DE 
EN 
Series: Prime Robots in Disguise
Allegiance: Decepticon
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2012
Long exposure to the radiation of Dark Energon has changed Dead End. The formerly talkative Decepticon mercenary now broods quietly in the shadows, staring hungrily at the power cores of his fellow warriors. He's always freaked out the Autobots, but now even his friends think he's scary. And that's because he is. Dark Energon has unpredictable effects on anyone it touches. With Dead End, that has resulted in him feeling a hunger that normal fuel does not satisfy, and an attraction to the darkest places in the Decepticon base.
Prelude: Dead End here makes the 1,000th Transformers toy review here on this site. Many thanks to all visitors, members, guest reviewers, and various other people who have supported this site during the last 8 1/2 years. Here's to the next 1,000 reviews. And now on with the show.
Robot Mode: Dead End is a repaint (with a new head) of Wheeljack, so this review will mainly focus on the differences between the two. Dead End has received a wonderfully 90s paint job in dark grey, orange, yellow, and green. He could easily play a part in a 90s cartoon show like Captain Planet (oozing toxic sludge or something). I really like that paint job they gave him, makes him an unofficial Generation 2 homage character to my eye.
Apart from the new paintjob, Dead End also got a new head, one that looks decidedly evil and has an enormous mouth (or maw, rather) to go with his profile of being constantly hungry for energy. Very nicely done. The rest is the same excellent robot that we already know from Wheeljack, including the swords and very nice articulation. So bottom line: a very cool robot mode.
Alternate Mode: Naturally the car mode is the same as Wheeljack’s and with the new robot head safely hidden away, the only differences are to be found in the paint. The glaring 90s paintjob is just as prominent here as in robot mode, including transparent green windows and neon green hubcaps. Very nicely done.
Remarks: Like most toy lines the Prime line features quite a few figures (many of them repaints) that never appeared in the TV series, but only on the toy shelves. Dead End is one such toy. That doesn’t stop him, of course, from being quite awesome. It helps, naturally, if you really like the way they went crazy on his paint job, as I do. If you’re not a fan of glaring 90s-style colour palettes, then this might not be the best of the various Wheeljack-repaints for you, but me, I like it very much. And you should own at least one version of the Wheeljack figure.
Rating: B+
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