Dave's Alternator Rant: 6. Dead End (Side Swipe remold) While taking forever to hit stores in my area, Dead End is at least showing up every so often as orderable on walmart.com, so I got one from there. In this review, I will be focusing on differences between Dead End and Side Swipe. My original review of Side Swipe can be found at: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/SideSwipe CAPSULE Dead End: A significant remold of Side Swipe. Looks really good in vehicle mode, and pretty good in robot mode. The transformation is even slightly different. Recommended. $19.76 at walmart.com ($27.78 after shipping and tax) RANT Packaging: The standard (so far) Alternators packaging, with decent box art. The co-sell on the bottom is for the yellow Tracks version, the box was apparently designed or even printed before Hasbro decided to make the U.S. release blue. This may be the last Alternator sold in the current packaging, pictures of Tracks and Meister in box show a new graphic design. There are two plastic straps around the vehicle mode, one passing through the passenger compartment and the other around the entire vehicle, to keep it from rattling apart in the box. VEHICLE MODE Model: Dead End is still a Viper SRT-10, but it's a hardtop version with spoiler and airdam. The spoiler is appropriate for the Sunstreaker recolor that may or may not be coming out later. Colors: The body is black plastic with dull silver stripes *almost* in the classic Viper pattern. What makes them a little different is that they narrow down at the front. They don't quite come to a point, but most Viper Stripes I've seen stay parallel all the way. The windows and lights are a pale clear red, kind of a watermelon color. There's silver trim along the bottom of the sides, silver hubcaps, silver Viper logos on both front fenders and the rear bumper, and a silver Dodge logo on the rear bumper. What looks to be a silver gascap takes a chunk out of the rear window. The rear license plate is white with a purple Decepticon symbol in the middle, flanked by DEAD and END. A red Viper snake symbol is above the grille in front. The underside is left mostly black, with no colors added for this mode (they're all aimed at the robot mode, such few as there are). If you open the hood, the robot foot pieces in the position of the radiator are dark gold, and the engine gun is silver chrome with pale red chrome (just like on Side Swipe). What's The Same: The interior, the windshield piece, the side view mirrors, the rubber in the tires. Every other car part is remolded. And the holes in the flip-down visors on the windshield piece are actually USED in this toy. Oh, and the engine-gun is essentially identical. What's Different: The hood has extra vents in the middle third between the side vents, and it's missing the liner piece with the Viper symbol that's on the inside of Side Swipe's hood. The roof, um, exists, replacing the small piece with the behind-the-chair rollbars. The roof has a vent in the front middle and a clear red rear window. The entire back chunk (that becomes a backpack) is remade, with a squarer back and a spoiler. The front fenders and grille are modified to have an airdam (the bit that drops down in front like an inverse spoiler). The doors have more muscular exhaust vents at the back of the piece (past the end of the actual door). The hubcaps are closer to the look of wire wheels, with 24 spokes looking like 12 flower petals (as opposed to ten spokes paired to look like the arms of a starfish on Side Swipe). Overall: This looks better than Side Swipe, and really looks ready to race. Okay, so the colors are only vaguely reminiscent of G1 Dead End's (he's dark red with black windows, Alt.Dead End is black with red windows). TRANSFORMATION Almost identical to Side Swipe. The windshield rides lower on Dead End and does not clip to the upper chest using the visor pegholes, because the upper chest is constructed differently. A lot easier to go to robot mode than back to vehicle mode. Oh, and when going back to vehicle mode, be sure to pinch the roof down on the peg holes in the visors. ROBOT MODE Colors: Mostly black. The arms are vivid red, but his thighs are black (unlike Side Swipe, who has his secondary color on both arms and thighs). His chest has a silver plate in the center with a Decepticon symbol tampographed in the middle of it. The head is black with dark gold face, red eyes and red vents. There's dark gold painted on the thighs, feet and just below the elbows; silver accents on the "boots" and pelvis. There's red lines lower on the boots (on the vent detailing), and red paint on the cable details of the feet. And, interestingly, bits of purple on the kneecaps. What's the same: All of the robot-specific pieces seem to be the same except for the head and chest. Hence, the poseability is the same as on Side Swipe. What's Different: The big difference is the head, which is essentially an update of Sunstreaker's head. The mouth has a very slight frown to it, but Sunstreaker's got an attitude problem, so they won't really need to tweak that if they do a yellow repaint. The chest is remolded to be a bit sparer, with the silver bit in the middle and no direct link to the windshield. Also, the bit on the rear fenders revealed in this mode is a silver mesh sort of design instead of the missile launchers Side Swipe has. Maybe they're supposed to be intakes for the backpack being a jetpack? The instructions did miss a trick, though. There's more than one way to orient the car doors, and simply saying to put them in a different position would have helped differentiate Dead End from Side Swipe. Overall: The fact that the arms are the only major source of red is a bit odd. I think it would have looked better with black arms and a little red paint here and there on 'em. Otherwise, about as good as Side Swipe. OVERALL TOY I like it a little better than Side Swipe. And it's changed enough that I don't really feel like I'm just buying a recolor. Dave Van Domelen, hopes to find some new Energon, not just recolors, this weekend.