When I was asked if I’d be interested in reviewing the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive Soundwave figure from Hasbro, I replied with professional decorum and interest. Kidding. I almost broke the keyboard typing “YES PLEASE TO ALL THE THINGS I LIKE.”
I can act all detached and professional I want, but if I’m honest: I liked him enough to make a little video of him. Aside from the wobblyness when I move him (next time I’m duct taping his feet to the turn table) I’m happy with how it turned out:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/iKpwXigA2qk[/youtube]
When he first comes out of the box, Evolution Soundwave is a little daunting. He’s a tablet this time, flatter than any design I’ve seen other than the tapes, and from the front he looks like a big puzzle, a little complicated. And from the back he looks insanely complicated. I figured I’d probably fiddle with a few sections before giving up and googling the instructions.
Suprisingly, no googling necessary (and I haven’t transformed a new figure in years.) The drawing on the box is surprisingly accurate, considering that it’s an artist’s rendition, and any time I was puzzled about a placement I’d check that out. The legs especially, since they fold in on themselves in a way I didn’t understand till I saw the silver pieces that are doubled below the knee. The feet too are a little tricky, but once you see how they’re pointing in the picture they make more sense.
There’s several pieces that detach, which surprised me; the gun and shield I expected but his back is a separate unit that slides into a slot behind his shoulders. At first it looks like it goes back too far, like there’s too much horizontal area behind his head. But now I think it’s a nice callback to the classic Soundwave design, especially the Masterpiece figure: if you look at those you’ll see the same amount of space, it even tapers as it gets to the back. Plus it makes him look more three-dimensional, which had to be tricky in such a flat figure.
The gun stumped me, it’s the one thing I had to go to an actual photograph to figure out. It’s made of two detaching pieces, and even in a photo you can’t see what joins them together. There’s a tiny circular knob on one piece that I finally saw matches a vaguely circular indentation in the other piece, and that attaches them together (mostly. It’s a pretty tenuous connection.)
There’s an impressive number of articulation points: two in the shoulder (both vertical and horizontal,) two in the elbows (same, horizontal and vertical swivels,) ankles, knees, two at the top of the thigh (and those are set to move incrementally, locking in place, so they’re very sturdy for posing,) and a ton in the two sets of “wings” that go up from his shoulders and back. The screw in the thumbs make it look like they move, but they don’t (at least I don’t think they do, I’m only going to twist them so hard) but I like the optical illusion that they could.
The design itself is very intricate in the shoulders and forearms (lots of grooves and pseudo-gears) and simpler in the legs and the back: the front of the tablet is all smooth black surface, and most of that is turned to the sides and back after transformation.
The face is excellent, even if it’s not the traditional Soundwave look that I love so much. The point of the faceplate is downward rather than pointing up like the traditional Soundwave plate, and with the separate chin and the high points in the front and sides he’s got a very Japanese mecha feel. He looks nicely menacing. I take the faces of my Transformers extremely seriously (a lovely design can be ruined by a boring or ugly face) so I’m very happy with this one.
When I first heard this Soundwave is a tablet, I thought “neat, but boy is that going to be a skinny, wispy robot.” Instead, I’m very impressed with the sturdyness, and he really holds poses well. Sure I would have liked him just because he’s Soundwave, but this is definitely a figure I would’ve admired even if it was a mech I didn’t know. Kudos all around to the design team for that one.
Soundwave figure courtesy of Hasbro
Music: Morning Four by David Szesztay