Universe 2.0 Cheetor - Pictorial Review

One of the figures that I vowed to skip and never even considered before, Universe Cheetor. This changed, however, since my wife decided to start collecting the Neo-Beast Wars figures (thanks a lot, Rhinox and Rattrap!!)

Pic Credit : TFWiki

The young and enthusiast Maximal was never short on energon. Despite his good intent, Cheetor had few times caused problems to his teammates and almost leading them to the brink of destruction. All of this reminded me a lot of Hotrod in the 1986's Animated Movie.

Pic Credit : TFWiki

Among the initial crews of the Axalon that crash-landed on the 'mysterious planet', Cheetor quickly went on his way, after choosing a cheetah as his beast form, going on a run with others of his kind....sort of. This 'harmless' act brought him face-to-face with Waspinator and the other Predacons which resulted him being rescued by Optimus Primal. And that won't be the last....

Beast Mode

Cheetor in all his glory. The figure was released back in 2008 as a part of Universe 2.0 Line, together with Universe 2.0 Dinobot.

I'll be honest, Cheetor is not a hot figure (at least when he was first released) and this might be due to the fans claiming that Cheetor had a poor design in both alt mode and robot mode. Which I don't agree half of it as Cheetor has a nice, well-proportioned beast mode.

So, my theory is that, aside from the mediocre design, Cheetor (and Dinobot) was out of place, during his release in 2008. While all the Classics and Universe 2.0 figures focused on G1 characters, Cheetor and Dinobot messed out the whole Neo G1 theme, for coming from the Beast Wars line.

Articulation-wise, Cheetor has sufficient joints to at least allow him to do natural poses.

Cheetor comes with a gimmick in which when the lever on his back is pulled, his jaw opens and his eyes switch from green to red. To understand more, the eyes are homages to the many colors for the eyes that Beast Wars Cheetor's variants had throughout the years.

Scale-wise, Cheetor and Rhinox might not be properly done; however, I think it is close enough as I would've hated if Cheetor is two times smaller or Rhinox is two times bigger than they are now.

"Should we be in Madagascar, Rhinox?"
"Shut up kid!"

Robot Mode

A design that the fans didn't agree on. However, bear in mind that Cheetor was released almost 6 years ago in 2008 so personally, he's not that bad..

What Cheetor might be lacking in terms of design, was made up with his finishing. Cheetor was done with Pre-DOTM quality with rich paint apps and great detailing.

One of his highlights would be the CGI-accurate head sculpt and almost-perfect quality control that showed how different Hasbro nowadays is.

Cheetors has slightly limited articulations even compared to others in that line especially for his shoulders as movement is hindered by the kibbles on his hands.

Cheetor's tail becomes a whip-like weapon in robot mode, which surprisingly is a homage to Transmetal 1 Cheetor instead of Beast Wars Cheetor.

Cheetor comes with swivel joint on his head, ball jointed shoulders, and hinges on the elbows. His lower body consists of ball jointed thighs, swivels above the knees, and 4-points hinges from his knees to his feet.

Size comparison with Generations Rhinox

Another gimmick would be 2 throwing stars, stored at the side of his legs.

Despite the complaints and all, I'm grateful that I have the chance to revisit Universe Cheetor as I have a very different view on him compared to few years back.