All Hail Lord Starscream; Ruler of the Decepticons and Emperor of Cybertron.

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With its shelf-warming Universe line winding down after three years, Hasbro has begun releasing several toys as store exclusives. Overbite is one of these. Packaged in a Ultra-sized case along with Repugnus, the repaint of the Fuzor Buzzclaw, Overbite is a Target exclusive release of the Beast Wars II character known to fans as Hellscream, who himself was a remold of the pre-Transmetal Beast Wars figure Cybershark. As I do not possess either Cybershark or Hellscream, this will be a completely new review of the fiogure.

Overbite's beast mode is that of a shark, but has enough robotic parts to look as if he was a product of a union between a Great White and a mini-sub. Most of the cybernetics are concentrated around the head, tail, and fins, and give him a sort of "Borgified" appearance. Given the gimmick of the Beast Wars II "Cyber Beasts", which Hellscream was a part of, this is hardly surprising, and in fact works to the figure's advantage. The head ends in a sharp, ram-like blade and the tail is a large, ducted propeller, the sort you might find on some versions of mini-subs. One can imagine this guy prowling the oceans of Earth or the sea lanes of Cybertron prowling about and ramming ships and water craft at high speeds. I can even see this guy as sort of an advanced Sharkticon, swimming in the pools of Quintessa, waiting for his victims to be dropped in. The dorsal fin, the most infamous body part on a shark, looks very much like the sail on submarines, and the pectoral fins have sharp little spikes on them that could be taken for harpoons. The mechanical detailing on this fins are such that they can also be seen as additional thrusters of a short, allowing Overbite to perform tight turns and even add a little extra speed.

Overbite's primary colors are blue-gray body wand pectoral fins ith a white underside and a green head, dorsal fin and tail with silver detailing and a bit of red. There is also a bit of black showing where Overbite's robot legs are showing, but unlike many other early Beast Wars releases, he doesn't have as much undercarriage junk exposed on him. Looking at him and observing pictures of Hellscream, there are some differences between the two, most notably in the head, tail, and dorsal fin. On Hellscream, many of the details have been painted to make them standout; on Overbite, these details have not been painted in, which is a bit disappointing, especially since Overbite looks like he has no optics. In addition, Overbite has the Decepticon emblem heat stamped on the left side of his head, and there is a small nob on the end of his blade, no doubt molded in to conform with US toy safety regulations.

Overbite has virtually no points of articulation, aside from his pectoral fins, which isn't unexpected when you consider his beast form. He does have two action features on him. The first is that you can launch the upper portion of his head via a small black trigger in a small indentation behind the nose blade, tunring it into a wicked torpedo. And speaking of torpedoes, Overbite comes with two black pianted torpedoes, both of which have "sharks heads" molded into them, which can be fired from his head launcher or the lancher in his tail, allowing him to attack and defend himself. The blade on his upper head can also be detached and loaded into either launcher for added play. All in all, a nice beast mode, but the lack of additional paint detail drops the score down a point.

Transforming Overbite to robot mode is fairly simple. First, remove his tail section and for sanity's sake, fire off his cyber-head. Next, unfold the two sections of his underbelly, revealing his arms, legs and head. Next, fold his legs up into the upper jaw of his beast mode, then fold the upper head and legs down into the lower ped in his body. Next, flip his feet up and fit the hole in the end of his tail into the peg on his stubby left arm. Overbite is now in robot mode.

Overbite stands a little over five inches from head to toe in robot form, six if the extensions over his shoulders are included. The only change in color for his is more red on the undersides of shark halfs and on his head, along with a bit more silver on his torso and black on his lone hand and shoulders. There is also a bit of sliver on his chins and teeth and yellow painted in on his eyes. Except for the features mentioned about his beast mode, there seems to be little difference in paint schemes between Hellscream and Overbite.

Overbite retains all of the features of his shark mode, but his chest launcher can now be flipped up and forward. This does not affect the triggers performance and his weapons can be fired as before. In addition, his torpedoes and cyberbeast-head can now act as hanldheld weapons, though the torpedoes fit fairly loosely; the ax in his beast head is better for this role than the torpedoes. The instructions don't mention a pair of holes behind Overbite's head, which are perficet for storing his torpedoes when not in use, especially when displaying this guy in his shark mode. Just be sure to store the *head up*, as they won't fit properly otherwise.

Beacuse of his chest launcher and the propeller hand on his left arm, Overbite is a bit front heavy, making posing him in robot mode a bit of a challenge. In addition, because the talifin hand is so large, there is very little articulation one can do with it - all it can do is point straight forward or straight up. Otherwise, there are very little flaws with this mode.

Universe was a line infamous from its repainted and retooled figures, and even though Overbite is techinically a retool himself, he's still a fairly nice figure in and of himself. The few changes from his Hellscream paint sceme is a nice touch and in my opinon, worth getting. My only problem is that he was sold along with the repainted Buzzclaw and not in his own packaging. Highly recommended for those who don't have Hellscream and aren't willing to pay the prices one sees on auction sites and importers.

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