Bot Reviews: Transformers: Legacy United Voyager Beast Wars Universe Silverbolt

As of this writing, Legacy United Silverbolt seems to be the final Beast Wars update for the foreseeable future, as we don’t have anything official, or leaked, coming up. That’s disappointing, because HasTak’s well over the halfway point of updating every character (or new body for a pre-existing character) on the show. Off the top of my head, there’s 31 character designs across the three seasons, and Kingdom and Legacy have, as of Silverbolt, created 19 new figures of those designs (20 if you count Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus). They can easily finish the collection! 

Anywho, onto the bot in question. Silverbolt was introduced in the second season of the show (and third year of the toyline), as one of the “Fuzors,” a line of robots that changed into creatures that were a fusion of two animals (the result of a faulty trans-scan, on the show). He was the fourth character to be voiced by Scott Mcneil (I guess they didn’t think he was busy enough), and his big character quirk was that he was the most Heroic Maximal that ever lived, a kind of corny, aesop-spouting do-gooder, with a heroic trumpet theme that would play whenever he arrived. He’s also known for his cross-faction romance with Blackarachnia, which would eventually cause her to switch sides to the Maximals. Something I’ve realized nowadays is that I kind of don’t care for him as a character, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. His hero-shtick was funny enough (especially since everyone around him was over it), so I think I just got tired of him trying way too hard to “rehabilitate” Blackarachnia, though this did lead to an interesting inversion of their dynamic when Beast Machines aired. 

In terms of toys, his Beast Wars design is another example of a figure that’s never received an update since the original Deluxe-class figure, pictured above, came out in 1997, just a repaint a few years later. Probably because it was a really good toy, even amongst the high standards of Beast Wars, and one that was actually really show-accurate, too, so this update in Legacy certainly has a tough act to follow. Let’s see how he did.

Robot Mode

My eyes play tricks on me whenever I look at this guy. So, he’s now a Voyager-class figure, but when I look at him, I keep reading him as being kind of small for one. Maybe it’s because I owned the original Deluxe back in the day, and this is a very close replica of it design-wise, so I mentally shrink him down. But, no, stand him up next to other Voyagers and Deluxes, and he’s about the right size for his size class. He’s maybe a little bit short, but not much, and the wingspan certainly makes up for it. 

Like I said, at a glance, this guy scans to my eyes as an upscaled version of the original Beast Wars toy, since his CGI model on the show adhered to it very closely, unlike many of his fellow cast members. All the details are here, like the clawed eagle-feet, the loincloth, the odd red circle on his belly with spikes around the rim, and so forth. There’s even a very strange bit of sculpting on the front of his shoulders: What appears to be transformation joints, when in fact, they’re non-functional sculpted detail.

They’re only on the figure because the extremely accurate TV series design also had them there. It’s sort of adjacent to the sculpted vestigial wheels on Legacy Tigerhawk. Truth be told, he reminds me a lot of Tigerhawk’s robot mode design, despite the two of them being unrelated characters. I guess the Barbarian Angel look was in at the time?

Also, this is specifically styled after the show, and takes care to make a few tiny changes to the design to replicate that, like the pattern on the loincloth being a little bit different. It also leads to my one big problem with the sculpt, though.

The big difference here to the original figure is how his wings are placed on him, and it’s one place where I’m going to have a crank opinion, and also skip ahead a bit on my rundown. On the original figure (as seen in the image in the intro), his wings were placed over his shoulders horizontally, because there was a geared gimmick where you could point them forwards and shoot missiles out of them. On the show, he could fold them away behind him when he wasn’t shooting missiles, and that’s where this figure places them, vertically, like on Tigerhawk. The crank opinion that I have is that they’re stuck angled back, there’s no joint or lever or anything to deploy them into “attack” mode, which is a bit disappointing to me, because he could do that on the show, too.

It doesn’t kill the figure, but he can’t assume his attack mode, and, like, when are we going to get another crack at this design? This is probably it. 

Uptop, he’s got a face that resembles a wolf-person, snout and all, with a feather pattern across his eyes that makes me think of a superhero mask. Maybe the writers of the show noticed that, and decided to shape his personality around it. I do keep looking at it, and feeling like it’s a bit off from his show design in a way I can’t quite place. It’s almost like it’s a little too blocky and boxy, but comparing it to screenshots, it’s not that off. Maybe the expression is a bit too neutral and blank, compared to the kind of enthusiastic character he is? Either way, there’s nothing actually wrong, the vibes just seem off. 

For colors, Silverbolt manages to again be very accurate to both the original show and original figure. He’s mostly gray, with accents of bronze, and bits of black, red, white and yellow here and there. And, props to them, they found a good shade of gray. I was worried it was going to look a little bit too flat or dull, but it’s got just enough sheen and depth that he doesn’t look too plain. That said, his design on the show actually gave him two different shades of gray, and that would definitely have made him more interesting here, but I think they opted for a more monotone shade to make the beast mode more cohesive. 

His build quality’s nice and tight and solid-feeling. He’s maybe not as dense as some Voyagers can be, but everything holds together, and feels sturdy in your hands. And, not only can he stay standing on his clawed eagle-feet really, really well, I think he holds the record for the figure that can pass the “can he stand on one leg?” test I tend to give my figures. He can lift that leg really high, and stay upright.

His articulation is similarly pretty impressive. Despite his spindly ankles, he has both ankle tilts and ankle rockers in there, his legs can (as established) kick super-high, despite all the stuff around his midsection, they gave him a waist joint, and he’s got dedicated wrist-swivels, among other things.

Boy’s bendy!

And while I’m still sour that his wings are stuck pointing upwards, he does have a couple of joints in each of them, so they can flex and spread, plus joints on his bird-tail.

It’s no Kingdom Airazor, with her boatload of joints in each wing, but then again, who is? 

For features and accessories, he can’t aim the missiles on his wings forwards (I know, I know, I’ll stop), but each wing does feature a removable missile, so he can hold them in his hands, like swords.

This isn’t as nuts as it sounds, it was a thing he would do on the show, and they have serrated ends on them.

I guess there wasn’t much of a risk of them randomly exploding, or anything.

This is also why I’m very glad that he’s got wrist swivels, so he can twirl these with reckless abandon.

Another nifty thing about these missile-feathers is that each one specifically has a dedicated wing to stick to, due to the pattern of tabs that lock them back in being different on each wing, and each missile. 

That’s about all he can do, though. He’s got a couple of 5 millimeter ports on the bottom of his feet, and there’s technically a couple on the backs of his thighs due to some bolt-holes, but that’s about it. Truth be told, I kind of wish he had a little more going on.

Transformation

This is an interesting one, because you’d think that this guy resembling the 1997 figure so much would mean it would largely transform the same way, but for some reason, it doesn’t. This isn’t a complaint, he’s got that good kind of transformation, where it’s involved enough to feel substantial, but straightforward enough I can do it pretty quickly from memory. Instead, he basically transformers backwards from the original, with his beast head emerging from the back, instead of the front, and the entire assembly it’s on doing a big twist to put that head where it’s supposed to be. I suspect all of this was to allow him to have that waist articulation in robot mode (on the original, the waist needed to break apart for transformation), and if so, kudos to the designers for coming up with a new way to do it that works really well.

Beast Mode

As a Fuzor, Silverbolt changes into a hybrid of two animals, a wolf and an eagle. Specifically, he’s a wolf with wings, a feathered tail, and massive front legs that are actually giant eagle talons. The design of him, like Kingdom and Legacy’s other Beast Wars updates, is aiming more for “realistic” sculpting over show-accuracy, so the wolf parts of him are sculpted more like a dollar store rubber toy (but in a good way), same with the eagle parts. That’s probably why he  reads more as a fantasy beast than anything too bizarre.

There’s some interesting sculptwork when it comes to his fur, and how it changes seamlessly into feathers as we reach the bird bits. He also, again, reminds me of Tigerhawk, except a) he’s a dog, not a cat, b) his bird legs are in front, not in back, and c) he’s purely organic instead of a robotic beast.

Well, okay, he’s not purely organic, his robot bits are doing their best to hide, but are still visible in places, the biggest offender being his robot fists hanging out on the back of his legs.

Still, it’s about as clean as most of these updates. My eyes also continue to play tricks on me, in that he seems small and Deluxe-sized, until I put him next to an actual Deluxe.

For colors, he’s still mostly that good-but-flat shade of gray, with accents of bronze, black, white and yellow. There’s some really good paintwork on and around the wings, where some of those colors fade into the gray. One odd coloring choice is found on his headsculpt. The fact that it’s a realistic sculpt instead of his stylized cartoon look combines with the fact that they decided to give him a black gradient along his nose and forehead, and solid yellow eyes (like the original toy, rather than the show), and the effect makes him look kind of…sinister? Menacing? Like, this guy’s supposed to be Adam West Batman, and he’s giving an extremely gothic comics take. Cool-looking, though.

For build quality, he holds together nicely in your hands. There’s a flap of hide on his chest (it used to be the loincloth) that seemed like it was unstable at first, but I realized I just had to line it up with some tabs. And for poseability, he’s also pretty good by Beast Wars standards, mostly because his limbs are just his robot mode ones, so they’ve mostly got all the same joints (his lower back legs are new, and have a ratcheted knee).

He’s even got an opening jaw, and something about the way it’s sculpted (it’s not very toothy) actually makes him a lot less menacing. He’s not a brooding killer anymore, he’s a happy dog!

I will say that his massive front legs can be a little bit awkward to pose, but they’ve always been that way, and I can make do, though his ratcheted elbows (robot-mode knees) do limit things a little bit. His wings, meanwhile, still have three joints each, and unlike his robot mode, their orientation means that they can face forwards for a missile-blast attack, finally!

Though it does make me notice how there’s this odd gap in the middle of his wings when you fold them forward into attack mode. I feel like a little more plastic could have solved that.

As for features, he’s kind of bare in this mode. You can take the missiles off his wings, but he can’t really do anything with them, unless he holds one in his mouth, or something.

Which I guess is fine, since all the original could do was shoot them, but like, c’mon, give me something, especially when he’s got almost no 5 millimeter ports on him, just the same ones from his robot mode.

Overall

Y’know, I groused a lot about this guy during this write up, but he’s not bad or anything. The big thing about him is that he’s mostly just the original ‘97 toy, but upscaled, something that we didn’t see in the other Beast Wars updates throughout Kingdom and Legacy, mostly because the original toys they were updating were far less animation-accurate. So, Silverbolt’s the original, only he’s missing his missile-shooting gimmick, but he’s got more articulation, and a revised transformation to accommodate that articulation, and that’s basically it. The original was a good figure, so that’s mostly preserved here, albeit in a package that maybe feels more plain than he ought to, but still fulfills the brief. And he’s not soulless-feeling in a way that some Transformers updates can be (like a lot of Studio Series 86), he still propetrly feels like the annoyingly upbeat hero with a savior complex.

Really, my biggest gripe is just the thing with his wings in robot mode not being able to go up onto his shoulders attack mode, that really seemed like a very easy feature to have, something they could have done with a couple more joints, and, like, when are they ever going to do Beast Wars Silverbolt again? If not now, then when? Either way, if you’re looking for a Beast Wars Silverbolt, this figure’s good at being that, but I don’t know if I’d call him the Sound of the Summer or anything, he’s just a decently-executed straightforward update of an older figure that was already pretty good. 

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