Jawbreaker (Transmetal 2)

 Jawbreaker {TMetal2}   Function: Close-Combat Specialist   Group: Maximal
  "Laugh and the world laughs with you; howl and you howl alone."
   | Stren. | Intel. | Speed | Endur. | Rank | Cour. | Firep. | Skill |
      7.2      5.1      6.8     8.3      5.0    9.4      6.6     8.6

   The most aggressive of the Maximals, Jawbreaker never backs down from
   a fight. Prefers combat situations where odds are stacked against him.
   Most effective in close-combat battle, where his powerful jaws can be
   devastating. Utilizes magnetic field generator between his shoulders,
   drawing unfortunate Predacons into his spinning deltoid blade.
   Possesses a twisted sense of humor, laughs a lot - but generally
   laughs alone.

Color Scheme:

He wins big brownie points with me because turquoise is my favorite color. :) Complimenting turquoise are black and red, with some yellow accents. Most of the red is "metal", except his front claws, which have a somewhat clashing shade of red (due to the non-metal paint).

Robot Mode:

A bit disproportioned and top heavy for my tastes. His legs are enormous, especially compared to arms which are rather frail looking, once you look past the huge shoulder panels that are his beast mode legs. His right arm is also a little over-bulky as his beast head and back unit. To make matters worse, his beast tail becomes a sword for the robot, and it's entirely too large.

Beast Mode:

This one looks like he's ready to tear apart the entire Predacon army! Unfortunately, that's about all he's good for... looking mean. His hind legs suffer from the same problems TM2 Cheetor's do. His front legs are also prone to detaching from the body whenver you try to manipulate them. If it weren't for the bad-ass look he has, it would be lame.

Transformation:

Beast legs become robot legs, no biggie. But his beast head becoming his robot arm adds a little complexity in the way the torso folds for the robot chest and stuff. Labeled as an intermediate level of difficulty, I'd probably move the rating closer to basic, but not all the way down. No real "tricks" to getting it done.... just follow the instructions if there's a problem.

Gimmicks:

Has a spinning saw blade in his back, which becomes a weapon on his arm (the beast head/back) in robot mode. It has a little button that you push to spin the wheel, but it doesn't spin freely, even while pressing the button. I'd have liked it better as a freely spinning wheel that I make spin by doing so with my finger, rather than a cheesy button thing.

Pros/Cons:

In addition to all the problems specified above, he's a real piece of slag to get BACK into beast mode! The beast hips and back piece were very poorly designed, and don't fit well together. That, and the beast shoulders are difficult to get into the right position so that they snap on to the head/neck section.