by Brian LeTendre
I think I may have started down a slippery slope, my friends. After having been out of toy collecting for more than 20 years, I may be back at it. All because of Soundwave.
As I’ve talked about on the podcast before, GI Joe and Transformers were the toys of my youth. And when it came to Transformers, I was a Decepticon guy all the way. Sure, Optimus Prime was cool, but I preferred jets to cars and trucks. Thundercracker, Starscream and Skywarp were all awesome.
And then there was Soundwave. Easily my favorite Transformer of all-time, what made Soundwave even cooler was the fact that in addition to being a boombox, he had a series of minions that transformed into cassettes and could be stored within him. Lazerbeak, Rumble and Ravage were the ones I had, although there were nine in all. Of all the toys of my youth, my Soundwave figure is probably the one I missed the most.
So it’s perhaps appropriate that the first Transformer I have bought in years was the new Cybertronian Soundwave figure. On the diappointing side, this fuigure is not the iconic boombox one, but a vehicle-based one from Soundwave’s days on Cybertron (pre-boombox, if you will). The positive is that when in robot form, he looks much more like the Soundwave I grew up with than the new design from the Transformers movies.
The quality of the figure is decent, but far from the ones I grew up with, which were partly metal. Transforming Soundwave from robot to vehicle mode and back was not as intuitive as I would have liked, and I actually had to refer to the directions a couple of times. After the first transformation, it was easy enough to remember, but I could imagine a child having a pretty difficult time with it.
All in all, I definitely feel like the figure was a worthwhile purchase, and I’ll probably just keep him in his robot mode as he stands on my bookshelf. I had enough fun with this one that I went out and bought two more, and I think I’ve started down a slippery slope back to toy collecting now. Just don’t let me near any GI Joe figures, or I may need an intervention.
Below is a gallery of the figure in the packaging, and in various states of Transformation.
I think I may have started down a slippery slope, my friends. After having been out of toy collecting for more than 20 years, I may be back at it. All because of Soundwave.
As I’ve talked about on the podcast before, GI Joe and Transformers were the toys of my youth. And when it came to Transformers, I was a Decepticon guy all the way. Sure, Optimus Prime was cool, but I preferred jets to cars and trucks. Thundercracker, Starscream and Skywarp were all awesome.
And then there was Soundwave. Easily my favorite Transformer of all-time, what made Soundwave even cooler was the fact that in addition to being a boombox, he had a series of minions that transformed into cassettes and could be stored within him. Lazerbeak, Rumble and Ravage were the ones I had, although there were nine in all. Of all the toys of my youth, my Soundwave figure is probably the one I missed the most.
So it’s perhaps appropriate that the first Transformer I have bought in years was the new Cybertronian Soundwave figure. On the diappointing side, this fuigure is not the iconic boombox one, but a vehicle-based one from Soundwave’s days on Cybertron (pre-boombox, if you will). The positive is that when in robot form, he looks much more like the Soundwave I grew up with than the new design from the Transformers movies.
The quality of the figure is decent, but far from the ones I grew up with, which were partly metal. Transforming Soundwave from robot to vehicle mode and back was not as intuitive as I would have liked, and I actually had to refer to the directions a couple of times. After the first transformation, it was easy enough to remember, but I could imagine a child having a pretty difficult time with it.
All in all, I definitely feel like the figure was a worthwhile purchase, and I’ll probably just keep him in his robot mode as he stands on my bookshelf. I had enough fun with this one that I went out and bought two more, and I think I’ve started down a slippery slope back to toy collecting now. Just don’t let me near any GI Joe figures, or I may need an intervention.
Below is a gallery of the figure in the packaging, and in various states of Transformation.
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