1;2cDave's Combiner Wars Rant - Voyager Wave 3 Cyclonus (extensive Silverbolt retool) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VCyclonus Another padding-out Voyager, at least for now, creating an extra combiner without having to make more limbs. But Ultra Prime (well, the Optimus Maximum redeco) will be getting official limbs too, and with Galvatronus being the chosen rival of Victorion we may see some redecos later as specific limbs (heck, four redecos of Aerialbot jets as Sweeps would probably sell in some quarters). http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VSilverbolt - Original mold CAPSULE $25 price point Cyclonus: Original mold was recommended, mostly on the strength of the combiner mode. This has just as good a combiner mode, and I like the robot and vehicle modes a little bit more. Recommended, even if you have Silverbolt. RANT Packaging: Same as previous Voyagers. The accent color for Galvatronus is medium blue, and the displayed limbs are Skydive (right arm), Air Raid (left arm), Dragstrip (right leg), and Breakdown (left leg). The box side art of Galvatronus appears to match this combination, although the arms are mostly cut off by framing. Still no comics with the Voyagers, so limited character info. The trading card is of Cyclonus, not Galvatronus. And it doesn't really match the toy, either a more extensive retool (or outright new mold) was originally planned, or the artist simply wasn't given much reference material. DECEPTICON: CYCLONUS Altmode: Aerospace Jet Transformation Difficulty: 16 steps (one more than Silverbolt) Previous Name Use: G1, Previous Mold Use: Gen Function: Herald of Galvatronus Motto: "You will do nicely." CYCLONUS uses mind control to combine with any bot, siphoning the powers of whichever AUTOBOTS or DECPTICONS will serve his purpose of unleashing chaos across the universe. Interestingly, this implies that Galvatronus is just Cyclonus with more power, and not a distinct entity. Packaging: While the shape is a little different, they still get by with seven ties on the robot and two on the shield-gun (which appears to be the same mold, just in a different color). The trading card is taped behind the tray, as usual. Officially, the wings are folded back in robot mode, but they're out to the sides in-package in order to fit. I prefer them halfway in between, so they're off to the sides somewhat but out of the way of the shoulders. Also, as usually happens, the heel spurs are tucked under the toes to fit better in the box. Again, thanks to the extensive retooling, I'll review this with my "new toy" template rather than my redeco template. Robot Mode: While a lot of the parts are the same as on Silverbolt, the overall look is fairly distinct, thanks to the new wings, new head, and the winglets on the forearms (which are actually pegged into place and can be held as daggers or something). The legs are pretty much the same mold as Silverbolt, meaning the kneecaps are rectangular rather than the hexagons shown on the trading card. The color balance is mostly good, although the shoulders and feet are for some reason a much darker purple. The new head looks very much like the cartoon model, although the toy went with the darker purple of the original toy. 7" (18cm) tall, predominantly Decepticon Purple and light gray. The shoulders and feet are a darker shade of metalflake purple, but under a very bright white LED it looks pretty close to the other purple plastic (but not under sunlight). The upper arms, hip joints, knee joints, weapon, combiner limb connector tabs, and some other hinges are light gray plastic. The rest of the toy is metalflake Decepticon Purple plastic. (The fists are definitely that color and painted over, the thighs are probably since there's no real reason to paint them silver if they're already light gray.) Lots of silver paint, including the face, collar, abdomen, fists, thighs, and some accents meant for other modes which I'll cover in those sections. There's dark purple paint on the forearm stripes, red eyes, and metallic amber/gold on a small rectangular hole in the sternum area. There's a silver and purple Decepticon symbol printed on the center chest. Articulation is the same as Silverbolt's. The forearm peg holes default to holding little canard winglets about 2cm long, but they can be moved to the fists as tiny knives, or plugged into the holes on the back to just get them out of the way if you want. And like Silverbolt, he can pull a Kuato by popping the combiner head out of his belly. Transformation: Mostly the same as Silverbolt. It differs a little in the fiddly bits, such as the different tail fins and the fact you need to move the forearm canards to the fists. Transformation to combiner mode is also about the same as Silverbolt's, and the canards stay on the forearms. Vehicle Mode: A little more angular than the G1 animation model even leaving out the the underside chunk, but it's a pretty good match overall considering it was retooled from Silverbolt. It's a long-nosed bomber-ish version of the hypercritial wing design. The arm winglets form extra tail bits reminiscent of Space Case et al, but which aren't part of the G1 Cyclonus vehicle mode, so you may want to just set them aside in vehicle mode. 8.5" (21.5cm) long with a 6.25" (16cm) wingspan. It's more dominated by purple than the robot mode, with silver only in the nosecone deco, and a bunch more dark purple paint (nosecone root and on the tops of the wings). The windows are painted the same golden color as the chest rectangle. Nicely stable, with the same landing gear options as Silverbolt. The tail fins fold down pretty easily, though. Combiner Mode: Same functionality and stability as Silverbolt, but with a decent Galvatron-style head. It's purple plastic with silver-painted face and red eyes. The chestplate pieces that snap together in front are new molds, with appropriate Galvatronny details including the abdomen windows (although they're painted red with silver borders instead of amber/gold). There's a purple and silver Decepticon symbol on the left side of the chest. The fold-up gap filler piece at the bottom of the abdomen is molded with a flattened hexagon that combines Galvatron's belt buckle with (oddly enough) G1 Cyclonus's belt buckle design. There's silver paint on the shoulder area panels, also evoking G1 Galvatron's silver shoulders. Galvatronus: Holding off on this section for now. If he gets a dedicated set of limbs I'll come back and review him with them, otherwise assume all the mechanical aspects of Superion apply here as well. Overall: The combiner mode is just as good as Silverbolt's, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense, and the robot and vehicle modes are better and generally more coherent. Worth picking this up just as a good Voyager sized Cyclonus, with Galvatronus as a nice bonus. Dave Van Domelen, now has to decide between Leader Ultra Magnus and the entire Protectobot team for his next to review.