Hey, it’s Transformers Thursday and what a coincidence that I’m right in the middle of a four-part look at Takara’s Unite Warriors Aerialbots. I’ve already looked at Silverbolt, Fireflight, and Slingshot and now it’s time to look at Superion’s legs: Air Raid and Skydive. Let’s start with their alt modes.

While Slingshot and Fireflight were just repaints of the same jet, Air Raid and Skydive are completely different and extremely faithful to their G1 original counterparts. Skydive is a black and gray F-16 Falcon and Air Raid is an all black F-15 Eagle. Both jet modes look great, although the robot kibble on the bottom of these two strike me as being a lot more cumbersome than Fireflight and Slingshot. That’s not really a complaint, because all that kibble just feels right on these updates. Either way, these are great looking jets.

I was never too keen on Skydive’s color scheme. I always thought the gray body and black wings looked odd, but it’s reproduced here perfectly. You even get the yellow lightning bolts on the wings and the Autobot emblems. I particularly love the gold paint applied to his missile clusters. What a beautiful little touch!

Air Raid, on the other hand, was my favorite jet mode of this whole team. A sexy black F-15 that could give those Decepticon seekers a run for their money in the sky. And yeah, these guys are scaled pretty well to go with the Classic Seeker molds. The striping on his wings is a lot different from the Hasbro Air Raid. It’s more tastefully restricted to just some silver trim on the edge of the wings. The deco is rounded out with those nice, crisp Autobot emblems on the wings and nosecone.

They each come with the same double barreled gun, with Air Raid’s cast in white plastic and Skydive’s in black. They can be pegged into the backs of the jets to upgrade them to some major firepower, but yeah it looks kind of silly. Thankfully these guns work great for them in robot mode.

While their jet modes are totally different, these two guys share the same legs in robot mode with only the tail wings resculpted. The rest of their bodies, however, are completely different and they both look fantastic. Once again, they wear their jets on their backs in classic Aerialbot fashion and you can still angle their wings or sweep them straight back for a cleaner look from the front. A plethora of ball joints and hinges in the knees make them fun to pose and there isn’t a lot of kibble to get in the way of the action.

I’m not all that keen on Skydive’s head sculpt. It seems to match the aesthetic of some of the CW Stunticons, but it doesn’t really feel like one of the Aerialbots to me. Not bad, but maybe just a little too modern for my taste. Air Raid’s head is a lot more to my liking.

Having looked at all the individual robots, I have to say that as a team, this is one of my favorite assortments of Transformers that Hasbro or Takara has done in ages. That’s really saying something too, because they’ve been hitting it out of the park the last couple of years with the Generations line in general and the Thrilling Thirty in particular. And not to mention I wasn’t sold on these figures based on the initial reveals. Granted, I’m probably pretty biased in favor of these guys because of how much I love the Aerialbots, but in fairness I have the same love for the Stunticons and while I like those figures a lot, I don’t think they come close to the amazing and cohesive job they did on this team and I can’t even articulate how happy I am that they found a way to get us Slingshot in the end.

Tomorrow, I’ll wrap this whole thing up with a look at Superion!

Pressing on in what will be a four part look at the Unite Warriors Aerialbots, today we’re checking out the bots that form Superion’s arms: Fireflight and Slingshot. Yes, I know in the classic Scramble City fashion, these can be legs too, but in my mind there’s only one right way to form Superion and that means these guys are the arms. Let’s start with the alt modes…

Of course, Slingshot was the one that was late to party, with Alpha Bravo standing in for him in the Hasbro assortment. They eventually released Slingshot stateside, but the Takara set includes him from the get-go. As far as the jet modes go these are just repaints of the same alt mode. It’s a little bit of a cheat as they weren’t the same jets in the G1 days, but if this is the sacrifice I have to make to avoid putting some whirlybird impostor in with my Aerialbots, then I’m fine with that.

I like this alt mode a lot and with Fireflight being mostly red with white wings, the totally white Slingshot makes for a fairly distinctive looking jet. To help distinguish them a little more, I like to angle Fireflight’s tail wings up, which is totally inaccurate to the style of jet, but I like the subtle variety it creates. Otherwise, both aircraft have their own distinctive wing striping and they each have some nice and crisp Autobot emblems stamped on their wings.

Yeah, you can see their hands peeking out behind the wings, but I’m over that. Also, each of these guys comes with the same gun, which you can mount under either wing, or load one of them up with both guns for some major firepower.

Because these are basically the same mold, the robot modes also rely on paint to distinguish them from each other. This is a pretty classic Aerialbot design with the nosecones protruding from their backs. The wings can either angle out from their sides or be swept straight back for a cleaner look from the front. Either way, I think these robot modes are awesome.

The fact that they moved Slingshot’s Autobot insignia to his shoulder makes that blank side of his chest a little odd. Otherwise between the paint and the new head sculpts, they work fine for me as separate characters. Slingshot’s head always had the most personality to me and I think they did a great job on it. As for Fireflight, I think that’s supposed to be styled after the G1 toy’s head, but I wish they had gone for the Sunbow or comic look. I don’t really associate a mouth plate with any of the Aerialbots. Still, it’s not a bad looking noggin.

Again, they each come with the same gun, which unlike Silverbolt is scaled perfectly for these smaller guys. Yes, you can get creative and use the hand/foot pieces as accessories, but I don’t need to bother with that just to justify their existance outside of being combiner parts.

As updates to the G1 Aerialbots, these are fantastic figures. They’re relatively simple and yet their alt modes and robot modes are both great. As a big fan of this team growing up, I would have had so much fun playing with these as a kid. Especially since imagination would only take me so far with the original G1 versions of these guys. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Slingshot, just for the better head, but the truth is I really dig them both.
Next time: Air Raid and Skydive!

Takara’s release of the Aerialbots arrived yesterday and I have immediately cleared the rest of the week to spend some time looking at these guys. I think the occasion merits it because, holy shit these are the Aerialbots and it’s taken every bit of resolve in me not to knuckle under and buy the Hasbro versions during the long wait for this giftset to release. Yes, I did wind up with Hasbro’s Air Raid, but that was just so I could get the rest of the Stunticons in that wave. Without the US releases in hand, I won’t be doing shot-by-shot comparisons, but I will talk about what’s different. So here’s the plan for the week. Today, I’ll be looking at the packaging and Silverbolt. Tomorrow I’ll check out Fireflight and Slingshot. Thursday will be Skydive and Air Raid, and on Friday I’ll wrap things up with a look at Superion. Let’s go!

The package features a large window box with all five Aerialbots on one glorious tray in their jet modes. The artwork on the front panel is fantastic, projecting a gritty look at Superion ready for action with the individual jets flying in the background. Most of the fine print is in Japanese, but there’s enough English on the box to make it almost pass as a western package.

The front flap is secured with magnets and lifts up to reveal a window showing you the goods inside. Each jet comes with their weapon beside them and the four hand/foot pieces as well. It’s all collector friendly, so long as you’re careful when cutting the tape on the tray. Getting all the jets in this one big box was a big incentive for me to go the Takara route, as it reminds me of the old G1 giftsets, which I have salivated over ever since I was a kid. We’re kicking things off with Silverbolt, so let’s look at his alt mode…

Silverbolt retains his original Concord jet mode, which I’ll concede I prefer over the SR-71 update that a certain 3P gave him. For me, the fact that he’s once again a civilian jet just jibes better with his personality. Yes, this new version is still a plane with a folded up robot on his undercarriage and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when I paid $100+ for TFC’s Blackbird, I was happy to see they didn’t change his robot kibbly nature. It’s the charm of the design and to change it would be sacrilege.

In keeping with his G1 alt mode, Silverbolt’s jet mode is mostly white with some yellow paintwork on the windows and a little gold on the tail fin. Most of the other coloring can be seen underneath him. You get some gorgeous Autobot logos on his wings and his nosecone, all sharp and outlined in silver. He can rest just fine on his robot kibble, but there is a folding front landing gear if you desire it.  You can also plug his huge rifle underneath. It has its own molded bit of landing gear too. It does add some impressive firepower to the jet, but I think it looks rather silly.

Silverbolt’s robot mode is fantastic. The truth is I tend to judge most G1 homages these days on how close they are to their Sunbow counterparts and Silverbolt is as close as I can ever expect these things to get and still transform. The paint apps characterize the big difference between this figure and Hasbro’s. The orange on the biceps, midriff, and upper legs are now a more appropriate yellow and he has gold plates on his knees. He also has some nice silver paint picking out the wings on his shoulders. The center part of his chest is now white, allowing him to have a more traditional red Autobot emblem (as opposed to silver), although he’s missing the silver panels on either side of his chest. So, in terms of the number of apps, it’s a question of a little give and take, but overall I enjoy the coloring on this figure a lot more, mostly because of the yellow.

He has a load of jet kibble on his back, but he wears it well and it leaves him a remarkablyl clean sillouette from the front. The wings can fold all the way back to tab into the nosecone section if you want. I like to angle his wings out a bit to keep him from looking too clean. There are some pegs on his back if you want to store his gun and don’t mind adding a little more bulk to his backpack.

The head sculpt works really well for me as G1 Silverbolt and here’s where there’s no discernible difference between the two figures. He has some nice silver paint for his face and while there’s no light piping, the eyes are painted a bright azure blue and they really pop. Silverbolt has kind of a goofy look on his face, which characterizes him pretty well for me. Oh yeah, see those two gold rods peeping out of the holes in his chest. Those are Superion’s antenna. That’s pretty awesome!

Silverbolt includes his super long rifle, which doubles as Superion’s gun, so you can imagine that’s its rather over-sized for him. Despite it’s ridiculous length, it still works OK for him as a weapon. You can also clip the second piece of it to his other arm as a shield, but I think that’s stretching things a bit. The other option is to peg the rifle into his forearm as an arm cannon. I can’t say it suits the character all that well in my eyes, but it does create the illusion of shortening the barrel and making it more easy for him to wield.

I adore this figure and I couldn’t ask for a better “over-the-counter” retail version of Silverbolt. Even if he weren’t part of a combiner, I think he’s loads better than the Ultra Class version of Silverbolt that we got a few years back. And while I still dig my 3P Silverbolt a lot (he still works best as my Masterpiece scale stand in), I have to admit that had this figure been available back then, I wouldn’t have had any need to pony up the big money for an unofficial version. This guy looks great and he’s fun to play with, and that’s really all I look for in my Transformers.  I hope that’s something that Takara and Hasbro will hear often and take to heart. Their best way of countering those unofficial releases is to keep releasing figures like this one. I know I’d much rather pay $20-30 for a toy like this then have to go four times that for somebody else’s version.

Tomorrow, we’ll start looking at the limbs with Fireflight and Slingshot!