Bulkhead's vehicle mode is a helicopter. It very strongly resembles G1 Springer, both in looks and in color scheme, so this was no doubt intentional, and a nice nod to G1 fans. However, even though Springer had light green on him, it didn't look that good then and it doesn't now. Bulkhead has plenty of light colors; the light green could probably have been more of a medium green and still achieved the same effect. The rest of his color scheme is good, though; the gray, black, and dark green fit together very nicely, and the orange, yellow, and blue highlights help to break it up some. He also has a nice amount of paint detailing, although his mold detailing is lacking on a few parts, most notably his robot legs and part of his drone. One especially cool detail is that there's a seat inside his transparent cockpit, along with a little dash panel. It really helps add realism. What doesn't help add realism, though, are some of his robot mode extras. Most notably is that his drone just sort of connects under him in this mode without contributing anything to the mode except a few more forward guns. It doesn't look like it should be part of the 'copter mode at all, unlike Landmine's drone, which integrates itself seamlessly into his alt mode. The drone can be disconnected rather easily, though, if that bothers you much, leaving just the core helicopter behind. But the core helicopter has some kibble problems, as well; for one, the robot legs are pretty obviously under the front part of the helicopter, although they are folded in a way to at least look like the designers were trying to hide it. Perhaps if the legs were the same color as the helicopter cockpit above it, the illusion would have worked better. Bulkhead's robot arms are also rather obviously on top of his central wings in this mode, although at least the hands are converted into guns in this mode instead of just hanging there like on Armada Cyclonus. Again, you can tell the designers tried to make the extras blend in with the alt mode, but you can still tell where the extras are. Bulkhead's gimmicks in this mode are pretty fun, though. For one, he has four individually firing missile launchers (two on each of his central wings). The triggers for them are on the underside of the launchers in this mode, however, so it's rather easy to accidentally fire them unless Bulkhead's in robot mode. His rear landing gear is actually a cleverly-disguised trigger for whirring up his main rotor in this mode- it works in a manner similar to Armada Cyclonus', in that you keep tugging on the lever to get the rotor going, but Bulkhead's rotor isn't nearly as noisy, and it spins for a much longer time after you let go of the lever. Because of this gimmick, however, the rear landing gear is much shorter than the front landing gear, so with them all deployed, Bulkhead is leaning at a definite angle. His rear rotor blade can also spin, but you have to do it manually; there's no lever controlling that one. Bulkhead's red Autobot Powerlinx symbol is on his left rear wing, and his lone Powerlinx port is on the the right side of his tail.
    Bulkhead's robot mode is awesome, and one of the best, if not THE best, Energon Autobot robot modes of them all. His proportions are perfect all around, and he has great articulation; he can move at pretty much any point you can reasonably expect on this size of a toy, including sideways ankle articulation! His only real vehicle mode extra is his helicopter tail hanging off his back, but it doesn't get in the way and only sticks out a little, so I don't mind it. His rotor detaches and becomes a spinning weapon in this mode, too, along with his missile launchers (with the triggers on the top this time), so he's decked out for combat. I'm not sure I like the coloring given to his face, though; the blue visor doesn't quite seem to fit next to the bright orange face and light green helmet. Bulkhead also has a few loose pegs on him. The pegs that connect the waist to the helicopter cockpit-chest, for one. This sometimes leads to his entire upper body sometimes coming partially undone and swinging up and down. It's a bit annoying, but it's not too loose. The pegs that hold his shoulder parts together can also come undone a bit easily, leaving his shoulders to flop around a little. They're not too annoying, however.
    Bulkhead's drone is also great. It looks like a freaking light BattleMech, man! It's got the chicken walker legs, the splayed feet, the front-guns, and everything. (Although I don't know if sky blue is really the best color for it...) The drone also contains all of Bulkhead's sounds. Press the square button on the top of his "head" to activate a machine-gun firing sound and blinking lights in his transparent guns. He also has two circular buttons on his underside- they both activate a "transforming" sound, one from vehicle to robot mode, and the other with the opposite sound. They're a bit hard to press, though, which is kinda funny, since the square button on top is too easy to press, and sometimes goes off in either combined mode. Overall, though, the drone is a pretty solid partner.
    Bulkhead's Powerlinx mode (aka "Brute Mode") is basically slapping his drone on his back, giving him all of the drone's extra firepower. The big drone feet-guns visible in this mode look especially cool, even if they don't fire anything. The instructions say to leave the drone's legs up in the air, like the picture above, but I prefer to swing them downwards a bit, as not only does it help Bulkhead's stability, but it looks better, too. Speaking of Bulkhead's stability, it is rather poor in this mode, mainly due to the fact that his knee and hip joints aren't quite strong enough to hold him up easily- he quite often will collapse after just standing there by himself for a few minutes. Hopefully this will be fixed on his proposed repaint coming down the line. All in all, though, his Powerlinx mode looks pretty cool.
    Although Bulkhead suffers from some robot kibble in his vehicle mode, he more than makes up for it with his astoundingly cool robot mode, drone, and Powerlinx mode. One of the best Autobots in the Energon line; highly recommended.

Review by Beastbot

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