Transformers: Titans Return Gnaw

The Sharkticons have generally presented an issue in the Transformers toy mythos. A seemingly endless pack of faceless, wild mechcannibals first portrayed in the 1986 movie, the Sharkticons made the jump to physical toy form in the personage of Gnaw, A Sharkticon. I guess the army building concept wasn’t in vogue at that time, or maybe Hasbro wasn’t intending or counting on Gnaws being bought en masse to army build. So Gnaw became a/the single sentient Sharkticon, and theoretically a Decepticon, although was never granted a real personality or anything, and his affiliation seems to be with whoever is standing closest to him at any given time. He was perhaps the genesis of the toy-only character in the franchise.

But original Gnaw was a standard sized Transformer of its day, while this new, Titans Return transplant version is a Legends class toy. I say transplant because a few years back, probably prior to even Combiner Wars, a Legends class Gnaw was rumored as part of the Generations Legends class two pack figures that gave us Legends Shrapnel. Well, that never happened, and here he is now, “compatible” with Titanmaster figures.

This article is going to be quite the back and forth, because despite Gnaw being an all-around failure, he sure does some cute things.

Gnaw is another update of a figure I had as a child, and when I saw the first images of him, I knew I had to find one. He sure is a cute little Sharkticon, essentially a large mouth with eyes on top and some skeletal arms. He really is a plastic realization of the 1986 movie animation model, and that’s pretty awesome. Shark monster mode is basically an orb with teeth and legs, and it’s pretty adorable. It has the morning star tail, and big, translucent green eyes. Overall the face is very expressive, despite not being capable of much more than opening the mouth by tilting the lower jaw downwards. Titanmaster interactivity comes in the form of sitting a Titanmaster figure in the open mouth of shark mode. Talk about an uncomfortable ride and a really shoe horned gimmick. He’s sort of poseable, but not very. The shark legs, which are all kinds of problematic in robot mode, are ball jointed limbs mounted on these swing out arms, so basically they can stick out to the sides of the beast mode more while still holding tight against the robot body. This gives it the sumo wrestler stance, but does very little for the actual beast mode other than allow the feet to stand parallel to each other instead of being slightly angled inwards towards the rear. Viewed head on, it does give the impression that the legs aren’t attached to the body. The tail doesn’t move or anything, and other than his looks, Gnaw is pretty one dimensional as a monster. But hey, it’s a Legends class figure, and as such there really is only so much one can expect from it.

The transformation is not bad because it is simple, but bad because it does a really poor job of hiding parts. Robot head is clearly visible inside the shark mouth, and the shark head just sticks off the back of the robot legs. I’m not toy designer, but it seems to me an easy fix for the robot mode would have been attaching the shark head parts somewhere else, so they could fold over the flat, unsightly and bare assed robot back. It looks like the head parts could have been attached to the robot shoulder area and then still swung over the shoulders. But again, I’m not a designer, so I can’t judge how “easy” this would have been to do.

Robot mode is where most of Gnaw’s failings are on display. Torso wise, a winner. Gnaw is a the big, barrel shaped robot from the 1986 movie and corresponding toy, and the headsculpt is great. The lower shark jaw folds down on to the top of the chest so Gnaw has that toothy collar, and as portrayed in the 1986 movie, he is a squat, strong looking robot. But the squatness here is mostly the result of a bad robot mode design. The legs are real short, like comically so, and are a pretty standard thigh and calf type arrangement, mainly due to the joints being necessary for transformation. The legs curl over the back of the robot to form the top of the shark body. The robot back is just open space, but it is totally obvious this figure was never intended to be seen from any direction except directly in front. The top of the shark head, the upper jaw and eyes, fold behind the robot feet, and incorporate the shark arms; so, the back portion of the robot foot is half of a shark face with a light blue arm hanging off the side.  All of this shark head kibble is totally necessary though, as it offers Gnaw some ability to balance himself, as his super tiny feet sure aren’t up to the task.

Man, that is not a good look at all.

The robot arms are simply the shark legs turned around, and they suck. The forearms are molded in a roughly 45 degree shape, so Gnaw can bend his arm at the elbow and then has a permanent, second elbow joint about halfway to his wrist. One of the Age of Extinction Dinobots had this, the green stegosaurus, but I have no idea what his name was changed to. At any rate, Gnaw has this permanently set bend in his arm, but it is slightly mitigated by a deep bend in the actual balljointed elbow. They do swing closer to the body, thanks to the armature that allows them to move outward in shark mode. The mail mace becomes a handheld weapon that is too short to be anything more than a comical accessory: robot mode Gnaw looks like a Cybertronian child who really wants to grow up and become a Sharkticon. He’s kind of like a robot caveman or protohuman, like you can see that one day he’s going to be a real, fully formed Cybertronian, but he’s just not there yet on the evolutionary ladder. There’s not much of a way to pose him holding the mace that looks any good, so the best bet is to just have him hold it off to his side. There’s no good way to pose Gnaw period, whether in beast or bot mode.

"Make sure you get my good side."

Again, as a Legends sized figure, there’s only so much one can expect from this guy. The Legends size class has been sort of an experimentation ground for the brand for a few years now, and has had some real successes over the last like eight or so years. This Scout/Legends/Cyberverse size has given us some real good toys, but is also terribly limited. And when the time comes for a figure to submit to the limitations of the size class, the results are generally awful. Gnaw is that general result. Everything about this figure, save his looks in beast mode, just blows. Whether or not this is enough to redeem the toy is something each of us must reckon, and for me, it is. I do wish that the price point were lower, as essentially ten dollars for a goofy looking shark mode is a bit steep, but that’s the literal price we pay sometimes. Gnaw is neat, and adorable in shark mode, but so heinous in robot mode and every other aspect that I wouldn’t really recommend him other than as that “haven’t seen anything new in awhile” kind of impulse purchase. I know some people are buying multiples, and I have to wonder if they were doing so before actually experiencing the figure, because I can’t fathom having taken this guy out of the package and thinking, “yeah, now I only need five more” in any serious fashion. I personally had a similar reaction to that of my feelings on Legends Kickback, where the first few times playing with Gnaw I thought he was pretty solid. That faded quickly, and now I can’t say I regret buying him, but I would certainly not feel the need to go out of my way to recommend him or even buy him again, were that situation ever to arise.  I don’t know that “cute troglodyte” is really an endorsement of a figure, but that’s basically what Gnaw is, ready to smash things that he doesn’t understand with his club, blissfully unaware of his own horrendous appearance.