Nearly all the primates in the TFs line have been gorillas, from Apeface to Beastbox to the many incarnations of Optimus Primal. B'Boom is a double treat, since he's not only a different type of primate, but a very good one at that.
Beast Mode: B'Boom is a mandrill, the largest species of monkey. While a real mandrill has brown fur and blue and red skin patches on its face, B'Boom has metallic blue fur and white and orange skin patches. His eyes are black with orange pupils, his ears are gold, his fangs are white, and his hands, shins, and feet are metallic silver. He's got some robot bits on his legs, his fangs should be much larger, and he's missing the characteristic red patch on his rump, but aside from that and his colouring, he's as accurate as you can get. Mandrills and other baboons are known for their ferocious demeanours and B'Boom certainly looks like he's ready to unleash hell upon some unfortunate Predacon.
At 14 cm(5.5") long and 12 cm(4.7") tall, B'Boom is one of the largest Megas. Not surprisingly for a BW toy, the sculpting on him is superb. His fingers and toes have wrinkles in them and his fur looks thick and smooth. He has joints at the wrists, elbows, upper arms, shoulders, waist, hips, thighs, knees, and ankles. Pulling on his left ear causes his lower jaw to drop, his brow to raise, and his eyes to widen, as though he just walked in on Blackarachnia taking a shower. A missile launcher is housed in his throat and he comes with two missiles that also store in his throat as well. Pushing forward the tab on his back causes the launcher to fire, with a range of two meters and enough force to knock over an empty pop can. No jokes about monkey projectile vomiting, please.
Tank Mode: Transforming B'Boom to this mode is quite involved, and may require consulting the instructions. He basically explodes, with his chest and belly splitting apart to form cannons, his back section flipping out and over, and his waist and limbs rotating around. The end result is what can best be described as a 16 cm(6.3") long walking tank, blue, gold, and silver in colour, with twin double-barrelled laser cannons and 10-shot rocket pods, a big main gun, and a gold head with orange eyes and metallic silver teeth that resembles the creature from "Alien." The launcher fires by pushing forward on the small blue tab on top, the cannons pivot, and there's even a small platform near the rear of the tank that can accommodate a Basic-sized figure. The cannons tend to be a bit floppy, but overall, this sucker rocks. Even Rampage might think twice before taking it on.
Transformation: Again, pretty involved and requiring some excessive force to get pieces to slide up or snap into place. Figuring out how to get the laser cannons/missile pods to fold up and attach to his chest can be especially frustrating.
Robot Mode: B'Boom stands 18 cm(7.1") tall and is every bit as badass-looking in this mode as his other two. He's got a massive upper body, long arms and legs, missile pods on his chest, and one seriously freaky head: gold with pointed ears, orange eyes, white fangs, and a blue mohawk. His head turns, plus he has all the articulation of his mandrill mode. He remains mostly blue with some gold for his upper body and mostly silver legs. His launcher slides out from its chamber to become a handheld gun. His only downsides are wrists that come off a bit too easily and odd-looking feet.
Overall, Susp Sez: After Air Attack Optimus Primal, B'Boom is my favourite primate TF. Great beast and robot modes, kickass tank mode, powerful missile launcher, good poseability, nice colours. A real shame this guy wasn't featured on the show. 10/10
Susp
"Don't get yer bananas in a bunch." -Rattrap
| Reviewer | Suspsy |
| Date | August 15th 2002 |
| Score |  (10 out of 10) |
| Reads | 7557 |
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