After languishing in my Pile of Loot over at BBTS for a while, Smokescreen has finally come home! Yes, the last of the Holy Datsun Trinity joins his brothers, Prowl and Streak. While Streak relied on a new paint job and a few slight tweaks to the mold to set him apart from Prowl, Smokescreen is rocking the most distinctive overhaul of the three Datsun Brothers. As a character, Prowl remains my favorite of the Datsuns, but Smokescreen easily ranks second. He definitely had the most personality and I recall his smokescreen got the Autobots out of a jam on at least a few occasions. I’m rather excited to get this guy opened up, so let’s get this party started…

Smokescreen comes in a compact little box that is identical in deco to the previous Datsun releases. There’s really nothing new to say here, except the box is totally collector friendly and I love it despite the fact that I can’t read any of it. Inside the box, Smokescreen rests in a clear plastic tray in his vehicle mode, with his rifle and shoulder cannons positioned below him.

I don’t mind telling you that I was pretty nervous about getting Smokescreen out of the package. He has the most dynamic deco of the three Datsuns with a lot of paint lines and graphics, all of which provided opportunities for Takara’s spotty QC to take their toll. I’m happy to say, however, that after close scrutiny I found mine to be absolutely perfect. The lines are sharp, the lettering and graphics are crisp, and the red, white and blue paint is clean and absolutely stunning. In fact, the progression from the minor paint flubs on my Prowl to the perfection that is Streak and Smokescreen has given me a renewed faith in the QC of the Masterpiece line. The passenger side rear view mirror panel was misaligned in the box, but it was just a glitch in the transformation that needed to be adjusted.

I’ve already gushed on about this mold when featuring Prowl and Streak, so I’ll limit myself here to the new stuff. The remolded areas include the extended apron on the front bumper and the spoiler on the back. They aren’t extensive changes to the mold, but they do go a long way to make Smokescreen look distinctive. Indeed, even after lining up all three of the Datsuns, I still think they are nicely varied and unique for what are basically repaints with some minor retooling. Smokescreen continues the trend of each release striking me as more beautiful than the last. The lush shades of red and blue complement each other perfectly.

By now I’m an old hand at transforming this mold and Smokescreen only holds a couple of surprises. First off, the shoulders are redesigned so that the wheels sit on top. It doesn’t really change the way you transform him much, but it’s a nice little touch to set him apart from the rest. The other difference is his set of shoulder cannons. He still has pieces that fold up from his back like Prowl and Streak, but instead of full on guns, they’re just little brackets to hold the separate guns in place. I’m sure some critics will cry foul over these being separate add-on pieces and how a Masterpiece toy should have them inclusive in the transformation, but I’m not going to jump on the wagon. I’d much rather Takara have them be separate pieces and get them looking right and in this case they surely did.

In conjunction with the new shoulder guns, we get a brand new head sculpt and it is fantastic. MP-19’s noggin is the spitting image of his Sunbow portrait and certainly the most distinctive of all three Datsuns. The paintwork is spotless and the silver, blue and yellow really make his portrait pop beautifully. The rest of Smokescreen’s deco in robot mode is quite similar to the gob-smacking paint job of his auto mode. The only thing new is the silver paint on his thighs. The coloring is every bit as gorgeous and since I didn’t bring up the paintjob earlier, you can surmise that there were no QC surprises in the paint waiting for me when I transformed him.

Original pictures of Smokescreen had me worried about the new bumper making him look too barrel-chested, but I think that effect was mostly from the perspective of the shots. In hand, the figure looks quite well proportioned, even when standing beside his comrades. As with the other Datsuns, Smokescreen’s door wings can be left straight back to mimic the G1 figure or swept upward to give him a more animated look.

In addition to his shoulder guns, Smokescreen comes with a rifle and it is an entirely new piece from what we got with Prowl and Streak. The brand new gun was a really nice surprise as I was assuming that we’d just get the same one packing in once again.

And thus endeth the Chronicle of the Datsun Trinity. I’m so very pleased to finally have these three guys standing on my shelf posed like Charlie’s Angels and ready for action. Prowl and Streak were both superb releases, so it’s no small compliment to say that Smokescreen is by far the prettiest of them all. The dynamic color scheme pushes him over the edge and the fact that it’s applied with such precision was a very welcome treat. It’s probably fitting that the same week I finish off this trio the first pictures of Masterpiece Wheeljack are starting to surface. He looks amazing, but before I move ahead, I need to move backward. I’ve already pre-ordered one of the second run of Lambors, and I hope this time the paint job will warrant me keeping the figure because this set of Datsuns makes me want more MP Autobots for my shelf.