Phil's Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Commander Powerglide Review

Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Commander Powerglide

When pictures emerged from the 2011 toyfair one of the things that drew the most attention was Cyberverse Commander Powerglide. It appears some people weren't 100% happy with Universe Ultra Powerglide. I'll give you that the initial version was the wrong colour but it's been repainted twice (once each in Japan and the USA) in the correct colours. People moaned it was too large (they moaned that Universe Legends Warpath and Cosmos were too small) and wanted a new version at deluxes size. I'll bet they'll be upset that this one's too small as well! I thought it a bit odd that the Movie line was going for an obvious G1 reference so early on, it's almost as if there wasn't enough confidence in the Movie product. As it turns out this seems to be what people want: he sold out within hours of being advertised at Big Bad Toy Store and on the only two occasions I've seen Cyberverse Wave 2 on the shelves the Powerglides (1 per case of 6) were gone. (OK, I found some in sealed crates in an overhead rack in Swindon's Tescos)

Cyberverse Powerglide has got the look of Minibot Powerglide down to a tee: Purpley red all over with grey arms, upper legs & weapons. He's got bending ankles, ball jointed knees & hips, turning inner shoulders & ball jointed outer shoulders, bending elbows & wrists that bend in. He comes with two hand weapons formed from the vehicle's missiles. One is a pair of missiles connected by a 3mm bar to a third missile, the other is a cluster of four missiles folded together and held by a peg. If I have one complaint about the robot it concerns the shoulders & the body: The shoulders are attached to panels that peg on to the body but the peg connection isn't the strongest and they can easily come off.

Transformation: Fold the feet into the front of the legs. Fold the head down into the chest bringing the nosecone into place with it. Fold the waist down and back. Unpeg the shoulders & fold them down so the panels stick out to the sides. Rotate each shoulder panel by 180 degrees. Fold the shoulder panels down & bring them together. Fold the hands into the forearms. Swing the arms down so they point forward along the plane's body. Fold the arms up and swing the wings round & peg them onto the body of the jet. Bend the legs at the knee & hip and bring them forward onto the back of the jet body to form the engines. Fold both missile units out and attach to the slots under the wing tips, with the peg fitting into a hole in the folded up arms.

Vehicle mode is a pretty good A-10 Thunderbolt which is what it should be. Purpley red all over save for the arms, stored under the wings, and the missiles. There's some lovely detail on the toy including a chin gun, moulded cannons under the wings and three sets of fold down landing gear. The plane isn't without it's problems: it's back heavy and tends to tip backwards if left on it's landing gear and the wings don't attack that securely to the body.

Not a bad Powerglide at all, and probably the best of the first six Cyberverse commanders.

Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Commander Green A-10

Powerglide has a repaint scheduled. The purple/red is swapped for green and the grey of the waist & shoulder panel hinges becomes bronzey orange. I don't know it's name, who it's for or when it's due - all we have is that picture from Botcon.

Future Repaints

Both Badboy and Stormcloud are possibilities that have been used for previous Powerglide repaints.

Oceanglide, Powerglide's sea going Minicon homage, also offers a rich vein of repainting options...

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