Animated Blazing Lockdown

Series: Animated
Allegiance: Decepticon
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2008

My sensors detect your fear
Exposed to an exotic form of energy, Lockdown goes through remarkable changes. His systems are suddenly super energized so much that the excess power leaks directly through his armor in a fiery glow. Devoted more deeply than ever to tracking and destroying his Autobot prey, he no longer demands payment for his work. Now, he hunts simply for the joy of seeing the fear in a victim's eyes.

Remarks: Blazing Lockdown is a repaint of the first Animated Lockdown, so look there for the full review. Just some words on the differences here. Two things have changed for this "Blazing" repaint of the Decepticon bounty hunter. First is the new paint job. Where the first Lockdown was black with grey and green highlights, this one here is black with yellow-gold highlights. The gold is a bit more wide-spread than the non-black colors were in the first version and is applied in a flame pattern on his legs, forearms and back in robot mode, appearing on the hood and roof in vehicle mode.

The second change is that the hook the original Lockdown had on his weapon gauntlet has been replaced with a golden buzzsaw. Now nothing against robots armed with buzzsaws, but in this case I do have a bit of a jibe, seeing as the saw is basically just plugged into the spot where the hook was. It's not fixed there and doesn't fit a hundred percent, either. It's either at an angle to the rest of the gauntlet or wobbles. I'd have liked it better if it were fixed in place properly, though that would probably have been a bit difficult as it needs to be able to flip inwards in vehicle mode. Don't get me wrong, the buzzsaw looks cool in both robot and vehicle mode, but design-wise it could have been done better.

No other changes to the figure. There was a rumor before this figure came out that Lockdown's hand issue (he can't fully unfold his hands from his forearms, they always remain at an angle, see 4th picture) would be fixed with either this version and/or the "Stealth" repaint, but neither happened. So what remains is a cool-looking figure that's nothing more and nothing less than a repaint of a pretty good figure. I wouldn't call the buzzsaw either an improvement nor a detriment, it's just different. And would have been better fixed in place. If you haven't got the original Lockdown, this one is a good alternative. But I wouldn't have bought both versions if this one hadn't been clearanced.

Rating: B