Dave's Transformers Rant: Mirage Dreadwing While Mirage has been trickling into stores since April, it looks like it won't come out in force until after OTFCC, shipping with Cliffjumper and Shockblast. That makes this sort of a wave 2 singleton, and sort of part of wave 3. Personally, I gave up on waiting for it to hit stores and just ordered it online once the prices dropped to close to regular shelf price. Since I have no plans to get Energon Ironhide, I decided to put my review of Dreadwing here for simplicity, as it's a recolor of Mirage. The two recolors seem to be the "three and a half" wave of Energon Megas, shipping with new packaging versions of Cliffjumper and Shockblast. CAPSULES Mirage: Unstable vehicle mode, but it looks good. Very complex transformation, cool Gundam-like robot mode. Recommended. About $20 most places. Dreadwing: Fixes the stability issues of Mirage, although may be TOO stiff in places. Less garish color scheme, probably meant to evoke G1 Scourge. Strongly recommended if you don't have Mirage, otherwise just recommended. $19.76 at Wal-Mart RANTS As of October 25, 2004, there's no bio note for either version. So I have added my own. DECEPTICON: MIRAGE Function: Naval Assault Altmode: Fast Attack Boat Motto: "Between the devil and the deep blue sea, there's me!" Seriously damaged in combat with the AUTOBOTS, the immense TIDAL WAVE was rebuilt into a sleeker form by MEGATRON. While lacking some of the sheer power he once commanded as the Dark Fleet, MIRAGE is now much faster and cannier. Still able to move through space, he's slowed considerably once inside a gravity well, capable of a maximum speed of 200 mph through the air. However, once he touches down on water, his super-cavitating pulsors let him travel at Mach 1.2 with good maneuverability. Special laser arrays interact with the spray he throws up to disguise him as no more than a low-lying cloud. His missile launchers are fixed forward, but this is deceptive...the missiles themselves are self-guided by suicidal drone minds, and can strike enemies in any direction! STR 7 INT 8 SPD 9 END 8 RNK 7 COUR 8 FRB 8 SKL 8 Avg 7.875 Note: the numbers online do not agree with the trading card. The online numbers are: STR 9 INT 8 SPD 9 END 8 RNK 6 COUR 7 FRB 10 SKL 7 Avg 8 Packaging: This is in the standard Energon Mega size box. While it has Decepticon symbols and purple bands, there's no "Decepticon" or "Terrorcon" written on the box. "80253/80450 Asst." is in the upper left corner of the front, reinforcing the suggestion that Mirage will later be in a case assortment with other new Megas. The co-sells on the bottom panel are for Arcee, Insecticon, Demolishor and Landmine. Mine came with volume 2 of the comic/catalog, although I've heard of a few early ones having the old volume 1. The only product in the catalog that hasn't been out for months is the Night Attack BTR Demolishor. The comic features Landmine, Inferno and Prowl against Megatron, Divebombs and Insecticons. The Decepticons win pretty handily, not only taking the Energon (as in vol 1), but also driving off the Autobots. Rubber bands hold the four missiles onto the cardboard inner tray, and five twist-ties hold in Mirage himself, who rests on a partial bubble taped to the tray. A sixth twist-tie wraps all through the rear section to hold it together in the box. Vehicle Mode: A sort of fast gunboat, 9.5" (24cm) long from bowsprit to stern and with a beam of about 2.25" (6cm) most of the way along. It's definitely designed for speed, with the cabin and engines at the rear third. The predominant colors are a light blue (very close to G1 Scourge), a darkish English Navy Blue and a golden yellow. There are also blck trim and missiles, some gray bits near the stern, plus a few paint applications here and there (metallic blue, yellow, red and of course purple on the Decepticon symbol above the cabin). There's also a few very pale clear green plastic bits, and some purple robot kibble visible at the back and underside. There are four 5mm pegholes near the stern, two on each side. One on each side is on the hull, the other is on the "forearm chunk" (flying bridge, I'm told it's called) over the cabin. Atop the forearm chunks are purple Mini-Con hardpoints. They're "dead", but are used to slide the fists forward in transformation. One clear pale green wheel is under the bow, and two pairs are under the stern (on the robot knees and ankles). Stability is iffy. The front end doesn't like to hold together at all, and the whole rear chunk requires a lot of massaging to come close to holding, and even then it's a bit lopsided. An extra peg/hole combo on the forearms would have helped a LOT. If you don't get the back together reasonably well, there's a clear list to starboard or port. There's pegs that connect the robot arms to the robot thighs for stability, but if they come apart after you've put the hull pieces together, you have to untransform most of the hull to get them back together. There are four missile launchers on this toy, although the two on the front hull can't really be fired in their stowed position. The two flanking the cabin can fire in regular mode. Despite clearly being a boat and not a hovercraft, Mirage in this mode is very evocative of G1 Scourge. Hyper Mode (Vehicle): Fold down wings at the stern and press a button that will make the fore launchers pop up. Most of the way. The fore launchers on mine droop a little, and at different angles. When the launchers pop up, there's a whirring deployment sound effect (if you've installed the AAA batteries that are Not Included). Pressing the button again while the launcher is deployed generates a whooshing missile launch sound effect. This does not launch the missiles, however. You have to launch the missiles separately (this is good...autolaunch effects tend to be wonky in annoying ways). Officially, you're supposed to disconnect the stern third of the hull from the rest of the hull, but this makes the toy a LOT less stable, so I prefer to ignore that bit of the instructions. In my version of Hyper Mode, the wingspan is about 5.5" (14cm), and the toy gains two more 5mm pegholes (in non-hyper mode, they fold together and become one deeper hole on each side instead of two shallow holes that go all the way through a panel). Official Hyper Mode picks up a centimeter or two in wingspan. Transformation: On the one hand, I was able to work it out without the help of the instructions. On the other hand, it *is* a minor nightmare of folding panels and joints and stuff. Really complicated, and somewhat on the "simply frustrating" level. There's a few bits that will pop off during transformation if you're not careful. Okay, there's a LOT of bits that will pop off. Repeatedly, if you don't do things in the correct order. The torso is almost a hollow box constructed by folding and sliding a lot of panels. Like TM Airazor, this toy has a "wings up/down" controversy. The halves of the outer hull are very shellmaster-y, and form big cloak halves or wings or whatnot. The instructions and box art show them down, but some have expressed a preference for up, and it's generally stable enough to allow either. One "up" position resembles Terradive the Mini-Con's robot mode. Robot Mode: 7" (18cm) tall at the head with a very Gundam-like body plan and a head that many have pointed out looks kinda like that of Perfect Cell from Dragonball Z. The color scheme changes dramatically in this mode, in part because most of the blue is on the hull halves. The torso is black with gold, blue and red paint. The head is black with a gold face and purple "tuning fork". The shoulders, forearms and shins are made of light gray plastic with red and gold paint. The upper arms, fists, thighs and feet are purple, and there's gold paint on the inner thighs and atop the feet. The dark blue stern hull sides hang off the forearms as gunshields. There's clear green plastic at the neck and running down the front of the shins. The spark crystal is mounted in the center of the chest, flanked by two gold- painted panels, one of which has the Decepticon symbol. Poseability is very good once everything is locked in place that could come undone. The head turns, as does the waist (although it's a bit limited by the backpack). The torso can tilt side to side thanks to the way it's assembled with pegs. The shoulders ratchet at their connection to the torso, and the arms can lift out to the sides on a non-ratcheting joint. The elbows are double hinges plus a swivel where they connect to the upper arm and *another* swivel where they connect to the forearm. This gives the arms a LOT of range of motion, but also makes it a lot harder to get them in exactly the correct configuration for making the flying bridge in vehicle mode. Hips are ratcheting universal joints, knees are ratcheting hinges...and the mid-hip swivel between them is a peg. One hip on mine pops apart before enough force has been exerted to bend the knee. The ankles ratchet a bit for transformation, but aren't really useful posing joints. They certainly don't aid in stability for anything other than a "standing straight up" pose, in which case having the wings down will help. Hyper Mode for robot mode just involves deploying the hull weapons, which fold over an extra amount and point mostly straight ahead (again, one on mine droops a little below the other). Despite the droop, it looks good in this mode. Overall: I really wish they'd made the vehicle mode a little more stable, and the shellmaster aspects are moderately annoying. But I rather like the aesthetics of the robot mode, and there's pretty good gimmicks. Worth getting. DECEPTICON: DREADWING Function: Harbinger of Doom Altmode: Fast Attack Boat Recolor of: Mirage Motto: "I could tell you your future, but you would not thank me for it." DREADWING looks like a clone of MIRAGE, but the similarity goes deeper than that. He claims to *be* MIRAGE, come back in time via a rip in reality. His is a future where Unicron was revived and enslaved all Cybertronians...who survived. He claims great power, and has demonstrated impossible feats on occasion. Other times, he flees from threats he should be able to destroy handily, or is defeated by seemingly insignificant threats. Some have theorized that his power is actually a gauge of how the war against Unicron goes: when Unicron seems most likely to revive, Dreadwing is almost unstoppable, but when Unicron has been drained of energy, so is Dreadwing. MIRAGE prefers not to talk about, or to, DREADWING. All stats are "?". Card art is new. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Official bio: DECEPTICON: DREADWING Quote: The footsteps of doom follow in my path. DREADWING is a deadly and frightening DECEPTICON. Cloned from the corrupt spark of MIRAGE, he lacks all emotion and is considered pure evil. Like MIRAGE, he is an artistic fighter. He brings an evil chill to the air, for every DECEPTICON that has ever been around him. MEGATRON dispatches DREADWING like a plague onto the AUTOBOTS. His only desire is to systematically destroy his enemies one by one. He has no allegiance to any cause, except the termination of all that stand in his way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, I have no idea if Dreadwing is even showing up in Energon, so my bio note may be completely contradicted. Like I care. After all, the official toy techspecs often contradict the show. :) Dreadwing was apparently initially supposed to be mostly gray, to judge from the pictures on the box. Instead, he's mostly light blue. Either they tweaked the mold, or the change in plastic helped a lot, because things hold together a LOT better now. So well, in fact, that I snapped the socket for one of the hull wings during transformation, grr. Superglue fixed it, though. The thigh joint problem has been fixed as well. Here's the color swaps, with Mirage first, then Dreadwing. Light Gray : Light Blue Dark Blue : Light Blue Most Black : Light Blue Light Blue : Light Blue Purple : Medium Gray Clear Pale Green : Clear Purple Yellow : Dark Gray Some Black : Medium Blue The missiles, joints in the arms and between chest and back, plus the canards on the boat are the black parts that become medium blue. The light blue on Dreadwing is just slightly greenish, and isn't the same as the light blue on Mirage. Dreadwing has black, metallic purple and dark gunmetal paint for regular details. The face is dark gunmetal, and the lightpipe eyes are painted over in red, d'oh. The prow of the ship and the Hyper-Mode wings have black patterns on them that I've seen described as "tribal tattoos," but that's not really specific enough. They have a sort of batwing/blade thing going, giving a vampiric feel. These sorts of patterns are in purple on Dreadwing's helmet crest, and in gold between his backpack missile launchers. Some call the color scheme boring, but I like how it's more unified. And compared to Dreadwing, Mirage is a garish mess. This is definitely the better of the two toys. Dave Van Domelen, also likes that the missiles are all interchangeable and can be inserted at any rotation.