Transformers: Combiner Wars Smokescreen

We have had a full-on toy draught in my area, seemingly for months. Whispers and rumors of both Onslaught and Sky Lynx showing up in my area have sent my wife and I on more than a few frantic Target runs, only to find shelves empty save for a Motormaster. And it has been this way with Star Wars figures as well. I feel my heart skip upon seeing a fresh set of Black Series boxes hanging from pegs only to get close to them and see rows of jacket Finns and that constable guy. Combaticon Deluxes are showing up more regularly now, but I don’t need those; twice I’ve seen the second batch of Autobot repaints, the Sky Reign team, but don’t have any interest in them. At all. I don’t want a super plain Wheeljack, and had I not bought Ironhide, I’d probably go for Trailbreaker, and may if there’s ever a real good sale, but otherwise, no. And I’m not a real fan of the Rook/Swindle mold, so Hound has no real appeal for me. 

Smokescreen is the single figure from the wave that appeals to me, for two reasons. First, I really enjoy this mold. That was my entire motivation behind buying Prowl, who turned out to be a great looking figure on his own. Secondly, Smokescreen looks terrific. His paint is bright and colorful, and he wears the mold incredibly well. I’ve seen some people complaining that Smokescreen is a Prowl/Streetwise repaint and is thus a police rather than a sports car, but honestly, I think that’s fairly negligible. Perhaps the Dead End/Wildrider version of the car would have worked better, or the Prowl/Streetwise hood on the Dead End car body, but it honestly is easily enough overlooked that I’m slightly surprised to see this being some kind of issue. Something that really serves this toy well is the paint, as it is nice to see this mold decked out again, getting away from the fairly bland Streetwise and Prowl uses. Prowl does a lot with the little deco he has, but Streetwise is pretty dull looking overall. It’s like they skimped out on the paint for the last two figures so they had extra to toss into Smokescreen. 

I do like this mold quite a bit. The car mode is smooth and good looking; the robot mode is one of those ‘just right’ kind of robots that seems like it does everything well. The robot is pretty poseable, or at least does the things pose-wise that one would expect a figure of this size and complexity to be able to do.  This being the fifth use of the mold, it’s gotten to the point where people have probably fiddled with one already, so we know generally about the car hood backpack, and I for one have never found it anything troubling. I do wish it folded over better for limb mode, or at least had some way to stick upwards from the combiner shoulder so as to get rid of that flat across the top arm look, but really, this and the Breakdown/Sunstreaker/Wheeljack all suffer the same issue.

Although, for as much as I do like this mold, I hope that a Bluestreak version is not released. I’m going back to the Classics Bluestreak when I say that the color scheme looks good on the car, but the robot is often on the plain side for it; even MP Bluestreak has that going on. Car mode looks good in the dark grey and black, robot mode looks generic. I think that a Combiner Wars Bluestreak would be jumping the shark for a few reasons: it would be the sixth use of this figure, and it would further the really unnecessary reformatting of pretty much any/everyone in to combiner limbs, and that’s not something that anyone actually needs. If that were to be the case, where is the Decepticon equivalent here? Where is the random set of now-combiner Decepticon limbs, or maybe something that could actually make sense, where is the Soundwave torso and minion limbs? The line is basically over, apparently, so I doubt that there will be any or many more entries coming, so the Bluestreak repaint seems pretty unlikely. Thankfully. 

Also thankfully coming to an end is the notion that any Autobot can become an arm or leg, soon to be replaced by pretty much every character becoming a Headmaster in the soon-to-arrive Titans Return line. I’m already conflicted as to which idea I will become tired of faster, but the early bet is on Titans. From what I’ve seen there are only a few figures from the initial waves of that line that interest me, and that is probably for the best. 

 

In the end, I bought Smokescreen because I really like the mold, and this is a really eye catching use of it. I have no real intention of using him as a limb when I eventually find a Sky Lynx.