Radical Regenerations: Animated Soundwave And Laserbeak

Soundwave is a character I think I wanted as a child, but never actually got. He's someone I've brought multiple toy of, and I keep meaning to get the Masterpiece version someday. I suppose its a mix of him being loyal, and having an army of minions that live in his chest. Today, I talk about the only version I've kept hold of: Animated Soundwave. Read on to find out why this guy is on my Shelf of Awesome, and how he differs from the G1 version.

Image from TFWiki, Copyright Hasbro.

The Context

Seemingly developed as a more child-oriented contrast to the theatrical film of the same year, Transformers: Animated was probably the last truly great cartoon the series. Or at least, the last one doing something significantly different. The art style was a radical departure from the norm, the series was episodic, the actual war was over, and it was not entirely serious. While initially dismissed as “kiddy”, the series soon won fans over with over-arching story-lines, legitimately dangerous Decepticons, increasingly dark plots, and an obvious love by creators for the brand. Characters varied between being homages, archetypes, and thorough reworkings. Soundwave was visually not as big a departure as he was fictionally. This Soundwave was not Megatron's trusted lieutenant, although he was definitely on Megatron's side. Soundwave was an attempt by Megatron to build himself a new body, Megs just being a head at the time, that went horribly right. Via the power of the Allspark Key, Soundwave made the jump from drone to full-on sentience, which Megatron easily convinced to start a robot revolution. Sounwave only appeared in three episodes of the series before it was tragically cancelled, but is well-remembered for reasons that will become apparent.

Soundwave
Let's ignore Laserbeak for now, I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone, and start with the overt difference between this and other Soundwaves, the alternate mode. Like G1 Megatron, Soundwave's altmode fluctuates as his first one was invalidated by time, a micro cassette player. Although Guardians of the Galaxy briefly made the technology cool again, back when this toy was made MP3 players had made it utterly obsolete and unknown to most actual kids. So, they made him into a car, but not just any car(1), a car with a boombox theme, while retaining the blue and metallic accents of the original toy. Its based off the Scion xB, a car not unknown for modification and extensive sound systems, so its a fairly sensible choice. The front end features cassette style buttons, the wheels are patterned after speakers, there's a gold decal of a power switch, door panels like tape spools, and its boxy shape evokes the angular nature of 80's stereos. One element which is new however is the use of teal lines, reminiscent of TRON. Ostentatious? Maybe. Definitely says sound though. Paint applications aren't ideal, my example being rough, and a balance bar on the back end being ignored by Hasbro. On the plus side, there's translucent, but trendily tinted windows, so they didn't cut that corner. Robot bits are essentially invisible, although the wheels are but loose on their mounts. In terms of play value, its fairly a unremarkable car, nothing actually wrong with anything, but the only thing of interest it does is having a mounting slot for Laserbeak, but we'll get back to him.

The transformation is a little unusual to me, but I'd be the first to admit cars aren't my favourite altmode. Maybe there's a similarity to Prime Rumble, in that the lower legs turn inside out, forming the front end. But otherwise, the style seems largely unique, a necessary consequence of rendering the Animated visual aesthetics into something that exists in plastic that changes modes. In this respect, Soundwave is fairly a unremarkable-to-solid example of the Animate toyline, the engineering being a success, although not a high-flyer like Prowl or Swoop. As a result, Soundwave's robot mode has some noteworthy gaps and exposed transformation gubbins in the chest and shin areas, but nothing obnoxious. That said, moving the head assembly needs finger nails. As for Laserbeak? He's got a two step transformation, but enough about him.

What's the robot mode actually like then? Its actually pretty good. The likeness to the animation is a good match, if lacking some gold and a classically purple badge. Unlike the car mode, is not as big a deviation from the G1, and you could be forgiven for thinking its another body for the same character, just done by a (very) different artist. The chest for example is extremely G1, with tape buttons, and translucent plastic with subtle sound bars sculpted in. It even opens. You could also be asking why this is a “Radical Regeneration”? Patience, grasshopper, all will become clear. This mode does inherit most of the car details, and is proportionally is a bit of gorilla, so that's different. He is however articulated like a boss, with twenty-two good joints, a startlingly high number for deluxe. The legs are good, with two balljoints, a hinged ankle, an ankle tilt, and a tight waist swivel. You can also make use of a transformation joint if that isn't enough, although friction is starting to go in the knees. His head is on a basic swivel, with an aborted light-piping gimmick, and a visor suspiciously like a pair of Kamina Glasses, but are actually a reference to the ABC Warriors(2). Remember the glasses though, they are another hint of my reasoning behind this review. The arms however are fantastic, with six joints, but THREE in each elbow. He can press his own buttons. This extremely welcome level of jointage is however marred by the lack of conventional fistholes, Soundwave having flat hands. Such things were fairly typical in Animated.

So he's got joints up the wazoo, but no capability for holding a weapon in a sensible way? How is this good? Well, now we have to stop ignoring the bird.

Laserbeak

The bird is for most intents and purposes, a big accessory, and not a brilliant one by himself. It doesn't help that his eyes aren't painted in the Hasbro release(3), and he's got two points of articulation, one of which results in his wing coming off. The animators didn't actually know the bird existed at first either, so he didn't debut in the cartoon until season 3. He can do the falconry pose though, there being some concealed slots on the outside of each forearm for Laserbeak to clip-on. And that's good. Its what you want in this pairing.

However, if you are actually looking at the pictures, you've figured out the main reason why I've put off talking about this guy. His altmode is an electric guitar, inspired by the Dean Razorback V. He's an electric guitar, which plugs into the 5mm screw-holes in Soundwave's forearms. Hmm. Guitar.

SOUNDWAVE FIGHTS WITH THE POWER OF ROCK!

Is this radical enough for you? See why this guy is today's subject. Soundwave, possibly the most robotic and strait-laced of the Decepticons, has been reworked into a practitioner of loud rebellious music. He is an evil giant robot that mind controls other robots, with an electric guitar. And presumably rocks out when he needs to chill. This is awesome. This is metal. Its probably one of the greatest concentrations of metal-awesome in the brand. Until that Knights of Unicron set came out, the only thing more obviously metal-awesome than this is Bludgeon, and he's a walking album cover. If this does not appeal to you, I don't know what will.

Conclusion

Let's not kid around, Soundwave and Laserbeak are great. Its true that time and cut corners take the shine off things. I wish the paint applications on mine were both more extensive and better implemented. And perhaps, maybe, another design draft wouldn't have gone amiss. The pair are however extremely competent at what they we made to do, broadly defined as “rocking out” and “looking badass”. Robots with electric guitars are thin on the ground anyway, but the designers didn't rest on that laurel too much. Both of Soundwave's modes are good. Laserbeak is exceptional as an accessory, if meh by himself. Together they pull off the seemingly impossible task of homaging the original Soundwave while being extremely distinct from him. So go get them.

Foot notes

1. Or a flipping satellite.
2. Dirt Boss is the only actual Gurren Lagann reference in Animated, Derrick J. Wyatt had not seen that anime until late in the series' run.
3. Takaratomy of course fixed this, and added metallic blue to the set, which is tempting....