Allegiances: Autobot
 

Airazor

Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Light milky gray, moderately dark milky purple, transparent aquamarine, and some red
Individual Rating: 4.9

    Like all (initial) Decepticon Mini-Cons, Airazor's alt mode is meant to be a torpedo, and it fits the general diagonal "shard" shape of the other Mini-Cons Fracture can deploy. Like with most Mini-Cons, the alt mode is basically the other mode compressed into this shape, so the hands and and feet are fairly obvious, and the back end is rather hollow because of the transformation, but it still looks pretty solid and fires out of Fracture pretty well, so it works. The color scheme of purple and light gray matches Fracture's, and is certainly Decepticon-y. I dislike the light milky gray plastic, as it's that really boring shade of the color, but the moderately dark purple is a nice shade and it does contrast against the gray. It should be worth noting that the transparent armor bits (discussed shortly) can all fit in torpedo mode, which is a big plus-- no little extra pieces to leave somewhere else.
    Like with basically every Mini-Con, Airazor transforms in one motion-- just pull out on the arms to transform him to robot mode, and push them back in to get him back to torpedo mode. I do like that Airazor's robot mode has a rather unique, somewhat monster-ish look to him-- he's got a really recessed head in between his shoulders with a jack-o-lantern-like face, complete with red eyes and a mouth (sadly the only paint apps on the entire toy). It looks pretty cool, though I wish it was just a tad LESS recessed so it could get out of the shadows of his large gray shoulders more. He's got arms with insect-like carapace detailing around them, which looks pretty good and further fits his monster-ish feeling. The most unique part of him, though, is definitely the four pointy insect-y legs, though I wish all four were purple as opposed to the back two being gray. That said, because the legs come down to mere points, Airazor can tilt forward a bit too easily. As with nearly every Minicon, Airazor sadly has no articulation in this mode at all-- the above pose is his only available robot pose. Airazor's armor pieces are a nice aquamarine, and complement his purple as well as contrast against the gray nicely, so no color issues. They also look quite cool, with some ridged angular detailing on all of the pieces, and the all plug into their slots pretty well. He's got nice shark fins on the sides of his arms and a rhino horn poking out of the center of his head, a two-pronged chest piece, and jagged ice-like pieces that go on each leg. It's a pretty good look, overall-- it makes him look nice and "powered up".
 

Decepticon Fracture

Size: Mini-Con Deployer
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Moderately dark milky purple, light milky gray, pale light purple, and some silver and red
Individual Rating: 6.6

    As with Deployer Drift, Deployer Fracture's vehicle mode is a Cybertronian version of the motorcycle he scans on Earth. The body isn't nearly as thin as a motorcycle, and there's no visible wheels (though there are small rolling wheels underneath the front and the body, they're just much smaller than on Fracture's other toys). The front section is the main thing that identifies Fracture as a motorcycle, with the face-like headlights and windshield-lile detailing, as well as handles on the sides. There's also a sidecar on Fracture, which serves as a launcher for torpedo-shaped Mini-Cons; push on the light purple button near the back and Airazor or some other torpedo Minicon will shoot out, and with a decent amount of force, too. The main body of the motorcycle, however, is very weak; it's VERY obviously his entire upper portion of the robot mode, but laid back and with the shoulder pads (partially) over the robot face. I mean, you can blatantly see the shoulders, waist, and upper legs. It's also just way too wide with no visible seat. That said, the mold detailing on the robot chest/top of the motorcycle body is quite good, and I love all the triangular details near the back of this mode. The lower arms, at least, blend in with the overall shape of the motorcycle quite well, with the hands hidden in this mode, so at least those parts fit in pretty well. The color scheme is largely dark milky purple and light pale purple-- it's a pretty nice if basic color scheme, with both shades looking quite good and both complementing and contrasting against each other. It's also certainly a "Decepticon-y" color scheme. There is a fair amount of blah light milky gray plastic on Fracture, but it's used mostly on the underside in this mode (and backside of the robot mode), so I don't really mind it much. For paint, there's silver on the sides of the windshield and on the top of the motorcycle body/robot stomach, red on the headlights that look a bit like eyes, and some light purple detailing behind the silver on the main body, helping to break up all of the dark purple plastic.
    Fracture's transformation from vehicle mode to robot mode is blatantly obvious-- just unfold the arms from the side, unfold the legs from the front, and there you go. Because so much of his robot mode is visible from vehicle mode, this is basically his vehicle mode standing up, but it's definitely the better of his two modes, given how the only blatant extra is the launcher behind his right shoulder. The motorcycle front sections become his legs pretty well, and given that the body of the motorcycle was obviously just his robot mode body, in this mode there's no extras there to be had there. I do just really love the spiky-ness of Fracture, with all the nice diagonal edges on his arms, behind his back, and shoulders. There's missile-like details on his shoulder that-- on the cartoon-- are where his Mini-Cons are stored, but given the relative size of course this isn't possible for the toy. It looks good with the additional light purple paint, though. (More light purple is also painted on Fracture's hands, which helps break up any one section from having too much dark purple plastic.) The headsculpt looks spot-on, with a fairly small head, a spikey "mohawk", and a large chin with small, red eyes. For the launcher gimmick, if you press down on the gray slider behind Fracture's back, it causes the sidecar bit to swing down and forward and his right hand to point forward, as if he's motioning for the Mini-Con to "Go!". Pushing the slider all the way down also causes the sidecar to fire out a Minicon automatically, though the difficulty with this is that fitting a torpedo Mini-Con into the sidecar launcher tightly enough where it can still hangs in there when it's undeployed/facing downward in this mode can be tough. Thankfully, the launcher does consistently work, though. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he LOOKS like he's fairly articulated, Fracture in fact can't move much in this mode; he can move at the shoulders (at two places, though moving the right arm forward is a bit restricted because of the action feature), at the hips, and at the knees, and most of the movement for those latter two points is just forward/back. It's a shame not even elbow or neck articulation is in there.

    Fracture is, by a hair, the weaker of the two initial Deployer molds. His robot mode looks great, he's got a nice color combo and look, and his launcher gimmick-- at least in vehicle mode-- is pretty awesome (making it into a sidecar was a stroke of genius). However, his articulation is very limited-- unnecessarily so, even given the launching gimmick-- and the main body of his motorcycle mode is VERY weak, being far too obviously his robot mode upper body. Airazor is a pretty unique Minicon with cool armor bits. If you want a toy to deploy torpedo Mini-Cons, this is really your only option, but if you're not that into the Mini-Cons get one of the other versions of Fracture instead.
 

Reviews by Beastbot

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