Height: 9cm head height in Robot Mode; 9cm long in Vehicle Mode.

Articulation: 10 points overall- ball-jointed shoulders, elbows and hips, and double-jointed ankles.

Colors: Molded black, clear blue, and red. Painted silver, red, and black.

Accessories: Blasters x2.

Release Data: Released May 2012 at an MSRP of $8.99.

Author: RAC

Ironhide is ready for anything, as long as "anything" involves a fight. Surly, tough and spoiling for battle, Ironhide has made a career out of blasting Decepticons to pieces. His laser-proof armor makes him a tough opponent for even the most powerful warriors.

Ironhide is the first Transformers Prime character in the Cyberverse scale who's not actually on the show. Based on a very early concept design for Transformers Prime by Ken Christiansen, somebody at Hasbro liked Ironhide enough that he made it through to the toyline. And unlike our other non-show characters, Hot Shot and Dead End, he's an all-original mold! Very weird. And it gets weirder: there's also going to be a Deluxe Ironhide, which we haven't seen yet, but we have seen Kup, who is his recolor. It really is a surprising level of attention for a design that's not on the show... (yet?)

Robot Mode

In this mode Ironhide is pretty clearly G1 Ironhide with a half-twist of Prime's softened movie aesthetic: not as "alien" looking, but still highly (perhaps excessively) detailed. The movie is also represented in the amount of black present on this Ironhide; in this mode, he's probably 60/40 black and red. He looks decent, selling the bio's description of a heavily armored scrapper by getting very close to being as wide as he is tall. His G1-style helmet's a little bit silly, though, giving him a very squatty face in a much larger head. Very Derek Yaniger. The chest is likewise G1 inspired, with a blue rectangular window making good use of the Commander Class' gimmick of clear plastic in the torsos for interacting with the lights in the larger playsets. The rest structurally does its own thing, with the biggest visual cues to Movie Ironhide in this mode, besides the black, being his weapons. There are 3mm sockets for those both on his forearms and in his hands- I prefer mounting them on the arms, personally.

Articulation's about average for Commanders. No neck joint due to transformation requirements. Those requirements also angle the shoulder joints, so Ironhide can only swivel his arms at an odd, inward angle. He also can't quite swing them straight out to the side, but he gets close. The transformation joints for the shoulders have the potential to allow him some more range for posing, but the truck-chunks on his shoulders lock them down- a pity. The elbows can swing up 90 degrees, but because the ball-joint's socket is on the upper arm- very unusual -it has no swivel. No waist either, of course. The hips are great, swinging straight out or all the way to the side with no issues whatsoever. The knees get about 90 degrees as well, but are pretty high up on the leg, so that's not as useful as it could be. The feet have a pair of transformation joints that can help you pose Ironhide: one set that move laterally and helps with wide stances, and a foot joint which allows him to lean into a pose. Decent for the size overall, but not great.

Transformation

It's got some neat touches. The legs fold up neatly to become the bed of the truck, and forming the hood requires you to grab him by the collarbone area and twist his upper body around. Locking the hood of the truck together is trickier than it may seem at first; the key is that there's no stops on the bumper bits on Ironhide's shoulders. You can and must swing them all the way back to complete the transformation, and the head and shoulders are designed not to move unless the shoulder joints have been swung up above his head.

Vehicle Mode

It's kind of the reverse of the Robot Mode: where that was G1 with a twist of Movie, the pickup truck mode is patterned after Movie Ironhide's alt-mode with some red thrown in both for the reference and to stave off the monochrome boredom that the movie version of the character suffered from. There's a black patch on the hood I keep staring at- I want for there to be a rubsign there. There are a lot of seams on the figure, but they're in patterns largely compatible with the lines of the truck, so while it's busy, it doesn't have that sensation of something being wrong that I associate with Universe Ironhide. It looks a lot better from the front end, as the tops of the legs peek out from behind the cab and the bed of the truck is very obviously hauling Ironhide's feet. There are also some seams that don't really want to match up there. Fortunately there are a couple of attachment points for the weapons on there, so your choices are Ugly Truck or Rocket Truck. That's an easy choice! There are also some hardpoints for the weapons on the sides, so if you want an armed truck instead of a Rocket Truck- or maybe a truck with rockets on the sides -you can do that too. It rolls very smoothly too.

Accessories

A matched pair of cylindrical cannons which double neatly as jets or rockets for the Vehicle Mode. They have three pegs, one of which is on the end so that you can put them together front-to-back for a more impressive weapon. The other pegs are staggered across the length of the barrel, so the weapons will fit the back of the truck more easily using the set farther back. Like Starscream, there are defined left and right weapons, which is a nice touch.

Closing Remarks

Ironhide is decent enough, a solid Very Good on the Figurereviews.com Non-Numeric Rating Scale. He has a few quirks, but looks decent in both modes and has some nice weapons. I really would've preferred Breakdown in this slot so he'd be a proper match for Bulkhead, but that's not the toy's fault, so it doesn't figure into this rating.

Reviewer	RAC
Date	August 13th 2012
Score	(8 out of 10)
Reads	5742
Link	Cyberverse Commander Ironhide Gallery

Image Gallery