“Those who are not familiar with him often mistake his long stretches of inactivity for laziness and disinterest. That can be a fatal mistake. For, upon closer inspection, one would see that his eyes never close, that they are constantly shifting their gleaming steely stare, monitoring all they see.”
When you are surrounded by violently powerful, psychotic, yet effective, hunters; what does it take to be their leader? Razorclaw manages to have all of Headstrong’s focus, Rampage’s speed, Divebomb’s precision, and Tantrum’s strength, but tempered with the one thing they all lack: patience. What makes him strong enough to be their leader is that he is aware that knowing when to strike is half the battle won. This is what gives him the ball bearings necessary to embody his alt-mode, the king of the beasts.
Razorclaw is one of the reasons I am soooo glad that I held out for the re-reissue. As I mentioned previously, the yellow plastics on the re-reissues was replaced with gold. The gold fits the red and black so much, much better than the stark banana yellow it replaced. It blends so much better with the gold stickers. Looking at the five collected beasts on the desk in front of me and their oddly complimentary colour scheme, it makes me wish I had a second set to permanently display in alt-mode (except Divebomb, who looks better in robot mode). Razorclaw’s alt-mode shares Rampage’s degree of head poseability and moving jaw; and can mount the transformable arm cannon for their combined mode either on his back in “attack” alt-mode, or on his own arm in robot mode (but we’ll get to his robot mode arms in a moment. Oof.)
Predacons are all about superfluous weaponry on alt-modes that are just chock full of pointy, stabby parts.
Rather than just robot mode weaponry attached in “Attack Mode”, Razorclaw is the only Predacon to have guns actually molded into the details of his shoulders. Razorclaw’s mean looking lion rivals Headstrong as my favourite Predacon alt-mode. Conversely, Razorclaw’s robot mode easily rival’s Tantrum’s as the oddest, most awkward design choice. What would otherwise be a great example of the wonderful G1 robot aesthetic is marred by the fact he has half as much arm as he should have. Oh, he still has one left and one right arm, but they are both odd little half-arms. Nubbin arms. It’s like the toy designer ran out of time and/or money somewhere around Razorclaw’s elbows and just stopped there.
Such a pity too, everything else about this robot mode is rather grand.
Other than sharing “T-Rex Arm Syndrome”, which you might remember is prevalent in all of the robots that make up Abominus’ limbs, Razorclaw has decent articulation. He has a waist swivel, and both hip and knee joints. A great toy that goes along with one of my favourite Decepticon characters, I always liked him because it’s not too often a Decepticon is depicted as being… well, competent. I still remember even being shocked when he was the first Transformer I ever saw actually kill a human, gunning down a soldier back in Marvel comics issue 37, long before the wholesale slaughter of humans became commonplace in Transformers comics.
Moral of the story, if Razorclaw shows up, just hide, it’ll be much better for your health.
Up next: The horrifying power of five killers seamlessly united into one harrowing behemoth, Predaking!
'Til All Are Mine 
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