Cybertron Runamuck

Series: Cybertron
Allegiance: Decepticon
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2005

For most of his life, Runamuck served as a spy and courier for Megatron, carrying messages to Decepticon warriors behind enemy lines. Since his leader's disappearance, though, Runamuck has been pretty bored. Too many Autobots around meant he could not get away with much. But now, with the Autobots forced into hiding on Earth, he is having the time of his life tormenting them by striking at vulnerable targets in front of a lot of human witnesses, where the Autobots cannot counterattack.

Alternate Mode: Let us being with the vehicle mode this time, simply because it is the sole speck of light to be found in this stygian darkness that is Runamuck’s toy review. Runamuck transforms into a Nissan Skyline R32 street car with exposed engine block. Inserting his Cyberkey into the engine block triggers his gimmick, making the two halves of his hood shoot forward into an attack / dragster mode. It’s not the worst gimmick in the world, but not particularly well-executed, either. You can also open up the doors of the car to see Runamuck’s robot head inside. There is space in the rear of the car to store his weapon (see Missing Parts) or the Mini-Con Nightbeat (or one of his mold mates). Overall not a spectacular car mode, but still the best thing about this figure.

Robot Mode: Where to begin? Runamuck is a mess in robot mode. Huge legs with no knee joints and huge car kibble hanging off the sides. Huge arms with the halves of the car hood forming the forearms. Activating the gimmick by inserting the Cyberkey into the engine on his chest makes the hood parts shoot forward, leaving him forearms that are barely there anymore. More car kibble hanging off his butt. All of that combined makes for a robot that barely looks like a robot, can do very little apart from firing off his arm gimmick, and just looks messy. Bottom line: If you are unfortunate enough to have bought this figure and can’t sell it off for some reason, leave it in car mode.

Missing Parts: Runamuck came with an engine-block-like rifle that he could store in the back of the car mode (nowhere near the engine) in the place where Armada Side Swipe could store his Mini-Con partner. I'm missing this somewhat Mini-Con-shaped rifle.

Remarks: Runamuck did not appear in the Cybertron cartoon, but he did score two appearances in text stories written for the official Transformers Collectors Club, both of them ending up with him stranded on an alien planet waiting to be rescued.

As a toy, Runamuck falls firmly into the category of "what were they thinking?". Armada Side Swipe was a strong contender for weakest mold of the entire Armada line (and remember, that line includes Hot Shot and Scavenger) and turning him into a Decepticon, replacing the Mini-Con with a rifle, and adding a Cyberkey slot hasn't really improved it any. The car mode isn't all bad, but the robot mode is one of the weakest I've ever seen in the entire Transformers franchise. Bottom line: hands off unless you're... well, can't really think of a reason. So just hands off!

Rating: D-