Bot Reviews: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Voyager Soundwave, with Laserbeak and Ravage, with Bonus!

In hindsight, the Walmart-exclusive War for Cybertron Trilogy (aka Netflix) toyline was a weird one. It was created to tie into the streaming TV shows of the same name (which were, themselves, created to promote the main War for Cybertron toyline), and yet the small three-wave Netflix line mostly focused on characters that had smaller roles on the show, or, more often, presented characters in forms that were different from what they looked like onscreen. It often felt more like an overflow toyline for the actual mainlines, a release vector for figures they didn’t have a slot for anywhere else.

But, honestly, those three shows were all pretty weak, and it’s better to look at the Netflix line for what it actually contained: Some of the best, most interesting figures of the Trilogy, like the better-looking repaint of Earthrise Optimus, or the first official mainline G1 Volkswagon Bumblebee since G1. But with that quality and exclusivity came rarity, and many of the Netflix line’s greatest hits were basically impossible to find in Canada, couldn’t really be easily ordered online (Walmart was never big into the online toy shopping market), and now command a hefty price on the secondary market, which brings us to our current subject: Netflix Soundwave and friends.

Probably one of the most recognizable Transformers characters ever, and third in command of the classic Decepticons, Soundwave’s basic appeal as “that cool-voiced robot with the face like the faction logo, and an army of little guys that shoot out of his chest” has stood the test of time. However, his G1 alternate mode of a minicassette player that shoots out transforming tapes is something that the non-Masterpiece mainline avoided bringing back. Usually, Soundwave gets abstracting into some kind of vehicle that happens to shoot smaller things (like Unicron Trilogy and Fall of Cybertron Soundwave), or gets kind of close without committing to the 80s of it all (Titans Return Soundwave becoming boombox that stashed data pads). His Voyager-class Siege figure kept this trend going, changing into a nondescript spaceship (and a lamppost), despite still having a pop-out chest that stashed suspiciously rectangular minions. Well, the Netflix version finally just Did The Thing, and extensively retooled him into his original minicassette player alternate mode (and came with a couple minicasette pals). Naturally, this meant he was immediately sold out everywhere, and is ludicrously expensive on the aftermarket. Well, I managed to get one, thanks to funding it through sales and trades I made at the 80’s Toy Expo, so I’m here to have an honest look and see if this guy’s worth the premiums, rarity and fuss. But first, let’s start with those Micromaster microcassette minions.

Laserbeak and Ravage

One thing that bothered me about Siege Soundwave was that he didn’t come with anything to slot into his chest, meaning his main gimmick was essentially non-functional out of the box, unless you bought some of the cassettes that were being sold in two-packs at the same time, at the Micromaster size class. This version fixes that, and comes packed with two of his most famous agents, Laserbeak the vulture, and Ravage the panther, both of which are retooled from their Siege Soundwave Spy Patrol iterations, which I previously reviewed. They’re simple enough, so let’s look at them as a pair.

Tape Modes

Well, the Siege originals didn’t try to pretend to be tapes, just “nondescript rectangles,” and Laserbeak’s new tape mode…also doesn’t really try.

What it does have is more paint than the original. He’s still colored in the same lovely combination of red, black, and silver, but there’s now more silver highlights on his folded-up wings, along with orange and blue accents added in. These new paint apps were really meant for robot (well, bird) mode, and neither side of this rectangle was sculpted with a tape in mind.

Ravage, meanwhile, does a lot better at pretending to be a tape, thanks to some new deco. His black rectangle of an altmode now has silver tampos and painted accents on it that make the rough shape of tape spools, and include bits of English language that were on the original. It’s not going to fool anyone into thinking it’s an actual microcassette (especially from the back, when all you can see is Folded Cat), but it’s clear what it’s supposed to be.

Both tapes also still have “shield modes” made via flipping out pegs on the bottoms, and attaching them to War for Cybertron-compatible ports on larger figures (though the instructions don’t mention them anymore). It’s still kind of a nothing of an idea, and getting those pegs out requires thin nails, but it makes for a fun extra, especially if you have a bunch of the tapes, and can really armor a robot up.

Animal Modes

Laserbeak is still a snap to transform, save for the difficulty of prying his head out, but it’s worth it, because it’s still a really nice-looking bird mode. The new head sculpt is a more directly G1-style bird, which makes the whole thing a little bit more aesthetically cohesive than the Siege version’s Cybertron-mode head on an Earth-mode body. Between that, the extra paint on the wings, it’s a small but definite upgrade. Funny enough, between the Decepticon logo on his forehead (moved from the Siege one’s backmounted silver box) and the details on his wings, this is more G1 toy-accurate than animation accurate, not that I’m complaining. For articulation, his head and neck still move, and his wings can move a bit, to spread out and glide, or stay furled up. And, as a bonus, he still has that unintended feature where you can flip out his shield-mode peg, and have him securely perch on larger robots, so long as you can fit his legs around his resting place.

Ravage, meanwhile, is still kind of overly involved to transform, and his legs still always feel like they’re in the way, as I squeeze and scrape them past each other.

His funky looking cat mode, with its stick legs, gigantic thighs, and tiny head, still isn’t very animation-accurate, but I do admit it’s grown on me since the Siege one came out. He’s surprisingly articulated for his size, with two joints per leg, and a moveable neck, which definitely helps.  I still wish the missile pods on his back legs weren’t as puny, though. Speaking of the Siege one, there’s not much difference here, outside of all the extra silver from the tape patterns. He also has a new head, but it’s the same design, only snarling instead of closed, and he’s got silver toy-style eyes instead of red show-style ones.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that these two were probably the strongest Micromasters that the War for Cybertron trilogy put out, easily the strongest of the four tape molds (not that there was much competition), and these are both upgrades to the Siege versions, albeit marginal ones. I wouldn’t say they’re worth the price of entry on their own, but I appreciate that they’re here, and are the best choices for pack-ins. Anyway, onto the main event.

Soundwave, Robot Mode

Whoof, this is a beauty. That’s it, that’s G1 Soundwave, as you remember him from the show, out here looking like a scaled-down Masterpiece. He’s made of cubes and rectangles, he’s got that cannon on his shoulder, it’s all there. He’s a heavy retool of Siege Soundwave, but so much has changed that it’s hard to clock where the old parts end and the new parts begin. There might even be more new than old on him.

His lower arms, weapons, feet, some (but not all) of his pelvis, and his clear tape-door chest are Siege remnants, and nearly everything else has been changed to some degree. If you really look at those old parts, you notice that they all have some level of sculpted-in tech detailing, that “greebling” thing Siege was known for, while all the newer parts have less of that detailing, and are smoother. You’d think it would clash, but in person, it blends surprisingly well, and comes off looking like it was originally designed to be this, rather than a wild retooling. It helps that, while smoother, there’s still some tech detailing on his new bits (his new back, especially), seemingly made with an eye to make it all blend together.

There’s a little bit of design weirdness that does speak to it being a retool, though. For one thing, he has flip-out landing gear bolted onto the bottoms of his forearms that no longer actually serves any purpose (yet they still went through the effort of molding it, and assembling it with a screw, weirdly). I guess you can flip it forwards and pretend it’s arm-mounted guns. The other weird bit is that he has tape player buttons molded on the front of his pelvis…and then an identical set molded onto the back, which are actually used in his tape mode, thanks to a mandatory waist twist in his transformation.

Still, the whole thing gels pretty nicely, and just looks good. I appreciate how much cleaner he looks with those big back panels gone. The front half of his head is new, strictly so it has a few less techy details on it, and looks more like “the Masterpiece, but smaller.”

Speaking of his head, his eyes are now show-accurate red, and have great lightpiping that makes him glow a bit even when you’re not holding him up to the light.

Soundwave’s colors are cleaner, and sort of brighter. He’s got the same blues, greys, silvers and golds as the Siege version (oddly, his grey fold-out weapon’s a darker grey), but there’s also some brighter yellow around his chest. He’s still got a lot of paint, but his Siege damage is totally gone. It does mean his chest looks hollow when empty, now that there isn’t a spiderwebbed crack to cover up the absence of a tape, but hey, he comes with two, now.

Moreso than the aesthetic, what really makes this retool work is the fact that it’s still got excellent handfeel and build quality, two things that often suffer when a tooling gets heavily reworked (looking at you, Star Convoy). The whole figure’s got some primo quality War for Cybertron chunky solidity to it. His legs do feel a bit hollow (because they are), but his torso is nice and bricky, and he’s got no problems staying standing.

Soundwave’s nice and poseable, too, like the best WFC Voyagers. He has all the joints you’d expect, his wrists dip, rather than swivel, thanks to his transformation, and his ankle tilts are slightly blocked, but present. Probably his wierdest bit of articulation is his inward-to-outward shoulder joints, which like to “click” between some fairly large pre-set positions, but overall, it’s impressive how bendy this pile of boxes is.

Soundwave’s accessories include his shoulder-mounted cylinder with the sculpted small machinegun-like holes, and another cylinder with a laser on the end.

These originally had red rings painted on the ends on the Siege one, but they omit it here. I’d rather they spent the budget to keep them here and given Laserbeak a couple less wing flourishes, honestly. He also still has that odd unfolding grey weapon.

Like on the previous release, I’m tempted to just give it to Megatron, since it seems like it’s supposed to go on his back to imitate his animation model’s rear gunbarrel.

So, Soundwave’s big-but-simple gimmick is identical to his G1 toy: Press the button on his shoulder (or have his sculpted-in-a-pressing-motion left hand hit it) and his tape deck chest springs open.

It’s a fun little fidget toy-esque thing to do, on its own. As for its compatibility with his Tape Troops, Ravage fits nicely into the slot. Laserbeak also fits, but upon ejection, likes to flip out of place, unfortunately.

For other features, Soundwave’s got a lot of War for Cybertron ports on him. They include one on each leg, one on the bottom of each foot, two on each arm, three on his back, the one his shoulder-mounted weapon’s on, and, technically, the end of that odd grey gun. I’ve found that it’s fun to take all of his tape-shields, and try to encase him in armor.

Transformation

This is a great transformation. it’s simple and fun to do, and has that tactile G1-Hot-Rod-esque feeling of rearranging a bunch of large blocks. Mechanically, it’s only a slight variant on the G1 version, where the legs wrap around the torso to make a box, and the head and arms fold away behind him. It helps that it’s a simple transformation to edit into him, and they didn’t change it much, just added a few more twists, like his waist rotation. In fact, to give you an idea of how much this tooling changed, neither Siege nor Netflix Soundwave can actually do the same altmode transformations as the other, there’s too many altered or missing joints and connections (Netflix Soundwave can sort of do the Siege lamppost mode, his arms just don’t tab in anymore).

Of course, he’s missing the G1 version’s feature of his two cylindrical weapons converting into batteries, stashing out of sight in a working battery compartment. It’s a real shame to lose that cool design quirk, but what’s here is impressive enough as it is. The closest thing to a wrinkle he’s got is that his legs, and the panel his buttons are on are both a bit of a struggle to get tabbed in, but on the upside, once they’re in, they’re in securely.

Tape player mode

Well, he’s a box, exactly like his G1 altmode. To their credit, this shameless nostalgia grab got it pretty spot-on. He’s got all the details, like the L and R symbols next to little lines uptop, the tape buttons below, and so forth. It’s not 100 percent dead on, it’s longer and shorter than the G1 original, but it looks right to me.

The weakest part of this mode is the back, which contains a wadded up mess of robot arms, and is home to all the greebles, in exchange for the front being so smooth. The original toy had those same bits stashed in the back, too, but they compressed better.

Soundwave’s still nicely painted in this mode, too, showing off a lot more painted, light blue. They added some gold lines near the top of his cassette deck, taken from his cartoon model specifically, but also added the “Rec/Batt” tampo from his toy, blending the two looks. The neatest detail here, to me is the red light beside that tampo on the original is where a flatheaded screw is on the new one.

This is all set dressing though. He’s here to be a box that stashes tapes, and he does that just fine. As mentioned during the transformation, though, what he’s really lacking is any kind of good weapon storage.

The instructions say to peg the “batteries” into WFC ports on the back, and fold the third gun up and place it in the middle, but it just makes the back look even messier than it already is (for an extra wrinkle, the fact that the battery that turns into a hand weapon likes to have the now-concealed laser missile thingie just slide right out doesn’t feel good). You can make his unfolding grey gun look like a radio antenna, though.

Overall

Okay, let’s set aside the rarity and aftermarket price of this set for a minute. Ignoring that, I’m having a blast with these figures. Soundwave looks really nice, he feels solid in both modes, and he’s simple enough to have G1-style fun with, between transforming him and popping his tapes out, while also being articulated like a modern figure. His two companions play well with him out of the box, and are also really fun to fiddle with on their own. Critically, you can’t even tell he’s a crazy-extensive retool, he has almost none of the jank that usually comes with those, save for some aesthetic weirdness, but it’s very minor, and doesn’t affect his handfeel.

Basically, if price and availability were no object, I’d heavily recommend this set. However, the fact is that the whole package is super-rare, and I paid a mint for it, even if it was funded by cash I’d made on-site. So, I will say this: I don’t know if they’re worth the more ridiculous prices I’ve seen them go for, but they’re a cut above the rest in terms of quality, and I deem them good enough to be worth paying some level of markup, much as I loathe the toy aftermarket’s price inflation. I’m having enough fun over here to forget about the price tag on my set. What I want most of all is for the set to get some kind of reissue, though, so I don’t have to add so many caveats.

In fact, while I’m talking about the future, he brings to mind something I’ve been thinking about after the latest round of Legacy reveals: I’m not really into chasing that dragon of endlessly updating my mainline collection, if it’s going to circle back and redo characters over and over again. I’m not interested, for example, in Legacy Kickback, the same way I didn’t get Studio Series 86 Perceptor and Blurr,  because the Titans Return and Legends versions I’ve got of each are good enough. What does this have to do with Soundwave and friends? This set (and his extended lineup of Tape Friends) are good enough to become my “final mainline Soundwave and company,” though I’d still like a Buzzsaw to really finish the lineup off. My point is, even if they came out with a newer Soundwave that wasn’t a retool, I don’t imagine I’ll ever want to replace this one. So, I guess what I’m saying is that I consider this “the last (maninline) (G1-style) Soundwave you’ll ever need.”

Bonus Review: Transformers: Siege Soundwave Spy Patrol Second Unit, Rumble and Ravage.

I got another spoil at the 80’s Toy Expo that’s not really meaty enough for an entire review, but is worth talking about here. So, these guys came out in the tail-end final wave of Siege, and were impossible to find locally as a result.

Luckily, the duo were repainted, and then retooled, to make the four-robot Third Unit in Generations Selects, which I already reviewed, going deep into both toolings, so there’s not much to say here that I didn’t already say over there (a shame it’s currently offline, but it’ll be back!).

Ratbat is literally Purple Wingthing, with some of his silvers, golds, and blacks swapped around. His deco layout’s nearly identical, he just has a slightly more black chest, and more importantly, all the ups and down of that tooling. His head is hard to transform, he still trouble standing, but he also still looks really nice, and has that cool-looking fanmode where he becomes wristblades for Soundwave, which makes up for the fact that he’s still the tape that does the worst job of fitting into Soundwave’s chest (he’s way too tight, and can even jam the door shut).

Meanwhile, Rumble’s a pallete-swapped Frenzy in red, plus a couple other color swaps, but again, has a deco layout that’s mostly identical, save for more black bits.

The sculpt is still kind of squat and dumpy, but nicely articulated, probably the most poseable of the War for Cybertron Micromasters. Importantly, he was actually sculpted to look like a tape (from the front, at least), and fits well into Soundwave’s chest.

This pair’s fun, but they’re flawed, and definitely the lesser two of the four cassettebot toolings.

The fact that the Generations Selects four-pack’s Skar still makes a good Pseudo-Ratbat, and cartoon fans like me care more about the Blue Tape Minion Sometimes Known As Rumble that’s included there means that these guys are skippable if you have the other set, unless you’re a completist about it like I am, in which case, they’re about as good as the Gens Selects gang.

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