Ah Shockwave, the guy that many adults – who liked TF’s but weren’t nuts about it – could never remember the name of because it sounded too much like ‘Soundwave’.  To the true TF nut, he was a big purple fragger who psychologically was a mixture of Spock from Star Trek and Brute from Shakespeare – he will stab you in the back if he thinks it’s logical to do so.  Or since he turns into a giant space laser, he will just blow you up and whatever planet you happen to be standing on at the time.

Giant Space Laser Gun Mode

Wow – it’s really long!  That took me somewhat by surprise but considering I have the G1 Shockwave toy and have seen every screen appearance Shockers ever made about a hundred times I should have expected it.  I think this figure is beating out my G1 Shockwave and G1 Sixshot for the biggest Transformer Gun in my collection (no I’m not counting movie ones that just went from vehicle to hollow blaster you put your hand in).

Length aside, he has girth too.  Very solid feeling though because of the relatively light plastic he is not all that heavy.  Also the barrel is that nice wide hexagon shape that seems peculiar to Shockwave’s weapon mode.  So between length, girth and width Shockwave feels very secure in himself in weapon mode and along with the lovely lilac colour it makes him a perfect Masterpiece present for the ladies.  His dimensions certainly makes a lot of the Targetmasters feel inadequate about themselves at any rate.

Robot Mode

We have had quite a few nice Shockwave toys over the years, even those that were not brilliant in alt-mode tended to have some good looking robot modes.  This is a great looking Shockwave and much like MP Ratchet whom I opened the other day the most faithful representation of the G1 cartoon character we have had.  Everything is there from the see-thru chest, the laser barrel on the left arm, the power conduit going from that arm to his back, the ears/antenna, the cyclopean eye – everything is just right.  You would be hard pressed to find fault with him, especially with the myriad of different hand attachments he comes with, the light up features and even the mini-version of himself he used in one episode.  Add to all this the spot-on colour scheme, proportions and poseability and he is a winner!

Transformation

One of the most straight forward Masterpieces I have tackled in a long time.  One could argue that he turns into a gun with arms as the barrel and legs as the grip so he should be straight forward but Megatron could be said to be similar and transforming that MP was a nightmare!  You can do this guy easily without the instructions.  Easy, but not annoyingly so, you will be getting your money’s worth.

Overall

Well we finally have the all the big time commanders from Season 1 & 2 – Shockwave, Soundwave, Starscream and Megatron in Masterpiece form so there is plenty of battle scenes awaiting you collectors to have fun with!  Given the relatively cheap materials Shockwave is made from I think that the price he goes for is a tad exorbitant but I have zero buyers regret.  You want a great version of that one-eyed, one-handed, logical-to-a-fault Military Operations Commander?  Well you got it!

Space Cop