Beast Machines Blastcharge

Series: Beast Machines
Allegiance: Vehicon
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2000

Destruction is the highest form of art.
Ground-based Maximals have literally nowhere to hide from this fearsome Vehicon. Second only to Tankor in brute strength, Blastcharge can demolish just about anything in his path. Powerful off-road abilities allow him to endure the roughest terrain imaginable. Equipped with 3 long-range plasma ultrarockets - no weapon known on Cybertron travels farther. Sheer power and drive make him an extremely effective weapon, but incredible stupidity keeps him from rising within the Vehicon ranks. Often heard mimicking Megatron's brilliant sayings.

Robot Mode: There is really just one way to describe Blastcharge's robot mode: He's Bib, the Michelin Man. He's tubby and his legs are made of stacked tires. Okay, the Michelin Man is made entirely from tires, but still, Blastcharge is the Michelin Man, reformatted by Megatron to partake in the Beast Machines conflict.

Jokes aside, Blastcharge is definitely one of the stranger-looking robots across all Transformers series. His lower legs consist of four of the vehicle mode's six wheels, while his thighs are very, very thin and have holes in them. His torso is pretty heavyset, his arms are rather tiny, he has big wheels on the shoulders, and then there is his only weapon: The missile launcher. It sticks out from under his chin. Straight out. Can't fold down or anything. It's fixed that way. Blastcharge has a real problem if he needs to tie his shoe laces.

The big missile launcher can hold three missiles, but strangely enough only the middle missile tube has a spring-loaded firing mechanism. The outer two missiles are just stuck in there. Not sure why they didn't include springs for the other two tubes as well. Maybe they figured that the missile launcher was already strange enough, so they might just go nuts with it and have it fire just one of three missiles. I don't know.

As far as posability goes, Blastcharge doesn't do half bad. His arms are pretty much fully posable, he can turn his head, and he can bend his knees, though his massively thick lower legs make his poses look a bit awkward. Detailing is also pretty good across the torso, even with the strange camouflage pattern.

Strangely enough I find myself rather liking Blastcharge's strange robot mode. I didn't at first, when I only knew the pictures. I bought him mostly for the vehicle mode. But holding him in hand... he's a strange kind of nice. Not sure why, but I like the tubby dude.

Alternate Mode: While his robot mode is definitely an acquired taste, Blastcharge's vehicle mode is pretty awesome. I'm not sure if he's modelled after an existing military vehicle of some kind, but even if he isn't, I wouldn't mind. Blastcharge transforms into a kind of all-terrain mobile missile launcher. He's got six big wheels, a huge chromed front, and the missile launcher now sits on top of the vehicle and can turn pretty freely in all dimensions. All the robot parts fold away pretty nicely, so the vehicle offers no visible clues that it transforms. Well, you might catch a glimpse of the robot fists if you look at it from the rear, but that's pretty much it.

I've tried to think of anything bad to say about this vehicle mode, but nothing really comes to mind. Okay, there is still the limitation on the missile launcher that can only fire the middle missile, but apart from that, nothing. One of the best vehicle modes in the entire Beast Machines line.

Side note: Blastcharge can also assume an intermediate mode between robot and vehicle, making him a kind of wheelchair-bot.

Remarks: So what we have here is a Transformers figure with a terrific-looking vehicle mode, a rather odd-looking robot mode that takes some getting used to, and a non-appearance in the Beast Machines TV series. I guess two of those three points might be off-putting for a lot of collectors, but not necessarily me. And besides, Blastcharge did make a short appearance in the Universe: The Wreckers comic book. He was a newly created Vehicon general (along with Quake) whom Megatron sent after the Wreckers. He failed, the Wreckers escaped, and his fate afterwards remains unknown.

So why did I buy Blastcharge? Well, for one he was pretty cheap. And second, I really like his vehicle mode. And while his robot mode takes a lot of getting used to, it kinda grows on you. So while I wouldn't go so far as to outright recommend him, he is a fun little tubby guy and might be of interest for fans of military alternate modes and weird-looking robot modes. Bottom line, I like him. Make of that what you will.

Rating: B

Please note: Thanks to Daytonus and Col. Jupiter at the AllSpark board, who pointed out to me that Blastcharge indeed has knees. I went by the picture on Blastcharge's techspec (see below) first and when you configure the legs like that, the knees don't work.