#54: Gutcruncher (1990)

Gutcruncher is the ultimate capitalist, really. I adore the fact that as he's blasting away at the Autobots he's totting up how much they're going to be worth to him in scrap. It's almost as if he's the unholy union betwixt businessman and environmentalist recycler. Sort of if you crossed Mitt Romney with Swampy. (little bit of politics creeping in there, missus.)

As an Action Master of course, Gutcruncher didn't transform, but it's pretty obvious that he'd have been some kind of tank previously (and he did get an homage in the movieverse 'Sparkcrusher', who did turn into a tank), which is sort of cool. One of the good things about Action Masters is that they did give you some clue about what characters previously had as their alt-modes.

Sadly though, Gutcruncher joins the ranks of all the Transformers that have had little to no fiction devoted to them. He got absolutely nothing in G1 apart from a very brief ad appearance, in the IDWverse he's shown up a few times, bt nothing that you'd write home about, and he's always been very easily beaten as a generic goon, and he's been in a few unoffical gigs. In fact, he's had more time in the Shattered Glass universe than anywhere else, and that's not even this version of Gutcruncher.

There's no getting around it; Gutcruncher's toy is awesome. True, he was only available with the 'Stratotronic Jet'as they called it, but the jet's a pretty cool piece of kit. as well as a plane, it became a base/tank/battlestation affair, and also had a speedboat/jetski thing going on. Another great thing about Action Masters is that the bigger vehicles were basically playsets, and let's face it, who doesn't love a good playset? Especially when their colours don't really match up to the figure that's go to sit inside them, so the whole thing looks like a bit of a mess. That's Hasbro for you, and especially during this period.

Gutcruncher then, is a perfect example of a late era Transformer. Good toy, good tech spec bio, NO FICTION. Here's hoping that he finds his place in the IDWverse, because the characterisation is sound, and well worth a story or two. Whcih, as any good capitalist knows, is always worth a few bob.