By Loran
Come on, who doesn’t love the Minibots?
When the Universe Powerglide figure came out in 2008, I found myself rather liking the design, but I could never accept him as Powerglide. He was just too big! Yeah, I know, having your figures at a near “proper” scale to their vehicles is nice, but honestly, I really don’t see the need for it with the G1 characters since scale was almost totally nonexistent there. Just about everyone was the same height, more or less, so I kinda like to keep everyone in a certain range. With someone who’s supposed to be spunky and kind of annoying, giving him a figure bigger than Optimus didn’t feel right.
Powerglide’s vehicle mode is probably one of the best A-10s we’ve ever had in Transformers. It’s sort of an overused vehicle mode, sure, but it’s one I personally never get tired of. It isn’t without flaws, however, because while it may look nice, it has some of the worst landing gear I’ve ever had on a Transformer. It simply doesn’t work, no matter how creatively I try to position it. He sits just fine without it, though.
His transformation is as simple as you’d expect from a figure this small. There aren’t any surprises and he can easily be picked up and transformed without his instructions.
Not only is his size a better fit than the Universe figure’s, his overall robot mode looks a lot better, too. Outside of his head and wing placement, Universe Powerglide didn’t look that much like his G1 incarnation. I think that’s why I held off on him for so long, only for this Dark of the Moon figure to get announced about a month later. D’oh. Probably my favorite parts of this mode are his arms. Like the G1 figure, they become his pontoons in vehicle mode. Yeah, it might seem lazy but it’s a nice tribute to the original design and functions really well.
There are some flaws in this mode, though. His shoulders don’t stay pegged into his torso very well. Either the pegs are too small or the holes are too big. He also has some of the strangest feet I’ve seen on a Transformer in recent years. Seriously, most of the on-screen movie guys have feet less weird than him. Like the other Cyberverse Commander figures, he comes in pretty small for a Scout, but I feel like that’s kind of negligible when stacked against the rest of how good the figure is.
Powerglide has pretty good poseability for a figure his size, with balljoints galore. It really feels like balljoints have been going out of style ever since Hasbro’s gotten better with hinge and ratchet joints.
His hands curiously use c-clips, so he can latch onto the bigger figures and ride them! WOO! A strange choice indeed, but it looks like Hasbro is working towards giving more of the big guys 5mm pegs and the little ones 3mm. His weapons include a pack of missiles and… two more missiles! Both of which can be combines to form a gun made out of missiles! Yeah, no Decepticon’s gonna mess with him now.
Despite being a Dark of the Moon figure, Powerglide belongs on your classics shelf. While the Ultra-class one was a nice figure, I had a hard time accepting it as Powerglide. He is a bit small, yes, but he’ll look very nice among your other Minibots. Plus, he’s more size-conscious. 😉 Come in and get yours today!
