Friday, October 2, 2015

Toy Review: Transformers Generations Combiner Wars Superion


Review:  #272
Name:  Superion
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Autobot
Line:  Generations - Combiner Wars
Year of Release:  2015
Size Class:  N/A
Mold Status:  N/A

AERIALBOTS:


Superion is formed by the subgroup called Aerialbots, which, as the name implies, is a group made up completely of aerial vehicles.


The team is comprised of:  Silverbolt, Firefly, Air Raid, Skydive and Alpha Bravo.  The odd one out here is Alpha Bravo since he is not a jet and presumably, will always fall behind in terms of speed.


Despite that, they look fantastic together.


Of course, you can attach all the accessories in their vehicle modes, although it looks a bit bulky and awkward.


Lastly, Powerglide is officially part of the team too and he fits right in easily.


In robot mode, the common aesthetics (such as the combiner ports in their chests) really reinforce the fact that these guys are part of the same team.


Very cool to have them together like this and they look great displayed as a team.

LIMBS:


Silverbolt forms the core torso of Superion and the transformation is really ingenious and clever.  The end result is an awesome looking torso and I guess the most impressive thing is that this is all integrated into the robot, there is no cheating here.


The limbs are less involved, first up is Firefly where the arm most is the robot mode with the arms tucked away, and the leg mode being the jet with the cockpit folded back.


Alpha Bravo is in a similar situation but his robot arms actually peg in in arm mode.  He has the best leg mode since the foot integrates perfectly with the leg (the extra piece is not obviously tacked on).


Air Raid has a cool leg mode thanks to the swept back wings.  In arm mode, his robot arms peg in somewhere, but it is somewhat disappointing that all the figures transform so similarly.


Lastly is Skydive and just like Air Raid, they share very similar modes and make good pairings.

SUPERION:


Finally, we get to Superion who is an amazing combiner with perfect proportions and a great color scheme.  The only bad thing is that the hands do seem to be a bit big.


There isn't too much kibble in this mode, mainly Silverbolt's wings as a backpack, and Silverbolt's hands right behind the knees, which is kinda awkward but doesn't get in the way of anything.


The head sculpt is great, however, there is a massive flaw and that is that his antennae is made of a very very soft rubber, which bends easily even not in warmer temperatures.  This makes straightening up properly to be very hard, the TakaraTomy version fixes this by casting it in harder plastic.


In terms of size, Superion towards over all Voyagers and most Leaders, this is a gigantic figure.


As he is comprised of four Deluxes and a Voyager, Superion is heavy.  All bots are connected securely together so you can pick him up and play without any parts dislodging, it's great that it can be this stable.


Theoretically, Superion is very poseable and has the articulation of any standard bot:  knees, hips, wrists, elbows, shoulders and head.  In actuality, since he is so heavy, it's hard to keep him standing in dynamic poses.


While the hip ratchets are very tight, they still strain quite significantly in some poses.


His weapon in this mode is Silverbolt's gigantic gun, which is proportionally accurate here.


You can attach all the individual bots' weapons around, but what's really cool is that you can attach Air Raid and Skydive's guns on the side of his thighs, which also has the effect of thickening them up.


Powerglide turns into a gun for Superion too, although it doesn't look that impressive since it is still a folded up robot/maniuplated jet.


Also, if you give Superion his double jointed elbows, Powerglide may prove to be too heavy in some poses.


Of course, you can swap the limbs around and even with just four limbs, there are plenty of variations available.


Due to transformation, Superion doesn't have a waist joint.  Furthermore, the feet are not the best since they don't grip the surface as well as you would like and the heel isn't that effective.


Still though, this is a fantastic combined mode.  The big chunks of white and red on his torso makes it a bit bland.


If you have a few other Combiner Wars Deluxes, you can combine them to Silverbolt as well.


An impressive piece of engineering.

OVERALL:

Superion is superb, while he does has some flaws such as the super soft antenna, everything else about him is perfect.  He looks great, he plays great and he displays great.  Superion is worth it to get all five Aerialbots for.

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For other Transformers reviews, have a look at this page.

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