Following Drift, another comics only character that having first appearence with new mold this year. Darkmount, whose real name is

Straxus that Hasbro couldn't use it due to legal issue. Unlike Drift, he is a much welcome character for many old TF fans due to his

better and deeper background being covered in the comics. If you don't know him like I did before, please see this TFWiki as I am not

covering his background in this toy review. Here, I will call him Straxus like many other fans did.

 

Even though I am not an army geek, I find Straxus's alternamte mode is not what he said on him, a M17. In fact, there is no tank that

is called M17. This M17 stands for Marvel 17 which is the issue of his first appearance. After being googled for a while, I can't find

anything that is close to his tank mode, a half-tracks tank with rotatable turret. Most of the half-tracks that were being used in WWII

were for transportation purpose. The only one I found very close is this old Marmon Herrington DHT-5 or this GE214. Anyway, back

to the toy. This tank is mostly in blue which is really not a military color. The turret, whose width is wider than the body below, is fully

rotatable and the main gun can move up and down. There are three interchangable weapons to put on several spots, one machine gun

and two rocket launchers. So he is very well armed. One problem is one of the rocket launcher is very loose, any single light move will

make it detach from the hook.

 

Normally I skip the meaningless third mode which is usually a mode in the process of transformation from vehicle to robot, but I can't

in Darkmount's case. He has a turret mode which I can't skip because he has shown this in the book.  Now since I mentioned it, I think

I can skip the rest.

 

The transformation to robot mode is not difficult but frustrated. The treads, the arms, the legs, are all in each other's way to make the

whole transformation not smooth. Good thing the end result is a good robot. Start from the bottom as usual, his feet looked strange and

fragile initially from the product images but actually not. The ankles are connected with tight (so far) ball joints and can rotate to make

the feet flat. The legs is fully poseable and provide him good balance but the knee is somewhat too high, though. Body is bold, his head

looks just like Straxus, and the tread backpack does not affect his balance. The shoulder armors can move to not block the arm

movement at all. Last to the arms. He has excellent arms. There is a extra joint on the elbow so he can bend the arm toward his body

without rotating. He has the moveable four fingers open palm which can make him hold weapon and other standard weapons well. If

Hasbro wants to make the open palm standard, they should make all like this, not like the animated Arcee/Rodimus or WFC Megatron.

Same as in tank mode, the interchangable weapons can attach on many places. His main weapon is a ....... a ........ a pickaxe. No, no, no,

it's a glaive. The handle is a little bit too short though but looks okay. I let him has my Gundam Gouf's sword and it works excellent.

 

Transformation: 6 - Not difficult but too many parts are in the way. Good thing no parts will pop off easily.

Fun: 9 - A good tank mode, an extra will be skipped turret mode, an excellent robot mode. Only problem is his transformation.

Display: 10 - He displays very well in two modes, plus the robot mode is very poseable.

Value: 9 - $11.99 from TRU. Hoping will find him at Target while they still have $9.99 for the deluxe class. Edit: got him at Target now.

Raise the value from 8 to 9.

Overall: 8 - He is an almost perfect figure. Points down for the frustrated transformation scheme and loose joint on rocket launcher.