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Hmm, well I guess starting a review at 1am is as good a time as any (I need sleep). Wow this month's choices for review are HUGE and I don't know where to begin. Energon is turning out to be a much better toy line than Armada. Also since Energon toys are coming out faster than Alternators they're even drawing more attention to themselves. So far I have in my possession two Hotshots, one Starscream and one Skyblast. I have an Inferno on the way. Since Hotshot combines with Inferno I think I'll wait till next month for them (sounds familiar, didn't I say that last month? Meh, oh well.). But first . . .
Rumor Mill!!
Toyfare and Diamond Comics slipped up and released pictures of a new Toyfare cover showing pictures of a large purple bot with a Veritech-ish head (VF-1J to be specific). Hrm, large, purple, and only one eye; who could this be? I wonder. Could it be, um… Shockwave?!!! Nah it can't be Shockwave, Hasbro lost the rights to the Shockwave name didn't they? Well shortly after these pictures spread like wildfire across various message boards a Toyfare representative sent out emails for damage control; requesting that forums take down all these pictures as their agreement with Hasbro required them to wait til Feb 11 to release that cover. In this email the representative directly references the toy as Shockwave. There we have it kiddos pick up Toyfare next month and read the full review or wait for me to post more next month.
Now that that's done with (whew . . .) lets get down to it. This month I bring to you the joys of Energon Starscream (ESS) and Skyblast (if I have the time).
Overall I like Energon Starscream;
he is quite a tribute to G2 Smokescreen
(*Warning* Big pictures 56k beware), yet he remains his own toy. First let's look at the alt mode: Stealth jet. Pretty simple there, he's sleek and dangerous just the way he needs to be, nothing like the clunky and awkward Armada version. Granted he's a size class smaller than Armada SS (ESS comes on a card not in a box) but he doesn't loose anything by it. In the base jet mode no weapons are visible (I'm ignoring the hand held weapons which I'll get to later), but each wing is hinged near its midpoint. When swung the wings each reveal a spring loaded missile launcher. After a transformation exactly like the G2 version you have a nice robot. He's got the standard set of single swing joints at the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ball joints at the hips. Nothing spectacular but not poor either. My only complaint is that they sacrificed detail in the hands to make the alt mode look better. His bot mode, while original, is a good fusion of the armada version and his original mode. Also the random pieces that are translucent green (the gimmick for energon) are a nice reminder of Ghost Starscream. He also comes with a sword and a gun. Both of the weapons are far too large to look good when mounted under the wings. However they can be combined to form a large sword that, while twice his height, actually looks good. It's the same translucent green as the other energon parts. The wings can also be flipped out, as per the jet mode, and then flipped over the shoulders to use the missiles in bot mode. He ranks a 7 of 10 on my overall scale.
Ok well I'm sorry that I'm teasing you with the review of Skyblast but I'm falling asleep and as usual I've put writing this off till last minute. Also I finally got Inferno so next month I PROMISE a review of Skyblast, Inferno, and Hot Shot.
VF-XX
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