Dreadwing

Who's prepared to be confused! Dreadwing long ago devoted all of the vast power at his command to the service of the Decepticons. So when Shockwave tells him about a critical experiment that will secure victory for the Decepticons once and for all, he follows without question - never suspecting the doom that awaits him. In Generation 1, there were two Powermaster jets named Darkwing and Dreadwind; they could fold in half and combine into a "super jet" named Dreadwing. In Generation 2, there was a character called Dreadwing, who was sometimes treated as a separate character, and sometimes treated as an upgraded version of Darkwing. So this figure is either an update of G1 Darkwing, of G2 Dreadwing, or of the G2 Dreadwing who is G1 Darkwing. Yeesh. As if things weren't confusing enough already, the G2 Dreadwing toy was almost repainted as Megatron. This figure is a repaint of an IDW-stylized Megatron released a little bit before this one. The head is definitely Dreadwing, though: he's got a ridge over the top of his head, a red eye slit, and a mouth that looks like a pilot's air mask. The body does not look like the old toy in anything but the broadest strokes (such as the cockpit omn his chest, because it's not like we've ever seen that on a Transformer before). Dreadwing used to be a fatty, but these days he's much skinnier. His torso is broad, but the waist and legs are puny by comparison. He still looks powerful, but not nearly as slow and plodding. The body is all sharp angles and straight lines. His colorscheme is navy blue and powder blue, because everything in Generation 2 was ugly as heck. Dreadwing has a balljointed neck, shoulders and hips; swivel biceps and thighs; and hinged elbows and ankles. Since he's a repaint of Megatron, he's armed with the same big cannon. It's molded from translucent red plastic, and can either be held in the robot's hands or mounted on his arms - because, again, "Megatron." Converting Dreadwing is really quite complex: the instructions claim he's an "intermediate" figure, but I'm convinced they don't actually change that number - like, every Deluxe automatically gets assigned a 2, no matter how hard it is to convert. Once you wrangle him into his altmode, Dreadwing is a stealth bomber. The baby blue disappears almost entirely in this mode, while the navy blue and silver take over (along with red for the cockpit). The cannon splits to become the tips of the wings, so you don't have to worry about it ruining the appearance of the plane, and a single piece of landing gear folds down from beneath the nose. Since I haven't read the IDW Transformers comics, I had no interest in Random Stealth Plane Megatron - but in keeping with my rule of one, that freed me up for Dreadwing! His colorscheme isn't great, and it's going to take some time to get used to converting him, but this is not a bad Transformer. -- 05/27/14