Wait, are we seriously starting with Lockdown…?
Why yes, I know. Mastermind Creations R-15 Jaegertron might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I will argue that it’s still a wicked representation of IDW’s bounty hunter himself, Lockdown. That might be a bit unfair since the official representations are based on the Transformers Animated incarnation, so to date (or at least at the time I am writing this) there’s only one toy version based on the IDW universe and it’s a third-party one.
However, I should give credit where credit’s due. It’s a really badass version of the character.
With a really sleek spaceship for the alt mode and a badass looking robot mode, you’d think this mold has no flaws, right? Well… You’d be wrong. There’s a few frustrating things about it. Nothing that really stops me from recommending him though.
First of all, let’s be honest. IDW Lockdown was the bounty hunter that Megatron sent after Drift in the Drift miniseries. It’s also the lead henchman when the crew of the Lost Light finds Luna 1 and Chief Justice Tyrest on More Than Meets The Eye. Lockdown is basically Cybertron’s own Boba Fett. Actually, Mastermind has also given him a bit of a Predator angle as you get a weapons and trophy case.
Yes, it transforms into a sort of a space trailer (a box) but at least he can take it with him. The extra melee appendages include his hook, but he can’t transform with any of those. You have to revert to the hands which are the only ones that can fit into the forearm compartments. If you’ve seen video reviews of this guy, you know that the wings don’t lock into anything and the shoulders don’t stay in place. All those are really minor complaints.
The wasted opportunity in my opinion is the backpack. It’s good that this guy has a decent balance because this thing is huge.
Notice also how wide it is. It’s all this material that for me, could’ve been used to create the arms instead. Actually, the robot could’ve been bigger given so much material to work with. This is the official way that the backpack is supposed to look.
I prefer to keep the forward… uh, let’s call them, intakes pointed down. It ends to slim down the figure a lot. You can still store the swords in the backpack, as a matter of fact this way the swords can be carried into the transformation to spaceship.
By the way, in case you don’t know, that “shield” is removable but does not plug in anywhere else. The figure does not have a single port where that disc can plug in except there. I find it would have been easy as pie to make a port/stub for it in the forearm.
Amazingly, you can still balance him with those intakes facing down (you can’t bend them while the swords are inside, remember that!). It also gives him a bit of a trenchcoat look if you squint a bit.
We can probably assume the mold was meant for their Cyclonus (R-22 Boreas, coming up later!) but the honest truth is for me this is still a figure that surpasses a lot of official stuff. There are no empty spaces or cheap ball joints or angles in which the figure doesn’t look right. The amount of accessories include weapons and swords that never feel cheap. There’s extra heads for the figure itself and even a gun-face mode that walks the line between kickass and ridiculous but still fits the whole bounty hunter persona. Yes, the transformation could use some extra tabs and pegs to lock in, but the resulting alt mode has a major swooshable factor. As for the robot mode, the photos should speak by themselves.
Highly recommended for fans of IDW Lockdown. It’s not really part of the Lost Light crew, and just like Boba Fett, the character only makes a brief appearance. It’s still a commanding presence in any collector’s shelf. Above average for a regular toy to categorize as a collectable piece, but not quite masterpiece quality.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 