I'm seeing an improvement on strongarm's personality and her improvement is alot faster than prime's arcee

 

Man this was a pretty crazy episode though it will be sad to think that the the toy of Vertebreak won't end well.

 

Most of the toys in this line won't end well.  

 

AT LAST!!

A new Trainformer!!!    

But please someone at least make a 3rd party Alt Head of Vetrebreak for Warrior Sideswipe please.

 

This was dark? Considering that these are "robots" I don't think kids will be having nightmares because a robot lost its head. This is nothing.

 

It's so interesting to me how people are interpreting this character as a mad scientist, and interpreting the Council's only crime as having hired him on in the first place.

He has a body harness with cobbled together, asymmetrical arms. He wants a different body, and he comes from a race of shapeshifters (ergo, alt-form caste is still in play, or was at the time he was captured, since his timeline is unclear) who can literally scan other forms, (except Grimlock, who also can only access an animal form). I'm sure something can be observed about the decepticons with animal forms, but in Vertebreak's case specifically, really think about it:

-This a race of alien shapeshifters
-Vertebreak wants a different body that has arms and legs
-He built a harness with broken looking arms on it
-He had a former interest in "forbidden sciences" from offworld, which included "unauthorized cybergrafting"
-He lost his position on the science council and then was arrested "before he could put his plans into motion" eg before he committed a crime

Imagine for a moment if you came from a species that rigorously controlled your physical abilities to transform and put you into a body with no arms and then denied your cybergrafting request to put arms onto it.

 

Sane Scientists wouldn't do this kind of thing though.  

 

I didn't think this one episode could be considered so dark myself, if we think back to the TFAnimated series, Megatron went for an entire season (in his timeline over 50 years) with his head dismembered from his body...and held 'hostage' so to speak by Sumdac.
So Sideswipe losing his head for 1 episode doesn't seem that big a deal... more funny than tragic, at least to me.
He learned that his speed won't always get him out of trouble, a valuable lesson going forward I would think.

With the background score they used, I swear this would have been a great Halloween episode... kinda had that Igor/Dr. Frankenstein feel to it. Maybe it'll rerun during October if we're lucky. Bwhahaha.

Honestly, do the Autobots think no one on subway trains is looking out the windows? There has to be several robots 'sightings'  

And once again, Grimlock is grossed out... for a Dinobot he has a pretty week stomach....and he runs too slow.  

Made me wonder at the end, did Fixit forget to connect Sideswipe's T-Cog??  

And.... even Sideswipe's head thought Bee could do a better battle cry.... "Autobots, Let's Vertebreak him!"

 

I'm surprised you didn't think immediately of Headmaster from Animated and how he decapitated both Bulkhead and Sentinel Prime.

again humans in this continuity are pretty dense, you tell them a lie and they'll believe it.

 

Vertebreak is actually the darkest villain we've seen in a good while. The rest of the Ep isn't that dark however. Don't get why people are saying this is Prime - dark. Still one of the better Eps in the show so far.

"Let's verte-break him!"

 

Vertebreak was kinda neat, but they near-immediately (and literally) tossed away just about everything that made him interesting for a rather cut-and-dry "our heroes have to fight one of their own" episode. A 3-armed, body-swapping, mad scientist snake that turns into a train! ...swiftly becomes "evil Sideswipe". Meh. At least he kept the killer name.

It really doesn't help this episode brings to mind both Pharma and the Headmaster, both of who's head-horror-antics where FAR more memorable.


I also find myself wishing the blue train was Vertebreak's assistant, both because of how conveniently inconvenient it was for the 'Bots and because it might help explain how Vertebreak actually removed his own head. Plus every Victor Frankenstein needs an Igor.

 

I think it'd be too sterotypical, this shows already sterotypical as it is....even though it'd be entertaining.

I hope Vertebreak makes another appearance down the line though.

 

Mainly because I didn't care for the Headmaster antics, nor Bulk or Sentinel either tbh. One episode didn't mean much to me, but Megs was without a body for a whole season, that was a bit more impressive and memorable to me....and why I mentioned it.

 

Good ep. 7/10. It was pretty dark by this show's standards. It resulted in some nice development for Sideswipe and his relationship with Strongarm. The fights were good (over the past few eps, while I'm still not a fan of the style, the animation has improved). The ep didn't reach its full potential though, and it was a major tension and momentum killer for the 'Bots to beat Vertebreak only to have to fight him again due to the train.