Ever since watching the Beast Wars cartoon, there has been something about the pilot episode that has confused me. Ignoring the "it's because of the toys" reason when the Darksyde is searching for compatible alternate modes for the Predacon crew. It finds Dinosaur fossils; why didn't the Dinosaur Predacons turn into fossilized dinosaurs? It was searching for biological alternate modes for the Predacons, and bones are biological material. Why did the computer create a muscle and scale mockup for the bones based on their placement before turning most Predacons onboard into Dinosaurs?
I bring this up because of one of the gimmicks for the War for Cybertron Trilogy. In all three toylines, Siege, Earthrise and Kingdom, specific figures have been designed to be broken apart and reassembled into different configurations, both for Transforming between their alternate and robot modes and the ability to turn into accessories for other figures (to mixed results). For Siege, it was the Weaponizers, Earthrise had the Modulators, and Kingdom has the Fossilizers. "Now you too can give your red and blue truck a giant bone sword!" Though today's subject doesn't get to break apart like her Deluxe sized wave companion Paleotrex, she does get to inherit the Fossilizer aesthetic, giving us a female Transformer that turns into a Dracorex fossil. Meet one of the newest Predacons, Vertebreak!
As mentioned above, Vertebreak turns into a Dracorex fossil, and one of the biggest compliments I can give her right off the bat is that the alt mode looks great. Except for the silver screws in the joints, it's pretty hard to tell from a distance that she transforms at all. Thanks to the bone sculpting effortlessly blending the sculpting gaps for the sake of transformation, this toy can easily be passed off as an ordinary dinosaur fossil toy. The only outlier in this is the ball sockets on the ankles, and it makes her look like she's wearing Dinosaur foot-shaped high heals. I appreciate how minimalistic the paint decoration is, keeping to the skeletal design by mixing the black and very dark brown plastic, giving it a simple look that doesn't feel basic. Articulation is fine for the most part. Some of the limbs, like the arms being moulded in, I can live with considering how small the components are. However, it would have been nice to have an actual mouth and not a bit of soft plastic moulded open.
The transformation isn't anything spectacular for a Legends/ Core Class character. Remove the tail, flip out the arms, Dino head in the chest to reveal the robot head, then give her the tail as a... Bone sword? Bone whip? A Predacon version of the Sword of the Creator from Fire Emblem? The tail weapon is nothing to write home about, but it's at least a common use of beast kibble, and it even has well-disguised back storage. It's not as sturdy of a connection as Rattrap's is and will fall off if you knock it, but it will hold reasonably well. The robot mode itself is pretty nice, with some silver and red paint being revealed for the robot to add some extra colour to it. The ball joint articulation is back for everything but the knees, giving you everything other than a wrist and waist swivel. However, her most significant problem is that she's competing with Rattrap as a wave mate, so while she's nice, she feels underwhelming compared to Rattrap as she's far more basic by comparison.
The core of Vertebreak's problems come back to that last line. "She's far more basic by comparison". There's nothing wrong with the toy itself. It's a nice cheap Transformer with a lot of play value thanks to the straightforward transformation and well-placed joints. But when put side by side with her wave companions, Rattrap and Optimus Prime, nothing stands out about her. She hasn't got the excellent engineering of Rattrap or the brand recognition of Optimus Prime. As a result, she looks like a low effort wave filler by comparison, which is a shame. Vertebreak might not be a spectacular toy, but she is still an enjoyable one and one I do recommend picking up. The original plan was to review Cobra Commander next, and regarding Toybox reviews, he will be the next one covered on the site. However, with all the buzz surrounding the Snyder Cut, I think it might be good to dust off the Main Site and review not only the movie itself but the streaming service I saw the film on, Binge.
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