Transformers Toy Report: Mutant Beast Wars Razor Claw

The other Mutant I can find is Razor Claw. A raptor/wolverine hybrid…allegedly but I’ll get to that in the review, Razor Claw is described as loyal and self-sacrificing, really enjoys fighting Predacons, but only tolerates the Maximals for their helpfulness. Also he secretly wishes he could take on a robot mode, which makes me question the whole “total organic” viewpoint the Mutants had, a tie-in to the backstory of Beast Machines, the main line at the time.

For those of you who missed the previous review, Mutant Beast Wars used leftover Animorphs figures with the gimmick of switching between two beast modes. I don’t know a lot about the lore of the books or the live-action TV show adapting it, which is where the line comes from. I do know that it’s about a group of kids given the ability to turn into any animal they touch, which they use to help a friendly alien halt an invasion by the Yeerks, slug-like aliens who take over other people Invasion Of The Body Snatchers style. There were aliens in the Animorphs toyline, and one of Razor Claw’s modes looks like it was designed with aliens in mind.

Transformers Report: Mutant Beast Wars Icebird

I’ll get more into the Animorphs toyline when I get to those toys, but what you need to know here is that they were based on the Nickelodeon adaptation of the book series in which kids can turn into animals. Because of the show, Hasbro was chosen to create toys based on the characters and their favorite animal forms due to their success with Transformers. The toys…well, let’s just say what works with robots doesn’t necessarily work with people and the line failed. One of the ideas created for the line were toys with two animal forms, which instead was brought into the Transformers.

Mutant Beast Wars was a bit of a shove-in to the Beast Wars timeframe as the toyline had already moved on to Beast Machines. The new premise was that the Mutants were Fuzors who, thanks to Megatron’s experiments, transformed from one animal to another rather than having a hybrid beast mode. They also gained strange, almost mystical powers and desire to get rid of technology altogether while being very dark and broody. In others they weren’t too fun at parties and wouldn’t party with the Maximals anyway. They may fight alongside them to stop Megatron but they didn’t care for their robotic allies anymore than they did their robotic enemies.

The only one that didn’t interest me in the line was Poison Bite, who turned from a barracuda to a scorpion. It just didn’t grab me…so to speak. I did pick up the other three but for some reason Soundwave (the bat/crocodile namesake of the famous Decepticon) has gone missing. So we’ll be looking at the other two. We begin this week with the leader and the one who can best showcase some of the quartet’s gimmicks, Icebird.