Power of the Primes Cindersaur

Fire-breathing warrior likes roasting Autobots and guzzling lava.

Prelude: Remember the Firecons? Those terribly dangerous toys that threatened to immolate every last child in the US with their terrifying spark-action? Well, you can relax, they’re still gone, but one of them, Cindersaur, returned in the Power of the Primes line, minus the lethal gimmick. 

Robot Mode: Cindersaur is a retool of Dinobot Slash from the same toyline, but seeing as I never had that figure in hand, this was my first (and only) encounter with this mold. 

Cindersaur is a small and pretty lean robot, looking almost feminine (Slash was a gal, after all), and wears the yellow and pink colors of the original G1 Cindersaur. The figure has quite the nice detailing for its size class, including a pretty nice head sculpt and chest details, too. Articulation is pretty good for a Legends-class figure, too, as Cindersaur can turn his head and has both knees and elbows, as well as some minor foot articulation.

Only two real flaws I can find on this figure. One, it comes without a weapon, a flaw it shares with most of the other Legends-class toys from the PotP line. And second, it has a not-really-disguised-at-all set of tiny dinosaur arms hanging off its butt. Would have been nice if those could be hidden a bit better. Apart from that, though, a nice Legends-class toy in robot mode.

Alternate Mode: Cindersaur transforms into a robotic dinosaur, more or less patterned after a Velociraptor (did any non-experts even know about these before Jurassic Park?). The transformation is pretty simple and Cindersaur’s robot mode head ends up hidden underneath his tail, the robot arms become the legs, the robot legs become the chest, and tiny little dinosaur arms unfold alongside a dinosaur head with an opening jaw.

The velociraptor looks pretty good considering the size class and – like all of the PotP Legends class figures – contains a seat for a Prime Master figure (Titan Masters may also apply). Open up the panel on his back and you can seat a Master figure here, as seen in the 11th picture in the gallery. Gives a nice Dino Riders vibe. Apart from the opening jaw, Cindersaur can move his legs at hip and knee and the tiny little arms can move up and down a bit. The neck is immobile, sadly, as is the tail.

Overall a nice dinosaur mode, the only real flaw being that you can look right through it’s chest when looked at from the side. Otherwise, though, I like the little guy. And he is not shooting dangerous sparks from his mouth, either, which is a definite benefit to worldwide child mortality.

Remarks: Now the history of Cindersaur and the Firecons isn’t terribly interesting apart from the fact that their original G1 toys contained the dreaded spark-gimmick. In 1994 a woman in the US (where else?) appealed to Mattel to immediately stop production of Rollerblade Barbie, whose rollerblades contained a spark-gimmick like that of the Firecons. The reason for the appeal? Rollerblade Barbie had set her son’s underwear on fire. 

Now further inquiry would reveal that said underwear had previously been drenched in highly flammable hair spray by the son’s sister, but surely that was but a minor detail and the true danger to the lives of children anywhere was the spark gimmick. Mattel immediately agreed to pull Rollerblade Barbie from production and Hasbro, probably fearing future lawsuits, retired the spark gimmick for twenty years before bringing it back for the Age of Extinction Dino Sparkers. To date there seem to have been no casualties caused by these new spark-wielding menaces.

As for Cindersaur himself, there might well be a bit of confusion as to his gender, as some versions of the Prime Master cards refer to him as “him” and some as “her”. So take your own pick here. Also, Slash was advertised as part of the Power of the Primes Dinobots (despite not being a part of the Volcanicus combiner), so Cindersaur found himself shuffled into the Terrorcons in some promo material. Well, as long as he/she isn’t shooting sparks.

Bottom line, this figure here is the obligatory repaint of another figure, I guess, choosing a somewhat obscure character as a template to appeal to the nostalgic collector. I think I bought him at a discount at my childhood toy store, if I remember correctly, and he is a fun little figure for what little I paid for him. So definitely not a must-have by any means, but nice enough and it gave me an excuse to dive into that whole spark-gimmick story, which I enjoyed looking up.

Rating: C+