Dave's Dark of the Moon Rant: Deluxe Wave 2 Nitro Bumblebee ("Track" mode) Mudflap (Chevy Spark, short review in progress) Thundercracker (F-22) Laserbeak (Cybertronian VTOL) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/DotM/Deluxe2 My money-and-space-saving decision to avoid "old characters" except in Cyberverse will occasionally lead to some odd purchasing on my part, as I buy redecos without owning the original version of the mold. For instance, Thundercracker is a redeco of Starscream with a different MechTech weapon (they've decided to swap the MechTechs around where feasible to make the redecos a little different). Normally, I'd have bought Starscream and passed on Thundercracker, bought Sideswipe and passed on Darksteel (an upcoming retool). But now it's gonna be all sorts of non-movie characters for me, whee! [Later note: A lot of DotM stuff went on clearance or otherwise became available quite cheaply in December, so I picked up a few figures I'd passed on, including Nitro Bumblebee.] CAPSULES Nitro Bumblenbee: Decent vehicle mode, probably the weakest robot mode of any movie Bumblebee at this size class, though. Neutral. Part of a $9.99 two-pack with Barricade at Target. Mudflap: Wow. Epic ugly. It's like they took all the worst rejected ideas that came up in brainstorming meetings and put them in this toy. Avoid unless you want a trainwreck to stare at. Got as part of a $9.99 two-pack with Cyberfire Bumblebee for $4.99 after coupon. Thundercracker: Pretty good in both modes, good transformation, I like the color scheme. However, they swapped in a different MechTech weapon, but left this with the "dead" half of Starscream's combining weapon, which works poorly on its own. Recommended. $9.88 at Walmart. Laserbeak: Some stability issues and a cheaty "Cybertronian" vehicle mode, but pretty good within those limits and quite articulated in beast mode. Recommended. $9.88 at Walmart. RANTS Packaging: Same as the first burst, except that these come with a catalog poster. One side shows Bumblebee, Optimus (both modes) and Ironhide, emphasizing the interchangeable nature of the MechTech weapons and how they can be attached to either mode. The back side has Voyager Optimus and Megatron, Leader Bumblebee and Sentinel, six Deluxes (Bee, Crankcase, Ratchet, Starscream, Roadbuster and Skids). Cyberverse has the upper right corner, with a scattering of product, Robo Power has a small inset with Activators Optimus, Go-Bots Sideswipe and Revving Robot Bee. A tiny bit in the lower right has some other products, including Bazooka brand candies, clothes, bikes, and school supplies. AUTOBOT: NITRO BUMBLEBEE Altmode: Camaro Concept (Track Mode) Licensor: GM Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: None Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Cybertronian boost engine converts to plasma cannon Function: Rapid Response Motto: "Whenever you call me, I'll be waiting. Whenever you need me, I'll be there." With his mix of loyalty, smarts and fighting skill, BUMBLEBEE is one of the most admired AUTOBOTS. His vehicle mode gives him the ability to attack DECEPTICONS just as quickly as he can rush to the aid of a fallen AUTOBOT comrade. STR 6 INT 8 SPD 6 END 5 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 3 SKL 9 Avg 6.5 Packaging: Standard Deluxe packaging, but taped to Barricade's package with a "SPECIAL VALUE OFFER" sticker bridging the front. One tie holds the car in place, one holds the weapon. Two rubber bands keep the car together. Vehicle Mode: This is a "Track Mode" with exposed gear and armor, although rather than the molded-on weapons of Topspin it just has a lot more 5mm peg holes. Like most Track Modes, there's booster engines on the back, to give Bumblebee some extra thrust to overcome the aerodynamic penalties. 5.25" (13cm) long, a bit shorter than previous Bumblebees. Surprisingly, it's mostly yellow. (/Sarcasm) The front and door windows are dark clear blue plastic, and the headlights might also be this color but you can't really tell. The wheels are black plastic, the rest of this mode is golden yellow plastic. The hexagon-patterned panels on the hood (in the usual stripe positions) and doors are painted gunmetal gray, and that paint is also used on the various border details of the windows and the conduits on the roof and the rear bumper. The jet engines are gunmetal at their base with gold thrusters and orange output. The front grille is gloss black with gold Chevy logo. The license plate is molded with "900 STRA" but not painted. The triangle windows on the rear sides are painted dark blue. The hood's 5mm peg hole is unpainted, unlike the other four. All five of the peg holes are unconcealed, and in fact they're emphasized by being inside of tech chunks sticking up from the body shell like metal pimples. (Bumblebee's going through Cybertronian puberty?) One on the hood center, two on the roof, one on each rear side about where many cars have gas caps. While the panel lines and hinges make it look like the doors can be opened, they can't (the hinge lets the front wheels fold back). MechTech Weapon: This one is notable for not being a weapon in both modes. Most MechTech weapons turn from one kind of weapon to another (usually melee to ranged or vice versa, although some go from "gun" to "other gun"). This one is a big engine block in stowed mode, becoming a gun when it deploys. In stowed mode, it's an almost comically oversized turbocharged engine block, mostly dark gray. 1.75" (4.5cm) long, with the peg on the bottom just behind the midpoint. It'd look better on Bumblebee if there was a recessed slot on the hood to let the engine block on top ride a little more snugly, but it's credible. It's almost entirely dark gray plastic, the trigger on the top back is light gray, and some stubby muzzle tips at the front are light gray (so it can kinda be called a weapon even in this mode). There's some yellow paint barely visible, but it's meant for weapon mode. Pulling back on the trigger makes the mushroomy top swing forward and down, while twin barrels swing out from under it, resulting in a twin- barrelled blaster rifle 3" (7.5cm) long. The yellow paint is more obvious in this mode, and some of the light gray gears are visible now. Transformation: While the broad strokes are typical movie Bumblebee, most of the details are different. Particularly clever is the way the legs unfold from the rear section, keeping the jet thrusters on the calves while everything else unfolds from inside them for the lower legs. On the less clever side, a rather large percentage of the body shell ends up as an awkward backpack. The hood splits into thirds to give the recessed center look to the robot, but the tabs that try to hold the sides in place don't do a very good job. I recommend ignoring the instructions and having the door wings lifted up instead of down. Down covers the sides of the backpack better, but up looks better from the front and blocks the arms less. Robot Mode: He looks like he's wearing a tank-top or something, given the total lack of vehicle parts on his arms. No matter what you do with the backpack, the result is oddly balanced, visually. Stability is also questionable, especially in the chest. 5.25" (13.5cm) tall, in the usual colors, although the arms don't have as much yellow as they usually do. The head, knees and shins are golden yellow, the lightpiping is clear blue, otherwise all the newly visible parts in this mode are dark gray plastic. The face is painted gunmetal, there's gold on the shins, and golden yellow on the shoulders. Oh, and the eyes are painted bright blue, rendering the lightpiping largely pointless. The head is a swivel, the waist doesn't turn. The shoulders are ball joints, there's swivels just above the hinge elbows. The elbows bend in "doing curls" direction. The hands are in a relaxed open position, too far open to hold 5mm pegs. Ball joint hips with swivels just below them. The knees are dual hinges, but the thrusters on the calves give the toy too much of a thruster-boot effect to let the knees bend very far. The ankles are hinged with about 30 degree range. The roof peg holes are covered up, the rear fender ones end up on the halves, and the hood peg hole is behind the head where it can be used to mount some (although Bumblebee's own tends to run into the back of his head). There's holes on the tops of the forearms. There don't seem to be any places for 3mm or c-clip accessories. Overall: There's a LOT of Bumblebees out there. This is probably the weakest of the Deluxe molds, though. For five bucks it's okay, but certainly don't pay full price for it. AUTOBOT: MUDFLAP Altmode: Chevy Spark Licensor: GM Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: Cybertron, RotF Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Blaster converts to Cybertronian battle axe Function: Sacrificial Anode Motto: "So, they kill me off, and then cut that scene? Weaksauce!" MUDFLAP is quickly becoming a veteran AUTOBOT soldier, but there are days he cannot believe he's battling the DECEPTICONS shoulder-to-shoulder with OPTIMUS PRIME. MUDFLAP shows the courage and enthusiasm of a distinguished AUTOBOT even though the DECEPTICONS may have to wait a few years before they truly fear him. STR 4 INT 5 SPD 7 END 5 RNK 2 COUR 9 FRB 4 SKL 3 Avg 4.875 Mudflap may have made it into the toy line, but he was cut from the movie, probably before the effects shots were completed. Originally (as seen in the novelization based on an earlier version of the script), he and Skids sacrificed themselves to give the rest time to escape, but they ended up completely cut. Guess even Bay couldn't stand 'em anymore. To be honest, I really only got this because I was curious whether Cyberfire Bumblebee was any good, and I had a $5-off coupon that was about to expire so I used it on a two-pack. I don't expect to put much time into this review. Packaging: One string on vehicle mode, one string on the weapon. Vehicle Mode: The Chevy Spark is the 2011 concept vehicle in the class, with the Beat and Trax having not gone to production after all. Rather than burnt orange with gray details, this time he's black with orange stripes, which just doesn't look as good. Additionally, the retractable roof peg hole covers aren't painted to match the roof stripes, so they stand out and might as well have been left as bare holes. The panels are misaligned right out of the box, with the rear bit of the roof not lining up with the rest of it. I think the peg that connects it to the main roof is a little too long, or the hole too shallow, just shoving it on harder doesn't fix the problem. Two covered peg holes on the roof, and the windows are smoky clear plastic that blends in with the black plastic of the shell except under strong light. MechTech Weapon: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/DotM/WalPrime covers this, as Racing Series Optimus Prime got a redeco of it. Mudflap's version is all medium gray plastic with yellow paint on the blade. Transformation: The doors and roof fold up into a backpack, the rear wheels pop out on stubby legs, and most of the car hunches over into one of the worst robot torsos I've seen in a while. Robot Mode: Wow...so, I mentioned the orange stripes on black didn't look that good? The eye-searing orange plastic that springs out all over in this mode is even worse. And even that fails to distract from what has to be one of the ugliest designs to come down the pipe in a long time. The bright orange and black color scheme is just gilding the lily (or spraypainting the dandelion gold, I suppose). 3.75" (9cm) tall at the head, but very squat. It has painted-over lightpiping, naturally. Lots of dark silver on the exposed Bayformery bits of the upper torso. Articulation is so-so, hampered by the big torso and stumpy limbs. The knees don't bend the correct direction at all. Both fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's two more peg holes on the oversized left forearm and one on the right forearm. The rooftop peg holes are covered. There's 3mm rod segments on top of the shoulders Overall: Wow. I am so glad this only cost me $2.50. It is epically bad, a fitting sendoff for a character who is also epically bad. DECEPTICON: THUNDERCRACKER Altmode: F-22 Raptor Licensor: McDonnell-Douglas Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: G1, MW, Ti, Armada, Cybertron, Movie1, TF:A Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Blaster converts to assault saw Function: Air Warrior Motto: "Consider this fight a learning experience. For me, anyway. You'll be too dead to learn anything." STARSCREAM thinks highly of THUNDERCRACKER. He tries to instill the less experienced TRANSFORMER with attack strategies and weapons information for the day when he finally usurps the throne from MEGATRON. THUNDERCRACKER is a quick learner and a serious threat to any AUTOBOT that dare [sic] engage him in battle. STR 9 INT 4 SPD 9 END 5 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 9 SKL 6 Avg 6.75 Some pronoun troubles in there, but the gist is that Starscream is grooming Thundercracker to be his own number two once Screamer takes over. Also, Intelligence 4 does not really suggest a quick learner. Packaging: Three strings hold the jet mode into the blister, with his sword weapon attached to the underside of the left wing and angled inward. A plastic blister protects the tail section, held on with a rubber band. The landing gear is deployed. The redeco'ed Roadbuster saw weapon is held in by one string. Oddly, the instructions don't show the sword weapon at all, and it's absent from the cardback photos. It's a bit of an orphan accessory, though, being designed to combine with Starscream's MechTech weapon and with no way to combine with the chainsaw that Thundercracker gets. Vehicle Mode: This is the usual F-22 Raptor form that movie Starscream gets, only done in darkish blue with red and silver along the lines of the G1 Thundercracker toy (rather than the light blue of the cartoon). There's surprisingly little undercarriage junk for a Deluxe, pretty much just the arms under the centerline and some oddly angled hardpoints under the wings. They were rather clever with the rear landing gear, which fold up against the wings and become part of the feet in robot mode. The tail pieces are more stable than most F-22 Transformers have, folding down easily but stopping solidly a the deployed upward position and held on by pinned hinges rather than a ball joint or other loose and poppable joint. 6.25" (16cm) long with a wingspan of 4.5" (11.5cm), making it about 1:120 scale. Most of the plastic is a darkish medium blue a little darker than the G1 toy. The landing gear, thrusters and some various joints and undercarriage kibble are light gray plastic. The nose tip is rubbery 90% gray plastic (as in, almost black), and there's regular plastic in that color throughout the undercarriage. The cockpit is clear yellow plastic. There's silver details on the cockpit border, tops of the jet intakes, and the odd hardpoints under the wings are painted entirely silver. A blobby silver Decepticon symbol is printed on the right wing, and tech-y mixed stripes of silver and red are printed on the wings and tail parts. A bit of the plastic ahead of the gray thruster plastic is painted silver as well. There's no paint on the landing gear wheels, but they almost never do that. There are six 5mm peg holes on the underside, none on the top. One on each wing in the silver chunks, one on each tail segment, and two on the centerline (robot forearms). The weapons are meant to attach on the wing hardpoints. There do not seem to be any 3mm rod connections. Stability is decent, although it's a bit wobbly in places due to lack of pegging or click-stops. MechTech Weapon: See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/DotM/Deluxe1 with the green replaced by blue plastic, and the light gray with red. When mounted on the wing, it can't be deployed. I think the remaining non-MechTech part of Starscream's weapon is supposed to form a gunpod under one wing, although in-package it's attached so that the blade more or less tracks the leading edge of the wing. As a gunpod, it looks a little less bad, and the front of the barrel tip is almost exaclty even with the barrel tip of the MechTech weapon. Checking Starscream's packaging confirms this original design intention. The weapon is 3.5" (9cm) long and made entirely of light gray plastic, with a pale gold paint on the blade. It is, in fact, a slightly darker gray plastic than the rest of Thundercracker, which almost makes me wonder if they just ran a bunch of extra Starscreams and kept out the weapons (maybe a store exclusive that will get an entirely different weapon). Transformation: Rather complex, especially for a Deluxe. You have to get some stuff in the right order, or you risk popping pieces off while trying to transform them. The wings and tail all fold up to become the back, with those weird hardpoints folding out to become the torso sides. Robot Mode: A little less of a gorilla-mech than previous movie Starscream toys, but still definitely following the movie model. Because of having fewer parts to work with, the upper torso has more gaps in it than the various Voyager sized Starscreams, but it still looks decent. The hands have dual thumbs but can't hold anything, being posed more like animal claws. The pelvis is a bit blocky, giving the unfortunate appearance of wearing a mecha-diaper or something. They made clever use of the rear landing gear as heel spurs. The head has an interesting design feature: the connecting bolt is on the side, running from ear to ear, rather than the usual back of the head attachment. The screw hole is pretty shallow, but deep enough you can stick a flat-ended 3mm peg into it and it'll stay (I tried this with Cyberverse Ironhide's cannons, the front one works but the one with the clip doesn't as its rod has a rounded tip). There's almost no clearance on the side of the head during transformation, so any headpiece mod you might want to make using this hole will have to be removed before going to jet mode. They didn't remold anything that I can tell, but that's quite appropriate...seeker clones should only differ in color. :) About 5" (13cm) tall depending on how you arrange the legs, dominated by medium dark blue, black and silver/light gray with red and yellow accents. The paint job seems as susceptible to masking problems here as in vehicle mode, with several blurry borders. The head is made of three pieces, two blue pieces on either side with a light gray piece sandwiched in between. The gray piece is visible as a close-cropped "mohawk" on top of the head, the lower face, and the eyes (which are painted over). The blue pieces are painted entirely black, a good enough match I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't taken the head apart. The shoulders are moved outward on struts that are blue on the back (wing surface top) and dark gray plastic on the front. A light gray piece is hinged up and down at the shoulder strut and then ends in a ball that connects to a socket in the upper arms, which are blue. The lower half of each upper arm is light gray plastic, connected by a transformation hinge to the upper part. The forearms, hands and shins are dark gray plastic. The wrist joints, pelvis, knee region (it's a digitigrade arrangement, with the true shins being very short) and heel spurs are light gray plastic. The thighs, toes, pelvis front and the majority of the torso are blue plastic. The eyes are painted gold, the same hue as the non-MechTech weapon's blade. There's silver on the collar area, the lower torso flanks, and along with red on the thigh fronts. The fronts of the upper arms are also painted red, with a nice crisp silver Decepticon symbol on the left upper arm. There's plenty of unpainted "Cybertronian shard cloud" details molded in parts that are meant to be visible in this mode. A simple swivel makes the neck joint, there's no waist joint. The shoulders and elbows are ball joints. The upper arm joint is a transformation hinge, not very useful in this mode. The wrists are double hinges that let the hands fold flat against the inside of the forearm, exposing a 4mm by 2mm peg on the wrist piece that's for better stability in jet mode. You can plug this peg into a slot near the 5mm peg of the non-MechTech weapon to make a sort of cannon-arm, but the 5mm peg blocks you from making a sword-arm this way. The hips are ball joints, the ankles have no meaningful articulation (just transformation hinges). The knees are weird digitigrade assemblies, as mentioned before, with hinges at the top and bottom of the "true shin" chunk and a swivel in the middle. The top hinge seems intended to stay at 90 degrees all the time, with the lower hinge doing most of the work. The MechTech peg holes are all still accessible, if not necessarily useful. The tail ones are on the back, the wing attachments are on the sides of the lower torso, and the ones from the underside of the jet are now on the backs of the forearms. Overall: They really should've just given this the same MechTech weapon as Starscream and not tried swapping things around. Otherwise, this is a good Deluxe mold, worth picking up. I'd say this looks better than Starscream (sorry, the "gray with tattoos" design doesn't really grab me), but Starscream has a better weapon, so if you don't have either it's a tossup which to get. DECEPTICON: LASERBEAK Altmode: Hover Jet Licensor: None Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: G1, Cybertron, TF:A Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Convertible dual-barrel Cybertronian cannon Function: Scout/Assassin Motto: "I think, therefore you aren't." LASERBEAK grows more independent each day spent away from CYBERTRON. The loyal servant of SOUNDWAVE and the DECEPTICONS has become more self-aware since arriving in the Milky Way. LASERBEAK continuously monitors AUTOBOT troop movement from adar, plotting the perfect moment to unleash his laser attack. STR 3 INT 2 SPD 8 END 5 RNK 3 COUR 5 FRB 8 SKL 7 Avg 5.125 I suppose that compared to Laserbeak, Thundercracker is a quick study. Stupid, stupid vulture creature! Packaging: Four strings on the "hover jet" mode, one string each on the two weapons. Vehicle Mode: In the movie, Laserbeak used advanced spy-changing tech much like Frenzy did in the first movie, turning into a variety of objects to disguise himself on the fly. These included a copier and a pink mini- Bumblebee. At no time did he turn into a VTOL drone, but that's what this toy uses, decorated in shades of gray with some red and silver accents. The ducted fans in the wings and the general look remind me a lot of the non-helicopter VTOLs from Mechwarrior (clicky game version), or the Blue Ranger's first Zord from Power Rangers SPD. It has cockpit windows that would make it look about to scale with Thundercracker, but that's just the Mini-Con Effect (Mini-Cons in Armada had proper windows and stuff, but their vehicle modes were smaller than humans). Mind you, while they hide most of the beast bits, there's still a few feathers and claws and stuff sticking out. It's a lot better than Ravage's re-entry mode, but still emphasizes the beast mode over the vehicle mode. The wingspan (stubby winglets stick out past the hoverfans) is 5.75" (14.5cm), and the nose-to-tail length is 4.5" (11.5cm). The hoverfans and the various folded up wing and tail pieces from beast mode are bright red plastic. The cockpit top, the visible beast claws and the middle of the tail are black plastic. The rest is a medium cool gray plastic. Gunmetal paint is used on the top sides of the exposed wing bits (including the intentional wing stubs), part of the tail claw section, and the mostly-hidden beast head. The two blades at the back of the tail are painted silver, the cockpit windows are blue-silver. Bird of prey head patterns are printed in white with red eyes on the sides of the cockpit. There's no Decepticon symbol, because he's in disguise as an everyday, run of the mill alien VTOL. The hoverfan nacelles can tilt forward and back, or "flap" up on shoulder joints. You can spin the hoverfans themselves manually, but friction stops them immediately in this mode. Everything else is supposed to be locked in place, although the tail doesn't really stay pegged and the pods "hiding" the legs aren't pegged at all. There's 5mm peg holes on top of the centers of the hoverfans, underside centers of the hoverfans, top and bottom of the cockpit, undersides of the leg-pods. If there's any 3mm rods on the main vehicle, I have not been able to find them. MechTech Weapon: These are made of a darker gray than the gray in the main toy, and a warmer gray. The normal form is two chunky rotary cannon rifles that are very similar in shape, with the "active" piece having more stuff in the underslung position to make room for the action gimmick slider. Each has a four-barreled cannon, with a 3mm rod handle on top and a large oddly-shaped stock sticking up the back. The "dead" piece is a little over 2.5" (6.5cm) long, while the "active" piece is 2.75" (7.5cm) long and generally chunkier. Neither has any paint, both have 5mm pegs for handles. The dead piece has a T-shaped protrusion at the front of its smaller underside piece, meant for plugging into the back of the active piece for combined mode. Pushing forward on the stock of the active piece makes the barrel piece spin around in the horizontal plane, rotating one and a half times to present a new 8-pronged energy blaster barrel. The new length is only a few millimeters longer, since the stock now ends up within the main body. Unfortunately, the barrel spin doesn't always stay pointed straight. If ratchets in one direction, if you keep spinning it while the guns are combined it will eventually point mostly straight, in my experience. Sticking the dead piece into the back of the active one locks the barrel ALMOST in place, but it ends up rocking back a few degrees and making the weapon look bent. The combined rifle length is 5" (13cm). Unfortunately, there's no good way to mount this in either mode. In vehicle mode, the best bet is to put the front peg on the underside of the cockpit (there's no clearance for the rear peg if you put it on top), although it's a bit unwieldy. In beast mode, it gets even worse, because the folding-down of the cockpit leaves only one centerline peg hole...and it makes Laserbeak appear VERY happy to see you. Transformation: Pull the tail open, pull the claws down, open the nacelles and unfold the wings, fold down the cockpit and pull the head and neck out. A couple of panels on the back fold open to expose more spiney bits. Pretty straightforward when going to beast mode, a little less so when going back to vehicle mode (notably, getting the stuff aligned so that the hover nacelles can close is a bit tricky). Beast Mode: If the vehicle mode suggested maybe a falcon or eagle lurked within, what pops out is more scavenger than hunter. The ugly, bug-eyed head atop a snakelike neck immediately screams vulture or buzzard. The ugliest condor looks downright cuddly next to this robotic necrophage. Actually, if you leave the cockpit in place, it can almost still pass for a raptor (of the bird variety, not the dino variety), albeit one with somewhat ragged wings. Wingspan is 10.5" (27cm) when straight out, although they're supposed to be swept forward a bit. Length is 6" (15cm) if you straighten out the neck and tail. The color scheme brings out a lot more red since the wings are undolded, and a bit more black is revealed in the form of the talons and neck, but it's not a huge change. The wings and oddball underwear feathers are red plastic, in addition to the turbines in the wing roots. The head, most of the neck, most of the tail, and the talons are black plastic. Everything else is some type of medium gray plastic, although I think the bits in the neck and tail joints, as well as the shins and heel spurs, are a different (more slippery) plastic than the gray used in the main shell parts. Gunmetal paint on the wings blends them back to the turbine housings, and the head is mostly painted gunmetal. The eyeballs are metallic light blue with red pupil slits and a few other red bits on the forehead. Speaking of the eyes, they look like the socket parts of ball joints, with the pupils being the expansion slits. Joints are extensive, if oddly limited. The neck is four short segments connected by restricted ball joint pieces, and can snake around pretty well. The tail is similar, but ending in a hinged piece rather than a ball. It can swing down like a hornet's stinger, attacking with the twin blades at the tip. The wings can flap up and down between flat and 45 degrees up. They can't fold down to the sides. There's a swivel just out past the root hinge if you want to tilt the turbines forward as a hurricane weapon. The wings swivel out in pieces for transformation, giving some ability to fold them back or otherwise tweak the pose. There's "thumb" pieces that swing out and make the wings look more ragged. The hips are ball joints out on struts that are double swivels for transformation. The knees are double hinges, the ankles are restricted ball joints and the heels hinged. But despite all that, the useful articulation of the legs is limited. The four 5mm connection points on the wings are still accessible, the "landing gear" ones are on the underside of the talons, and the one from the top of the cockpit is now on the underside of the chest. The one under the cockpit is covered up in this mode. Oh, and one nice little touch is that while the cockpit cover does just sort of hang on the underside of the chest, details molded inside it (and only visible in this mode) look like weapon or sensor ports. And, of course, with his combined rifle attached to the cockpit (pun surely not intended by the designers) he's clearly happy to see you. Overall: A pretty credible robotic vulture, and not a horrible Cybertronian vehicle mode. There's some stability issues, although most of the problems in that regard involve the MechTech weapon. If you insist on realistic vehicle modes, this one isn't for you, but I'd say it's a clear winner on the "beast companion" front (compared to Scorponok and Ravage). Dave Van Domelen, will probably do the Ark next, if only so he can start setting up all his other Cyberverse around it.