G1 Gears

Robot Mode: For a G1 Minibot Gears is actually a pretty posable fellow. He can move both arms at the shoulders and bend his knees individually. Not bad. Look-wise there is few grounds for complaints, either. His red and blue colouring, along with some silver in the legs, makes him look pretty good. He's boxy, of course, and there is the usual lack of resemblance to his cartoon counterpart (especially in the face), but that's pretty much standard for the early G1 toys. So while Gear is in no way special, he's a solid, decent little robot.

Alternate Mode: Gears transforms into a 4x4 pick-up of no specific model. There is very little to say. The little car looks good, it can roll over the floor, that's pretty much it. You'd be hard-pressed to realize that this is in fact a robot in disguise, though, so the mode does what it's supposed to. No complaints.

Remarks: Gears was the grouch among the early Autobots, always in a bad mood. The one episode he actually turned into a nice fellow was because Megatron removed one of his components (which he needed for some kind of doomsday machine or other), but he turned back to his old self later on. Gears was briefly seen during Transformers the Movie (1986), but it is unknown whether he survived, as he never appeared in Season 3. As a figure Gears is like many of the G1 Minibots. Good, solid, but not particularly interesting. I got him in order to try and complete my cast of Season 1 Autobots, so if you can get him cheap, there is no reason not to.

Rating: B-