Hasbro continues to drift outside my area of interests with their current crop of Transformers, and as I’ve said before, I get it, and I’m fine with that. The kids who grew up on The Unicron Trilogy are the new nostalgia market with disposable income waiting to be farmed and it’s time to let them relive their childhoods as adults buying toys. Still, I’m thankful that we older fans are getting a bone thrown our way now and then to pick off those few G1 stragglers still waiting for an update. And to be honest, I don’t have a whole lot left on my list. But, Gears was certainly one of the old Mini-Bots waiting for an update, and while grumpy Gears would probably groan on about how it’s never going to happen… well, it finally happened.

Like many of the previous Minibot updates, Gears arrives as a Deluxe Class, which I think is the way to go with these guys, as I like them to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of The Datsuns and the other Autobot cars. I don’t recall owning Gears as a kid, I think he just never turned up on the pegs around my parts. But, I did enjoy the way the cartoon portrayed his character as kind of a polar opposite of Hound. Where Hound found beauty to appreciate on Earth, Gears hated the planet and longed to return to Cybertron. I also imagined Gears and Huffer just sitting in the back of Autobot briefings griping about how the mission was doomed to fail, and Ironhide leaning over and telling them to shut the hell up or he’d give them a nickle-plated knuckle sandwich. These guys must have been dangerous to morale whenever they got together. The Legacy packaging is similar to we saw last time when I checked out Pointblank and Needlenose. It’s colorful enough, but I’m not a big fan of the design. It’s too loud for my taste and doesn’t really convey the brand. Also, the toy is exposed in the box, so remember to check your figures for dry boogers and gum before you take it home! On a related note, Gears comes with his chest piece needing to be attached, which I assume is so that it doesn’t get pulled off through the hole in the box. Let’s start with the alt mode!

I was never sure exactly what Gears’ alt mode was supposed to be, but I’ve settled on a pickup truck with some kind of storage cap over the bed. This update is kind of rough with a lot of seams, pins, and obvious joints, particularly on the sides. It’s not something that really bothers me, partly because I don’t expect vehicle perfection from a mainline Deluxe, but mostly when I see this stuff I know it’s because Hasbro is making compromises for a really good robot mode. And while I do like me a solid alt mode, I’m always here for the robot mode first and foremost. And unlike some other releases, like Studio Series Brawn, this is an alt mode that locks together easily and perfectly, something that also makes me happy.

And that’s not to say that this alt mode is terrible. For starters, it really nails the colors perfectly. G1 Gears was such a colorful toy with it’s bright red and blue deco making him pop on the shelf, even when parked beside his Minibot chums. Here we get all of that pretty plastic, plus some snappy silver paint on the front grill, the back grill, the wheels, and there’s some yellow light his to the headlamps. Even the red paint on the front bumper is exceptionally nice. The windows are painted in a pale blue, which looks good and makes him display well beside the likes of Studio Series Brawn. On the other hand, it can look off next to some of the tinted translucent windows of past releases like Kingdom Huffer. They still display together fine, but the disparity is there. I’ll throw up some comparison pictures at the end.

There are several sockets on Gears’ alt mode to allow him to arm his gun while rolling out. I’m partial to mounting it on the roof or on either of the slots near his pickup bed. The front fenders are an option too. Tacking guns onto the alt modes is generally hit or miss with me, but I like it here a lot.

Transforming Gears is pretty intuitive and the engineering involves just the right level of involvement I look for in a Deluxe without being overly fiddly. And the resulting robot looks great! The design is full of boxy G1 goodness with a lot of detail in the sculpt. The red and blue deco transfers over from the vehicle mode with some added gray plastic and more of that silver paint showing. The proportions make him look like a compact clobbering machine with a lot of the truck kibble packed away in that backpack. I really dig how the wheels are concealed, but you can still see a hint of them folded in behind his chest. The articulation is superb, right down to the ankle rockers to keep his feet flat on the ground.

Gears always did have a strangely shaped head. A lot of the G1 Minibots did, and in this case it survived into the cartoon design and is well represented here. The face has more of that lovely silver paint and the eyes are painted blue. But in spite of having a slab of a head, he can still turn it from side to side and look up a bit. His expression is one of abject disappointment punctuated by a permanent bad humor, unless that is, someone pokes around under his hood and alters his circuitry.

Yeah, that very cartoon specific play feature is reproduced here, where you can open up his chest and give him the robot equivalent of an emotional lobotomy, like the Decepticons did in the episode Changing Gears. There is some sculpted detail in his chest cavity, but no additional paint. I’m tempted to have a go in there with a few different metallic Sharpie pens. Either way, this is a fun feature and I’m glad they put it in there.

As we’ve already seen, Gears comes with a short black rifle and it’s a great design with a magazine and both a peg for the grip and a side peg to help attach it to the truck mode.

And thanks to a couple of those peg holes on the alt mode, he can even store his rifle on his backpack, which is just the greatest thing ever! I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but bravo!

Gears has had precious little love from Hasbro since the G1 days, so to say this update is overdue would be quite the understatement. But this is a case where the wait paid off, because this figure came out great! Sure, the alt mode could have been more polished, but I’m willing to take the compromise when the result is a robot mode that looks this good, and a transformation that is quick and fun. There are still a few more Minibots that need some updated love, but the one I’m wondering about most is Beachcomber. I pre-ordered him over a year ago, and still nothing!