TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

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Blackjack's Review: Knock Out

Name: Knock Out
Allegiance: Autobot
Size Class: Scouts Class

Knock Out was among the first wave of Revenge of the Fallen’s Scout class. The Scout class was my favourite size class back then, and even to this day I do find smaller toys far more appealing. Cheaper, simpler and generally pretty fun. Back then I was heavily on a ‘buy everything’ bug so I bought Knock Out.

Who is Knock Out, though? Knock Out is one of those names that Hasbro slaps on anything that needs a name. The very first Knock Out hails from all the way back in G1, as a member of the Decepticon Micromaster Combiner Constructor Squad. Go google that. The next bearer of the Knock Out mantle is part of the Land Military Team of Transformers Armada. Another Mini-Con named Knock Out appears in Energon as Ultra Magnus’ partner. ROTF Knock Out is the fourth one to bear the name.

Fiction-wise, Knock Out had a relatively major role in the prequel novel ‘the Veiled Threat’, although damned if I remember what he did. Knock Out was a member of Bumblebee’s little squad in IDW’s post-ROTF comic series, the horrible Nefarious arc. He somehow survived that, but was slain by Shockwave alongside every other toy-only character in Rising Storm, prequel to the third movie.

He doesn’t have a personality in the comics, but I think the toy bios made him up as a generic thrill-seeker young Autobot.

Alternate Mode:
Knock Out transforms into a nice little motorcycle. It’s coloured mainly in two shades of green (lime and a darker one) and black, with white and grey picking out details. It’s a pretty realistic motorcycle compared to the other Scout-class motorcycle I own, Elita-One, although nowhere as impressive as the licensed motorcycles in the Movie’s Deluxe class. The general look seems to resemble Waspinator, come to think of it. or maybe that’s just me.

It’s a decent looking thing and extremely kibble free. The front wheel can rotate left and right like a real motorcycle’s front wheel. The bike rolls along smoothly on the ground, though if not aligned properly the two halves of the rear wheel might pop off.

Knock Out only has exhaust vents on the left side. Not much else I can say about him since my knowledge of motorcycle anatomy is woefully inadequate. Let’s move on.

Robot Mode:
Knock Out’s transformation scheme shamelessly apes that of the Energon Arcee mould, itself also copied by Movie Arcee and Crossovers Spider-Man. The rear wheels and seat split into two halves and form the shoulders and hands, the legs fold out from the lower part of the bicycle, the front wheel hides in the back and the handlebar thing splits to reveal the head. It’s not all bad, though, since out of the aforementioned bike Transformers, Knock Out handles the transformation scheme the best. Knock Out’s resulting robot mode is pretty basic, though the buggy, wasp-like face further cements the similarities to Waspinator. His right hand is a gun made up of the exhaust which bears more than a superficial resemblance to Bumblebee’s signature plasma cannon weapon.

Knock Out’s posability is decent for a small toy. His head turns, his shoulders, elbows and shoulder-wheels are all ball-jointed and his legs are jointed at the usual three places. And unlike Energon Arcee, Knock Out’s wheel kibble can actually move, so you can have the face forwards like a radar dish, or stick up like Arcee or just be tucked away out of view. His skinny legs surprisingly hold his weight well, though the kinda-Bayformery details there is kind of jarring compared to the extremely clean upper body.

The motorcycle plates on his legs pop off at the slightest provocation, however, which is annoying since this shouldn’t even be a problem. His waist doesn’t peg in securely to his torso either. Both are relatively minor problems, but Knock Out himself doesn’t have that much going on for him. His robot mode is decent, but extremely generic and unremarkable. The non-gun arm also look pretty bad, basically just sculpted on to the motorcycle part. It’s not a bad robot mode, it’s just… boring.

Marks out of ten for the following:
Transformation Design: 4/10 It’s pretty uninspired to copy Arcee, and while it does both mode serviceably well, the things that don’t peg on properly is not something to be proud of.

Durability: 6/10 The black spot on his chest on mine is made out of sticky paint, and with panels popping off I guarantee at some point you’ll have to look for them. He’s otherwise made out of decent plastic.

Aesthetics: 3/10 He’s kinda weird. The general look feels like an Unicron Trilogy-era toy, which would be fine, but they tried too hard to slap in random movieverse details on the legs and a random Beast Wars head on him, making the end result kind of a weird hybrid between UT and Movie aesthetics. The general colour scheme is inoffensive but doesn’t scream out either.

Articulation: 5/10 He’s got the standard articulation like most Scout-sized toys from ROTF. Nothing particularly special.

Fun: 3/10 M’eh. He doesn’t have the quirkiness that the likes of Ransack or Dirt Boss or Dead End whatever has that makes them fun to muck around with. Both robot and motorcycle mode are just so generic and boring, and his lack of personality doesn’t do him any favours.

Price/Value: 3/10 For a Scout class? Compared to Elita-One, who is exactly the same as him yet comes with an additional giant crossbow? Yeah, not much of value there. Another problem is that... yeah, he comes in the same series and size bracket as far more interesting designs like Ransack, Dirt Boss, Brakedown, Scalpel and lots of toys that are far more eye-catching visually even if not all of them are good.

Overall: 4/10 Knock Out isn’t bad, but in a franchise full of all sorts of far more interesting toys, Knock Out’s lack of… lack of anything interesting just makes him extremely boring and not worth a second look in my opinion. If you’re truly curious about this mould, though, finding him or one of his three repaints (the orange-and-blue Reverb, the red Trenchmouth and the white Backfire) really won’t be a problem. He’s just a bike robot and Transformers already have lots of those, and a lot of those does the bike transformation thing far better than Knock Out did and have interesting designs and personalities to boot. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with Knock Out other than loose panels, I cannot really find any reason to recommend him either. He’s so in that average spot, I can't really find anything to say about him.