Gustavo mutters about Masterpiece Shockwave

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

Laserwave, or as we like to call him, Shockwave, is the most recent addition to the Masterpiece line, and is yet another toy that confuses me about the purpose of the line. But, we will get to that.

In robot mode, he is just shorter than MP-10 Optimus Prime, but much less bulky. He weighs slightly less, although if you add batteries for the light gimmick, I expect that he will weigh more.

The sculpt captures a lot of details from the cartoon character model that I didn't remember at all -- a cowling around the hip joints, for instance, and lighter colored elbows.

Articulation is excellent. All the articulation you would expect, and then a little you wouldn't. He can tilt at his waist slights, for instance, which gives him a very natural pose when looking up. His feet tilt. He has an assortment of joints in his shoulders -- some for transformation, and others very nearby for raising and lowering his arms, so he can point outwards to one side without his shoulder armor lifting up into his line of sight.

The color scheme is very, very cartoon accurate. He is lavender nearly everywhere (roughly the color of the Anime Edition G1 Galvatron), with lighter purpley gray thighs, hand, nozzle, ears and toes. It is a really uniform and kind of boring color scheme, actually. He has a yellow eye, and some translucent lavender plastic on his chest over some random detailing.

The color scheme bothers me somewhat.

I understand that this actually matches Shockwave's colors in the cartoon well, but there is always an assumption that the colors in the cartoon represent some other colors -- for instance Soundwave has a lot of white or light gray in the cartoon which we know is really meant to be silver, and his masterpiece toy has silver in those areas. I'm not sure what color and material I interpreted Shockwave's purple as, but a bright lavender wasn't it.

And so, setting him next to Grimlock, Optimus and Soundwave, he looks entirely out of place. The previous toys took more liberties with color and detailing to try to capture the same thing that the character models tried to capture, while Shockwave just tries to capture his character model. Grimlock's chest is gold, not yellow. Optimus doesn't have a pale gray grill, or bright blue pectoral windows. And Shockwave should be something other than intense lavender to live with them.

The material used is a little glossy and slightly softer than the plastics usually used of Masterpiece toys, so he really doesn't capture the light well to show off his details. That actually cuts against the cartoon accuracy.

He has a bit of a backpack -- the barrel of his gun mode, wrapped with the display stand for a big purple box. If you don't like him being a partsformer and relying upon him carrying his stand with him everywhere when he is in gun mode, the barrel makes a fine backpack on its own, just in the purplish gray.

The chest has asymmetrical details behind the clear plastic chest window. The asymmetry bothers me slightly -- there were seldom if ever any details there in the G1 cartoon, and other toys have made it symmetrical.

The photos on the box are photoshopped to give him a more dynamic appearance, and suggests a more matte plastic, which would give the different surfaces better shading. We are used to some photoshopping, but this is almost fraudulent because it changes the figure so much.

He comes with a few scene specific accessories: A small Shockwave gun, which sadly does not transform; an opaque saluting hand, for when you want him to salute; an opaque right hand, for when you want to recreate that animation error; and translucent closable left hand, saluting left hand, and gun hand, to better match the original toy I think. You do not get a translucent right hand.

The cable to the arm is excellent -- a spring with a string inside it so you cannot stretch it out. It is everything every other Shockwave cable has wanted to be.

And there are stickers of Destron symbols, so you can tart him up like in the cartoon, or a more comic or toy based appearance. I would rather just have the symbols tempographed on.

Transformation is very simple. The simplest of any of the Masterpiece toys to date. There are parts of the transformation that are reminiscent of his third party cousin, Quakewave, but Shockwave requires no excessive force and does not have any real chance of a plastic leg finally deciding to compact, and catching your finger in the way tearing off a small bit of flesh and causing you to bleed profusely.

Gun mode is decent. There are a lot of screw holes on the top of the gun, which would have blended in better had he been a darker color. He is a little too small for an adult hand, or I have very large hands. There is a tiny trigger.

The gun mode borrows a bit more from the G1 toy than the G1 character model -- the barrel of the gun has lines taken from the toy.

The stand can be folded into a box, and mounted on top of the gun, hiding some of the screw holes, but making the toy a lot less G1 accurate. But, it means that there are finished surfaces being shown rather than screwholes.

The lack of sounds is pretty much unforgivable. Had there been no lights, we could have accepted that this is a Masterpiece toy and they are too serious for that, but having lights and no sound? I'm not even going to bother putting in the batteries.

As you handle him, you cannot help but notice the softer plastic -- a perfectly fine choice that fits the engineering of the toy well -- and the simple transformation, and then begin wondering what the difference between the masterpiece line and the regular lines is.

There's a little bit of die cast metal, but other than that, I don't see why this is a Masterpiece. Compared to Cybertron Optimus Prime, or Universe 2.0 Onslaught, this just feels like less of a toy for a lot more money. Combiner Wars Megatron has more moving parts and a more intricate transformation -- no lights, but larger.

Why is this toy $150? If his hand had a 5mm hole rather than opening and closing, I would completely expect him to be a main line toy from before the Great Cheapening (CW Megatron does a good job of hiding the cheap, and is the only post-Cheapening toy comparable)

Quakewave feels like a Masterpiece toy -- he has a massive heft to him, and a color scheme that better matches the Shockwave most people expect. He can go toe to toe with Masterpiece Grimlock, and both look like a more detailed interpretation of the character model.

Quakewave also tears your flesh apart during transformation, makes you think you are breaking him, has a parts-forming problem with his barrel, and doesn't lock his waist in place in gun mode.

Some of the Masterpiece toys are brilliant, and way beyond anything we could get at that scale in the normal lines. Wheeljack, Ironhide, Optimus Prime, Grimlock, Ultra Magnus... all truly wonderful toys.

Shoockwave instead captures the disappointment of toys like Generations Brainstorm, Roadbuster or Whirl -- all nice toys, but all leaving you holding it and looking at the price tag and wondering "is this it?"

Combine that with a cartoon color scheme that is too literal, and I'm not sure he fits with the Masterpiece toys at all.