Death's Head
08-01-12, 10:07 AM
After the elegance of his original Transmetal body, Cheetor’s upgraded form is quite a monstrosity. A hunched, bloated looking creature that looks like it’s been pumped full of steroids. It’s a huge, bulky thing and hard to imagine this being one of the fastest land mammals. In the context of other late 1990s ‘Extreme’ toys (see also : Extreme Ghostbusters, Batman Beyond, Action Man), these Transmetal 2 figures aren’t so unusual looking, but Cheetor here is perhaps a great example of when the aesthetic is pushed too far – or rather not far enough.
The beast mode sculpt is excellent. It’s nicely detailed with parts of machinery shot through the creature’s body piercing the flesh here and there. The armoured sections, beautifully rendered in deep red chrome are great and there’s that excellent snarling face. Aside from some slight cost cutting by keeping paint apps to a bare minimum the bulky, mutated form looks very good indeed. The missile launcher works in beast mode and the limbs are posable, but only to a degree. Given the slightly awkward body that Cheetor has to work with, his limbs in beast mode don’t allow for the same range of movement and dynamism that his previous transmetal body had, so the best you can do is put him in variations of a crouching/ ready to pounce type mode. The front paws also fail to successfully hide the robot mode thumbs, leaving Cheetor with a slight imbalance here too. The tail could also have done with being jointed, rather than a single immobile piece.
It’s the robot mode that lets Cheetor down the most though. Easily accomplished by simply rotating the beast mode torso and tucking in the cat head and spinning the robot head into position, it fails to carry over the bulk and power of the beast mode successfully to the robot. The overlong limbs aren’t a good match for a slightly squat torso and bring with them their own set of problems. The articulation in the legs is limited to simple hinges meaning that the ball joints on the hips are largely wasted. The arms aren’t too bad, but its those great big flippers that pass for hands that harm the figure. The lenghtly bladed fingers make it difficult for Cheetor to wield his gun, although Kenner’s designers have cleverly created a serrated handle to make it a little easier for the figure to grasp. The fixed right hand is neither use nor ornament and although an attempt has been made to compensate for this by giving his right forearm a flip up ‘blast shield’, I think I’d rather have had a wrist joint. The head is nicely designed, but a little flat looking in the flesh which again harms the aesthetics. The overall lightweight feel to the toy and general stinginess with the paint apps don’t help matters either. Cheetor does have some nicely designed parts and the detailing is excellent whatever flaws the actual figure has, but its all washed out in a sea of bland grey plastics and custard yellow.
It’s suprising to see such a step down for a key character’s toy representation. Cheetor deserved better than this misfire. With some better joints and few more paint details, the mould would have been excellent and lived up to its promise. Still, its still better than the horror he’d end up with for his first turn in Beast Machines but that’s damning with faint praise.
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The beast mode sculpt is excellent. It’s nicely detailed with parts of machinery shot through the creature’s body piercing the flesh here and there. The armoured sections, beautifully rendered in deep red chrome are great and there’s that excellent snarling face. Aside from some slight cost cutting by keeping paint apps to a bare minimum the bulky, mutated form looks very good indeed. The missile launcher works in beast mode and the limbs are posable, but only to a degree. Given the slightly awkward body that Cheetor has to work with, his limbs in beast mode don’t allow for the same range of movement and dynamism that his previous transmetal body had, so the best you can do is put him in variations of a crouching/ ready to pounce type mode. The front paws also fail to successfully hide the robot mode thumbs, leaving Cheetor with a slight imbalance here too. The tail could also have done with being jointed, rather than a single immobile piece.
It’s the robot mode that lets Cheetor down the most though. Easily accomplished by simply rotating the beast mode torso and tucking in the cat head and spinning the robot head into position, it fails to carry over the bulk and power of the beast mode successfully to the robot. The overlong limbs aren’t a good match for a slightly squat torso and bring with them their own set of problems. The articulation in the legs is limited to simple hinges meaning that the ball joints on the hips are largely wasted. The arms aren’t too bad, but its those great big flippers that pass for hands that harm the figure. The lenghtly bladed fingers make it difficult for Cheetor to wield his gun, although Kenner’s designers have cleverly created a serrated handle to make it a little easier for the figure to grasp. The fixed right hand is neither use nor ornament and although an attempt has been made to compensate for this by giving his right forearm a flip up ‘blast shield’, I think I’d rather have had a wrist joint. The head is nicely designed, but a little flat looking in the flesh which again harms the aesthetics. The overall lightweight feel to the toy and general stinginess with the paint apps don’t help matters either. Cheetor does have some nicely designed parts and the detailing is excellent whatever flaws the actual figure has, but its all washed out in a sea of bland grey plastics and custard yellow.
It’s suprising to see such a step down for a key character’s toy representation. Cheetor deserved better than this misfire. With some better joints and few more paint details, the mould would have been excellent and lived up to its promise. Still, its still better than the horror he’d end up with for his first turn in Beast Machines but that’s damning with faint praise.
13121313