TransFormers Collectors' Club 2007 Members Incentive (Timelines) Breakaway

(Members Incentive Monday #5)

TransFormers has a long history of chubby aeroplanes. I guess it's understandable, because planes tend to be slim and sleek, and that's never ideal for concealing a robot. Breakaway is based on the Firebolt/Air Rider mold from Superion Maximus, and is probably my least favourite Energon gestalt component mold. The Club fiction portrayed him as slightly mystical, with the power to heal... Weird.

Vehicle Mode:
You can look at this plane in two ways. Either it's a ridiculously pudgy approximation of an F-22's fuselage with massively bulky 'wing/pod' things and an enormous robot arm undercarriage, or it's a very compact model that's actually very impressive for what it is... I mean, it's got a full 3 (fixed) wheel retractable undercarriage, after all. It looks pretty passable from most angles but, from behind, it becomes very obvious that this is just a folded up robot... I mean, it has robo-crotch instead of afterburners...

Breakaway is yet another part of the Club's 5-year gestalt that's molded predominantly in transparent red plastic, but this also has pale grey transparent plastic used for the cockpit, Energon chip and weapons.


Robot Mode:
As much as I dislike the exceedingly pudgy jet mode, and even though robot mode is not significantly less pudgy, Breakway is one of the better robots - all those ball-joints and slight articulation at the ankle make for a very poseable and quite stable robot.

The downside is that his weapons are rubbish. As noted in the Superion write-up, they could be rifles or some kind of tonfa... or perhaps even strange, double-bladed Energon swords. Using them as rifles, his arms have to be completely straight, as the barrels are longer that his forearms. They work much better as tonfa, but they are designed to look like guns... and the Club fiction really didn't help by not featuring them at all.

With more of the opaque blue plastic apparent in robot mode - upper arms, upper legs and groin - Breakaway looks a bit more balanced... but the paint job on his head is pretty shoddy - that splodge of blue is meant to be his face, but so much of the surrounding transparent red is left unpainted that it just looks like an errant drop of paint, rather than a deliberate attempt to colour him in.


I think it was around this point that any sense of enthusiasm I had about the Club Membership gestalt began to wane. The theory was good... but the components thusfar had been very hit-and-miss. Year four would have to pull of something pretty spectacular but, sadly, I already knew what to expect, and it wasn't particularly impressive... however, by this point, I was enjoying the premium Exclusives and a couple of BotCon sets, so I was well and truly hooked.

Breakaway is by no means a bad figure and, again, it's hardly fair to complain about a free gift. It's just a shame he didn't come with a different weapon... something unique to this set.