Transformers: Combiner Wars Shockwave

At C2E2 I found a guy who said he’d bought the inventory of a toy store and had basically set up a booth to sell as much of the merchandise as he could. It must have been a Toys R Us, because he had several of the Toys R Us Masterpiece Bluestreaks on hand. Everything he had was listed at below retail prices, except for things he knew were going to be in demand due to newness, and those things he only marked a few dollars higher than similar items. He had Combiners Wars Scattershot for like $22, while Cyclonus was $18. The booth was a goldmine. . . mainly of toys I already had. But, he had the newest wave of Combiner Wars Legends figures, and from that selection I obtained Chop Shop and Shockwave.

Shockwave is the Legends class partner for Bruticus, and his card bio claims that he created the Combaticons. Lol, no. This egregious blasphemy aside, Shockwave doesn’t have a third mode like the other Legends lil’ buddy figures: his alt mode is his usual and proper space gun form, which then Bruticus wields, just like in that one episode of the G1 cartoon. Bruticus can hold Shockwave in hand, or he can be mounted on Bruticus’ back, but that doesn’t really add anything to the combined figure. 

This rear mount essentially means that Shockwave can be mounted on Onslaughts’ vehicle mode, giving the commander another weapon in said form, and that is kind of cool looking. Truly, the place where Shockwave excels is by providing Bruticus with a blaster, as the gun mode is large enough to look imposing in hand unlike the combined Onslaught weapons. 

As a stand alone figure, Shockwave looks good, but seems a bit too blocky in robot mode. His legs are very thick, and his forearms are a little bit obscured by the alt mode parts that hide said forearms in said mode. This means his characteristic gun hand is not easily seen at a quick glance, and that being such a big part of the overall Shockwave aesthetic leaves the robot mode a little lacking. His purple is also way dark, this being something of a conversation topic these days with the Takara Masterpiece Shockwave being released soon and discussion of how cartoon accurate his purple is. Shockwave has been darker purple before, but this is a dark purple. His head sort of clicks into place when you transform him, but as those types of mechanisms never really work he does look down a slight bit. His transformation is fun and satisfying, too. He’s one of those toys you like keeping near your desk so that you can have something in your hands while trying to pressure yourself into grading essays or something else for work that you don’t want to do.

 

He’s pretty poseable, as the Legends class figures of the last handful of years have gotten better and better at being quality figures at the low price point; a price point that has, as all of them have, been creeping upwards in recent years. For the Combiner Wars Legends specifically, for them to have some interactive with the combiners modes was a nice trick, one that attained varying degrees of success. Shockwave totally succeeds, because he is just a weapon, and has no need of being anything else. This is why figures like Viper and Bombshell were obviously other modes that folded differently and were voila! weapons: they WERE other things that were made into weapons. Viper does this fine, but Bombshell not so much, clearly being a bug on top of some gun barrels. Chestpiece Legends like Blackjack and Groove were similarly un- and passably successful respectively, but were nevertheless good figures on their own. Overall the Legends class has produced some real winners in this line, and it looks to be a real large part of the coming Titans Return line, but not in the same fashion. The next batch of Legends figures look to be just Headmaster characters and some kind of mini-vehicles, with the occasional actual Transformer thrown in here and there. 

As a gun for Bruticus, Shockwave is heavy, and so he pulls down whichever arm is holding him. The length of the blaster mode means Shockwave ends up nearly touching the ground Bruticus is standing on, and while this is not a problem or anything, it leaves Bruticus standing with his purple blaster cannon at his side far more often than him pointing it at someone or something. If Bruticus holds Shockwave up, the arm will gradually slip, not rapidly or visibly, but slowly enough that if you pose him with the gun held up and left the room, it would slowly pull the arm down so that you’d return  to the room and be like “Who moved my toy? This place must be haunted.” But it’s not haunted. Probably not, at least. In my Bruticus configuration, Blast Off cannot hold Shockwave because of the jet stabilizers on Blast Offs’ forearm. Vortex can hold him just fine, there not being any parts in the way of the back end of Shockwave or the forearm part of Vortex to inhibit this. 

Bruticus ain't 'fraid'a no ghost.....any more!

Shockwave is a good, good Legends figure, but much like Legends class Groove, his main function is as a piece of a combiner team, and so on his own he's a little bland. There are plenty of Shockwave figures out in the world, and so another one is hardly necessary, and there is nothing particular about this Shockwave that makes him a truly necessary purchase. But as the capstone piece on Bruticus, he is fantastic. I would not recommend him as a Shockwave, unless you’re a real Shockwave fan or collector. My first reaction to hearing about him many months ago was that I could pass on him . . . and then they said he was Bruticus compatible and I swore, because then I was going to need him. And I am glad that I got him, but: I got him for I think ten bucks, which is already cheaper than at retail for the size class, and I got him at a convention where I had more fun than I can even explain, so that adds to my appreciation. I have this fear that, coming at the end of Combiner Wars and being a Shockwave, this is going to be the figure of the wave that ends up on eBay for stupid prices, and under those circumstances, he is not worth it. Someone on one of the bigger Transformer fan boards named this figure his best toy of 2015, and I think that is a pretty silly over exaggeration, but you know what they say about opinions.