Claw Jaw and Drill Bit: Richter reviews
Dave Richter
Just found Claw Jaw and Drill Bit, they are great!
Just a lighthearted dig at our excited, but vague friends in
California. We hardly ever get anything new here in Virginia until a
month or so of it's first sighting, but when I walked into TRU today, I
saw not only the Old Dominion inaugural appearance of Airazor and
Razorclaw, but also Jetstorm, Claw Jaw, and Drill Bit. My TRU's wacky
like that, they always open a case or two early. I hadn't heard
anything about them on ATT, but scanning the posts now I see a few more
are blessed with these fellows. Since there are no reviews yet, I'll
be the stand-in Van Domelen...
CLAW JAW - Maximal Squid
Function: Underwater Attack
From the deepest, coldest depths of the sea, Claw Jaw emerges
to attack Predacon enemies that stray too close to his underwater lair.
By wrapping his eight powerful arms around them in a constrictive vice
grip, Claw Jaw drains his victims's power by extracting Energon from
their bodies through his suction-cup arms. The four razor-sharp fangs
surrounding this cyber-squid's mouth make him a potent warrior, as does
his robotic metal-mashing claw weapon.
Hey, it's the guy from the Microverse box! Of these two, Claw
Jaw (again with the BW two-part names) is my favorite; his color scheme
makes him stand out. He's a red and orange squid with goofy yellow bug
squid eyes. In beast mode, he looks great from head on, but the
abdomen (made out of robot legs and jointed squid kibble) doesn't look
too solid if viewed from the side. Two tentacles are jointed (since
they become the arms), the other six are solid cast. He's also got two
smaller mandible-style tentacles around the mouth, which swing up and
down. Speaking of the jaw, this is the figure's action feature, the
jaw opens and closes with the push of a lever in the back. This is
probably the best thing about the toy, but then, who doesn't love a
biting squid?
No autotransform on either of these; so the transform is
complex enough to satisfy fans, but not all that complex on analysis.
His robot legs look great; formed from two halves of the abdomen, they
almost resemble Mega-Man legs, in that they're big and bubbly. The
arms are big tentacles, so no hands on this fellow. He can tounch his
ankles standing straight, though. Claw Jaw swivles at the waist, and
has big wings formed by two masses of tentacles. His head is colorful
and detailed, nice despite the lack of a mouth. The rubsign is hidden
under the right tentacle-wing. He doesn't seem to have a weapon,
except for a little piece that detaches from his back and fits into a
tentacle, giving him one three-fingered hand. I always prefer a gun,
but this guy looks neat regardless. I'd recomend buying him, but then
again, I already did.
DRILL BIT - Predacon Elephant Bug
Function: Infantry
Arising from miles beneath the surface, Drill Bit digs his way up
through the ground to surprise Maximal enemies when they least expect
it. His diamond-tipped, titanium-alloy destruction drill can bore
through anything - even the Maximal's latest high-tech battle armor!
Drill Bit lives underground in a subterranean series of twisting
tunnels that go straight to the mysterious planet's center, where
molten lava mixed with Energon crystals fuels his constant thirst for
more power.
Mention of the "mysterious planet", and "Energon crystals", I
guess the tech specs and the show are starting to coincide. When you
see this toy in Beast Mode, the following springs to mind: "Ooh, a
circus peanut with legs!" He's a big weevil thing with a
translucent-brown shell, purple legs and mandibles, and light green
eyes. No real posability to speak of, but the mouth feeler can swing
up and down. One can also swing out his drill to be used as a nose in
beast mode, but more on that later. All in all, the bug looks pretty
boring. The brown plastic is saved somewhat by being translucent, but
the beetle, hugging the ground and packed with robot parts underneath,
can't illuminate well. Also, his robot feet make his bug head look
odd.
The robot mode is golden, but then again maybe I'm just
thrilled to see a regular beast with a hand. Only one hand, the other
is a neato drill. The drill is made from the same brown plastic, but
it's thread is detailed with silver paint, so it looks great. It isn't
motorized, but it can be turned by rotating a wheel on the bottom.
Four insect legs swing back out of the way, and the other two are
attached to his robot legs. Finally, an insect BWarrior without arms
covered in bug bitz. His head is nicely detailed, although his smile
hovers between an Inferno Insane and an Armordillo Goofy. His ankles
aren't jointed, and his cyberjet style folding (even the arms swing
around like Hooligan) makes his waist immobile. He's got silver
detailing on his chest, which makes the robot mode much more exciting
than the dull-as-a-Lego-sword beetle mode.
This has already been commented on, but these toys have new
catalogues on the back of the card. Grimlock is a Dinobot recolor, in
albino white with black spots. Looks better than the original Dinobot,
but it's got that name... Bonecrusher the bison looks incredible, on
the other hand, and he's a deluxe, not a Mega like I thought.
Manterror the deluxe mantis looks okay, despite huge claw dedlees for
hands, and Lazorbeak the purple Terrorsaur recolor, well, thank
goodness for the spelling change. But Lazorbeak's got cool red tiger
stripes, can't go wrong with those.
-Dave Richter, wishing happy birthday to Johnny Rotten, and happy
anniversary to the death of the Mom from the Cowsills. Hank Kingsley
isn't the only one who liked that mini-skirt... :)
John Theurer
For anyone in NJ they have finally gotten Razorclaw, AirRazor, Claw Jaw,
Drill Bit, and Inferno have arrived at the TRU in Deptford.
Brian Theurer
jthe...@voicenet.com
The Nixtr
Good. They're coming my way!
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