You know the drill. So I got Leobreaker last week. And I'm all "Dude I should write a review on him!" And then the next day I was all "Yeah, I should write about Leobreaker." And the day after that I was all "Huh, yeah, review. I guess."

I need to pump these out while they're fresh.

Graham had found his Leobreaker about a week earlier, and he did not sing his praises. I mean, yeah, I know, Graham rarely sings anybody's praises, but even though Graham hates everything, his one soft spot tends to be Transformers. So I was pretty much set up for disappointment.

We found him at a Media Play, of all places. I spent the car ride home yanking him out of the box, cursing at my lack of fingernail clippers to aid me. These were some tough-ass twist ties. His lion mode is standard enough. He does have jaw articulation, but it's frustratingly narrow and requires tough pressing of the button on his forehead. (Later, after adding batteries, I discovered that the roar sound effects that accompany this are adorable. Possibly his best feature. Um.) His robot mode, though, I do like a lot. He's got enough articulation, and the way his paws convert to hands is interesting. I'm sorta bored with tail-whip weapons, though.

Now, uh, the "Savage Claw mode," where he attaches to Optimus Prime's shoulder as an arm... that's definitely a squint-and-pretend thing. On the show, fingers poof out of nowhere and glow into existence. On the toy, there is no hand to speak of. A random assortment of lion parts assembles a four-thingied claw. ("Four-thingied" versus "four-fingered," because these are in no way fingers.)

Oddly enough, the early pre-production version of Leobreaker, as seen at Comic-Con, DOES have fingers. Hell, check out the thumb sticking out of the hind leg on that prototype. Actually, forget the thumb, check out the truck-chest. Freaky. Anyway, I wonder what happened to all that stuff.

Oh well.