Bot Reviews: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Deluxe Wheeljack

A good thing about conventions like TFCon is that they let you circle back to stuff you missed, stuff that’s long out of circulation, and maybe you can even get a deal or two on it. Case and point: This version of Wheeljack. As someone who maintains a standing shelf of the Classic G1 Autobots, it’s kind of odd that I didn’t own a version of the original eccentric Autobot scientist and inventor, especially considering what an important character he’s always been in every telling and re-telling of the original version of the story.

When HasTak released a new mainline Wheeljack back during Earthrise in 2020, it was on my shortlist of figures to grab, but got lost in the shuffle, especially since I wound up grabbing another version of the tooling in the form of Generations Selects Exhaust, reviewed here.

Exhaust was a deep cut of a character, but that made him more interesting to me. After that, HasTak did the battle-damaged Wheeljack repaint we’re looking at today, in the Walmart-exclusive War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline, and I again skipped over it in favor of other priorities. And then they re-released the original deco again during Kingdom, and I skipped over it again! To be fair, at that point, I was busy with Kingdom’s Beast Wars updates.

But I finally managed to find time to add this essential missing character to my collection, by finding the Trilogy version loose at TFCon. When that line (colloquially called the Netflix line by basically everyone, thanks to the show it was tied to) wasn’t serving as a venue to release highly-sought-after-grails like VW Bumblebee (reviewed here) or Cassette Player Soundwave (ditto), it was busy doing battle-damaged repaints of mainline toolings, to make them more in line with their appearance in the grim and gritty Netflix show. And it wasn’t by coincidence that this was the Wheeljack deco I opted for, but more on that later on when I, very belatedly, talk about the actual figure. It’s also been a minute since I talked about Exhaust, so I’m going to just start from scratch here with Jackie.

Robot Mode

Like most G1 Cars, Wheeljack is a man composed entirely of boxes. He’s got stompy feet and boots, a rectangular torso, rectangular limbs, the works. It’s very classic, and very pleasant. He also, to my eyes, looked like a faithful reproduction of the cartoon’s design for him. That is, until I actually checked screenshots and realized the cartoon version had skinnier limbs, a curved torso, and bigger wings on his back, instead of the little rectangular projections on the back of this guy. It’s all stuff the Masterpiece version managed to nail. But y’know what? I didn’t realize it wasn’t quite right until I looked at cartoon screenshots, so I’m not complaining.

I think the only thing on him that looks a bit hinky is his kind of oddly-shaped arms, with the wheels sticking out of his forearms, and the long car panels behind his hands. But it looks better than the G1 Toy’s gorilla arms! Also, he’s got kind of a long, flat backpack, but the sculpt and the colors both manage to make it kind of vanish.

His headsculpt’s one area where they really nailed his cartoon look, and what makes the whole thing really work. It was always a strange-looking head, taking a Snake-Eyes style eye-mask on the toy, and re-interpreting it as an odd, ridged mouthplate above some eyes, not to mention his big, angular ears, and it’s reproduced here, in all that weirdness. I particularly like the expression they seem to have given him. I read it as just a tiny bit worried, like he’s unsure if the invention he’s working on is about to blow up or not.

Speaking of that, let’s talk about the colors. At the base of it, he’s sporting a mostly-cartoon accurate Wheeljack deco, minus a bit on his chest, and plus a bit on his feet. Which is to say off-white, black, red, and dark green, with bits of silver and blue on his face (just the right amount for the show design), and a bit of almost resin-prototype-gray for the unpainted plastic, along with a smokey clear chest-windshield.

But it’s the damaged deco that’s the story here. What was once white on him has faded with what looks like smoke damage, into off-white, with hints of brownish yellow. And all across his shoulders and lower legs, there’s a pattern of gray scrapes and dings, like his paint has been worn off, as well as a couple black burns in places on his shins. In addition, his feet, backpack and wings all fade the burnt white into gray in places, like he’s been scorched. One particularly impressive thing about the deco is that there’s a lot more paint on him than you’d expect. From what I can tell, only some internal components of his are actually cast in off-white, most of his outward-facing white bits are actually cast in that prototype-looking gray, just painted completely over.

We’re supposed to read his colors as battle damage acquired during the titular War for Cybertron, but to me, it means something different, and it’s why I like this deco on him. See, Wheeljack was always portrayed as the kind of scientist and inventor who was constantly getting his hands dirty, cobbling together new technology out of whatever scrap he could find, wielding it all together in his lab or garage. And he was also infamous for a lot of the things he made not working properly, sometimes literally blowing up in his face.

So, I read this deco not as battle damage, but as wear and tear from his lifestyle, both from having things blow up, but also from spending his days elbow-deep in sparking, greasy machinery, too fixated on his work to maintain his paint job.

Without meaning to, the deco artists made something very characterful.

In terms of construction, Wheeljack has an unusual issue, in that his joints are actually a bit too solid and tight. I remember hearing about copies of Exhaust that had very loose joints (I got lucky with mine), and it seems like they over-corrected on this subsequent Wheeljack, because he’s a lot more stiff in-hand than he ought to be. I’m not necessarily worried about breaking anything, nothing that’s load-bearing is thin, fragile, or translucent, but I have to put an odd amount of effort into moving some of his joints. The only place it’s really a problem is his feet, because his ankles are so tight, that moving the tilts on them without properly bracing things will pop his foot right off.

Luckily, his feet are each on a friction joint that’ll pop right back on. Still, this is a rare instance where I actually hope some of these joints loosen with time. At least those feet are big enough, and come with big enough heel spurs to keep him good and stable.

In terms of articulation, he’s got that familiar post-Siege suite, including the expected ankle tilts and wrist swivels, presuming you can fight off the tightness. His arms look a little strange at first glance, because it feels like his elbow tilt ought to be sideways to the configuration it’s actually in, but you get used to it after a little bit. There’s almost not much to say here, aside from being impressed that such a good suite of joints had already become the new standard by the time Earthrise started. We’re spoiled in an era where this is considered normal.

Wheeljack’s accessories are the only point where he feels a bit lacking. This is something modern Legacy stuff seems to avoid, but during Siege and Earthrise, it often felt like they intentionally under-equipped figures in the accessory department, in the name of trying to up-sell the different -Master and -Izer accessories that formed the gimmick ecosystem of the whole line. And sure enough, all Wheeljack’s got is a lone, boxy non-firing missile launcher.

It’s also totally unpainted flat gray, and when I saw him at the convention, I initially thought the vendor had 3D printed him a replacement launcher, before I checked some photos on my phone. The accessory itself is based on the shoulder-launcher his character model in the animation has, but that one’s a lot more bigger and menacing than this small thing, and if he’d had a second, he could at least imitate his G1 figure’s double-shoulder-launcher setup.

As it is, though, he can fit it on either shoulder using a bespoke rectangular peg, or in either of his hands via the 5-Millimeter peg. Interestingly, the weapon itself also has a 5-Millimeter port on the back of it.

Speaking of that, he’s got some heavy accessorizing potential, since he’s got a total of 11 5-millimeter ports across his body (plus three nubs for blast effects), and covering himself with equipment feels like a very Wheeljack thing to do. You can even pop his wings out, exposing two ports on his back, which I guess means he has two more accessories, though they don’t really feel intended to do anything other than be wings.

Seriously, I wish he’d come with, like, a pistol, or a wrench, or just something more. At least I have enough spare accessories in my collection at this point to make sure he’s decently equipped.

Transformation

To this guy’s credit, I still remembered Exhaust’s transformation well enough that I was able to change up Wheeljack on the spot at the convention, without instructions, though it did require some puzzling out, since he’s got multiple waist twists involved with getting his windshield off his chest, and onto his backside.

I’d say the most complicated bit of him is compressing his legs and feet into the front half of his car mode, partially because of the fight against his tight joints, but mostly because there’s a fair amount of tabs, slots and holes you need to pop together, otherwise the whole thing won’t line up right (the very front of his car windshield not coming together properly is the telltale sign of this).

Still, once I’d re-figured-it out, it was intuitive and easy enough, and didn’t take too long.

Vehicle Mode

Funny story: Wheeljack never transformed on the Netflix TV show, presumably because the figure they’d based him on (i.e. this one) transformed into an earthly racing car, and they didn’t bother designing a Cybertronian altmode for him. So, this figure changing into a Terran automobile just fuels my “this is dingy Sunbow-esque inventor Wheeljack” headcanon even further.

And sure enough, Wheeljack changes into a rally race car that’s almost, but not quite a Lancia Stratos, but again, looks right to my eyes unless I’m looking at screenshots. He’s got a kind of swooshy, curved cockpit, a spoiler in the back, that interesting-looking two rows of indents on his hood, and other Wheeljack-y details. Near as I can tell, the difference between the real car and this one is, again, this is more of a rectangle on wheels, and the real car’s a lot more curved, and even swooshy-er.

The colors are, again, the star of the show here, and this time around, nearly every bit of external-facing detail is actually painted-over gray plastic, save for the wheels, rear bumper, and his translucent, smoky windshield. This means he’s almost entirely that burnt off-white, with those same scrapes, scorches, and worn gradients on display. Now the deco just looks like this car’s been scratched and dinged to hell and back, and left in the sun for too long. He’s also got those same green and red stripes on him, and overall, the deco looks mostly complete. I do wish he had colored wheel rims, though, since Exhaust managed it. That, and he’s missing painted head and tail lights, but funny enough, the unpainted gray on his backside adds enough color variety that I don’t immediately notice it.

I guess he’s also missing a lot of his sponsors, and racing livery, when you think about it, but he didn’t have any of it on the original show (too complicated to animate), and I don’t miss it here.

For all the tightness of his joints in his other mode, it pays off here, because he pegs together really solidly in this form, just a rectangular cube of chunky plastic. Those front chunks of his windshield do feel a bit gappy, though, but they’re also dependent on how well you line his joints up during his transformation.

Despite feeling like he’s a very low-riding car, I’m pleased to report that Wheeljack can roll just fine on his wheels. Outside of that, while there’s no dedicated weapon storage for his little non-missile-launching box, you can peg it on his roof, or stash it on one of the ports on his rear bumper.

Those three ports are the only ones available in this form (unless you pop the spoiler off), but seeing as even the one on his roof comes at the expense of the car’s clean lines, I’m fine with leaving it at that.

Overall

This definitely isn’t the best Generations Autobot Carformer ever made, but he’s pretty good. I’d call him average by the standards of Siege and Earthrise, but to be clear, Siege and Earthrise’s average was pretty strong, because it really represented a jump in quality. As for Wheeljack, he looks like who and what he’s supposed to be, exudes good energy, and poses and transforms well. He’s a lot plainer than I’d like, though, in terms of both accessories, and general vibes (especially in a post-Origin-Jazz world), which might be why it took me so long to get around to him. Still, the only real issue he’s got is how tight his joints are, but I’d rather have that problem than the alternative. As for the Netflix deco, the whole battle damage aesthetic wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea (myself included), but this specific use of it happened to actually really work, thanks to the character it was applied to, and wound up looking really nice in this context, enough to make me prefer this deco to the “clean” version.

So, I don’t know if I’d call this figure essential (unless, like me, you’re after a Wheeljack), but what’s here is pretty good, and a fine addition to a shelf of 80’s ‘Bots. More importantly, from what I’ve seen around, despite this release being a Walmart exclusive, it’s actually possible to still get him at standard retail price, or even on the cheap, like I did, simply because he was a bit of a shelf warmer, thanks to the battle-worn aesthetic not being a particular hit with collectors, many of whom already owned the cleaner versions. So, if you have a chance to conveniently and cheaply snap this guy up, like I did, I’d absolutely call him worth it.

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