Mini-reviews: Universe/Timelines

This page is for Transformers that were released in the original Transformer toyline labeled Universe (2003-2006) and the Botcon/Transformer Club Timelines (2005 - ) toys.

-Bonecrusher (Target Exclusive)
Faction: Decepticon
Toyline: Universe
Class: Ultra (included with Scavenger)
Release: Spring 2006
Accessories: Twin-barreled blaster/attack wedge
Acquired: eBay
Strongest mode: Robot.
- Bonecrusher is a repaint of Robots in Disguise Wedge, one of the four members of the Landfill combiner. This version, repainted in G1 constructicon colors, is, appropriately, a member of Devastator (forming his head and torso). A great little mold, it does match G1 Bonecrusher in alt mode while looking convincingly evil (not an easy feat, considering the friendly, Bumblebee-looking source mold). One negative is that this really is a basic/scout sized toy, so you may feel a bit ripped off buying one deluxe and one basic for the price of two deluxes. However, I'd say this is the best-looking of the four releases of the mold, so it's probably worth it (it helps that you only have to buy two packages to complete this set of 4).

-Whirl
Faction: Autobot
Toyline: Universe
Class: Ultra (includes Makeshift & Gunbarrel)
Release: Early Fall 2004
Accessories: 2 missile launchers/jet engines, 2 missiles.
Acquired: Target
Strongest mode: Helicopter (Whirl), twin Gatling gun (Makeshift), multi-barrel blaster (Gunbarrel)
- One of the nice things about the original Universe line is that some of the molds it brought back in repainted form were ones that hadn't been available in the US before (like Nemesis Prime and the Micromaster combiners) or molds that had otherwise seen limited release. Whirl is one of those, previously only available in the US as part of the KB exclusive Machine Wars line as Sandstorm. Before that, he was a Euro-exclusive Turbomaster named Rotorstorm (of recent LSotW fame). The mold works pretty well as Whirl; the helicopter is clearly a light attack chopper in the same vein as the original Whirl's Cobra mode. The robot mode's main point of departure, is, of course, the lack of the Shockwave-style monocled, mouthless head. However, the mold's headsculpt is nice, with very vivid yellow lightpiping (the rotor blades are the same type of plastic). Even with the limited articulation (let's face it, this is technically a G1 toy), he easily manages to be very playable (the dropping of the missile launchers into attack mode is very fun). I do wish it had been remolded with powerlinx ports so he could actually use his two targetmaster minicons, but you can't win them all, I guess.

-Dion & Cop-Tur
Faction: Autobot/Mini-con
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe/Mini-con
Release: Summer 2010
Accessories: 2 missile launchers/exhaust pipes, 2 flame missiles, Cop-Tur mini-con.
Acquired: Free Club toy for 2010 
Strongest mode: Robot (Dion), helicopter (Cop-Tur)
A repaint of Henkei Hot Rod (the remolded Japanese release of Universe 25th Anniversary Hot Shot), Dion's toy is the first time this character has gotten a release in any kind of US market. It shares all the flaws that the Hot Rod/Shot releases of the mold have (and there are quite a few of these flaws), but once you get past those, this is the best looking version of the mold yet and is a great way for the Club to start doing non-Nexus Prime free toys. He is technically a G1 character, but he has one mini-con port to allow him to interact with Cop-Tur (who also looks great, despite having minimal paint apps). Unfortunately, he can't use any non-powerlinxing UT weapons, since his fist holes are not quite 5mm in diameter, so the only guns he can hold are his flamethrowers, which can also mount in holes on his forearms. What really carries this guy is the nice color combo along with the high number of well-done paint apps (especially in bot mode). While he's no longer free at this point, Dion is a worthwhile toy, particularly if you don't have a previous version of the mold, or only the weaponless US release.

-Cindersaur
Faction: Decepticon (G2)
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe
Release: Summer 2010
Accessories: 1 missile, tail/missile launcher, cyber key
Acquired: Botcon 2010
Strongest mode: T-rex
- The second repaint of BWX Megatron (itself a de facto Cybertron mold), Cindersaur is supposed to be the G2 update for the G1 Firecon of the same name. This is kind of neat, as the other two Firecons (Sparkstalker and Flamefeather) did get European G2 releases, and Cindersaur, being the only dinosaur of the trio, is the only one of the three that really would have worked with this T-Rex mold. However, looking at Timelines Cindersaur, you wouldn't automatically guess it was him unless you knew what the other two G2 Firecons looked like, since he looks nothing like the (mostly) purple, yellow and grey G1 original. However, FP made a logical choice with this repaint's colors; the other 2 G2 Firecons share accent colors of green and purple, while their main colors are translucent yellow (Flamefeather) and red (Sparkstalker). Pick the remaining primary color, blue, and you're set for a G2 Cindersaur color scheme. And man does this color scheme rock. Cindersaur's robot mode "wings" and the top half of the tail are translucent blue, while there is plenty of opaque blue of a similar tint. His torso is dominated by the purple and green, and he's covered in red, green and silver paint apps. Compared to the previous US release of the mold, Cindersaur beats BWX Megatron in being much less bland and beats the Cybertron repaint by actually having the colors work together well.  An excellent and unexpected con exclusive.

 - Nexus Prime
Faction: Multiple (2 Decepticons, 2 Autobots, 1 Shattered Glass Decepticon, and NP himself is technically neutral)
Toyline: Timelines
Class: 4 basics & 1 deluxe
Release: One piece a year from 2005 - 2009
Accessories: none (will list each component's accessories on their reviews)
Acquired: 3 through TFCC mail, two at Botcon 2010
Strongest mode: Only one, so the combiner mode...preferred arrangement is: Lanquake (right arm), Breakaway (left arm), Topspin (right leg) and Skyfall (left leg).
- Most of my reviews are of toy/s that are of a single purchasable release, which would exclude most combining toys. This guy would be an extreme example of that; most combiners have all their components released within the span of one toyline, but Nexus Prime here took 5 years to complete. When Fun Publications got the rights to the Transformers Collector's Club, they decided to give club members one free toy a year, and for the first five years, each one would be a piece of a special repaint of certain Energon combiner pieces. The end result is pretty cool, especially for those of us in the US market who don't often get translucent transformer toys. Also nice is that, unlike the retail Energon combiners, each of the molds is different, making Nexus Prime the only Energon-style combiner toy to have four different limbs, instead of two of the limbs being repaints of the other two. The icing on top is the pretty awesome, new headsculpt attached to the Energon Barricade mold, easily the best of the three Energon combiner torsos. While each of his component characters (for the most part) officially come from different universes, I imagine that they all find their origins in the UT universe, and since I don't buy into the who whole idea that The 13 (of which Nexus Prime is a member) are multiversal singularities, NP is also, like Cybertron Vector Prime, from the UT universe. And where Vector Prime is charged with protecting spacetime, Nexus is the "god" of energon, so to speak. After all, he's made of it, and one of his components, Breakaway, guarded Rarefied Energon, the energon that sparks are made of, for a really long time in a G1 universe. Speaking of which, here are his components: Heatwave, the torso and a Decepticon missile truck from the Shattered Glass Universe; Breakway, the Autobot F-22ish jet who we mentioned; Landquake, a Decepticon tank (UT Quake to me, and explicitly from the UT universe), Skyfall, an Autobot A-10 who lives on Velocitron in the UT; and Topspin, a Decepticon Cobra helicopter stuck in the Transtech universe working for Shattered Glass Alpha Trion. Their combined mode is something to behold, and a great way for the club to celebrate both their 5th anniversary last year and the 25th anniversary of the franchise.

-Slice (aka "SG Wheeljack")
Faction: Decepticon/SG Autobot
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe
Release: Summer 2010
Acquired: Botcon 2010
Strongest mode: Car.
- Slice has become one of my favorite toys from Botcon 2010. Actually supposed to be named "Slicer" and painted so that he can double as Shattered Glass Wheeljack (who's design was based on this mold in G1 Slicer's colors anyway), the mold looks great in blue. The mold itself isn't the strongest; I have the original Energon Downshift (a de facto Wheeljack) toy, and since it's a deluxe Autobot mold focused around being able to form 2 top or bottom combining modes in addition to the standard 2 modes, it lacks a bit in articulation, mostly in the legs. And whereas G1 Slicer or SG Wheeljack never officially visited the UT universe, it's pretty fun to combine the blue version with the white one to get the whole good/evil mixed (with Slice on top and in control, of course!). The energon weapons look good in (blood) red, and amusingly would allow him to fit in with the other Energon Autobots; I like to think that he did visit that universe during that time, infiltrating the Autobot ranks and stealing the combiner/energon weapon technology in the process. I like to plug the weapons into the holes in his shoulders while in robot mode; they look good along side his deployed exhaust guns which are located in about the same place. If there's anything I don't really care for, it's the tan plastic color used for the feet, forearms, and other parts; however, it is accurate to G1 Slicer's deco, so what can you do. At least the copper paint looks great. If you can, pick this guy up. I'm one of the (probably many) fans who are kicking themselves after not getting the 2008 Shattered Glass toys while I had the chance (except Starscream), so I'm taking any new SG stuff I can easily get ahold of. Slice/Slicer/Wheeljack is definitely a great bone thrown to the fans of this enduring bit of transformers fiction, and fans of the "new" Actionmaster characters will like it too.

-Breakdown
Faction: Decepticon (Generation 2)
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe
Release: Summer 2010
Accessories: Tailpipes/gun and supercharger/jetpack
Acquired: Botcon 2010
Strongest mode: Both.
- Already having gotten a pretty good G1 Breakdown homage earlier in the year in the form of RotF Breakdown (alt mode and colors are spot-on a match for the G1 original), Botcon did us one better. Many had clamored for the Universe Sunstreaker/Sideswipe mold to be remolded as G1 Breakdown, but instead, Botcon gave us that character...in his Generation 2 color scheme. What makes this a quintessential Botcon toy is that, even though Hasbro fully planned to release a G2 version of Breakdown and all the Stunticons, they only saw limited release as the first Botcon exclusive back in 1994. That deco is replicated as faithfully as it can be on this much newer mold (either bot mode transformation ends up being different from the G1 Breakdown toy's). This is clearest in alt mode, which looks great. It's unabashedly 90s, with the hallmark G2 features like eye-searing colors, ridiculous and unnecessary graphics, and the character's name emblazoned on the doors in blatant disregard for the whole "robots in disguise" concept. The new head looks great, too - it captures the looks of a G1 Scramble City "blockhead" character while not really looking out of place on a modern toy body, something I was surprised they could pull off. Breakdown gives G2 fans a chance to get a G2 character they probably didn't have a chance to, and at the same time gives your Classics/Universe/Generations collection another Decepticon troop, even if he's time-displaced from the rest in fiction.

-Rapido
Faction: Autobot (Generation 2)
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe
Release: Summer 2010
Accessories:1 folding gun
Acquired: Botcon 2010
Strongest mode: Robot.
-Rapido holds a special place in my heart. This was really the toy that truly sold me on buying into the Botcon 2010 set - in actuality, he's the only toy in the set that homages a mold that was exclusive to the G2 line and also released in the US. All the others are either based on late-G1 European releases (Pyro, Clench, etc), unreleased G2 repaints of G1 toys (Streetwise, Breakdown), hypothetical updates to characters that were never in G2 (Cindersaur) or not G2 at all (Slicer, Double Punch, SG Ravage, etc). More to the point, Rapido was also one of the G2 molds my dad got for me when I was a kid in the 90s, and he was a fun little toy. One of the Axelerators, a group not too unlike the G1 Minibots, Rapido's bot mode more closely resembled the designs or larger Autobot cars like Prowl, with his hood chest and actual weapon. Appropriately, Universe Prowl's mold was chosen for this new Rapido, although not without a great new head sculpt. The deco is vibrant and representative of some of the best G2 had to offer - eye-catching, but also employing a primary color to keep things from being too far out. His silver G2 symbol is nice and squarely placed in that little pentagonal section on the front of the hood, contrasting with Streetwise's lack of anything there. Overall, Rapdio's a great toy. I now own this mold five times, and I can easily say that this version is the best looking. Get it if you can.

-Devastator (Kay Bee Exclusive)
Faction: Decepticon
Toyline: Universe
Class: Micromaster combiner
Release: Sometime in 2004...
Accessories: Many: Bonecrusher, Buckethead, Hightower, Long Haul, Quickmix, Scavenger, two fists/jet engines, 1 gun/cockpit, 1 torso/ fuselage, 2 feet/wings
Acquired: Kay Bee Toys
Strongest mode: All. 
- Devastator here is a repaint of the old Japanese G1 combiner Sixbuilder, who was actually an Autobot and himself has combiner parts (save for the head) repainted from Sixwing. And Sixbuilder actually got his own Devastator-style repaint in Japan a few years before this guy, but the American version benefits from much better paint applications. Plus, despite having his component bots released individually, he was much cheaper and available stateside (I think this was the last TF I bought at a particular KB before they closed). Speaking of those components, the individual robots do a pretty good job of standing in for their G1 counterparts, even if some of them have different names. Scavenger, while having the same name, is now a backhoe on a G1 Hook-like truck body. Most of the others have the same basic alt modes, but "Hightower" is Hook, "Quickmix' is Mixmaster, and "Buckethead" is Scrapper. I personally consider them to be the same as the G1 versions, only after a pre-Beast Wars Micromaster upgrade, with the technology stolen from Superion's similar downsizing, through Sixwing (hence the jet parts). One nice thing about this combiner is, unlike many, all the loose combiner pieces themselves combine into a jet vehicle that can be piloted by one of the Constructicons (or any Micromaster combiner). While it might make more sense if the parts combined into a construction machine, this set of parts gives the Constructicons a giant attack jet, so that's pretty useful, and they're all construction machines anyway. Anyhow, the individual bots are pretty good for what they are (limited articulation, older micromaster design, so forth), and the combined mode also has limited articulation, but he can at least aim his gun and look around. He even has some false knees, thanks to Long Haul and Mixmaster's own leg joints. One downside is that Bonecrusher serves, pretty much, as Devastator's rear end, since there's no useful place for him to be. Overall, though, it's a nice set, and a good replacement for the original G1 Devastator if you don't want to track down that set.

-Sky-Byte
Faction: Predacon
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe
Release: June 2010
Accessories: 2 missiles
Acquired: Botcon 2010
Strongest mode: All?
-One of the strongest deluxes from the Energon toyline, Sharkticon, was seemingly never going to be repainted. However, 6 years later at Botcon 2010, we got not just one, but two repaints of this fun mold. One, Gnaw/G1 Sharkticon, was a straight-up repaint in (surprise) G1 Sharkticon colors and was available as a troop-building 3 pack at-con exclusive. Sky-Byte, though, is one of the boxed set toys and also has a new head mold. And, honestly, of the three versions of this mold that now exist, Sky-Byte is the most attractive. This is largely because his colorscheme is dominated by a very pretty, slightly dark metallic blue. Highlights of blue and yellow (to me, at least) suggest a nautical theme that is, of course, lifted from the original RiD Sky-Byte toy from 2001. Sky-Byte also has a lot more paint apps than the typical transformer - many of the molded details that went unadorned on the retail Sharkticon of 2004 are now colored in. 

-Sideburn
Faction: Autobot
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Deluxe
Release: Summer 2011
Accessories: 1 jet engine/missile launcher, 1 flame missile
Acquired: TFCC mail
Strongest mode: Both.
- Sideburn began life as a RiD new-mold character who, if anything, vaguely resembled G1 Tracks, what with the blue color, flames, and oblique tie to the cancelled Dodge Viper Alternators Tracks design. However, Sideburn's "supermode" repaint was done up as a G1 Hot Rod homage, putting him in the more Dodge-appropriate red with orange and yellow touches.

-Drift
Faction: Autobot (Shattered Glass)
Class: Deluxe
Release: February 2012
Acquired: TFCC online store
Accessories: 1 "Great Sword", 2 smaller swords, 2 pistols. Collectible packaging, too, I guess.
Strongest mode: Both.
- This is Shattered Glass Drift. The fact that this got made at all and sold out as quickly as it did (I was lucky to get my order through in the initial run before the online orders shut down) is pretty great, considering how much ire there is against Shattered Glass (some) and Drift (lots more). I personally like both things, so this toy was right up my alley. However, I'd never got a Club online exclusive before, since they're expensive for a deluxe and you have to really be on top of things as far as ordering goes. Luckily, things worked out this year and SG Drift ended up on my doorstop just a few days ago. The box itself is pretty awesome - the art is good, and the box feels nice and sturdy. Like all boxed club exclusives, there's a foam insert to hold Drift and his two pistols (they can't fit in his car mode - see below). The instructions and bio card are underneath the foam.

-Ultra Magnus
Faction: Autobot (Shattered Glass)
Class: Deluxe
Release: Botcon (April) 2012
Acquired: Allspark board member
Accessories: 1 Terminus Blade sword/5th wheel hitch.
Strongest mode: Both.
- When it was revealed that Botcon had gotten around to releasing more SG toys and that one of them would be Ultra Magnus (I love the guy, what can I say), I knew that I would have to try and nab him. Thanks to a fellow Allsparker, I managed to do so for a very fair price without having to buy the entire box set, which included some toys I didn't really want, especially for Botcon prices. Magnus here is a repaint of Reveal the Shield Optimus Prime (the deluxe G2 update), but with a twist - Magnus here features a new head that isn't a Botcon-exclusive creation, but an alternate head mold that Hasbro themselves designed but, as yet, hasn't released to retail. And boy, it's an interesting head. Speculated to be designed for a more overtly evil Nemesis Prime repaint (the ball's in your court, Hasbro), this mold has a clearly Optimus-based helmet but with a clear skull within. Pretty different, especially for a character so often associated with Autobot heroism! Of course, this is the evil version of Magnus, still Optimus' brother in the SG universe. Instead of being his loyal soldier, though, this Magnus once plotted to usurp his older brother and got his face ripped off in return (oh, and then was exiled to a prison planet). Back with a new body (but no new face), Magnus looks pretty damn sharp. I thought from online pics that he was actually rather plain, mostly just having blue and red as the main colors, but in person the blue is a great metal flake-imbued plastic that looks wonderful. The paint apps are all really well done as well, and the metallic purple SG Autobot symbols just take it over the top. He's also armed with what is, apparently, the SG version of the Key to Vector Sigma, the Terminus Blade. If there's one thing about this toy I would change, it would probably be the choice of transparent plastic. Magnus' clear plastic is colorless,  which works well for the skull and the truck windows, but leaves the sword looking a bit less than exciting, made even more unfortunate by the weapon's fictional significance. I think I might have liked a translucent purple to accent the symbols, but I guess they thought it wouldn't work well with the red and blue. The truck mode also looks the best of any version of this mold so far, being very uniform. It also quite nicely mimics the deco of Powered Convoy's cab, even though the bot mode is based on PC's armored form (Powered Convoy was a Diaclone predecessor of G1 Ultra Magnus. SG Magnus' colors are based on his). It's a pretty neat trick. It's also nice how much cleaner magnus' overall appearance is in contrast to his brother's new toy - it suggests pretty different evil personalities. To me, this toy is the star of the 2012 box set, but maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for Ultra Magnus. Still, whether you're a Magnus for or just appreciate quality decoes, this is a toy worth seeking out if you can nab it for a decent price.

-Skywarp
Faction: Decepticon
Toyline: Universe
Class: Deluxe
Release: Early spring 2004 (apparently; it's a wave 4 toy)
Accessories: Two missiles
Acquired: Walmart
Strongest mode: Tie.
-I'm pretty sure this guy was my first G1 Skywarp toy. For the uninitiated, a company called 3H used to run Botcon, including the associated fiction. Back in the day of Beast Machines, there was a lot of interest in showing as much G1 inclusion in both the post-BM and pre-BW time periods as possible, which lead to a bunch of weird stories about a particularly diverse groups of Wreckers. Among them was Skywarp - the G1 guy - but in the body of a Vehicon Aerodrone. This was a pretty popular move, and luckily, the concept materialized not as a Botcon toy (as the case was with Vehicon Cyclonus, for example), but as a mass-released toy for the initial Universe toyline. Skywarp is a repaint of the deluxe Aerodrone mold in (surprise!) black and purple. He look really sharp, and it doesn't hurt that he has a lot of paint apps (it was a different time). The only part of him that looks bare are the shin panels that are plain purple. There's a fair bit of neon orange, including the translucent plastic of the lightpiping and spark crystal (which, I should note, is a Beast Machines Dinobots crystal with a Decepticon symbol tampographed on it). The altmode is good, as this is one of the few aircraft TFs that doesn't have an overly kibbly underside. The wings can be swiveled to either be swept forward to rearward. The two central tailfins, however, are susceptible to deformation; I've had to fix this by dunking them in boiling water and then back into cold water. That's the only problem I've had with this mold, any version. Great Skywarp, even if you own the Classics version.

-Triceradon
Faction: Autobot
Toyline: Universe
Class: Deluxe
Release: Sometime in 2004
Accessories: 2 missiles and 1 tail/gun
Acquired: I dunno...Walmart, maybe? 
Strongest mode: Dead mode!
-Once upon a time, Takara decided to make their own Beast Wars shows/toylines. The first one, Beast Wars II, was mostly filled with repaint characters and had only two notable new molds - Lio Convoy and Galvatron. Beast Wars Neo, on the other hand, is a Noahs' ark of new beast molds. One of which was Guiledart, a triceratops that designed alongside several other new Predacon prehistoric animals. Well, the Guiledart mold has gotten around quite a bit, appearing in US markets alone three different times. All three releases were as "Triceradon," a new (?) character Dinobot from the BM/Universe storyline. Of the three releases, the one for the Universe line is, I think, the best looking. In triceratops mode, his scheme is dominated by a somewhat metallic grey-tan plastic and has gold paint along the spine that fades outward to a red clay-colored pattern. It's really very nice, and compared to a lot of the early Universe decos, it's pretty realistic. It's a bit ruined by the obnoxiously conspicuous autobot logo in the middle of the frill, but whatever. Articulation is decent for a quadruped beast mode, though head movement would have been nice. Just a few adjustments away from the normal beast mode, however, is the completely awesome "dead mode." What?, you might ask. Yep, dead mode. See, all the BWNeo dinosaurs had some kind of dead and/or trap mode, so that they could be ambush "predators", if you will. Triceradon's is one of the best by virtue of being pretty convincing and not overly gimmicky, unlike, say, Striker's. For Triceradon, you simply splay the legs out, lower the two side panels to reveal flesh and ribs (!!). The piece de resistance is when, after pushing the nasal horn back, the beast mode's eyes roll back in their sockets and the tongue sticks out. Too great! It really looks like a corpse lying there. It's fantastic. You should own the mold at least once for this feature alone. In bot mode, things are a pretty typical BWNeo shellformer affair, which a ton of kibble mostly hanging off the upper body. The right forearm is the entire triceratops head, while the upper right arm, torso, and left arm are completely robotic. Attached at the left shoulder, however, is the dino's back and forelegs (same piece as the ribs, by the way!), forming a large armor piece. The legs themselves have "blasters" (so says the wiki; they look more like antennae or something) to make them more than just hanging beast limbs, which is appreciated. The back has three pieces of kibble attached - the tail root, and the two dino chest pieces that the rib-revealing flaps were part of. The flaps form little wings of a sort, but they tend to get in the way of posing the arms. The bot legs are formed from the dino's hind legs in a fairly clever way that keeps the robotic parts well hidden in beast mode. The bot head, like most of the BWNeo beasts, is intended to evoke the dino's head. One thing I really like about this mold is the robot torso. It's just got some neat, solid-looking features and a bit of asymmetry that really help sell a sort of "commando" look of the guy. The pearly-white (almost silver) paint chosen for large portions of the torso on this release also look great, and are one reason why you might choose it over other versions. The gun is a bit unorthodox, as it has some of the dead muscle tissue molded on it (it looks like you've torn the tail off instead of just separating it). The angle at which the handle sticks out is a bit weird and in most toys would result in the cannon barrel sticking up at an angle, but due to the shoulder kibble of the left arm (the right "hand," being the dino's beak, can't hold anything) and the length of the tail at the end of the cannon mean that handle angle actually helps, since it's not easy for this guy to completely raise his gun with just the forearm. The missile can be used, but they stick out very far from the cannon barrel and end up looking dumb, so I leave them where they are stored in the left shoulder armor.

-Soundwave
Faction: Decepticon
Toyline: Universe
Class: Ultra (included with Spacecase)
Release: Sometime in 2004
Accessories: Radar dish and ICBM (and, uh, Spacecase)
Acquired: eBay
Strongest mode: Robot.
 - So, this is Universe Soundwave. Actually a pretty rare toy, this was one of the later Universe 1.0 "Ultra" releases and I think I personally only saw it once on shelves. I later acquired it on eBay for a somewhat decent price (MISB). Like a few other Universe ultras, Soundwave is a repaint of a Machine Wars toy (MW Soundwave, incidentally), which was in turn a repaint of a European late G1/G2 toy - the only ground-mode Predator, Stalker. While MW Soundwave had a deco that did nothing to recall the character's G1 form, this newer release gets closer. Early official images showed him to have a blue and yellow deco, basically the same colors as G1 Soundwave, but in reality, Universe Soundwave's blue is purple. The yellow is also rather pale, almost looking like glow-in-the-dark plastic. Almost. I particularly like the clear green plastic in the lightpiping and the missiles' nose. So, while the deco isn't spot-on, it along with the head sculpt allow this guy to pass as Soundwave. More so than his MW form, anyhow. Being that the mold originated in late G1, he's not overflowing with articulation points. His head can look down a bit thanks to transformation, his shoulders can rotate completely around, his waist can do the same, and his knees can bend, thought not in a way that produces meaningful stability. So, basically, you've got a statue. In fact, the articulation and transformation scheme highly resemble that of G1 Skullcruncher, but in vehicle form. The robot can also hold his accessories in a few ways. Nominally, both the ICBM and radar dish should be mounted on his two shoulders, but the ICBM can stay on the port on his back (where it connects for vehicle mode), and the radar dish can be plugged into the screw holes right behind his (very small) fist holes, which is where I prefer it. Soundwave's altmode is basically a tank-like armored transport for the ICBM. It's very sleek for such a vehicle, and has a pretty typical late-G1 feel (it reminds me a lot of Hardhead's tank mode). The ICBM's port for this mode is part of the central torso chunk that contains the head, and as a result of transformation, the missile can be elevated 2 "clicks," or to a maximum of about 40 degrees. I should mention that while's is easily visible in bot mode, the radioactivity symbol looks great is this mode. Overall, this is a toy very much limited by the engineering of its time, but it was also an honorable attempt to take a previous, lackluster Soundwave update and make it more "accurate," if you will.


-Starscream
Faction: Decepticon (Shattered Glass)
Toyline: Timelines
Class: Voyager
Release: Botcon 2008
Accessories: Cyber key, missile launcher, and 1 missile
Acquired: another Allsparker!

Strongest mode: Both.
-  I was lucky to get another fan to sell me his extra, bagged SG Starscream for about $50 during Botcon 2008. While I now regret not having bought the boxed set, Starscream has become (rather easily; I'll admit) one of the most prized/favorite pieces in my collection. As you may have picked up, I'm already an avid Starscream fan (he's probably my favorite TF), and when Botcon took one of his best-looking molds and put him in such nice-looking colors, I had to have it. Of course, being Shattered Glass, this Starscream is a true hero and an accomplished scientist that Optimus tried to coerce into working for him. He refused; Optimus destroyed him hometown while Starscream watched and then threw the scientist into his prison. Megatron rescued Starscream (among others) during an attack on the prison, and Starscream now owes his life to the leader of the Decepticons. Appropriately, whereas the typical evil Starscreams are more often former scientists and now military guys, SG SS's scientific prowess gets reflected in his deco, meant to mirror that of non-SG Jetfire(s), Starscream's oft-former colleague, also a scientist. The deco really does look great, too. Almost all of the plastic is white, but the number of paint apps here is...well, phenomenal. Lots of red and black, obviously, but well distributed. The red SG 'Con symbol obviously works well with this deco. Instead of the mold's original Cybertronian key, SG SS gets a recolored Earth key, although the symbol is vague enough to allow it to jive with his cybertronian alt mode. This is the voyager class Cybertron mold for Starscream, which, interestingly, has never been released at mass retail in the US. It did get a Thrust-influenced TRU exclusive repaint early on, and then a Universe 2.0 Dirge repaint, but was only released with Starscream's normal colors in the Japanese Galaxy Force line. It's a good mold - it was designed to resemble Starscream's cybertronian form in The War Within comic with its pseudo-delta fighter alt mode. The only real fault of the mold is the relative lack of arm articulation, thanks both to the alt-mode kibble (mostly the jet exhaust) and the cyber key-activated sword gimmick. Otherwise, it's a fun toy with great presence and is very dynamic. I like, in bot mode, to leave the wings folded against the arms; it allows him to look a little less evil. The altmode, of course, it pretty cool. It's solid and has a great sci-fi look. The gun plugs in on the underside and fits nicely between the leg kibble/landing gear. Overall, if you're a Starscream fan, as I am, you'd be remiss to not have this toy in your collection.