Icebird
Polar bear mode is pretty
nicely done. The only owl extra you can see at first glance in this mode
is the owl feathers, which are tucked in the bear's midsection. Originally,
these feathers wouldn't stick out that bad, but the fact that they are
a different color then their surrounding parts kind of gives them away.
Snowy white feathers would have been easier to blend in with the rest of
the mode than light grey ones. Another, slightly less obvious, owl extra
is the owl head, of which the bottom part can be seen sticking out of the
bear's butt. It's only a little bit, though, and doesn't subtract from
the mode that much. Icebird also has the orange flair from the owl's stomach
on his chest in this mode, but it actually adds a bit to the mode instead
of subtracting from it; you have to admit, a completely white-and-grey
figure can be a bit dull. Icebird's proportions in this mode are overall
pretty nice, but the claws are ridiculously large. I have no idea why the
claws were made this large, since they look too large in owl mode as well.
I guess to make Icebird more "menacing". Go figure. The front legs are
also a bit larger than the back legs, but this is not nearly as bad proportionally
as, say, the Mutant Razor Claw's wolverine mode. This mode is pretty articulated
for a bear mode, complete with 2-3 points of articulation on each leg,
a moving neck and head, and a moving mouth. Even the small tail can move
up and down! You can find Icebird's silver Mutant symbol on his right shoulder.
If you lift up the panel the symbol is on, there is some hidden metal parts
underneath! Neat! Icebird's mutant robot head can be revealed by lifting
up the panel behind the bear head. A spring will automatically retract
the bear head and push out the mutant head. The curved robot head is mostly
blue-grey, with green eyes, and seems slightly deformed. The mutant robot
head may look rather odd, as do any of the others, but this one has a rather
cool position- if you put this head in place of the bear head and stand
the bear mode up, you can actually create a fake "robot mode" for Icebird,
by making the front bear legs the hands and the rear bear legs the feet!
It's funny, if nothing else.
Icebird's owl mode is
surprisingly good as well. The other Mutants suffer majorly in one mode
because of the other mode, but not so with Icebird. What's nice is that
the fur detailing in the bear mode also works as a "feather coat" detailing
job in owl mode. Only a few small proportionality problems keep this mode
from being rather convincing. For one, the owl legs and talons are a bit
too large, but this is no big deal. One might also note that the wings
are bit too small. If this owl were actually a living creature, his rather
small wings would never be able to lift the rest of his body up. It's really
no big deal, though. The wings are articulated in three places each, however,
which allows Icebird to "fold up" his wings against his body, a feature
that few other winged transformers can do. There are two things that bug
me about this mode, however. First, one can clearly see the red claws of
the back legs of the bear mode in the sides of the owl's chest. It's very
obvious from almost any angle, and detracts from the "solid" feel of this
mode. What is also rather annoying is that the tail feathers are on a spring
for some unknown reason, and they always want to keep retracting into the
body. You actually have to position the owl legs in front of the tail feathers
to do this. As one can imagine, this is a pain. Icebird's "action feature"
in this mode is that, when you press on a tab in his forehead, his beak
should move up and down a little. It really doesn't work that well, however,
and even when it does work, the beak barely moves at all. Not a very rewarding
action feature. Still, though, this is a pretty good mode to play with.
The only Mutant that
is pretty nice in both modes, although Icebird does suffer from a few flaws
in each mode that kept him from getting a higher score. Still, I recommend
this Mutant over all the others.
Review by Beastbot