Que was one of five Autobots added to the cast for Dark of the Moon. Initially the character was announced as long-serving inventor Wheeljack, but Michael Bay punked Hasbro and various nerds (including hapless comic rights renter IDW) by changing the name of the character to Que for little reason without bothering to tell anyone. Said sad bastards have since launched into a sort of collective denial, citing things like the film credits (listed as "Que/Wheeljack") and Hasbro's release of the figure ("Autobot Wheeljack" )as containing the truth. Because they all called Rampage 'Skipjack' and Jazz 'Autobot Jazz', so there's no hypocrisy there. Myself, I prefer the less ambiguous declaration "My name's Que" from the film's dialogue, but then I've never been so disappointed with my life that I've cried myself to sleep.

Quite why ardent Wheeljack fans are so intent on getting his name attached to such a weak character. Que made few appearances in the film itself, and when he did his accent tended to change randomly. He had a deeply ugly character model and was basically so irritating that no-one complained too much when his stupid head was shot off by perennial loser Barricade and a protoform.

Que's alternate mode is the rather boring Mercedes E550. It's licensed, complete with the company's logo on both ends, as GM's once-strong hold on the property has slipped thanks to their financial troubles. Quite why anyone coughed up for such a generic design is beyond me. I mean, this is my next door neighbours' car. As well as lacking in A-list glamour, the Merc is still too much of a flash git car to be a pleasant change from exotic models. The thing is rendered in blue, basically the same colour as Jolt was in Revenge of the Fallen. So in addition to his multitude of sins I propose that it's Que's fault the decent new mould of Jolt was bumped from being blue to being grey/black. Still, there's actually some decent detail on Que's alternate mode - silver rims, badges, grill and door handles; plastic headlights and painted rear lights, and transparent windows all around (with some respectable paint matching on the roof). Very unusual for recent live action figures.

Sadly, he's covered in join lines, the two bars in the roof being the most obvious offenders, while the plastic - despite being a lovely shade of blue - is the cheap stuff that's started appearing on figures recently, and gets stress marks very easily. Two things should probably go without saying. Firstly, the big, boxy Mercedes is relatively tiny, especially when placed alongside, say, Revenge of the Fallen Sideswipe. Secondly, the MechTech weapon - which is apparently the reason why the Deluxe and Voyager figures for Dark of the Moon have shrunk so much - looks preposterous on top of the vehicle mode, and even moreso if you try to attach the figure's extra weaponry to it. However, to some extent I'm prepared to let them off for the latter. Weapons storage has become too much of an obsession with the line's designers from Alternators onwards, resulting in some pathetic armaments where the need to fold guns away so they can be hidden in car mode overriding the design of the accessories themselves. Whatever his other faults, Que doesn't fall into this trap.

Theoretically, Que has one of the simplest transformations seen on a live action Deluxe since the first film tie-in line. There are few ball joints or small fiddly panels that have to be lined up just right, for example. However, even after several days' practice, I'm having trouble transforming him in either direction without some parts scraping together or just generally getting in the way of each other, which doesn't help the cheap plastic compound one bit. The side doors and rear wheel panels are prime examples, but the legs especially appear a lot more simple than they actually are - the feet have to be put away at just the right time in just the right counterintuitive way or the whole car roof just won't peg in properly. The end result is that it's just not that much fun to transform Que. That the robot mode is ugly hardly rewards the endeavour either. Of course, Que wasn't much of a looker on-screen, so that's largely fair enough, and to some extent the figure does reflect the cluttered look of the CGI model.

However, this hardly makes for a stunning action figure, and once again a lot of parts get in the way of others - leg articulation, for example, is minimal as the panels on the outside of the thighs and knees scrape together, while the rear windows on the backs of the shins have to be rearranged to compensate whenever the feet are rearranged. The shins themselves are hollow from the front to boot, something two little pale blue paddles utterly fail to hide. The car wings on his arms are a problem for similar reasons - they don't peg in anywhere, and complicate shoulder movement; once again you often have to move them before rearranging the actual joints on the arms. Having a pair of pistols or tools hanging off the chest on 5mm clips is a nice touch, but they further restrict movement, protrude too far to blend into the design when stored there and tend to pop off easily. There are some baffling colour choices in the mix as well. Most of Que's chest is rendered in a dark gunmetal grey. This looks very unnatural and segmented when his limbs are in a lighter grey or, in a couple of paces, pale blue, not to mention there being some silver and gold painted accents in there. He looks rather muddled, and the head is even worse. The cast itself is a respectable representation of the on-screen model (whether this is a good thing or not will come down to accuracy versus aesthetics in your mind), but the colours are haywire. The bulk of the head is dark grey, the hair is translucent black while the face is painted silver. Que looks like some sort of medieval representation of death. He does come with a decent array of weaponry, though. The small pistols might get in the way when stowed, but they fit nicely in the figure's hands, as does the large spear. The latter also pleasingly clips onto the robot's back as seen in the film. Even the MechTech weapon's not bad - while the saw blade that won't stay extended is mediocre, the thing does at least look like an interesting device with its' tripod stand and carrying handle. Once again, though, poor colour choices have been made - all the accessories are arbitrarily cast in green, a colour not seen anywhere else on the figure. Which means Hasbro have gone out of their way to make them a clashing shade, rather than just using a bit more grey. It sums Que up nicely.

With a more sensible use of colour Que could have been a fairly-accurate statue. As it is, basic failure to make even the simple stuff accurate (I mean, this isn't a case of preliminary designs that couldn't be changed, the film came out six months ahead of the toy this time round) makes the general hideous aspect and poor play value of the figure unforgivable. By far the most disappointing Deluxe on-screen Autobot in the movie family to date, and only necessary for those desperate to round out their Autobot line-up. Even then it's worth considering that a Dino toy seems unlikely to happen, so seeing as you'll be one short anyway you might as well skip Que too.

DESIGN
ENGINEERING
FEATURES
DURABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL