The Stunticons were complete badasses when they debuted on the original Transformers cartoon. What made them work so well was that, because they were a crew of cars flanking a big tractor trailer, the average person easily confused them with the peace-keeping Autobots who, up until this point, had employed earth-bound vehicles as alt modes almost exclusively. The Stunticons were, of course, straight-up punks who were able to sour the human population’s opinion of the Autobots because all they did was wreak havoc everywhere they went. And to add to their potency as a threat, they were able to combine to form the massive Menasor, who proved to be a lot for the Autobots to handle on their own without the help of the Aerialbots.
I was a big fan of the Stunticons when I was a kid, and I think only the Combaticons may have been the cooler combiner team in my book, so I was stoked when I learned Menasor was to be among the first combiners released by Hasbro this year in “The Combiner Wars.” However, when I read down the names of the individual team members, there were two I didn’t recognize: Offroad and Brake-Neck. Now, Offroad is a legitimate new team member, but, once again, it looks as though copyright issues gave Hasbro some troubles because Brake-Neck is actually the more familiar G1 Wildrider.
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Hasbro included a not-so-subtle allusion to the character’s original name in the bio on the back of the card, so I love that they’re at least acknowledging his “actual” name rather than just pretending he was always called “Brake-Neck.” On the back of the included comic, some more information about the character is given, and it actually sounds as though they’ve worked the name change into his official bio, making it sound as though the name change was a choice on his part. That’s a much better way to go than just tossing out a seemingly arbitrary change.
Brake-Neck’s ‘bot mode has a stockiness to it that serves to make him look as though he could go toe-to-toe with just about any Autobot. He’s a bit smaller than what we were seeing in the CHUG line just a few years ago (see the pic with Jazz), but he’s actually just a hair larger than what we’ve seen from the Generations line in the past year. Since the prices of these figures continues to climb ever upward, I at least like to feel as though I’m getting my money’s worth, and Brake-Neck here successfully dodges that “I paid too much for this” feeling. The original Stunticons were all much smaller than the Autobot cars anyway, so his being a touch smaller than Jazz works for me.
For accessories, he comes with his hand/foot combiner piece and something that looks like an exhaust pipe that he can use as a club. I assume it can be integrated into his car mode as well, but I haven’t found where it can be plugged in.
Brake-Neck’s alt mode is quite handsome, and I love the grey and red/orange deco. Often painted-in windows only serve to make an alt mode look “cheap,” but here they look so sharp, and I really think that is simply due to the way the two colors play off one another. The subtle touch of silver on his hood further adds to this mode’s effectiveness. It’s just really sharp.
Like all the deluxe-class combiner figures, Brake-Neck can be used as an arm or a leg when assembling Menasor. What’s kinda cool is that with his inclusion, we have the option to forgo Off Road’s addition to the team if we choose and stick with the classic Motormaster-Drag Strip-Breakdown-Dead End-Wildrider lineup. I’m all for new characters, but I have a soft spot for the original Stunticon roster, so I think that’s what I’m going to do.
Right now we have pics of just Brake-Neck floating in space as a combiner limb, but Menasor will be assembled over the coming weeks, so he won’t be on his own for long. Be sure to check back!
Brake-Neck does not appear to be up for order at the usual online shops just yet, so hopefully he’ll be hitting the pegs at your local stores soon!
