Dave's TF: Cybertron Rant - Voyager Wave 5 Soundwave with Laserbeak The actual shipping wave is also fleshed out with older toys. Updated June 9, 2006 with Key Code Info. CAPSULE Soundwave: Somewhat kibbly and unstable vehicle mode, interesting transformation, excellent robot mode and accessories. Strongly recommended. $19.76 at Wal-Mart. RANT Packaging: Standard Voyager box, with the Space Camp sticker. Co-sells are CD Scattorshot, Dark Crumplezone, Wing Saber and Sky Shadow. Comes with the Jungle Planet map. My game piece was not a winner. Only four twist-ties attach to the cardboard tray (three for the bomber, one for a weapon chunk), but two additional ties hold Laserbeak to the plastic blister in his own separate plastic tray, one more holds the bomber's rear to the blister, and one of the weapons is held just to the blister. So you need to remove the taped-down blister or have slender wirecutters to get everything open. No rubberbands. The robot mode photo on the back is mirror-flipped. Planet X finally gets a writeup on this box (the only previous X'er was Sideways, and Deluxes don't get planet writeups). Planet X does not exist. It is a code word linking those who claim no world as their home, a secret society of evil robots whose shadowy goals are shrouded behind a web of deceit. No one knows how many Planet X agents there are in the universe, or who they are. All that is known is that wherever one of these vile robots goes, ruin soon follows. They are the survivors of a civilization destroyed long ago by the never-ending expansion of the Giant Planet. Consumed by their thirst for revenge, they struck a deal with UNICRON, promising to serve him in exchange for the power to one day smash the Giant Planet. Since that day, the agents of Planet X have thrived on evil works. For millions of years, SOUNDWAVE and the others have searched the galaxy for the Planet Keys, their purpose far darker than even that of the DECEPTICONS. They once hoped to give their master the edge he needed to finally destroy CYBERTRON once and for all, but now they seek nothing less than the resurrection of UNICRON himself! A bit lacking in focus, but it gets across an essentially tragic nature for the X'ers. Now totally evil and corrupt, they got that way in a too- fervent pursuit of justified vengeance. DECEPTICON: SOUNDWAVE Planet: X Altmode: Bomber Weapons: Harmonic Wave Cannon, Subsonic Shocker Partner: Laserbeak Planet Key Code: vmj8 Previous Name Use: G1 (original), G1 (Actionmaster), G2 (Go-Bot), MW, BW (Mutant), Universe Previous Mold Use: None He is known by many names, though SOUNDWAVE is his most well-known one, and the one that inspires fear in AUTOBOT and DECEPTICON alike. One of the mightiest, most straightforward warriors from Planet X, SOUNDWAVE is nonetheless a devastatingly subtle plotter. He prefers not to stab his victims in the back only because he enjoys seeing the look of betrayal in their eyes. Highly skilled in the techniques of espionage, he never enters battle without the knowledge he needs to win. His companion LASERBEAK - equipped with a cloaking device - is able to infiltrate even the most well- guarded facilities. STR 8 INT 8 SPD 9 END 9 RNK 9 COUR 9 FRB 6 SKL 8 Avg 8.25 Key Code Info: With a wink, the designers of the new Soundwave character for Transformers Cybertron included something very fun in the design of this enigmatic Decepticon from Planet X. The toy and cartoon version of Soundwave has an opening chest panel that hides his partner Laserbeak - a killer falcon-like robot bird. In the original Soundwave toy - which turned into a cassette tape player (who owns those anymore, right?), Laserbeak was a small, flat cassette tape that could fit into the tape deck in the chest of the Soundwave toy. As an added fact, the original Soundwave toy came with Buzzsaw - another cassette tape bird-robot that was colored gold! (Also shows the toy's color guide.) Planet Key: "standard" Planet X Key, identical to that of Sideways. Vehicle Mode: While the package simply calls it a bomber, this is a jet more in the style of the F-117 (which has a bomber role, but the "F" means fighter) albeit with a different tail and a LOT of tech "greebles" all over it. If the "wobbly goblin" flies kinda like a brick, Soundwave must fly very much like a brick, relying on sheer power and antigrav to stay aloft. In fact, there really aren't any obvious jet thrusters, in part because where they would be has to fit flush against the pelvis. It rolls on little nubbly wheels near the nose and wingtips. It's roughly triangular, 7.5" (19cm) long and with a wingspan of 6.5" (17cm) and a thickness (ignoring the tail) of about 2.5" (5.5cm). It's mostly "Soundwave Blue" (0033CC) with light gray (a bit darker than CCCCCC) robot kibble, gunmetal plastic tail and cockpit details, black plastic cockpit shell, and clear purple (6600FF) cockpit window and X-ian symbol atop the cockpit. Gold paint limns some of the detailing along the leading edges of the wings and tail, and gold chrome marks out the X-ian symbol. The bomb bay is clear purple with a lot of gold paint and some red, plus a small printed Decepticon symbol. The X-ian symbol is a keystone shape with a circle inside it, and several rays connecting the circle to the keystone, plus a few that radiate from the circle without connecting. There's a gold dot inside the circle at the four o'clock position (relative to looking at the vehicle head-on). This is similar to the one Sideways has atop his cockpit, but noticeably different. I suppose they may be rank insignia, since Soundwave's is more complex than the one Sideways sports (yes, I'm contorting to avoid saying "Sideways's," which is grammatically correct but kinda weird). The overall look is rather kibbly, despite some efforts to at least move robot bits around so that they don't look so obviously like limbs and so forth. The black cockpit piece is supposed to lock down on three pegs, but at least on mine no amount of massaging can get all three pegs to seat firmly at the same time. [Later note: okay, as nasty as this may sound, you have to also massage the pelvis to get it in just the right position to let all three pegs connect.] A pair of weapon pods can be fitted under the wings, either deployed as guns or stored as bombs. It's NOT obvious how to fit them into the slots so that they (more or less) lock into place, but it helps to try first in deployed mode, as the instructions are actually kinda helpful there. Once you have them in place as weapons, the same orientations more or less work as pods. A third pod stores in the bomb bay, which opens when you insert the Planet Key. The Key can be stored in its slot without opening the bay, but it looks kinda dumb sticking up from the rear of the jet. The bomb bay pod turns into Laserbeak, more on him later. There are hexagonal chunks at the rear of the wingtips, each with a 5mm peg hole running through its center. In theory, you could mount anything with a 5mm peg here, but it'd look weird. There's another 5mm hole at the center of the underside, and you could mount weapons here. The Key slot is at the very rear of the jet, tilted back about 30 degrees from vertical. Transformation: Oddly, it's kind of an everted Cyberjet style. The legs fold up over the top and lock together to form the sides of the nose, while the arms do an over-under in the middle to make up the core and connect the top and bottom. And like the Skyjack mold, he ends up with a big wing chunk on his back. Of course, as a Voyager, it's a bit more complex overall. There's one bit you won't find in the instructions, that needs to be paid close attention to. The neck is mounted on a gray square that needs to be folded along two hinge joints BEFORE you fold the torso closed, lowered so that the base chunk is more or less at the same level as the top of the chest piece. If you forget to do this, the head will be several millimeters too high, and pushing it back down through while the torso is closed is...well, if not impossible, it's harder than I was willing to force it. A note about one of the weapon pods. The Harmonic Wave Cannon (the one with the opaque barrels) has a small black targeting sight piece that needs to be flipped up, something also not in the instructions. The way the pelvis locks together is interesting, but may require some struggling the first few times to get it all locking together correctly. Once in place, though, it's stable. Robot Mode: 6.75" (17cm) tall at the head, 8.75" (22cm) at the wingtips. The wings form a V behind his back. The head, torso, shoulders, forearms and boots are blue (as are the wings), the collarbone, upper arms, pelvis and thighs are light gray. The chest is the bomb bay, adding a big gold block. The eyeslit is clear purple lightpiping, and the face is gold. All in all, it strongly evokes G1 Soundwave without being a slavish copy. My only real issue with the appearance is that he has a big jet nose chunk hanging off his right forearm. The cockpit chunk on the left forearm at least looks like a shield. The face has several elements based on different versions of Soundwave (including some of the comics versions), but is its own design. He has a wealth of options for mounting his weapons. Not only can either fist hold any of his three pods (either gun, or Laserbeak), but he has a 5mm hole in his forearm that's an excellent Laserbeak perch, the wingtip 5mm holes can mount anything, and there's a 5mm hole on his right shoulder so you can mount one of his weapons to further evoke G1 Soundwave (it's too cramped to peg Laserbeak onto his shoulder, sadly). The underbelly peg hole is now on the middle of his back, useful for storage. And, of course, all the pods can store in their vehicle mode locations on the wings or in the chest. The Key slot ends up on the small of his back, and while the Key still sticks out kinda awkwardly, it's not as blatant since it's on his back. Poseability is very good, and his feet are long enough to let him stand stably in a good variety of poses despite his topheavy nature. Head is on a balljoint, but the waist does not move. There is a nice "Gundam Skirt" fringe, however. Universal joint shoulders, upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, universal hips (with the skirt pieces covering the joints while also getting out of the way when need be), swivels above the knees, very stiff ratcheting knees, transformation joints that let you point the toes or adjust the heel spurs. There's also a transformation joint just below the knees that moves sideways a little, so he can stand in a knock-kneed pose. Pods: Soundwave has three pods, each a hexagonal prism 1.5" (4cm) long and with hexagonal faces half an inch on a side (a little under an inch between opposite corners). The pods are the Subsonic Shocker, the Harmonic Wave Cannon, and Laserbeak. The pods do not connect together while in pod form. The Subsonic Shocker folds out two large clear purple barrels and one smaller one 120 degrees apart from each other on the hexagonal pod, with a short light gray peg folding out from the same side as the short barrel. There's a swivel at the end with the handle, so you can rotate the rest of the weapon to orient the main barrels however you prefer, although the default position is best for use as a hand weapon. Fully opened, it's a little under 2.75" (7cm) long. This is the only weapon that comes with Soundwave that can fit into the shoulder hole. The Harmonic Wave Cannon folds open a clear purple shell to form a stock, making this more of a rifle. The top barrel is short, the bottom one is long and wider than the top one, and both are light gray. A light gray handle also folds out, and as mentioned above, a black targeting sight flips up. The barrels don't click into position, so they tend to end up pointing different directions unless you're very careful with it. Fully opened it's 3.5" (9cm) long. Laserbeak's pod is notable for being almost entirely black when closed, with red paint on the endcaps and a few bits of light gray visible. It's a real piece of origami transformation, unfolding into a sort of raven (neck is too short to be a condor, although I suppose they may have intended it to be a condor anyway). The tail and legs are light gray, while the rest of the toy is black plastic. The eyes and the tops of the hoverfans molded into the wings are painted red. The wingspan is 3.5" (9cm) and it's a little over 1.5" (4cm) long from beak to tail. There are 19 points of articulation, most of them in the wings. Overall: While there's some problems with the vehicle mode, it has a great robot mode and is an excellent updating of the classic character. As the nominal leader of a faction, it's definitely a worthy toy (unlike, say, Override), although he lacks the gold key of a leader. Definitely worth getting. Dave Van Domelen, now to look at the second batch of BWX toys, which came in the mail today.