Axlegrease A new character! Transformers Legacy Evolution Deluxe Item No.: Asst. F2990 No. F7199 Manufacturer: Hasbro Includes: 2 small knee blasters, 2 medium engine booster blasters, 2 pipes, hook Action Feature: Transforms from robot to car, can be taken apart for Evo-Fusion Retail: $24.99 Availability: July 2023 Other: Decepticon-aligned Junkion with the head of Nancy, the body of Lockdown, and the colors of Shattered Glass Junkions
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Is it possible to be a new character and a shameless nod to too many existing things? Axlegrease does it all - if you're not a wiki-reading hardcore fanatic, she's a new character. That's good. If you are that kind of fan you can still see all the nods to the old cartoon, and toys, and offshoots, and I think it makes the toy even more fun. The fact that you can pop off parts and swap them with other Junkions makes her a fun toy, and really, I have no complaints other than I hope we get a few more repaints of this one. One in "Nancy" colors, the other - unless they have a new mold coming - would be nice to see as Lockdown, complete with new head. And I'm going to preemptively say I would buy them all.

If she looks familiar, Hasbro built Axlegrease off Scraphook [FOTD #2,529]. The colors are new, many of the accessories are changed, the trucky parts on the back are now carrish prts, plus she has a new and and a new chest. Also new thighs and new car fenders/shins. Hasbro did not skimp here - this is a pretty extensive retool.

How does the Evo-Fusion work? C-. The good news is you can swap limbs between Crashbar, Axlegrease, and Scraphook without any problems. The bad news is you can't mix and match limbs and transform them. For example, if you give Axlegrease one Scraphook arm and one Scraphook leg, she can't transform - there are pegs and slots that won't align. This seems totally counter to the whole swapping point of the line and odd that someone making a mold probably went out of their way to make sure you can't have a mismatched muscle car/truck thing. I found it to be upsetting. But as a solo toy? She's good.

The robot mode is an extensive Scraphook retool with new colors, and I'd say it's surplus to requirements. They could've left the old legs with no changes and I would neither notice nor complain - the new colors do a lot of the heavy lifting. She looks great, I love her "tattoo" chest, the colors are wonderful, the head is understated, and she just plain looks cool. There could be more painted detail, but given the budgeting (and plethora of accessories) I am not faulting them for not giving us more here. 7 weapons/accessories is a lot for a $25 toy with four fully-removable limbs, rocker ankles and so on.

Aside from the non-swapped limb transformation issue, the only shortcoming here is her elbows. Like Scraphook, they pop off pretty easily - but hers are much looser and easy to accidentally remove. You can't give her blast effects on her blasters if you want her arms to remain upright. (But they will fit in the blasters.)

In terms of accessories you get a lot - but I'd argue the pipes are kind of useless. The hook is cool, and can connect to a blaster or the back of her car mode. The "booster" blasters are both cool and can combine, as can the "engine" blasters which store in her shins. I like her gear a lot more than Scraphook's, and mercifully everything can be stored on either mode. She doesn't look goofy holding everything as a car, either.

Transformation is pretty simple, but the arms are sure to pop apart. The elbows are not fun during transformation, but the torso and legs are all a snap. I had issues getting her in car mode without gaps - your mileage may vary.

The car is a reskinned truck and it works - it's amazing. The driver's area has been retooled with different patterns and textures, plus the "truck" area is now filled in with some engine booster things. Hasbro did so much work making he look different, I'm actually surprised. The wheels don't spin particularly well, but she looks cool and I need some cool-looking cars after years of boring vaguely-1984/Diaclone alt modes. The cages on the windows and quasi-broken window looks great, the spikes are awesome, and it looks like a car that would be dangerous to touch between the cowcatcher and weirdly colored headlights. The hook on the back implies she might drag her enemies around, or rip their limbs off. It really feels like someone made a collector's version of a toy that never existed. I love the exposed engine on the hood too - everything about this car mode existed to inspire your imagination and build character out of someone we'll probably never see in a cartoon and probably won't see in a comic for years from now. It feels like something that should have been rejected just for being too different, but it's exactly what I want.

I have a hard time saying a deluxe toy is worth $25 lately, but this one is. It's a new character, it works well on its own, and you get enough gear to play around with that it feels like an actual toy and not as a collectible figure you'll never touch. I dislike that you can't transform her with swapped limbs - that seems like it was intended given the design of the line's gimmick - but at least, on her own, she's a good new character that I expect to hang on to for a very long time. At $25, I'd recommend adding her to your Deceptisquads.

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