New Planet Cybertron: Transformers Review: Arcee (IDW Generation Deluxe)

Intro:

Throughout the history of Transformers, there have not been that many female robots, or femme-bot around, but when they are, they usually bring quite an impact to the series they involve in.

In G1, Elita-1 and her band of Autobots were the first femme-bots to be featured in the franchise. However, their appearances were quite brief. It was only after the events of 1986 movie that another femme-bot began to take center stage and became a mainstay in the franchise. She is none other than Arcee.

Arcee was also involved in some sort of a love-triangle in the old G1 series: Arcee obviously has a thing for Hot Rod/ Rodimus Prime; Springer obviously liked Arcee, and showed clear animosity towards Roddy at some point. Arcee was also quite close to Daniel Witwicky – the son of Spike Witwicky – and during the events of “Rebirth”, Arcee became a Headmaster with Daniel serving as her head. Arcee also received further screen time in the Transformers: Headmaster series.

However, despite those screen times, it did not translate into an action figure for our favorite femme bot. It was only during the run of the series Transformers: Energon/ Superlink, that Arcee would appear again in the franchise and received an action figure treatment, in the form of a superbike. She would receive further treatments in the movie franchise, as well as in the Animated and Prime series, but fans are still hoping for a G1 Arcee figure.

Several 3^rd party companies would eventually release their versions of Arcee, until Hasbro finally decided to give Arcee her due respect in 2014.

Finally, we now have an Arcee figure that is actually a nod to her G1 appearance. It was about damn time. But was she worth the wait? Let’s find out…
Anyways, a shout-out to my fellow collector Monkticon Mike for selling to me this wonderful figure, thus making this review possible.

Alternate Mode:

Arcee’s alternate mode is clearly based on his G1 depiction. However, her G1 depiction was clearly a hover-car, yet this version of her has wheels. The wheels look kind of too thin and cheap, but I guess it’s better than no wheels at all.

The interior of the car is detailed enough to depict 2 seats and a steering wheel.

Underneath the car, Arcee is riddled with kibbles. I guess there is just no way to design it any other way without maintaining her ladylike appearance in robot mode.

Arcee also comes with enough armament to cause severe damage on the Decepticon ranks. She comes with a pair of Energon-ish swords, one small blaster and one bigger blaster.

All of these weapons can be mounted on her in her vehicle mode, although it can look quite silly.

Despite the kibbles, I still give the vehicle mode a huge pop, seeing as how accurate it is to its G1 depictions.

Robot Mode:

I really like the robot mode. She really stayed true to her G1 depictions. Her female curvatures are there, although her backpack can be a bit huge.

Her head sculpt is very accurate too. Her eyes are equipped with light blue-colored light piping.

Articulation-wise: her head is on ball joints; the shoulders are on ball joints as well; arms rotate slightly below the shoulders; the elbow bends with a little bit of ratchets; hips are on universal joints; the knees bend as if they are double-jointed; and finally the ankles bends up and down.

The articulation on this figure is just amazing, and you can really pose her in various exciting positions, which makes equipping her with weapons more fun.