No, we’re not getting into rerun season just yet. Canonball supplied a quick, but thorough, video review, but some of us are just stuck as all hell in our ways and gotta do a good old pics n’ text, nuts and bolts, old school review. Incidentally, those same some of us choose stupidly to wait until we can find things at retail instead of ordering ahead. Which brings us to me…
… but more importantly, back to Roadbuster. Another very unique but often overlooked figure from 1985, Roadbuster was more in line with the borrowed “Jetifre” approach to toys than most of his Autobot allies, favoring lots of clip-on weapons and armor to dress up an otherwise straightforward figure. As you might have guessed, he also came from another line, this time Mugen Caliber, and so, unfortunately, Roadbuster had no official canon appearances outside of the UK comic. That’s why you don’t remember him.
Roadbuster didn’t really pick up much of a characterization or “screen time” from Dreamwave either, and while he’s fared better with IDW, the guy is often set dressing for big Wrecker group shots, as opposed to an integral part. He’s the team Heavy, often mischaracterized as just another gun nut, so Roadbuster doesn’t really know what to do or say when it’s not in battle. He’s a warrior, and he doesn’t have much need or want to do anything else. It’s probably why he ends up dead in the saddle in a lot of timelines. But that doesn’t mean he’s a boring character — the problem is he’s not a front-row guy, so you have to dig to find elements of his personality. And you need James Roberts. Lots of James Roberts.
Still, it’s hard to quantify how badly and how intensively one needs a good Roadbuster figure. I obviously have some fondness for the big guy, but not enough to buy a FansProject version, or to even order him ahead. So it may not be surprising then that I find the Hasbro Generations figure pretty adequate for the job.
There are some flaws here, but nothing on this figure is so glaring or irritating to me that it isn’t acceptable for Roadbuster. The minor things are some clearance issues on his leg wheels and thigh cuts, some less-than-positive clicks on his shoulders and hips, and, as Canonball noted, the guy’s got duck feet.
But that’s really the only negatives I had, and they don’t amount to a major detriment, at least for me. Beyond being a playable, solid representation of the character, I found him to be a callback to his original figure, not unlike Whirl. But where Whirl had some elements that maybe didn’t benefit from that kind of nostalgia, Roadbuster does.
His transformation is balls simple, for example. His colorwork, while nicely done, is very simple. His weapons are components that can be reconfigured or arranged in dozens of ways for both modes, although I’ve got my preference already, and left them as such. And he has a damn fine sticker sheet.
As a side note to that, though, having an X-acto knife handy will much improve the results of these — they require a little fitting. And while that is annoying, it’s not a big deal.
The vehicle mode is great, very much in the same style of Springer and Sandstorm, and it looks good and imposing with a minimal effort to transform.
I have no problem recommending Roadbuster at retail. He’s a solid figure, with minor hiccups here and there, that serves as a great addition to our growing Wreckers.
