmet were kinda vital to keep the look of Surge right, so I'm fine with that.

I love Surge's color scheme and he's very well-armored, as I'd expect at this price point. The transparent armor on his arms is a curious design decision but not one that I think hurts his design. It gives him a nice energetic feel, kind of like the heavy use of lime did on last year's version.

I'm also kinda surprised how well all this stuff works on him. I was at first also a bit sceptical about him having trans-blue shoulders, but once he's finished, everything just fits together nicely.

[Aethersprite]

Just got Surge today, and unfortunately the printing on his visor sits a little too high such that the eye holes on the visor are slightly higher than those on his helmet. A small flaw though, otherwise he's a really fantastic set!

[catman45]

Overall, the set is pretty cool (I have it ). Comment on the brain over Surge's wing, it looks like the brain is eating it!