Beast Wars Icebird

*Still waiting for an invitation from Charles Xavier.*

Series: Beast Wars
Year: 2000
Allegiance: Mutants
Class: Deluxe Mutant
Function: Mutant Beast Commander

Prelude: Imagine the situation: you trod through the landscape of a primitive backwater world, spotting a snowy owl sitting up in a tree. Then the owl turns to glare at you, launches off its perch, and transforms into a huge polar bear with blood-red claws mid-leap, heading straight towards you. Peed your pants yet? Enter the Beast Wars Mutant Icebird (not in any affiliated with the X-Men franchise). Let’s say go!

Owl Mode: The Beast Wars Mutants were figures without a robot mode, transforming between two beast modes instead. Icebird’s first beast mode (or second, there is not really an order to them) is that of a snow owl. The owl is clearly recognizable as what it’s supposed to be, but the proportions are a bit off, I’d say. The legs are really big and so are the claws, while the wings could probably be a tad bigger. Again, though, you recognize it for what it’s supposed to be. Just don’t look too closely on the sides, though, because you can see an extra pair of feet stowed away inside the torso there.

The owl’s legs are articulated, the wings can flap, and there is a mechanism included that, when you press a barely workable trigger on top of the head, the beak moves up and down. Not a great gimmick, to be honest. Be aware that if you spread the owl’s legs too far out, the tail feathers (which are on a spring) flip forward. Some of the white parts of the owl have yellowed a bit with age, but that was to be expected.

Overall the owl mode is okay. Not the best bird mode ever, but recognizable and offering some play value, too.

Bear Mode: Icebird’s second beast mode is a polar bear, so he is keeping the polar theme, at least. The owl is basically turned upside down, the wings fold around the torso, the owl feet become the forelegs and the rear legs unfold from the torso of the owl. The resulting polar bear actually looks really good and mostly well-proportioned, I’d say. The blood-red claws might just be a tad large, but otherwise he looks pretty realistic and there is almost nothing of the owl to be seen. Okay, he’s got a beaked anus, but nobody is perfect. All four legs are well-articulated and the bear’s mouth can open, too, and even shows a sculpted tongue.

Now all Beast Wars Mutants have a robot mode head hidden somewhere on them, intended to be the last remnant of their “lost” robot modes. Icebird is the only one of the Mutants, though, who can almost achieve something like a robot mode. Put the polar bear up on his rear legs, fold in the bear head, and unfold the robot head. Like I said, almost a robot mode. Really it’s just a bear standing upright with a robot head, but it looks weirdly cool, I must say. You can flip up Icebird’s right shoulder in this mode, too, and unveil some more hidden robot parts, too.

Bottom line: the polar bear is, to me, the better of Icebird’s two modes, as it looks the most realistic and well-proportioned. The gimmick with the robot head is nice in a weird way.

Remarks: In the year 2000, the Beast Wars line was already over and replaced by Beast Machines. Yet a few stragglers still made it to the toy stores under the Beast Wars banner, including a few figures that had originally been designed for the ill-fated Transformers Animorphs series. Since that series failed to find traction, four figures were repurposed, their human modes removed, and made into the Beast Wars Mutants. Transformers who “lost” their robot modes as part of Megatron’s experiments and transformed between two different beast modes. Icebird was their leader. Being late-comers to the party, the Beast Wars Mutants are difficult to find outside the US, at least for a decent price, and have been on my search list for years. Now, thankfully, my buddy James has found two of the four for me at a local action figure convention in the States.

Being a huge Beast Wars fan, I definitely wanted the Mutants in my collection, too. That said, Icebird is not a great figure. A good toy, yes, but not a great one. The lack of a robot mode is the figure’s distinction, but also kind of its weakness in my book. So bottom line: a nice figure for the novelty value and the rather unique gimmick, but probably only interesting for Beast Wars enthusiasts and fans of weird gimmicks.

Rating: B-