Side Burn Late, but awesome Transformers Timelines Collector's Club Membership Figure Item No.: No. 36748 Manufacturer: Hasbro and Fun Productions Includes: Gun, projectile Action Feature: Transforms into car, firing rocket Retail: $39.99 (free with club membership) Availability: August 2011 Other: Classics Rodimus repaint
PREVIOUS	RSS	NEXT

Part of the fun of the Transformers Collector's Club is that, in theory, you get new characters or updates of obscure fan favorites. That's the case of Side Burn here, an update of a figure from nearly 10 years ago from the partially-forgotten (outside the circles of fans who were alive and kicking during its run) Robots in Disguise and Car Robots lines from the US and Japan, respectively. The original toy was a Dodge Viper, an uncommon licensed vehicle alt-mode, with a car shell and a super-poseable robot inside. While it had chrome weapons and rubber wheels, it was a pretty lousy toy-- thankfully the new one is a little more fun to play around with and looks really, really good to boot.

Measuring in at just over 5-inches tall, the robot is a repaint of Classics Rodimus, which has been repainted a few times as himself, an evil version of himself, and different characters entirely. The colors work really well on this mold, with blue and white joined by a yellow color which just screams "I'm a 1980s throwback!" without literally screaming at you. He has about 11 meaningful points of articulation as well as a hidden flip-out "communicator" modeled after Hot Rod's wrist saw from Transformers: The Movie. Despite Side Burn and Hot Rod not really sharing a common silhouette, I'd be lying if I said that this design didn't work. It's fantastic.

If you get in real close to the helmet, you can see that the designers kept the original asymmetrical deco with a little gold paint, some silver, and a nice splash of white bringing his helmet to life. A little red shines through his eyes, despite the piece being molded in yellow plastic-- given that this gimmick usually doesn't work out too well, it's nice to see that the club made sure it looked great. Side Burn lacks the vac-metal chrome of the original, but still replicates the silver-and-red engine block on the chest quite nicely. As an added bonus, the gun may be mounted on the figure's back or in his hands, so you have options for display.

Based on a swell supercar concept design, the blue flames suggest an extremely hot and fast vehicle. The wheels roll nicely and even though he was packaged with a very large number of rubber bands holding him together, it seems there are no real problems transforming him and getting the pieces to fit together nicely. I would go as far as to say that it works better than other copies of the mold I've bought in the past, except that the arm popped off during transformation. (Not to worry, it also pops right back on.)

Given the pricing and nature of exclusives, this is a nice item-- if you signed on to the club, you know the character appears in their "Wings of Honor" G1-themed comic stories before the Autobots came to Earth. As a "free" membership figure, he's great. At $10, I think you'd be very happy with it. The club had "extras" a while ago, and they sold out in under a day. They're pretty darned nice, and Side Burn is quite good for being a mold which is now 5 years old!

Additional Images

Click here to see more Hasbro figures in Figure of the Day.

Click here to see more Transformers figures in Figure of the Day.

Want to buy this figure? Check Transformers availability at our sponsors:
Entertainment Earth