Botcon Wildrider (The Stunti-Con Job)

Prelude: Wildrider is a repaint of Animated Lockdown, or rather Blazing Lockdown (because of the different weapon). So this review here will focus mainly on the differences between the figures.

Robot Mode: Wildrider is the tallest of the Stunticons and one of the tallest Deluxe-class figures overall. Seeing as his legs consist almost of the entire length of his car mode, that his hardly surprising. He retains the build of Lockdown, of course, being very tall, but thin. His paint job is mostly (painted) grey with red and silver highlights, a close match to the paint job of the original G1 Wildrider. He has both weapons of the Blazing Lockdown figure, the EMP reactor (which, of course, also fits on the Animated Ratchet figure) and the chainsaw.

A new head mold was used for Wildrider, though this one has as little resemblance to the G1 robot’s rather generic humanoid face as Lockdown’s noggin’ does. Still, I like the new head with the red face, the serious underbite and the raised-eyebrow expression he’s got. Okay, I don’t particularly see the master planner in that face, but it looks great regardless.

Sadly the one major flaw the Lockdown figure had persists here; the hands still can’t flip out fully, leaving his hands always at an angle to his forearm. Would it have been that difficult to fix this for the Botcon release? Well, it hasn’t been. It’s not a big thing, but it would have elevated this guy from great to near-perfect. Still, a very nice robot with a great new head. No complaints except for the wrist thing.

Alternate Mode: No changes here, Wildrider transformers into the same kind of pimped-out monstrosity Lockdown does, basically the Batmobile on crack. The coloor scheme was taken faithfully from G1 Wildrider, a grey car with red-tinted windows. The car features some highlights in black, silver, and red. Just like Blazing Lockdown, Wildrider can bring his chainsaw to bear here, too, and of course the barrels of the engine block / EMP generator can flip out for long-range firepower as well. So bottom line: still a nice car mode, no real changes from the original figure.

Remarks: In the Botcon 2011 comic story “The Stunti-Con Job” Wildrider was the director of the Motormaster Stunt Convoy, a cover operation for a Decepticon attempt to break Megatron out of jail. He’s also an explosions expert and loves to blow things up in spectacular fashion. So basically he’s the Michael Bay of the Animated universe. Need more proof? The plot of the Stunt Convoy Show basically amounted to a damsel (Dragstrip/Carly) being threatened by bad guys (Stunticons/Decepticons), to be saved by a fumbling hero (Toxitron/Sam). I can totally see that as a Michael Bay movie, only with less plot and more explosions. Oh, and brownie points for the G1 Easter egg in the form of the chaos-crystal-edged chainsaw.

What else can I say? While I wouldn’t call Wildrider the best figure of the set, I love his new head mold and the scene where he yells at Cheetor for ruining the rehearsal in the Botcon comic was just hilarious. If you want just one of the Botcon Sunticons, Wildrider wouldn’t be at the top of the list for me, but as part of the whole set he’s definitely worth your while.

Rating: B+