Shockwave

I make no attempt to hide the fact that one of my favorite Transformers is the Decepticon Shockwave. Between his cold, calculating personality, and single eye, there are few things I don’t love about the Corey Burton-voiced robot. In the past few years Shockwave has come back into the spotlight and has received several rather cool toys such as the Fall of Cybertron Deluxe, a tiny adorable little Kreon, and most recently not one but two Bot Shots figures. The most recent version that’s available now is the Transformers Prime Shockwave.

With Transformers Prime going into its third season now, that means a whole whack of new toys are on the way as well. Since the subtitle of the show is now Beast Hunters, that means we’re getting a lot of pretty cool dragons and funky remolded Autobots with unusual armor for fighting against the new Predacon threat. However, that’s not all we’re getting in the line thankfully. For characters like Smokescreen and Shockwave who have not yet gotten proper toys yet, Hasbro has opted to make their armor removable. It’s very nice to have that as an optional piece, since if my Shockwave permanently had crap armor stuck on him, I would be more than a little miffed.

As you can see, Shockwave comes with piece of crab armor that attach to his chest and shoulders. They are rubbery and also removable, which is what I’m going to do right now for the rest of this review.

Underneath the silly Beast Hunter armor, Shockwave is a surprisingly large and hefty robot. He feels solid, incredibly so compared to newer Voyager releases such as the Beast Hunters Optimus Prime and the very hollow yet similarly sized Fall of Cybertron Grimlock. There is nothing hollow or cheap feeling about this toy, and I love it.

Following the Prime aesthetic, Shockwave is a blend of geometrical hard angles and smooth organic curves. It works pretty well and is rather cohesive despite the natural clashing that happens between these two styles. I particularly love the additional sculpted details in his clear chest piece, along with the spine sculpted into his back.

I think this Shockwave has the biggest eye of any Shockwave design so far, and it’s quite imposing. I get a HAL-9000 vibe from it.Since it is such a huge chunk of clear red plastic, the lightpiping is pretty effective as well.

One of my favorite features of this toy is that his shoulderpads are actually spring loaded which allows them to follow the articulation of the arm automatically. It’s a feature that I normally don’t expect mass produced toys like this to have.

Shockwave’s articulation is pretty standard for a Voyager. Ratcheting knees, clicky hips, along with universal joints in the arm. No waist joint, and the head is unfortunately just a swivel. His large foot print does make it easy for him to hold wide-legged stances despite having no ankle articulation.

For some reason his gun arm has a rather unusual angled cut in the bicep. At first I thought it was for transformation, but upon closer inspection, it really has no use. Aside from making his arm look really broken that is.

Speaking of his gun arm, let’s take a look at his gun. It’s a gigantic laser cannon known as a “Hyperflux cannon” according to his instructions. It also has posable little ears and if you look at it from the front, his gun is basically G1 Shockwave’s head.

Another very cool feature regarding the gun is that you can unfurl the left tank tread on his backpack and plug it into his gun to replicate his hose like in the show and the G1 design. It’s the little things that make this guy shine.

Shockwave’s gun also has an action feature. If you press the button on top the barrel spins and the covers open up to expose a clear red blast. There are no electronics in this, but the clear red plastic is incredibly good at capturing light and makes it look like the gun is lighting up.

Beast Hunters Shockwave follows the find modern Shockwave tradition of turning into nothing. His transformation is basically composed of laying him on his back and making him do some funky yoga. As a cool little feature though, one arm goes under his body while the other goes on top. It does make the tank look even more odd, but at the least transforming it is rather fun.

Shockwave’s alt mode is a Cybertronian tank that looks incredibly silly. It has no real body, heft, or sturdiness to it. Although I can’t get too mad as this is almost exactly what his vehicle mode looks like in the TV show.

You can also plug the Beast Hunter armor pieces on in this mode as well, which makes him look like an angry crab-turtle-lobster with a giant gun on its back. Not gonna lie, it is kinda cool.

Plus the gun still spins even in vehicle mode without any impeding plastic in the way.

There’s no denying that Shockwave’s alt mode is kind of awful. But despite that, I still don’t mind. I feel like this robot mode is so excellent that it makes up for it. Besides, it’s kind of cool having an army of silly purple tanks that look kind of stupid.

Voyager Shockwave is possibly the best Beast Hunters Voyager so far just by quality alone. He feels hefty, the plastic is nice and sturdy, and the finish on him is quite excellent. The additional touches like the removable hose, spinning gun action feature, and his spring loaded shoulders only help add to an already excellent package. If you love Shockwave, evil Decepticons, or monoeyed robots, you have to get this Decepticon scientist. It’s only logical.