Slug & Daniel Witwicky (Transformers

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Slug & Daniel Witwicky (Transformers - Studio Series) Review

Slug & Daniel Witwicky
Transformers - Studio Series (Hasbro)"Excuse me," cries Slug, a mighty robotic triceratops who, along with his fellow Dinobots, disrupts a Quintesson trial. Okay, his name's actually Slag, but since that's a swear not just used by Cybertronians, Hasbro changed it in recent years. His name may be different, but we all know who it is.

Slug's toy design depicted him with a black head and thighs, but his cartoon appearance gave him a redhead and silver thighs. Since this is a Studio Series release, and therefore comes from the animated movie, Hasbro went with the latter. He's also a Leader class figure, which makes him 8" tall, though he's technically 9" due to the back kibble. This take on him not only looks just like his on-screen appearance, but better, thanks to all the sculpted detail he never got on painted cels. As the case is with Grimlock, he's more sculpted plastic than paint, but the few areas where there is paint have mostly clean work.

There's all sorts of hinges and swivels on Slug, including ones that allow for nice poses in robot mode. The ball-jointed head isn't the best, but the hinge that makes the head go into the chest allows for more up-and-down. I was surprised to find that he had double-hinged elbows, giving him plenty of opportunities for arm poses, along with swivel/hinge shoulders and swivels at the biceps and wrists. The rest is pretty basic, with swivel waist and thighs, swivel/hinge hips, hinged knees (another case of double-jointedness), and rocker ankles.

In the process of turning Slug into a dinosaur, you turn the wrists and fold them into the arms, open the sides of the legs and flip out the kibble inside, turn the waist around and bend the knees completely, bring down the wings and click the tail in the notches of the legs to form the back, flip down the chest panel and bring up the dino jaw, then push in the sides of the chest and flip the panel back up. Getting those little tabs on the tail piece in between the legs is a real pain, so can getting the wings clicked in without popping them off.

The presentation of Slug's dinosaur mode is definitely worth the hassle, as the great details are still present, along with nice, shiny, blue eyes. Slug is just as long as a triceratops as he is tall as a robot, being 8 1/2” long and 4 1/4" tall. There's no head movement, but he does have a hinged jaw so he can chomp down, and the kibble in the bot legs that make up the hind dino legs have swivel hips along with knee and ankle hinges.

Like Grimlock with Wheelie, Slug has a little buddy of his own. Spike's son Daniel debuted in the '86 movie, and took the role of kid hero from his old man. The only way you could tell that this 2 3/4" tall figure was Daniel was by his name being said on the box, since his head isn't shown; it's just a solid white helmet. He does have movement in the shoulders and hips, and is designed to ride Slug in dino mode. The Dinobot also has a blaster that can be held in his hands on plug into his tail.

Nowadays, Slug can't be found easily at the usual Transformers stops like Target and Walmart, but he can be grabbed for retail through Macy's of all places! Thanks to the new pop-up Toys R' Us stores in the department chain, earlier Transformers releases (as in ones from the start of this year and the last two) can be obtained, and I assume it's just leftovers from Hasbro's warehouse. Nevertheless, I'm glad to add this guy to my collection, and not pay as much for him as I did his leader.

- 12/4/22