Power of the Primes Cutthroat

Prelude: Cutthroat is a retool of Power of the Primes Swoop, so this review here will focus on the differences between the two figures.

Robot Mode: Despite being a retool of Swoop, Cutthroat (and isn’t that a nice, kid-friendly PG name?) differs in quite a few ways. Differnent wings, of course, as well as a different bird head on his chest. Different legs, too, owing the to the slightly different configuration in beast mode (see below). Add a different head and entirely different colors, too, and you have a figure that looks almost entirely new.

Overall I must say that I like Cutthroat slightly better than Swoop in terms of looks, but that is entirely subjective, of course. The robot is basically the same except for some cosmetic differences. He, too, comes with a combiner fist that doubles as a chest armor that can fit a Prime Master inside it. Doesn’t look too bad on Cutthroat, but I’ll never be a fan of this gimmick, I fear. Cutthroat also comes with a purple gun instead of a sword.

Overall a good robot mode. I’m a fan of winged robot modes, so there is that, and Cutthroat also has that same cool late-80s-look that I like about the Power of the Primes figures. Nicely done.

Alternate Mode: Cutthroat transforms into a bird-like creature, but in a slightly different way than Swoop. Instead of fully folding his legs onto his back, Cutthroat simply folds them in and has bird legs on the sides, making for a larger, more solid-looking creature than Swoop. Also, the bird head isn’t simply a mask slipping onto the robot mode’s face, but includes a long neck, too. The bird can open its beak and both the gun and the combiner fist can be stored on its back. The wings have an impressive span. So bottom line: if you like winged beast modes, there is no reason why you can’t like this one here. Nicely done.

Combiner Mode: Cutthroat becomes an arm or a leg of the Abominus combiner and is compatible with pretty much every torso-robot from Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes, too. More on Abominus once I’ve finished reviewing the individual team members.

Remarks: I could pretty much copy and paste what I’ve written about the other four Terrorcons here, I guess. Cutthroat has appeared in multiple media across the years, but never as anything more than one of the five Terrorcons and a part of Abominus. What we know of his character we know from his G1 tech spec, that’s it. So yeah, you’re not going to buy this toy for the rich and detailed history of the character it portrays.

In direct comparison with Swoop I must say I like Cutthroat slightly better, but given that he utterly lacks Swoop’s media presence and character value, I ended up giving both the same rating. Besides, while you might buy Swoop because you like the character (I did, certainly), I can’t see many people buying Cutthroat outside of wanting to complete Abominus. Which you should do, by the way, so go and buy Cutthroat if you haven’t already.

Rating: B