CIRCUIT BREAKER

Appearances:  

US Comics

#5 (The New Order, in a news report watched by Shockwave.)

#6 (The Worse of Two Evils, injured by Shockwave's attack on Blackrock's oil rig.)

#7 - 8 (Warrior School, Repeat Performance, in a hospital bed.)

#9 (Disintegrated Circuits, becomes Circuit Breaker.)

#10 (The Next Best Thing to Being There.)

#21 - 23 (Aerialbots over America, Heavy Traffic, Decepticon Graffiti, Working for Triple-I)

#45 (Monstercon from Mars, Circuit Breaker vs. Skullgrin.)

UK Comics

#30 (Decepticon Dam-busters, pt 2)

#32 (Wrath of Grimlock)

#41 (Christmas Breaker, her only actual UK story.)

Quote:

"Another robot! You will be the first to feel the searing sting of Circuit Breaker!"

Other Names:  

Josie Beller

Description:  

Circuit Breaker  was a rather simplistic character. She was a young genius who was hurt by the Transformers and wanted to get revenge on them. That's about it.

Despite this simplicity, Circuit Breaker has captured the imagination of many many Transformers fans. There are many possible reasons for this. Her blind hatred of the robots who hurt her is somewhat interesting at times. The way she took out more Autobots than Decepticons was kind of nifty. The real reason she's stayed in the minds of so many fans, though, is because she's a pretty chick with nothing more on that a little bit of alfoil. No wonder all the male TF fans like her...

Obviously, I'm not a big Circuit Breaker fan. I'll be honest straight up and say to you, that, no, I don't really like the character. I didn't like her when she barely had the power to fight Runamuck and Runabout, and I liked her even less when she was crippling Unicron. So if this character entry is a little, shall we say, unflattering to the girl in the tinfoil bikini, now you know why.

Biography:

Toy: 

It's funny, I've never really seen a Kitbash for, say, Galen or Buster Witwicky, but Circuit Breaker (and to be fair, the other Neo Knights)? Sure have!

Nowadays if Circuit Breaker was given a toy it would be one of those ones posed so that her hips aren't in line with her shoulders. (Like all female action figures these days.) She'd have thigh articulation which would make her fall down if you used it, and she'd have shoulder articulation which can allow her to put her arms above her head for 'bondage' poses and little else. The toy would probably be well endowed and have more flesh than metallic circuitry. Basically, you'd have a Transformers 'Witchblade' action figure.

No, I don't think I'd be that enthusiastic about a Circuit Breaker action figure.

Over All:

Dammit, I need to say something nice about the character here, to balance it all out.

Okay, basically, I hated the way that Furman turned Circuit Breaker, a character with a lot of limitations (she was beaten by Runamuck and Runabout, for god's sake) into an invincible she-god... wait, that's not something positive is it? What I was trying to say was this: Budiansky's version of Circuit Breaker wasn't too bad. She had limitations, and though she was a dangerous threat to the Transformers (she downed Superion, for god's sake) she wasn't invincible.

Her obsession, while something of a one-trick pony could be quite interesting sometimes. A nice example of that is where she ices Skullgrin. Here she's confronted with the fact that a) Skullgrin ain't all bad and b) a Decepticon is capable of goodness. Yet, even though she acknowledges, openly, his positive traits she still gets ready to kill him. That was neat. A lot more interesting than most of her previous (and later) ranting about the evils of robots.

(The fact that she spent most of that issue in a wheelchair, only becoming Circuit Breaker to fight was also interesting.)