Transformers: Combiner Wars: The Stunticons: Offroad and Dead End

Offroad:

                Each of the teams is getting a new member in the Combiner Wars line, and for the Stunticons, Offroad is the new guy, replacing Wildrider. It does look like the left out original members will be made available though, as Wildrider and Slingshot for the Arialbots have already been made available for online purchase. As of this writing, I’m waiting on confirmation for my order for both of them. More on that later though. For now, let’s look at Offroad.

                Offroad is a pickup truck, which is an odd addition to a team of sports cars. I’m not really keeping up with the comics at this time, so I’m not sure what his persona is or anything like that. I will read them in the near future, but work and my recent wedding have kept me busy.

                Offroad is grey and teal with some red accents. He also wears the hood of his vehicle mode as a backpack, and it is a very large backpack. It sits far enough behind his head that it’s not much of a hindrance to the figure, but it gets in the way of his shoulder panels/truck doors which does inhibit posability to a degree. I don’t mind too much, but I do see how it could be something that diminishes the figure for some people. His lime green face shows off a creepy robot grin, and his face does have a maniacal tone to it that quite honestly is befitting a member of a group of paranoids and lunatics such as the Stunticons. While his truck mode doesn’t really say ‘member of a reckless driving group of shock troopers,’ his grimace totally does say ‘guy you don’t want to be near in combat because you can’t be sure what he’s going to do.’ Again, like most of the Deluxes in the line, good posability, but hampered by the shoulder panels, which give Offroad a nice profile and a cool silhouette in robot mode.

                Truck mode is nice, and it is a sporty looking truck, but it still doesn’t really fit in with a group of race cars. At first glance, he doesn’t look like a Stunticon to me, and there’s been plenty of drivel on the Internet to this point about people being stuck in the past or the ever vapid GeeWun screeching and finger pointing, and I for one am ok with the new team members Combiner Wars is bringing us. Like I said, I’m waiting on confirmation of a Wildrider and Slingshot order, but I’m still ok with the new guys. And I like Offroad a lot; he was the one Stunticon that I was really enthusiastic about getting, mainly because he was a new figure and not ‘just another car.’ Anyway, Offroad is a good looking truck, the grey body and red windows making for a nice combo.

                As for his weapon, I finally have something good to say. Offroad comes with a purple handled ax, and it’s the first Stunticon weapon that looks cool in the robots’ hand. His combiner hand foot part looks like it is intended to be a four pipe exhaust set up but like Dragstrip it doesn’t peg on anywhere that makes it look good.
**Actually, I just figured this out. You can snap Offroads' hand foot piece into the bed of his truck mode, and it looks either like he's carrying a large load of cargo, or a large bed-mounted engine, depending on what you see it as. It works real well, like Breakdowns' does. **

                Offroad is a real winner for me. He’d be the best of the group if it wasn’t for the last guy….

Dead End: 

                Dead End is the best of the bunch. While it is fairly legit to say that the individual members of combiner teams are fairly forgettable and not long on personas, there usually is one that becomes more of a personality than the rest; the one that you remember because quite frankly they’re the only ones that were memorable, generally exposed through brief lines of very self-identifying dialogue in a cartoon or comic. For the Stunticons, and for me, that one memorable persona is Dead End, the fatalistic, leave-a-good-looking-corpse nihilist. The figure is a great figure, with some very strong colors true to the original, a nice, solid maroon with grey and gold accents. This is one very good looking toy.  He also sports the chest piece that covers a good amount of the combiner connection, which really is a good design element. I do kind of wish they would have included such a part on as many of the figures as they could: Offroad for instance could have fit one under the truck hood and it may have made him that much better of a figure.

                Vehicle mode for Dead End is nice as well. The car mode is very sleek, and very rounded along the edges. I don’t know anything about cars, so I’m not certain if this is an actual car design, but it reminds of the Bughatti Veyron that appears to be a required alt mode for someone in every Transformers line post 2008. The bib piece in robot mode folds underneath his car hood in vehicle mode, hiding his head and making it so that he’s not just staring at the ground beneath him when he’s driving.

                His weapon is a pipe. Oh, if only it plugged in on the underside of the car mode it would be perfect but once more, Combiner Wars Stunticon weapons aren’t exactly that functional. His hand foot weapon is some kind of quasi-three barreled weapon.

                Overall Dead End is the best of the Stunticons. He looks good and striking in all modes, and all modes look good. Breakdown is a nice car but somewhat lacking as a robot; Dragstrip is decent in both but not really anything spectacular, and basically the same goes for Motormaster; Blackjack has a fun little robot mode but a bland car mode; Offroad is great in both modes, but lacks that chest piece that Dead End has which pushes him to the top. This is the figure that is getting redone as Streetwise and also for the *confirmed as of this writing to be in transit* exclusive Wildrider, which is terrific news. This is a good figure all around, and getting another one is going to be a good thing.

Next up, a thought on the team as a whole and Menasor.