30th Anniversary Trailcutter

I've seen a lot of people posting pictures and talking about the new wave of Deluxe figures from the Generations line.  For the one guy who hasn't heard about it, the new Deluxe figures come packaged with a Spotlight comic from IDW.  These Spotlight issues were released last year and early this year.  Not everyone got these issues as they were released, so getting them with a figure is a nice treat.  Still, seeing everyone gloat over how they found the figures at retail just got my goat since every retailer around me is still clogged with Fall of Cybertron figures.  Against my better judgement, I ordered the entire wave online.  They're here, and I'm going to cover Trailcutter first.  I bet you thought his name was Trailbreaker, didn't you?  Well, you're not a copyright lawyer, are you?

Trailcutter is packaged in robot mode, and it is great looking.  He's very inspired by Alex Milne's designs for the character in Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye.  Minus the guns that he had Brainstorm to install in his legs.  He's pretty bulky for a Deluxe figure.  He's not beefy, as there really isn't any heft there, but he does look like a hulking and slow 'bot. 

Trailcutter is an update of the G1 Trailbreaker figure.  Something that seems to bother some fans is that Trailcutter's visor is blue instead of the original red that the G1 figure had.  I only own the Encore Trailbreaker and it has a blue visor, so I'm not too concerned about it.  Besides, I'm sure that the Takara version will have a red visor.  The lack of head movement leaves something to be desired as Trailcutter's head only moves side-to-side and lacks vertical movement.  This means that I can't do any of my "look up at the attacker from the sky" poses that I'm fond of. 

Perhaps my favorite thing about Trailcutter is how it re-creates the antennae (Missiles?  I've never been quite sure what they were) on his back.  It's little touches like this that make me love the Generations line.  In order to achieve this look, a sacrifice must be made - the force field projector has to be flipped up so the antennae can attach.  The antennae are actually attached to the truck's rear canopy and are supposed to be part of the battle shield.  Here's a look at the battle shield in action.

I work for OCP on the weekends

Once you attach the battle shield to a forearm, the force field projector can be flipped up.  I'm not very fond of the shield aspect, but I do like the projector.  What a quandary.  I guess I'll just have to make due with the shield on his back.  I suppose I could attach the shield to one of the holes on his legs, but that would look ridiculous.  Who am, Larry Appleton?

Trailcutter transforms into a truck/SUV.  It's actually pretty sleek.  The force field projector becomes a top mounted light system for off-roading at night.  The roof mounted lasers are for poor, unsuspecting deer attracted to the bright lights on the roof.  I bet you didn't know that Trailcutter was a poacher, did you?

It's compact, but I think that the truck mode is gnarly anyway.  He looks like someone that any Decepticon would think twice about messing with.  Trailcutter also looks like a vehicle that would guzzle a lot of fuel, regardless of his force field powers. 

One thing that's been bugging me since the release of the Fall of Cybertron figures is how small the Deluxe figures had become.  They appeared to be shrinking, as though they were well on their way to becoming Micromasters.  I decided to do a little comparison with figures from the Classics, Universe, and earlier Generations lines.  The figures that I used were: Classics Hot Rod, Universe Hound and Generations Warpath.  Frankly, the results surprised me a bit.

Surprisingly, they're all the same height.  Roughly.  I was expecting Trailcutter to be at least a head shorter than these guys.  However, a case could be made for Trailcutter needing to be larger than Hot Rod and Hound, due to the nature of his alt-mode.  Then again, Warpath should probably tower over all of them.  I must say that I'm still fighting to urge to complain about the height, even though he's in-line with everyone else.  Apparently I'm a complainer.

Trailcutter may be a new name, but the character is as old as the franchise.  I'm very excited that he's received an update after 30 years as it's been a long time coming.  If you haven't gotten him yet, I highly recommend that you do so.  His retool - Hoist - is scheduled to be out any day now, so I'm eagerly looking forward to him.  This is a great mold, and I know that Hoist will be just as magnificent.