Powerglide

And awa-a-ay we go! Descended from Alpha Trion, Autobot Powerglide boasts agile dips and dives in aerial combat. In the '80s, Powerglide's Tech Specs actually gave him a personality: he loved flying, loved that he was one of the few Autobots who could do it, and so tended to be a little bit of a show-off because he just wanted everyone to watch him and appreciate what he could do. Now, in 2026, his bio (only on Hasbro's site, not on the box) just tells us who his ancestor was. Great, thanks. This is the same kind of corporate-think that brought us "Rey is a Palpatine," a story beat that is famous for how universally beloved it was, right? The usual way for Transformers with airplane altmodes to address their kibble is to just put the wings on their back - see, for instance, Starscream and and number of Seekers over the years. It simply looks good. But Powerglide took a different path, having his wings stick straight up alongside his body, which makes for a distinctive yet still pleasing design. Having his head reside inside the plane's nosecone is a more common choice, but he's one of the rare plane-bots to get a mouthplate instead of a full face, so he still feels unique. When the episode "The Search for Alpha Trion" introduced female Autobots, they were all paired off with boyfriends, and those boyfriends influenced their names: like, Firestar was with Inferno, Chromia was with Ironhide... and then Moonracer got Powerglide. That doesn't really work, does it? Considering his personality is "full of himself and a show-off," do you think the original plan was to use Sunstreaker, who also had that personality and better matched Moonracer's name? Powerglide would have been fine either way, since the very next episode had him falling in love with a human girl. The 2008 Universe figure had a sculpted heart that was briefly revealed while converting him, but this new version is even truer to the cartoon, with a panel on the chest that hinges open for no reason other than to show painted heart-lights in among his inner workings. The interior of the hatch is detailed and painted, too! The figure moves at the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, waist, hips, thighs, knees, and ankles, but most of them are very stiff - something that becomes a problem when you try to move a joint and have an easier time moving the piece it's attached to, instead. He's armed with a blaster that seems to be drawn from nowhere. As a G1 Minibot, he didn't have any accessories, so while he would sometimes use weapons on the cartoon, they were just generic designs that weren't specific to him. He also includes an episode-specific accessory, meaning this toy has direct references to two different episodes: the heart from "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide," and an alien mask from "Hoist Goes Hollywood." When a film crew happens to capture footage of the Decepticons, they decide to incorporate it into a science fiction story, with the Autobots pressed into service as "evil alien robots," a role that simply involves putting a rubber alien mask over their face. Well, the Masterpiece releases of Sunstreaker and Moist Hoist included those masks, and now so does Powerglide. It plugs into the head securely, or can be stored on top of the gun if you don't mind things looking like idiotic crap. I didn't understand what the instructions were trying to have us do with the robot's face when changing him to his altmode. What you're supposed to do is use the tiny notch underneath the plane's chin gun (on top of the robot's head) to pull that up, which will then allow the face to separately turn like Man-E-Faces', rotating to the back so the final plane mode won't have a robot looking down at the ground underneath it; I wrongly thought you were supposed to lift the head somehow, and then use the gun as a handle to do the turning. I also didn't initially fold the elbows back far enough, and every time I tried to adjust the engines on his legs, I just ended up pulling them off. Good lord, what is happening with me! The way you have to rotate the feet around and then top them to the sides to create tailfins is pretty clever, though! Powerglide's altmode is an A-10 Warthog, or at least close to one. He's been the same kind of plane since G1, even keeping the same style in the movie continuity and during crossovers! The engines on this one sit lower than usual, which is a little disappointing, and the wings tend to droop because they don't actually click into anything on the body, but this is still a decent update. The gun/mask combo can plug in on the top of the plane, but it doesn't look very good. One cool feature, though? The spot that, in the '80s, was the toy's rubsign is duplicated here, as a fully sculpted black and silver shape. Neat! Overall, this is a fun little figure. I don't know why they chose to make him part of Age of the Primes instead of retro-carded like the other updated Minibots, but it's the same overblown price either way, and he probably wouldn't have had an alien mask in that case. Still, it would have been clever to do him carded, and then reuse the mold to make an AotP Viper. -- 04/28/26 How do they decide what's Retro, what's Studio Series, and what's just Generations? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.