Bulkhead's SUV alternate
mode, when it comes to overall proportions, is incredibly spot-on with
the show model for a Cyberverse-scaled toy. All of the necessary mold details
are here, like his headlights, car door outlines, the top "carrying rack",
and even the rear exhaust pipes. Unfortunately, the paint detailing doesn't
highlight quite enough for them for my taste-- his front grill is painted,
as are his taillights and the area around his windows, but that's it. His
top silver rack could really have used paint, and his rear side windows
are just painted over with dark green paint instead of being individually
painted, as well. Although it's not BAD, Bulkhead could've used a few more
paint apps here. His overall color scheme of dark & moderate green
complement each other fairly well, though I feel that the charcoal black--
used on some places like his tires, front grill, and windows-- would've
looked better as a straight black in this case. (There's also a bit of
dark charcoal black just jutting out in the middle of this mode due to
how his sprues breakdown-- which is a bit of eyesore.) Also, despite his
good proportions, Bulkhead has some pretty darn obvious robot parts sticking
out underneath the bottom of this mode, well below what you would consider
the normal "clearance" height for his wheels-- this is definitely the toy's
biggest drawback. His feet under the front half are particularly obvious,
though especially from the back end you can see his lower arms down there
as well. Only from a top-down view does this kibble "disappear". For a
weapon, Bulkhead has a little transparent version of his wrecking ball-esque
weapon, which here plugs into the rather illogical area above and in front
of his windshield-- so much for the driver seeing when it's attached, I
guess...
Bulkhead's robot mode
here looks about as show-accurate as you could reasonably expect on a toy
of this size. He's got a little extra kibble on his shoudlders and on the
sides of his lower feet, as well as his rear wheels sticking up behind
his back, which is definitely not show-accurate. However, this aside, the
wheels do enhance his silhouette well, and I do love how well his hood
folds up onto his chest on such a small scale. He has the usual Bulkhead
proportions of rather short, stubby legs and bulky arms, which-- along
with his excellent, well-detailed headsculpt-- really brings across his
general personality well, and gives him more individuality as well. His
colors are broken up a bit more by his gray and black pieces in this mode,
so I think his distribution of colors and paint apps works quite well to
make him visually interesting all over, here. For articulation, Bulkhead
can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows, hips, and knees.
I wish he had a bit more sideways movement at the knees, but most of his
other joints are ball joints-- thus, given his pretty stable feet, he's
fairly poseable for a Commander-class toy. Like the other 2012 Prime Commander-class
toys, Bulkhead has his transparent blue plastic positioned in such a manner
where-- if you hook up an electronic Cyberverse weapon to a position behind
his lower neck-- light is supposed to shine through his chest. However,
just like pretty much every other Prime toy with this gimmick, it doesn't
work well (if at all), and is generally best forgotten about. Bulkhead
can hold his ball-weapon, but he can also store it or other Cyberverse-scaled
weapons at two points on each of his lower arms and at one point on each
of his shoulders-- so if you have the weapons, you can really hulk this
toy out.
Prime Commander-class
Bulkhead is generally a pretty nice recreation of the character at a smaller
scale and with a simpler transformation than usual. He does have a bit
of kibble in both of his modes-- particularly his vehicle mode, where it
can be a bit of an eyesore-- and his robot body is completely hollow from
a rear view. But, all things considered, Hasbro did a nice job with this
toy. If you want a show-accurate Bulkhead that's either Cyberverse-scaled
or is relatively simple to transform, you won't regret picking this former
Wrecker up.
Review by Beastbot