Burn Out (30th Anniversary)

by KansasBrawler

It’s tough being a Dreadnok when you’re a Dreadnok without a gimmick. The original three had their Stooge-ness, Thrasher had the Thunder Machine, Zartan and his family had their involved backstory and color-changing skin, Road Pig had his cinderblock, Zanzibar was a bloody pirate, Gnawgahyde was a poacher, Monkeywrench had his distinctive pitchfork gun, and even Storm Rider (the driver of the Doom Cycle—yeah, don’t forget about him) had a modified nail gun…but then there’s Burn Out, the new Dreadnok. First released in the Spy Troops line, Burn Out never really had a gimmick aside from the Spy Troops gimmick itself and unfortunately that’s really hurt him as a figure. I was pretty surprised when a Spy Troops-era Dreadnok made the 30th Anniversary Dreadnok seven pack. I didn’t know who else they’d grab…maybe rehash the more accurate second version of Zartan from the 25th Anniversary line. But instead, Hasbro decided to show some love to a period of time that doesn’t really get a lot of attention for some unfortunate reason and I for one couldn’t be happier. The Joe relaunch happened while I was in high school and it really reignited my passion for a brand that I hadn’t seen in going on ten years. While I never picked up Burn Out the first time around, I really found myself liking this 30th Anniversary update.

Burn Out’s mold is entirely reused, and that’s both good and bad. His head is a prerelease of the “Joe-Rassic Park” figure Gunner Gorgon which does a pretty passable job as Burn Out. While his hair style has changed, Burn Out still has a pretty mean look to him so even though he wasn’t originally designed to be Burn Out, he still looks enough like him to accomplish the job. Plus, since I didn’t have the original Burn Out, I’m not nearly as critical of the changes to the head sculpt. It’s definitely better than modding the original Burn Out head and putting it on a modern body. The GIJCC has shown us when modding an old head works, it does a good job, but when it doesn’t, it’s really terrible. From the neck down, he’s using Pursuit of Cobra Recondo’s body, which is a nice body except for one small problem, his neck hunch. While I don’t think it’s quite as pronounced as Recondo’s, it’s still there and so Burn Out has a little trouble looking at most people. That issue aside, I think Recondo’s body does a pretty passable job at recreating Burn Out’s original look. He’s still got wrapped forearms, though it’s a shame he lost his wicked-looking knuckle spikes which was about as close as Burn Out got to a signature weapon. I also find myself liking the armored plates on his pants. First of all, the original Burn Out had some similar armored pieces on his pants and secondly as a biker, I can see him wanting a little more padding and protection that regular pants would offer. Despite the mold’s flaws, Recondo’s body does give Burn Out some nice bulk and that at least helps make him a bit more distinct as a Dreadnok than his original version. He’s clearly not as huge as Road Pig, but he’s also a bit more of a bruiser than guys like Zandar or Zanzibar.

Paint really helps make this figure distinct, but once again, it has a few issues that I wish they would have addressed better. The black pants and suspenders and gray-ish shirt look very nice. The colors are pretty similar to the ones Burn Out wore back in the Spy Troops days, but they also carried forward Burn Out’s biggest paint problem from those days too, the weird color splotches on his shirt. For a long time, I’ve questioned whether it was supposed to be weird camouflage, grease stains or his skin showing through. Unfortunately, this release really hasn’t done much to address that question aside from the fact that it’s clear now that Burn Out isn’t wearing a ripped up shirt. However, beyond that, it’s still a mystery. That’s a really weird color for camo (where would that blend in?) but I’m also not familiar with any sort of vehicle fluid that would leave a weird reddish-brown stain on a shirt. I kind of find myself wishing they would have given him different color suspenders so the spots on his shirt could be black which would make it clear that the spots were oil stains. His arm picks up a nice new detail that wasn’t present on the original Burn Out, a tattoo on the side of his left bicep. It looks kind of like a target ringed with fire and while it’s an unusual added detail, I really do find myself liking it. It gives Burn Out a little more personality. While I would have loved it if his tattoo had been the Devil’s Due-era Dreadnok logo, it still looks like something a badass biker would have on his arm, so I’ll take it. His pants have a bit of a different color problem that, ironically, would have been helped by carrying forward a detail from the original Burn Out. The original Burn Out had some blue details on the side of his pants that looked really sharp. While there was no place they could include it on Recondo’s pants, I wish they would have used some blue on the armor plates since the lower layer of armor really blends in with his pants. Without knowing it’s there, Burn Out looks kind of like he’s got floating armor pieces on his pants, something that was roundly criticized during the Spy Troops/Valor Vs. Venom years. I also think it would have looked pretty sharp and helped break up the black on his pants a bit more. Paint is also used to cover up the darts on Burn Out’s left arm. I kind of wish the design team would have just given Burn Out two lower right arms. I don’t think it would have affected the articulation and would have looked a little better in my opinion.

Burn Out also suffers some problems from the accessory standpoint, partly due to the fact that he never had a defined gimmick. Whoever was assigning weapons seemed to take Burn Out’s biker nickname seriously and gave him Torch’s old flamethrower. Honestly, I’ve never liked that piece. It looked a little undersized in Torch’s hands and being wielded by someone bigger, it looks downright dinky. It’s a bit dated as a piece and its age shows. If they wanted to give him a flamethrower, why not trot out the mold Hasbro created for Torch during the last wave of Valor Vs. Venom. It’s a piece that hasn’t been used a lot and it looks pretty intimidating. It would have looked great in Burn Out’s hand and made it look like he could burn anyone out of their hiding place. His shotgun is also not great. The original Burn Out came with a shotgun, but it was much more of a combat shotgun as opposed to a basic pump action. Once again, it’s also a bit small. I believe this piece first came with 25th Anniversary Shipwreck. It looks all right in Shippy’s hand and is a nice throwback to the original weapon he had, but again in Burn Out’s hand it looks too small and underwhelming. Hasbro has other good shotgun molds in their parts library and really, I would have loved to have seen the one that came with the 25th Anniversary Falcon because it’s bigger and it’s the exact same mold that Burn Out came with back in the day. There was a perfect opportunity for another great throwback, but they just let that one slide by. Going further, I would have loved to have seen Burn Out come with the 30th Anniversary Techno-Viper’s tool kit. Both the original and 30th Anniversary Burn Out filecards reference him being a mechanical genius who is largely responsible for modifying the Dreadnok’s bikes, and that set of tools would have really worked well to sell that aspect and give him a unique look when he’s with the other Dreadnoks.

As an overall figure, Burn Out unfortunately shares more in common with 25th Anniversary figures than he does 30th Anniversary figures. He’s close on a lot of fronts, but just not quite there on just about as many. He’s definitely not the worst figure in the Dreadnok Seven Pack, but he’s definitely not the best either. The figure’s design is good, but he still never really got around to finding his own defining characteristic. Burn Out’s a blank slate, and I do appreciate figures like that from time to time, but blank-slate Dreadnoks just don’t work for me. That faction has always been defined by some sort of gimmicky weapon or scummy profession. Burn Out really doesn’t have either and this would have been a good time to help him out, but alas, that kind of fell by the wayside once again. Most of the flaws of Burn Out are tied to the flaws he has as an ill-defined character. The figure is good, but much like the original Burn Out character, there just really isn’t much to draw me to him. There’s more than he had back in the day, but he’s still just falling a bit short on making his look come together with his character.