Generations Wheelie

I'm going to be totally honest: I think I'm one of the few people on Earth who actually likes Wheelie. Seriously, I don't understand what all of the hate is about. Sure, he rhymes. Sure, he's a kid. Sure, liked riding Dinobots. But all of that was in the G1 cartoon. And his tech spec. And the comics. Wait, I'm going somewhere with this.

The reason I've always been fond of the little rhymer was his tech spec. Yeah, the five sentence blurb on the back of his package. His function is survivalist. He's the lone survivor of his party. My nine year old self always wondered what Wheelie did to survive before he ran across the Autobots. Where'd he get Energon? Why couldn't he get a communique out to someone who could rescue him? These were very pertinent questions to me at the time. All of the rhyming didn't matter. I had to have answers!

Thankfully, the wonderful Klaus Scherwinski came up with a great story that answered most of my questions. Why this man isn't doing more Transformers stuff for IDW, I'll never understand. The man made Wheelie palatable for many fans. He's awesome.

For whatever reason, Wheelie finally gets some plastic love in the form of this wonderful GDO Generations figure. Yeah, there's the Legend series figure which is probably more appropriate based on size, but this is the RTS Jazz body we're talking about!  Man, the whole Reveal The Shield line was just awesome.  It's depressing comparing RTS and Generations to the newer Generations figures. 

Anyway, there are many things to love about about Wheelie.  Let's start with his colors.  The use of oranges really stands out evokes his G1 toy.  He's not the futuristic car that he once was, but I still really like it.  The yellow headlights are a nice touch.  Really nice work there.

Once in robot mode, Wheelie really shines.  The head sculpt is freaking awesome.  He even has a visor!  I love the visor.  As a weapon, Wheelie comes equipped with his trusty slingshot.  I'm not too keen on the extra peg on the side.  You can apparently use the slingshot as a gun as well, but forget that noise.  Just like Jazz, Wheelie has speakers that can be deployed in both car and robot mode.  Those are staying tucked away.  I just don't like the idea of Wheelie having speakers.  It's nice having a Wheelie that's so tall, if a little different.  Still, I guess he's in scale with former minibots Cliffjumper, Bumblebee and Warpath.

If you haven't picked up the GDO Wheelie, then I highly suggest that you run out and get him.  He's just a great, fun figure.