TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

Robot Mode:
Alternate Mode:
Box Art:
Technical Specifications:
STR
INT
SPD
END
RNK
CRG
FPR
SKL

Kupimus' review: Buzzclaw

Name: Buzzclaw
Function: Predacon saboteur, quick attack specialist
Sub-Group: Fuzors
"Sow fear, and victory will bloom."

Part mantis, part lizard, Buzzclaw has all of the makings of a ferocious but sly warrior. In beast mode Buzzclaw crushes his enemies with spiny pincers and venomous mandibles while a powerful tail lashes out to land his surprised prey on their backside. As a flying robot Buzzclaw generates lethal ion discs from his forearm-mounted stilettos, paralyzing his victims and rendering them helpless. Generally stoic and silent, when it comes to the business of battle, Buzzclaw is arrogant, resourceful, and intent on the job at hand.

I never intended to buy any beast wars toys, but I got three of them for my birthday one year and I'm not one to turn my nose up at a free transformer. This brings us to Buzzclaw, a character who appeared as a soldier in Magmatron's army (in IDW's Beast Wars series), and proceeded to do nothing, except get picked by Iguanus to be in his hunting party (who also did nothing). He then spent the next 7 issues striking poses in the background, before saying "no limits" (which if you include his motto was the second and last thing he ever said which fits his silent nature mentioned in the bio) to Rartorata before being disintegrated. He never appeared in the cartoon.

Alternate Mode:
Buzzclaw is a Fuzor, which means his beast mode is a combination of two animals. In Buzzclaw's case it's a mantis and a lizard, but to be honest he just looks like a mantis to me. He's quite the multicolored transformer sporting green, orange, blue, red and purple, but it all looks nice. There is plenty of detailing on every part of his body which hides his robotic nature quite well. Unfortunately, he doesn't have venomous mandibles and I doubt his pincers could crush anything, but his tail is quite hard and seems to consist of two parts, a top layer covering what will be his legs. Ultimately, Buzzclaw is very posable in this mode thanks to ball joints, his wings, legs, feet, tail, waist and arms all move. His arms can move at the forearm as well. Only the head is unable to move. In addition, pushing in the lever on his back makes his pincers move, which is cool because you can move his pincers to slash in any direction thanks to his arms posability.

Robot mode:
To transform Buzzclaw, you just remove his "backpack"(which comprises his pincers and wings), then uncover his head. His legs then become his arms and hands, the bottom half of his tail becomes his legs and feet and his beast head becomes his chest. His robot mode (I say robot, but he doesn't look very robotic), is just as colorful and poseable as his beast form, only now you can also move his head. You can put his "backpack" on in this mode, but it does make him a bit too much back heavy so its hard to make him stand (although you can use the top half of his tail as a stand of sorts). One last thing of note is that his facial expression makes him look really really angry about something (he even shows his very clean teeth), maybe hes angry about his toy being only slightly bigger than a real mantis.

One last curiosity. The underside of the top half of his tail has a strange reflective black square. It looks like the old rub symbols, but it doesn't do anything.

Transformation: 7/10 Buzzclaw isn't hard to transform, but it's not insultingly easy. I didn't get any instructions with mine and the only thing that confused me at first was uncovering the head and the fact I had to take the "backpack" off.
Durability: 9/10 Pretty solid. Mine's second hand and is over ten years old, but all the joints are still tight, none of the limbs have ever come off their ball joints either. Plus there's no small pieces to lose as his "backpack" is rather big.
Fun: 7/10 Not as fun as monkeys, but he looks really good posed in beast form on your shelf, ready to slice at a really big TF if you have one.
Price: 8/10 My one was bought off eBay for me, but I can't imagine they paid too much for it and it was in perfect condition.
Overall: 8/10 The fact his robot mode looks nothing like a robot might put off some, but for fans of Beast Wars, Buzzclaw is a great little scout-sized figure to add to your jungle.