Transformers Prime Beast Hunters: Lazerback

So Hasbro decided to bring back the Predacon name and faction for Transformers Prime, Beast Hunters.  The G1 geek inside me was obviously happy when I heard the news.  Then the toys were slowly revealed and my excitement slowly dwindled.  Thanks to a buy one get one 50% sale I grabbed Lazerbeak solely to get the discount.  What happened next even surprised me...I kinda like this toy.  He reminds me a lot of some of the Beast Wars Fuzor toys.  Odd looking and the colors are overly bright and slightly annoying.

I've noticed that a lot of Beast Hunter deluxe toys seem to be crammed inside the blister bubble and Lazerback is a fine example.  The Predacons are supposed to be dragons in the series, but is Lazerback a two legged dragon like Marvel's Fin Fang Foom or is it a dragon at all.  Kinda hard to tell in package, but he does come with a Toxic Strike Blaster!

OK, now this is better.  I'm still not sure if I can classify Lazerback as a dragon, but at least now the buyer can tell that he belongs on all fours instead of standing upright like a bi-pedal creature.  I kinda wish Hasbro would drop the whole Prime Autobot group picture on packaging...seems out of place now.

The first thing that popped in my mind when I took Lazerback of out the packaging was this guy looks like that creature from the old Sega video game, Golden Axe!  OK, so maybe that's not all that accurate, but you can see the similar ties, can't you?

I've really come to enjoy this mold as there are a lot of things to like.  The beast head sculpt looks fantastic.  Loads of articulation in the ankles and feet let you pose him in some good walking/lunging/action poses.  The one thing that bothers me however is the exposed robot forearms/hands as pictured above.  I feel as if the designers should have put a panel to cover this up in some way...at least the purple hand.  Oh well.

Lazerback's Toxic Strike Blaster can peg onto his back while in beast mode for some extra firepower.

In robot mode Lazerback looks pretty thick.  He would give the appearance of being top heavy, especially with the long and skinny "chicken" legs he has.  Thanks to the large hind feet of the dragon, Lazerback can easily support the heft that is centered on the top half of the figure.

The Blaster can stay attached to the back, or can he wielded has a hand held gun.  The tail detaches and acts as a club.  Not the most original idea, but it works.

Lazerback is the weakest of the Predacons released to date, but that doesn't mean you should pass him by all together.  If you don't care for his loud color scheme thankfully you have choices coming soon for this mold.  Takara Tomy's Transformer Go! version of Lazerback has a muted, better metallic color scheme as Gaidora.  Oh yeah, Gaidora has a new head sculpt that I like over Lazerback's.  In typical Hasbro fashion, a redeco of this mold has already been solicited, Vertebreak.  Love the name, not so sure on the tiger-esque deco.