G1 Overkill

Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Categories: Cassette
Year: 1987

Too much destruction is never enough.
Whether talking, terrifying, or attacking, he does everything to excess. So busy proving how tough he is by snapping cars in half between his jaws, that he forgets his mission. Can record data as a cassette, rip open the hull of a battleship as a tyrannosaurus. Armed with 2 batteries of motion missiles -- each reacts to any moving object bigger than a baseball and explodes on contact.

Prelude: Many thanks to BlackZarak, who loaned me his Overkill for this review.

Dino Mode: Overkill doesn’t have a robot mode as such, the closest he comes is his dinosaur mode. According to his profile he is supposed to be a Tyrannosaurus, which... yeah, with a lot of imagination you can just about agree with that. Just about. Anyway, considering he transforms into a flat rectangle the dinosaur mode is mostly two-dimensional. You can spread his legs a bit to give him some width and he’s got those missile launchers he can clip to his sides, but otherwise he’s basically just a dinosaur cut-out. He can wiggle his tiny little forearms and open his jaws, though, which makes him better articulated than some other 1987 G1 Transformers I could name (I’m looking at you, Battle Chargers).

So bottom line: probably the best Tyrannosaurus you can transform out of a micro cassette tape. Not that much play value beyond posing him with his cassette brethren around Soundwave, though.

Alternate Mode: Nothing much to write here, Overkill transforms into a micro cassette that is compatible with the tape decks of Soundwave and Blaster. Stickers on one side of the cassette actually make it look the part quite well, though the other side is pretty much just contorted dinosaur limbs and you can clearly see his head in this mode. Thumbs up for the engineering of folding everything together so well, but little play value beyond sticking him in Soundwave’s chest.

Remarks: As one of the later cassette Transformers from G1, Overkill never managed to become as popular as the likes of Ravage or Laserbeak. He scored a single brief appearance in the cartoon series (Call of the Primitives, where he was on-screen for about three seconds) and a few cameos in various comic books. That’s pretty much it. So the only real reason to get him and many of his brethren is simply to group them around Soundwave. If that’s your thing, go right ahead. And bonus points for some good engineering, too.

Rating: C+