Bot Reviews: Transformers: Legacy United Deluxe Gears, with Bonus Review

For a 1984 original, it’s kind of odd that there hasn’t been many updates of Gears over the years. Maybe his grumpy personality turns the designers off. Or maybe it’s the fact that Bob Budiaski seemingly gave that exact same personality (grumpy, complaining whiner) to Huffer, and Huffer’s got the additional trait of “one time he pulled Optimus Prime’s trailer” going for him. But still, Gears is the one that got an actual spotlight episode in the cartoon, though the premise was “Megatron reprograms him to be friendly.”

In terms of figures of him, there’s the original Minibot, pictured above,  (which has been reissued a few times), a Deluxe movieverse version in the Revenge of the Fallen line, a Legends-class figure in 2014’s Thrilling 30 line that was a retool of Swerve (reviewed here), and now, after about a decade, this Legacy update. And I had to grab one, not because of his spotlight role in the cartoon, but because of his spotlight role in the comics. 

See, in Marvel issue #3, AKA the One with Spider-Man In It, Gears got his moment in the limelight through teaming up with the wall-crawler to rescue Sparkplug Witwicky from a Decepticon fortress. He wasn’t terribly grumpy in that issue, but moreso straightforwardly heroic, heroic enough to sacrifice his life at a critical moment (he got better). And I’ve been a Comics Guy since I started in the Transformers Wiki’s Comic Book Club in 2022, so, like Skullgrin, Goldbug, Bludgeon, and others, I decided I once again had to pick up a Marvel Character.  Also, if you haven’t already heard from around the internet, when this guy’s in the package, his chestplate is missing on purpose. It’s in the box, wrapped in a bag with his other accessory, instead. 

Robot Mode

Gears is another one of those undersized Deluxe Minibots, like Netflix Bumblebee, Generations Selects Hubcap, and Studio Series 86 Brawn, so he’s stumpy compared to your standard Deluxe. He’s taller than the Bumblebee tooling, but shorter than Brawn.

More importantly, he manages to feel substantially chunky. He’s still undersized, but he’s not anemic the way Brawn was, he’s a very blocky-looking guy. 

What he is is animation-accurate, but with a bit more in the way of greebles and tech details, to make him more interesting. Around back, he does have a substantial backpack of folded-up altmode parts, but it all compresses in a way that actually makes it less obtrusive than you’d think.

For one thing, it has to hide four entire wheels, since the animation model for Gears ignored that the toy had wheels on his arms and legs. I’d say pulling that off to begin with is an engineering marvel, to say nothing about pulling it off so seamlessly. And on top of that, there’s no obvious hollow cavities, even when viewed from the back!

Something we forget about G1 Transformers is just how odd some of their designs could be, and in Gears’s case, the oddness is all in the headsculpt, which is preserved here. He’s got a wide, semicircular head, like the Juggernaut’s helmet, with an additional pentagon-shaped helmet over top of it. I’m not sure what it’s even supposed to be, but it’s here, and I appreciate them not trying to make it into something more normal, like the Thrilling 30 one did.

Importantly, the face in the middle has this kinda neutral-but-displeased expression, perfect for the character. Also, if you flip it around, there’s a big sculpted “W” on the back.

It’s really meant to be an “M,” for “Mysterians,” the abandoned toyline the original Gears figure was originally supposed to come out (here’s the Transformers Wiki article about it). 

For deco, Gears is mostly a simple mix of three colors: A medium-dark red and blue, and a little bit of light gray. One interesting thing about him is that it doesn’t feel like there’s actually a ton of paint on him, in general. But he doesn’t feel too plain, it’s that his deco is mostly plastic colors that have been spread out really effectively.

I kind of like the effect, I think it actually looks better than paint (to say nothing of less of an opportunity for QC issues). But he’s not deco-free, he’s got silver accents on his chest and face, along with light blue eyes (and truck windows on his backpack), plus a couple of Autobrands, one on the chest, and one on the backpack. It’s a surprisingly nice-looking set of primary colors. 

For build quality, firstly, he manages to feel a bit heavier than both Bumblebee/Hubcap, and Brawn, in my hands. That blocky look also carries over to how he feels, very chunkily substantial for his small size. Plus, he’s got big, wide stompers, making him easy to stand up. The only unstable point is his backpack, which is supposed to plug into two pegs in his torso, which go into the middle of two hidden wheels inside his backpack, but the connection’s loose enough to be nonexistent.

Still, it at least stays in place off of the friction of some of the joints it’s on. I also got hit with a slight QC issue, though: His right knee’s a bit loose on my copy. Luckily, it’s not loose enough to make him unstable, and it can still hold a pose, though the fact that it’s a pinned joint means I’d need floor polish to fix it.

For articulation, this is one of those figures where the smaller size gave them space to really beef up his joints. Outside of all of the expected articulation, he comes with double-elbows, swiveling wrists, and double-knees, plus, generally, his joints have more range than I was expecting, which is funny, because I don’t think of Gears as Mr. Flexible.

One clever bit of engineering happens on his feet (which include ankle tilts), where a transformation joint gives each foot a big fold-in heel, meaning you can lift one foot in the air in a running pose, and still have it secured to the ground.

The only limit to his articulation is his head. While there’s a lot of range to the ball joint it’s on, including looking up and down, it tends to bump into his backpack. 

For accessories, Gears has only one: A small black laser gun.

Curiously, it’s not the “generic Sunbow pistol” design that some animation-accurate transformers come with (like Studio Series 86 Ironhide, Generations Selects Centurion, and Origin Bumblebee), but something a little more substantial, with what looks like an ammo magazine beneath.

He can hold it in his hands, but there’s also a 5 Millimeter peg on the back-right side of it, for storage on one of the four ports available to him in this mode, two on his backpack, and two on his lower legs. 

There’s an additional episode-specific feature, too, in the form of a chestplate that can raise up, exposing sculpted mechanical innards, specifically imitating a moment in “Changing Gears” when the Decepticons steal a part out of him.

In fact, according to designer Mark Maher’s Instagram post about the figure, you can take the mini-Laserbeak that came with Kingdom Core Soundwave, and have it represent that missing circuit.

As for what’s included with the figure itself, this is one area where he finally feels under-budget: His innards are solid, unpainted red, whereas the show had them silver, with various little mechanical details colored in.

At the very least, another silver paint app might have made it look better. Perhaps I’ll add one myself, with a Gundam marker, when this is all over. 

Transformation

You’d think the task of having to hide all four altmode wheels would have made this overly-complicated, but that’s not the case. It’s kind of hard to explain how Gears transforms, it’s loosely reminiscent of the G1 original in that his legs fold backwards into the truck bed, and that’s about it.

His backpack unfolds into his hood, his chest folds fully down and wraps around the back of the truck, and the arms fold in and underneath him. It’s pretty elegant, and feels really satisfying to do with my hands, particularly the way his arms collapse into his torso, and his wheels flip out. It’s the right balance of complicated enough to feel involved, but simple enough to do pretty quickly. It’s maybe 5 percent less elegant going back to robot mode, but that’s mostly because undoing his roof/robot feet is kind of a tricky move.

Vehicle Mode

This looks like Gears’s G1 truck mode at a glance, but a closer inspection reveals they took some stylistic design liberties with him. In fact, the front of the truck kind of reminds me of Bay-verse Ironhide’s GMC Topkick vehicle mode, albeit genericized enough to avoid paying licensing fees. This is hardly a complaint, though, he looks like what he’s supposed to be. Maybe a little too much like he’s supposed to be, since his truck bed doesn’t exist, and is filled up by his robot-mode shins and feet, instead of having space.

That, and the back of the truck just has his upside-down robot-mode chestplate hanging there.

And, like Studio Brawn, the doors of his truck are a bit of a mess of panels and hinges. Geez, I sound like the character now. To shake it off, let me just say that despite those issues, I do think the look of the vehicle mode still comes together pretty well, and the fact that it’s teeny-tiny feels neat, instead of cheap. 

For colors, things are mostly the same, with the addition of black wheels, with silver-painted rims. applaud the decision to make the windows painted blue, instead of clear plastic, especially the way that whole chunk of the figure splits and transforms. I also like the fact that they found budget to paint his headlights yellow, the extra little bit of color adds something. All of these little extras make me feel better about that unpainted inner chest, honestly.

 In terms of build quality, he manages to hold together as a solid lump of plastic. There’s another bad peg-fitting situation, just behind his front wheels, where the pegs on the wheel wells are really too loose to fit into his folded-up robot arms, but again, friction keeps the whole thing feeling tight. For features, Gear’s wheels are unusually high up (or is it low down?), so he manages to roll really well. And, according to Mark Maher’s instagram, again, you can fold them in along their transformation joints to access a Gigawatt-esque hover-mode.

And as for his weapon, he’s now got six different 5-millimeter ports across him, four on his sides, and two on his roof, giving you options for mounting or storing his weapon, on top of throwing in upgrades from other figures. 

Overall

See, this guy, I like, and way more than I was expecting to. The fact that he was an undersized Deluxe with a single accessory made me worry this was going to be another Brawn situation, but somehow, this guy turned out good, and it’s hard to put my finger on why. Maybe it’s how he feels blocky and solid, maybe it’s the bonus articulation, maybe it’s the unusually fun transformation, but he’s got a little something to him, call it spice, or soul, or whatever it is.

Some real work was put in here, and it shows in ways that are hard to define. He’s not without problems, mostly in his altmode, but it all comes together into something a bit more than the sum of his parts. He’s not some kind of big cultural reset, let me make that clear, he’s still a small Deluxe with a lone accessory, but somehow, he makes it all work for him. So, I’ll say it’s worth picking him up, if you see him. 

Bonus Mini-Review: Marvel Epic Hero Series Symbiote Suit Spider-Man. 

In Marvel Transformers #3, Gears was paired up with Spider-Man while he was in the midst of his original Black Suit phase, so I found myself interested in getting a figure that could accompany the new Legacy one. But modern 6-inch Marvel Legends are just too huge, and those smaller 5-point-of-articulation Marvel Legends Retro Collection figures are mad overpriced for what’s there (see my review of one of their Spideys). But Hasbro has seemingly provided, in the form of their Epic Hero Series figures. These are little four-inch action figures of either Marvel or Star Wars guys, and they have a dedicated Spider-Man imprint, which sells a few different Peters Parker, a Miles Morales, and Venom and Carnage. And, wouldn’t you know it, they made a Black Suit Spider-Man, who happens to, as of this writing, be on local Wal-Mart shelves.

While Spidey definitely isn’t actually to scale with Gears, the fact that he’s a little bit shorter means he passes the squint test. As for his sculpt, one of his hands is doing the shooty-web gesture, and the other’s sculpted like he’s grasping a nonexistent accessory.

Aside from that, it’s a really clean, athletic sculpt, toned, but not too muscular. The paint on these guys tends to be a little thin on the ground, but the Symbiote Suit is such a plain design, that he’s got all the color he needs, which is to say, white eyes and logos on his chest and back, and solid black for the rest of him. 

It’s the poseability that’s particularly impressive. His knees, hips, elbows, shoulders, and neck are all articulated, and with the exception of his neck, they’re all on these big, multi-directional swivels that let them go in basically any direction, making him way more bendy than I expected.

Like, his wrists don’t swivel, but you can rotate his forearms at his elbow. I think the only downside to these joints is that the cuts at his pelvis look really odd, like he’s wearing a generous codpiece. He also stays standing surprisingly well, and has pegholes beneath his feet, if you’ve got a stand for him. 

His lone accessory is a web-shooting effect, cast in white, that works in an interesting way: It’s got a plastic c-clip on the end of it, and fits around his wrist like a handcuff. It’s a clever bit of engineering, and lets him put it on either arm in a few different placements.

There’s not much else to say about this guy, he’s pretty simple, but he accomplishes his mission statement really well. But here’s the most important thing: At my local Walmart, after tax, he was almost $10 Canadian on the dot, which is a really good price for what’s here, especially compared to Reaction Figures, and other things in this scale. He has joints, he has a good sculpt, and the price is right! If you’re getting Gears, this is an easy companion piece. Heck, I might pick up more of these guys, the rest of the toyline looks pretty swank, too. 

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