Gears was one of the original Autobots aboard the Ark’s fateful voyage to Earth, so he was a staple of many Transformers collections way back in the original G1 days. He was my very first Transformers figure, actually, so I hold massive amounts of affection for the little guy. With that in mind, it makes me sad that Gears has never really received all that much attention in the various pieces of Transformers fiction we’ve seen over the decades. Apart from a brief team-up with Spider-Man in a couple very early issues of Marvel’s Transformers comic, Gears has been little more than a background ornament. Other characters often-neglected like Swerve and Rewind have been reinvented into A-list characters in the comics, but it seems poor Gears is still awaiting his time in the spotlight.
Since he isn’t a major character in the current IDW comics, that may explain why this new release is rather lackluster. So what’s the problem? Read on!
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His packaging actually does the figure a disservice. The artwork pictures Gears as we know him and it also serves as the basis for the figure we want. It’s almost cruel to have that excellent artistic rendering hanging over the actual figure that misses the mark so badly. I mean, aside from the colors, they barely look as though they’re supposed to be the same character.
What we’re seeing here is the legends-class Swerve with a new head and a new paint job. That shouldn’t really be a problem, though, because the original G1 Gears and Swerve were repaints/retools of one another. It is slightly more of a problem in this case, however.
This mold is Swerve through and through because it’s a plastic rendering of Swerve’s current look in the IDW comics. Swerve has ended up being one of the best figures of this year so far because it’s such a great likeness, but to use the same body for Gears with just a new head and no new tooling really does Gears a disservice.
His new head kinda looks like Gears, but, then again, it really kinda doesn’t. It looks more like Brawn’s head, to be honest. “Kinda” nothing — all I see is Brawn when I look at that head sculpt. I have to wonder if it was intended for a Brawn figure in the first place, but then maybe Hasbro decided to slap it on a blue and red Swerve and call it “Gears.” New head or not, I’m having a hard time accepting this figure as Gears. It’s just missing the mark in too many ways.
This figure is packed with all the same articulation and poseability as Swerve. He has a great range of motion in his legs and arms, but, like Swerve, he would benefit from some ankle rockers and some wrist swivels.
When posed right next to Swerve, the vast differences in color do enough to make each character seem unique, but this sculpt is so singularly “Swerve” that it still highlights all the shortcomings in terms of this serving as a passable Gears. MakeToys did a better job of capturing the character’s likeness with their Cogwheels figure, so that figure will remain my “Gears” on my modern IDW shelf. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this Hasbro one.
Gears’ alt mode does a better job of replicating his classic G1-esque look, but that’s probably because there’s really not that much to his alt mode. A blue pick-up with a couple weird red things in the back — done. It’s Gears. Still, it looks pretty good and does serve as a decent update to the G1 alt mode, simplicity aside.
Eclipse, Gear’s partner in this set, is a straight-up repaint of Flanker, who was included with Swerve. He’s a minimally painted and minimally articulated triple-changer (‘bot/drone/gun) that makes for a neat pack-in, but not much more. I’ll probably leave him in his gun mode since it somewhat succeeds in making Gears look as though he has something of a presence on the shelf.
I got this set from our sponsors Big Bad Toy Store, but he should be hitting standard retail shelves soon. If you can forgive him for being not much more than a repaint of Swerve, then you may find yourself more pleased with him than I did. It’s Gears, though, so there was no way I was not going to get him; I just wish he received the same level of individual attention Hasbro gave Swerve, Cosmos, Tailgate, etc.
