Robots in Disguise: Super Side Burn
I'm not quite sure what posessed me to pick up this. I wasn't an overly huge fan of
the original (or rather, the original's transformation and kibble-filled loosly leg-jointed
robot mode), but I was walking through a K-Mart near my school and the toy department was
nearly empty (as it has been for the past few weeks), except for a single case of deluxes.
For those who don't know, that means one of each of the super Autobot brothers, one of each
Build Team member and the lone Mega-Octane, destined to warm the pegs along with Wedge.
Anyway, I already reviewed the original Side Burn, so this review will, as is the custom
for repaint reviews, cover the differences between the two. Hoo yeah!
Yes, so the most significant difference would be the color scheme. Where the original
was a shade of metallic flat blue, this one is painted in a glossy red color. Not metallic
red at all. With Fire Convoy (because I refuse to call him Oprimus Prime nowadays) on the
shelf, there's a lot of red going around.
Essentially he's painted up in Hot Rod colors. Red with orange flames (as opposed to the
blue flames of the original). The silver chrome on the original is now gold chrome (as with
all the repaints) except the chrome on the engine block which remains silver (the red chrome
on it was switched to gold, I guess red would have clashed with the rest of the red).
Also the original was made out of a yellowish-brown colored clear plastic, while this one
is a grayish color clear plastic. And yes, all of him is made of clear plastic (well, the
car mode shell anyway), so if you scrape it all off or dip him in nail polish remover, you'll
have a clear car. Kinda neat. Wait, actually, I was wrong, the parts that become his thighs
are not clear, but the rest of the car is.
Also Side Burn is now an official Dodge Viper (which is more than X-Brawn can say for himself).
On the space where the hood ornament would be is a tiny Viper symbol. Pretty neat, and it adds
a nice look of realism to the car. The blue one's front looks kinda bare next to the red one.
Trasformation is the same pain in the ass, only his joints appear to be tighter, which is a
blessing is disguise (BiD). Also, just like his cousin, I ended up having his front bumper,
which ends up awkwardly on his shoulder, pop off. Of the joy of it all.
Robot mode is the same awakward mess of parts, though he gets points for having tighter
joints. However, he loses points for having a shoddy paint job. Where Super Prowl has a very
stellar paint job, Super Side Burn has one of not overly high quality. Paint was smudged in a
lot of places, and is chipped off or not applied evenly in others. The original wins out for
having a better paint job in that respect. Also for some reason they decided to make parts of
the repaint orange. While it does go with the red, I think a nice shade of something else would
have been less painful to look at. A different shade of red, or perhaps even black. Can't
win them all I suppose.
Hm, so overall? Well, Side Burn has improved in a lot of places. For one he has much tighter
joints, something the original (or mine at least) lacked, especially in the knees. However,
that advantage is taken right away with the shoddy paint job, dropping Super Side Burn down
to the same score as his older brother or cousin or whatever. Which one to pick up is all
up to you. Like Galvatron and Megatron, go with the color you like best. Also the fact that
the original is pretty damn scarce now may help your decision as well.
