The G1 Journey

Long Haul Bio:

Unhappy with unglamorous role, but understands its importance… helps build Decepticons’ massive energy-recovery installations. As vehicle, can carry 90 tons for 1200 miles, use a dual heat-seeking missile mount. As torso module, combines with fellow Constructicons to form giant robot “Devastator”. Can be goaded into fight in which he’s overmatched.

Introduction:

Long Haul … his name just suggests he’s the team’s muscle and ultimate powerhouse. Long Haul has been a middle ground character for me and his toy has been something of interest, but not of extreme importance. With his teammates Bonecrusher and Hook scoring a very high level of coolness in my book, I’m optimistic about Long Haul and how well his toy will stack up … let’s find out.

Alt Mode:

Long Haul’s alt mode, like both Bonecrusher and Hook’s, is definitely aesthetically pleasing. It’s another Constructicon that’s well balanced and looks to be real world applicable. But right off the bat I have issues with this toy; I’m more disappointed than anything. I’ve praised very highly the actual functionality of my recently reviewed Constructicons: Bonecrusher’s working plow, Hook’s extendable crane. Although Long Haul has a great amount of cargo space as a dump truck, he doesn’t … well … dump. You can fudge your way through by lifting the entirety of his back half to simulate a functional dump truck, but it’s kind of silly to have his entire rear wheels up in the air. An opportunity that might not have been possible at that point in time during the 80’s, but would have been awesome to see!

Although I’m griping quite a bit about the lack of funtionality, Long Haul still does his main role well. Like I mentioned he does have a good amount of space to load spare weapons or even combiner parts. It’s also nice to see a lot of great details in this alt mode: big wheels, huge front grill, wide open driver’s seat, and a huge exhaust as well. I like this alt mode, it’s just lacking some of the play value that his teammates have.

Transformation:

Similar to his teammate Hook, Long Haul’s transformation is another simple transformation with not too much going on. His entire truck bed becomes his legs as you flip them over and lock them in. The front cap is flipped over to become his chest with his head popping out just behind his grille. His arms actually have a cool sequence; his arms are slid out from the front cab area and his wrists are rotated down from the forearms. That’s a nice piece of engineering from this figure, which is fun to see.

Robot mode:

The balanced and well proportioned alt mode of Long Haul does not transfer over to robot mode in the greatest of capacity. Long Haul still sports a decent looking robot form, but his stature is somewhat goofy. With his entire truck bed being his lower half, it does look like Long Haul has one hell of a set of legs. What bothers me most is having his chest/head area be his entire front half of the truck. This is really noticeable from the side view where the truck cab and exhaust block Long Haul’s head, not to mention the grille sticks out forward more than anything else. He can have a static gun pose and even raise his arms entirely up over his head for his only battle-ready action pose if you will. Overall, I think his robot mode is limited to what he has to do in his combined mode, so this robot form is another beefy looking bot without much to fiddle with.

Combined Mode:

As part of the 6 member team that forms Devastator, Long Haul forms the torso area of Devastator. As I mentioned, I think his robot mode suffers from his combined mode responsibility, in which he has to essentially hold the combined form of Devastator together. Here’s the combined form with a little help from Hook.

Evolution:

And here I am thinking the lack of functional “dumping” truck bed was “an opportunity that might not have been possible at that point in time during the 80’s.” Maybe this is another case of having limited functions due to their important combining roles, but TFC Heavy Labor also has a lot of the same limitations Long Haul has. TFC Heavy Labor has a gorgeous alt mode; it’s beefy, heavy, and an aesthetically pleasing vehicle (from the front and side). However, it has even less cargo area than Long Haul and also does not have a functional “dumping” bed … you can’t even fudge your way with this figure like you can with its G1 predecessor. The robot mode is a different story and you can see Heavy Labor shed some of the G1 limitations. Heavy Labor becomes short in stature, but he now shows off just how strong he is with a wide and beefy body without having his truck parts get in the way. Overall though, I think this is a great enlightening of a comparison because we can kind of see just how limited this particular character has to be in certain forms.

Alt mode comparison:

Robot mode comparison:

Overall rating 6/10:

As a whole, I think Long Haul suffers from being such an important part in the Devastator team, especially his robot mode. I wish he was more of a functional Constructicon like some of his teammates, but even a modern day engineered figure lacks that functionality. Long Haul still has great value to him by being able to carry a ton of accessories in his alt mode, but his robot form is the weaker of the 2 forms. Overall, a cool enough figure but has some disappointments along the way.