Cutthroat POTP Figure review

I’ve had this guy sitting on my desk for a while now.  Actually I got him out after the Swoop review because they are, well, body-buddies.  However as I’ve spent some quality time with him, playing, fiddling, road trips etc. I’ve come to the conclusion that Cutthroat is more.

My link to Cutthroat is erm, not strong.  As a kid, the Terrorcons were the closest I ever got to completing a gestalt team.  Well, I had Blot and Rippersnapper, both of which I’ve always thought were awesome. At the time that the Power of the Primes line would include the Terrorcons, I was super happy!  Also, I was extremely excited that they were still called the Terrorcons. I thought Hasbro would run away from that term after, well the way that the word terrorist and war on terror etc etc is used by the media… Especially considering how Rippersnappers actual function in G1 was a “Terrorist.” But that's for the eventual Rippersnapper review.

Enough about other stuff, let’s look at Cutthroat right NOW!

The Looks

At first glace, Cutthroat looks to be a very heavy copy of the Swoop body, but aside from engineering the only share very few parts.  Biceps, shoulders, thighs and hands looks to be about the only pieces that are the same. Everything else has different sculpting on it.  Even something that is minor, like the wing piece that connects to his back is a Cutthroat special.

Robot mode is very slim and looks like a nice light body for flying.  Let’s just disregard the fact that according to his G1 bio, he can only glide fairly erratically.   Colour wise he is predominantly a dark aqua-green, beige and purple. It all manages to work pretty well and areas where the have plastic coloured paint matches the plastic colour very closely.



I quite like his colour combination actually, the purple wings give him a cape type look.  That combined with the beige bird head on his chest almost makes him look like some regal king of some description. 

He has a plainly painted Decepticon insignia on the bird head for robot mode.

He has a few smooth spots on him which I think is fine as he has a fair bit of paint applied to his body.  The shins and knees have old skool styled sticker looking bits as do his pectorals. The rest is just little spots here and there to break up the plastic colours a bit.  Like the red splodge on his cod-piece, the silver face and red eyes (of both robot and beast mode).

Sculpting

His wings have a fair bit of ambient sculpting to them and you can see some panels that could be used to direct his flight.  They are also a bit tougher looking than Swoop’s wings as well.

His limbs have a fair bit of detail on them.  Even the side of the bird head has enough detail there to let you know that he isn’t an organic creature when in monster mode.

One part that is kind of colour related as well is on his groin.  The groin and the butt piece snap together and s made of the green and beige plastic.  Looking at the front, the beige part is used to clip the pieces together, as well as providing some extra colour.   I think this is a very clever idea and well implemented. 

One negative I guess of the robot mode sculpt is the incredibly obvious monster legs hanging off the robot legs.  The Dinobots managed this a bit more elegantly (although not perfectly) with parts folding in on one another and the Legends Monsterbots did this well, but as a general rule, G1 toys just had animal legs hanging off somewhere.  Really with the sleek nature of Cutthroat’s sculpt, it is an unfortunate side effect. No matter what angle you look from, there are bird legs…

His head is a wonderful sculpt.  The square shape is there and all important,  and the smooth silver face is nicely 80s cartoon like.  His red eyes, I can’t tell if they are separate pieces inside the helmet or just painted, but whatever they are, they just beam out with menacing, uuh, redness.  I don’t have much memory of Cutthroat in cartoons and stuff, however it FEELS nicely cartoony.

Articulation

Since he seems to use Swoop’s design as a base, the robot mode has  heaps of articulation as most of the joints are clear of obstructions. Going down the list:

• Swivel wings at shoulders. Hinged wings. Swivel at end of wings.
• Swivel neck
• Ball Shoulders, Swivel at the biceps, hinge elbow hinged wrist (for transformation)
• Waist swivel, ball hip joints.
• This swivel, knee.

Overall not too shabby at all.  The fact that they are all relatively unhindered by sculpting gives this guy a good range of motion and he is a lot of fun to play with.  Be aware, while relatively unhindered articulation is king, the parts connecting the legs to the ball pegs at the hips is square, so you can find that the corners of the hips can get caught on the waist section.  A minor issue, but slightly annoying. I dislike it when this happens as it’s a small thing that can have a large effect on the toy. For example, Super con armada Prime has some nubs on his hips that hinder the hip movement a huge amount.  Luckily Cutthroat’s isn’t that bad.

I’ve had quite a bit of fun with his regal look and the right pose to enhance his arrogant ruler look.  I’ve really enjoyed playing with this guy a LOT.

Weapon wise

He comes with his Prime armour and a gun.  The gun looks so much like the G1 toy’s one it’s delightful.  The prime armour is a spikey fist for the eventual Abominus, or, like Swoop, a jet pack for both robot and beast mode.  You can also mount the gun in it as well which is nice. If you don’t want the armour on there is a hole in the wing where you can mount the gun too.  Nice. Due to the bird head being proudly displayed on his chest, you can’t mount the prime armour on his chest.



Not that I mind as I didn't really like the prime armour on the chest anyway.

Now he has his jetpack on, it’s as good a time as any to mention he has a plug for a flight stand.  Nice.  I like that Hasbro are including these things now, it really helps out for photography and is especially needed for flying characters.

Transformation

Transformation to monster mode is about what you would expect.  You fold the arms in and clip them to the hips. The bird head flips up to form a mask over the robot head and the legs  kind of sideways fold up over the thighs. What you end up with is a long, straight looking bird guy. It’s not the most imaginative transformation in the world. Oh yeah, fold the ings forward and the head crest up.
Hawk-monster thing mode.

The end result does look pretty good and looks like some mad hawk monster thing.  It is also very similar to his g1 body, but bigger with more paint.



Colour wise there isn’t much of a change at all.  Although on the bird chest you have a smaller area of beige and a really nicely painted Decepticon insignia that looks a LOT like one of the run symbols from the original toys. But smaller.

Articulation of da bird.

Monster mode has some articulation. 

• Two joints in the legs (Hips/knees)
• Wings have should swivel and hinge, and an elbow swivel. 
• Head can flop up and down(although it can expose the robot head)
• Beak can open and close.
• Tail can flip up and down.

This version comes with a new tail, which adds to the look of the mode quite nicely.

The sculpting is much the same as the robot mode, but now you can spend more time noticing it.  The head is really nicely done with some extra panel lines for good measure and assumed robo-feather type details.  It almost looks like the back of the bird head would flare out a little. Is this guy some kind of mutant cockatoo?

From the back he is kind of plain.  No real new detail is exposed, except now you can use the Primes/Titan Masters/Headmasters mounting ports that are on his lower back area. As are ones on the main back section of his wings.



If you angle the wings a bit, you can attach the Prime armour to him and mount the gun, just as we did for robot mode.  I do like this look a lot as it kind of makes sense, although mine has a loose connection, so it falls off fairly often.  You can also still mount the gun on the wing without the armor as well.

One missed opportunity in my mind is that the forearms in robot mode have a weapon port on them, however, in monster mode, the port gets folded up and covered by the wing thereby making it useless.  It would have been good if this port was accessible during the monster mode for some under-wing mounting options.

Overall the look of the Hawk-monster thing is pretty good, it does looks satisfyingly horrific and if I saw this guy coming down the road towards me (of course, huge and Transformer sized), I’d probably poop my pants.  Naturally I imagine him hopping like some massive sparrow that escaped from Satan’s aviary.



When comparing Cutthroat to Swoop, it’s almost hard to believe they are body-buddies.  You can transform Swoop like cutthroat, but Cutthroat can’t transform like Swoop does. Quite remarkable.

Because he is part of Abominus, he can transform into an arm and a leg.  I suggest keeping him as an arm, as the leg config can be a bit wobbly. Not as bad as swoop, but still a little unstable.

Before I got my Terrorcons, I read that Cutthroat had issues with the pins in his beak, crest and bird head being prone to breaking/popping off.  I wonder if there was a change in the toy run as mine has no issues at all and I will state that the bird head seems to get put under a fair bit of pressure when moving the head from the chest are to the shoulders for transformation.

Overall I like this guy quite a bit.  It’s impressive to see such a big difference from essentially the same body design as Swoop.  He looks appropriately robot-monster-Generation1-homage-y and still kind of creepy as well. His robot mode is well done, looks regal and isn’t overly busy with colours and paint.  Despite me thinking I wouldn't like him that much, I’ve actually found myself liking him quite a lot!