Beast Machines Thrust

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

There are no rules on the road - only the victors and scrap metal.
By far the most agile of the land based generals, the Vehicon Thrust is a lethal adversary against any Maximal. Extreme speed and shrewd handling make him a hard target. Subdued personality is a mystery - disposition reeks of a "rebel without a cause". The only general not intimidated by Megatron - always seems to know the correct thing to say. It is rumored that he hosts the Spark of former Predacon Waspinator. Outfitted with an enormous amount of firepower; fires energy pulses by spinning his front wheel while popping a wheelie. In robot mode, one arm functions as a rapid fire energy pulse weapon, the other a grappling hook. Cares for nothing but himself; often heard muttering the nihilistic phrase "To think is to say no."

Robot Mode: Thrust's robot mode can assume three different configurations in terms of his lower body. The Thrust we saw in the Beast Machines TV series didn't have any legs, but rather balanced on a single wheel. The Thrust toy can look like that, standing on a single wheel, but you either need to lean him against a wall or use his missile as a walking stick. The more stable configuration in terms of wheels is the tri-wheel mode. The front wheel folds forward and the split halves of the rear wheel are at the back. In this mode Thrust looks like an overgrown boy sitting on a very small tricycle, but it works in terms of balance and he can pull of all sorts of upper body poses without problems.

The final configuration gives Thrust legs, something he never had in the series. The front wheel splits, giving him two rather spindly legs with the wheel-halves as feet. This is the configuration in which he's most posable and balance isn't an issue, either, but it looks a bit silly, seeing as his huge upper body sits on top of that very small set of legs. Still, I decided on the legged-mode for the big imagemap picture, seeing as it's the most versatile of his modes.

Leaving the legs and wheels aside, Thrust makes for a pretty dashing robot. Both his arms and his head are very posable, he offers lots and lots of details, and the colours (while not exactly show-accurate) work as well. Weapon-wise Thrust can launch a missile from his right claw, which was his blaster in the TV series. So all in all Thrust is a decent robot, but sadly none of his three lower-body configurations manages to work one hundred percent.

Alternate Mode: Thrust transforms into a futuristic two-wheel bike and looks great doing it. Again the colours are not a hundred percent show accurate, but apart from that the bike works very well. Lots of nice details, a great overall look, and I'm a big fan of bikes anyway. The bike is not really designed for a rider, there is no real seat or anything, but as it was meant to be a drone, that works out just fine. Thrust's arms become the exhaust pipes of the bike in this mode and his missile can double as an exhaust flame. So overall, a very, very nice vehicle mode. No complaints.

Missing Parts: My Thrust here is missing one of his three finger claws on his right hand.

Remarks: Thrust was one of Megatron's original three Vehicon generals, created because mindless drones alone weren't cutting it against the Maximals. At first it was suspected that he was created from the spark of Silverbolt, but his true origins came to light later on. He's Waspinator, the original Beast Wars whipping boy. As Thrust, though, he was competent, lethal, and the only one of Megatron's generals who stayed true to him to the very end. When Cybertron was reconfigured into a techno-organic world he ended up in the body of a very small techno-organic wasp, which did not make him happy at all.

As far as Beast Machines toys go, there's always a bit of a chicken-and-egg discussion going on. Did the TV show mess up by not designing characters according to the toy designs or did the toy designers mess up by not being show-accurate enough? Whatever the case, most Beast Machines toys do not have all that much resemblance to their TV incarnations and Thrust is no different. He has some overall resemblance, but there are big differences in the details. Still, as a toy Thrust isn't bad. A kick-ass vehicle mode, a robot mode that has but one big problem (the leg-wheel-thing) and an overall nice look make him a pretty good toy overall. And in a way he's also the ancestor of the wheel-riding robots we're gonna see in "Revenge of the Fallen" this year, so a little bonus point for that one.

Rating: B-