Transformers: Cyberverse Ultra Class Energon Armor Clobber

Clobber

Vehicle Mode: I enjoy the Cyberverse animated series. Season one wasn’t great, but season two was great. Unfortunately, due to it having only fifteen minute episodes, I don’t watch it as closely as I have other series since the episodes feel like they are over before they start. For this reason, I am not sure if we have even seen Clobber transform. We may have and I just missed it. Clobber is so obviously based on Transformers Animated Lugnut that I just kind of assumed she turned into a plane of some kind, and was surprised that she turned into a tank. Having said all that, it’s a great tank. I love the design and the colors.

Robot Mode: Clobber looks awesome in robot mode, and she actually has a gun unlike most of the Ultra Class toys. Her Energon Armor is okay, but they should have designed the face differently so at least you could fully see her eye through the translucent green plastic.

Overall: Apparently Hasbro decided to change her name to Clobber because they thought someone would complain about the female character being called Lugnut. Pausing for laughter. That is almost certainly true. Rather than saying, “hey look, they gender swapped a character to create more female characters”, most likely would have complained about the name. Fine, I get that. But I have two questions. One, how is it no one thought of that as soon as someone said, “hey, great idea, let’s make Lugnut female!” I mean, it’s not a stretch to realize that could be a problem, but according to TFWiki this decision came late in the process as she is still called Lugnut in some non-English dubs of the show. Second, when they did realize that, why did they gender swap the character at all? There are other existing female Decepticons that they could have used for Cyberverse. Off the top of my head, Nightracer, Shadow Striker, Flamewar, Blackarachnia, Antagony, Strika, Airachnid, all the members of Megaempress and I know there are more than that. They could even created a new character. So why screw around with Lugnut at all? The answer is that there was no reason to do it, they just did it anyway. This is a great toy, but it would have been nice it if had the right name. I love the female Transformers characters, but either use them, or create new ones. Stop gender swapping characters, especially when it just creates a problem like this.

Thanks for reading!