JENNY GABS ON: Starscream Armor Scare Glow (Masters of the Universe X Transformers, Mattel, 2026)

It's interesting how different companies approach these collaborative projects. Hasbro has designated Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, and Starscream as the main characters of Transformers, and indeed, it's those four in the crossover. If Mattel had that same attitude this would probably be Starscream Armor Beast Man, which wouldn't be a *bad* fit, but instead they did something much cooler. For half of his existence Scare Glow was barely a character at all, coming as he did at the very end of the vintage line, but he quickly became a cult fave once adult He-Fans started revisiting the franchise in the early 2000s and finally made his animated debut in MOTU Revelation. Scare Glow is a ghost--Starscream is sometimes a ghost. Starscream's ghost can possess other bots (including Waspinator in that one episode of Beast Wars!), so is he possessing Scare Glow, or is Scare Glow possessing a still-living Starscream? 

I'm just kidding, this is Scare Glow wearing *Starscream Armor*, because that's the conceit we're going with. The heroes of Eternia met the Turtles and the Thundercats, but there are no actual Transformers in this story, they're just wearing armor inspired by them. You can decide if he sounds like the late great Tony Todd or the late great Chris Latta.

Like Skeletor, Scare Glow's torso is entirely new. The red part is molded separately, creating a great layering effect and giving it some depth.  Actually, other than his hands and thighs all of Scare Glow's parts are brand new. His face, upper arms, and lower torso are molded in glow in the dark plastic, as is tradition. It's not as bright as the standard Scare Glow but you gotta appreciate the effort. Also he glows blue instead of the more common green--perhaps to better evoke Starscream's ghost.

Furthering the connections to The Transformers: The Movie, in which Starscream takes the first step toward becoming a ghost, Scare Glow's armor has the crown, shoulder pads, and cape from Starscream's coronation as Decepticon leader, moments before being wasted by Galvatron. The purple cape evokes Scare Glow's typical garb, which is probably the reason for its inclusion. If you want a more basic look, all of these pieces are removable. The crown is made out of soft plastic For Safety Reasons, so the points will warp if you don't store it properly.

Most of his accessory budget goes to the coronation gear, but Scare Glow is still armed with two null rays, which are surprisingly versatile. They can be plugged into his shoulders to complete the Starscream look, or he can hold them as a pair of twin axes, or he can hold them as guns (there's even a hollow space for his thumbs to go for a better grip), or they can plug together end to end to make a staff evocative of Scare Glow's signature halberd. This last one isn't mentioned in any of the marketing material for some reason, maybe because of how rigid the null rays are being a breakage concern, maybe because it looks kind of daft. But hey, I'd rather have the option than not. They can also plug into his back using the same ports as the cape, another undocumented feature, possibly accidental.

I don't have any other "Ghost of Starscream" (or indeed, Coronation Starscream) figures in my collection, and I love both characters, so I'm tempted to say this is my favorite of the MOTU X Transformers crossovers. He just ticks so many boxes. It's real close between him and Optimus Prime Armor He-Man, but either way the second wave was much stronger than the first. Didn't stop it from going to clearance too! Crossovers are on pause for the rest of the year, but I'd love to maybe see one more wave with Beast Man/Soundwave (a stronger thematic pairing) and Teelita-1. We're also still supposed to get a Transformers X MOTU item from Hasbro, so my favorite special interests aren't done with the mashups yet.

 

JENNY GABS ON: Shockwave (Transformers War for Cybertron: Siege, Hasbro, 2018)

Shockwave is one of the core Decepticons, but for whatever reason it took Hasbro until late 2018 to make a worthwhile Generations figure for him (FoC Shockwave was too small and too weird). He began the era of smaller but more detail-packed Leader-class figures we’re still currently enjoying. This was not without controversy, as many decried him as just a Voyager with extra parts. Which he is…but he has a good reason for that.

The base robot is really nice. Yes he’s Voyager-scaled, but he has none of the hollowness or "waffling" that we sometimes see as a cost cutting measure. His articulation is leaps and bounds ahead of any other mainline Shockwave available at the time (though again, that was a very short list) although I do wish he had front to back movement in his ankles. His hips and knees are equipped with sturdy ratchet joints. He can do The Pose from the iconic cover of Marvel's Transformers #5 just fine. His light piped optic is very bright and menacing. His lavender blaster hand? Not so much.

Like Megatron, Shockwave’s G1 alt mode was a gun.  A purple sci-fi laser gun, but still, we can't have that. So this Soundwave turns into a starship reminiscent of Space Battleship Yamato and similar vessels from ancient sci-fi anime, with a command tower sporting the same light-piped optic as Shockwave’s face so you know it’s him. By pure coincidence I’m sure, you can flip this spaceship upside down and it looks more or less like his G1 gun mode. The grip would be a little small for my preschooler niece but it’s the thought that counts. (There’s a third party upgrade kit to give it a real grip.)

The core figure has been reissued by itself several times, and it's even the basis for his Studio Series 86 figure, with lots of remolding to get rid of that icky surface detail. For a lot of people, that one will be the one to get. But to really get everything out of it you need the Siege release, especially if you like the play pattern Siege introduced. Which I do! I’m also one of the rare weirdos that likes the battle damage on Siege figures, which the rest of the fandom hates. To each their own. Y'all are wrong, but that's okay. 

 Shockwave comes with a ton of extra pieces which function similarly to the Weaponizers introduced in Siege. In fact, in its original context this figure seems designed to introduce and sell you on the play pattern and ideally send you out to the store to pick up Brunt or Cog or whoever. In robot mode, he gains two extra blaster arms, giant shoulder pads, some lifts for his feet, and a backpack with two...tentacles? hanging down the sides. It really befits his mad scientist tendencies. 

In gun starship mode, the backpack piece bulks up the fuselage, adding more forward guns and making it look even more like a space battleship, while the arm and feet pieces plug into the back end to give him some wingalings. You can (and I often do) orient the foot pieces vertically for a slimmer profile, but this is the way it's "supposed" to look. Undocumented in the instructions, the extra pieces can partsform together to form a hoverboard or drone. You can also flip it upside down to make a little battle sled for a Scout or Core-class figure!

All these years removed, I think Shockwave is the best of the Siege Leader molds in terms of functionality. Magnus’s trailer/armor and Astrotrain’s launchpad/caboose/backpack have more limited applications. Plus the whole idea of experimenting on himself suits his character. Shockwave was a major shelf warmer but once he was gone from stores, aftermarket demand started ticking up. I’m not sure if that's still the case given that there are somewhat more cartoon-accurate versions available now, but until HasTak actually builds a new-from-the-ground-up Shockwave (not the whale, a G1 version, ya silly), those are quite literally missing something.

 

JENNY GABS ON: Powerglide (Transformers Age of the Primes, Hasbro, 2026)

Was it all a dream?

I came back to Transformers during a transitional (in more than one sense) period of my life. For some reason the prospect of all-new Headmasters spoke to me. When Siege came out I dove in all the way. The War for Cybertron and Legacy trilogies were all killer and minimal filler. But now that's over...and it feels like we're kind of directionless. The Age of the Primes is focused on the Thirteen Primes, most of whom are very obscure characters (Liege Maximo, for one, is based on a single comic panel). But then there are also G1 characters who, in keeping with the new design initiatives, are as smooth and accurate to the G1 cartoon as possible. Studio Series is mostly also filled with the same. The packaging for both lines looks almost identical, further blurring the distinction. Prices are climbing out of control, with deluxes going from $17 to $28 or more in the last ten years. Characters fans have been requesting for years are shoved into multipacks with slight improvements on figures we already have. *Starscream* is an impossible to find retailer exclusive. We're doing made-to-order stuff, which is one step up from a damn Kickstarter (hi Playmates). 

Some of these aren't new problems, some aren't major problems, some aren't even necessarily Hasbro's fault. They didn't decide to start a trade war, and they clearly expected Transformers One to be a bigger hit when they chose the Thirteen as the focal point for the next two years. But taken all at once, under the "leadership" of a CEO who insists the toy company he heads isn't a toy company, it's starting to feel like a lot; a franchise adrift, trying to rally around what worked before at a 50% markup. Something has got to give.

Anyway, here's Powerglide.

Powerglide is, by my reckoning, the last of the updated G1 Minibots I need for my collection. (I don't care for the new Windcharger/Tailgate mold, and I guess I still need Bumper, but does anyone *need* Bumper?) Historically Minibots--a fan term, not their official name--were an entry level product, small vehicles with simple transformations sold on a card for pocket money, and as such many Transfans of the G1 and G2 era likely counted one among their first acquisitions. Updates tend to usually also be on the small side, but since Earthrise Cliffjumper they've been small Deluxes, usually with more complex engineering or extra accessories. 

As expected, Powerglide is all smooth burgundy plastic with a cone-shaped head that does nothing to discourage the jokes about his name. His big blue eyes give him a cute appearance despite his best efforts at looking tough. He poses well, although his wing-shoulders can come detached with little effort, and his head by its nature can't look up and down. His chest panel opens up to reveal his inner workings, including a series of pink dots in a heart shape. This is a reference to the last shot in the G1 cartoon episode "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide," and it's not the first time a Powerglide figure has included a hidden heart. See, he's a softie!

A softie that converts into a weapon of war, that is! Powerglide's traditional alt mode is an A-10 Thunderbolt II ground assault plane, nicknamed "Warthog" because apparently it's really ugly. His conversion process has some frustrating steps, largely centered around the back engines. Firstly, they're too low. They should be oriented above the wings and tail fins, as on a real life Warthog as well as previous versions of Powerglide. The hinges are so tight that the pieces will pop off before sliding forward as intended. Also they don't really lock in in either position and constantly seem like you're doing something wrong. His wings don't really lock in securely either. There's a panel on the top of the tail that suggests a rubsign sticker. That's a detail from his G1 toy, not his animation model. Perhaps a version of this toy will be coming to Walmart with tan instead of silver limbs.

He comes with two accessories. One is a fairly generic silver blaster, nothing special but gets the job done. The other is another reference to a specific G1 cartoon episode, "Hoist Goes Hollywood," in which the Autobot tow truck gets a part in a movie and the biggest attention whores on the Ark (Sunstreaker, Tracks, and Powerglide) insist on being included, so they get cast as aliens with goofy googly-eyed masks. It's a great piece, pure cheese, but it's just going to get tossed in a baggie. To attach it you have to lift up the nose cannon on top of his head and flip his face around so the mask can tab into place. This means, of course, you can't also use it on your Sunstreaker or Tracks figures. Seems like a lot of resources devoted to referencing a one off appearance that maybe could have been used for a more accurate plane mode.

If you're collecting the Minibots, Powerglide is a must have. But he's just sort of fine, and illustrative of a troubling trend. I was at a con this weekend, and at two separate booths I stopped myself from getting an SS86 Megatron because, as great a job as they did on his robot mode, his tank mode is just perfunctory. Transformers as a brand is enjoyable to me because of the tactile interactive element, and I switch them between modes frequently. When the vehicle mode is clearly an afterthought, it kind of doesn't matter how good the robot is to me, I'm still going to feel a little shortchanged. And when prices are closer to $30 than $20 for the entry level (which Deluxes are now), I'm not sure "shortchanged" is the feeling you want to evoke.

New directions for Generations and Studio Series were announced at San Diego Comic-Con. If this figure came out next year, he would likely be sold under the Studio Series banner, which will be focused on media accuracy from across the franchise. Generations will be the "sandbox" line, where designers are free to experiment with new ideas and hopefully linewide gimmicks and storytelling like the Prime Wars and War for Cybertron trilogies had. We'll see if there will be more distinction between the lines once these changes set in. That doesn't do anything to address pricing, distribution, frustrating business practices, etc, but it's something.

 

JENNY GABS ON: Gas Skunk (Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Hasbro, 2001)

As the Japanese Beast Era petered out and Beast Machines failed to excite in the West, Hasbro and Takara decided to change tack and start collaborating on a franchise reset. However, to hold the line before the launch of Armada/Legend of the Microns in the fall of 2002, Hasbro needed something on the shelves. So they ported over Takara's 2000 line and accompanying anime, Transformers: Car Robots, which saw the exciting return of Autobot cars and, eventually, Decepticons...as a *subteam* of the main villains, who remained the Predacons. As we know, Japan hates bad guys, so while the Autobots got three new Deluxe and two new Leader molds, the Predacons only got a new Megatron, with his team formed from a selection of late era Transmetals 2 molds that hadn't been released in Japan.

The unfortunately named Gas Skunk, parsed slightly cooler as "Gaskunk" in Car Robots, was one of three Predacon flunkies serving under flying shark/haiku poet Sky-Byte. He naturally turns into a biomechanical monstrous skunk, with a silver stripe going down his back and continuing in silver vac metal down the length of his spiky tail. He was originally released in 1999 as the even more unfortunately named Maximal Stinkbomb, and even shares the same plastic colors as Stinkbomb, only his deco is greatly improved. Gas Skunk's claws and robot mode teeth are painted, Stinkbomb's are not; his tail is two-toned vac metal with a rich copper accent, Stinkbomb's is solid gold. Stinkbomb's stripe is white, which does sell "skunk" a little better. You know, they could have easily passed this guy off as a wolverine or something, he didn't HAVE to still be a skunk. Might have seemed a little less like Hasbro was trying to sell you a better version of a thing they just sold you two years ago. But that's their entire model these days, so Gas Skunk was just ahead of the curve. (As mentioned, he was new to Takara's market so this only became an issue on his American release.)

His conversion to robot mode involves a lot of spinning ball joints and flipping stuff over. In robot mode, he's roughly 4" tall, not counting the bitchin' ponytail of death attached to the back of his head. His red mask is appropriately villainous for a mold that started life as a good guy. In my opinion, most of the Transmetal 2 Maximals look kind of evil, so abandoning the "mammal=good guy" rule that Beast Wars loosely observed makes sense. His sculpted details are asymmetrical in both modes, as was the style at the time. He has a flip-out yellow claw on the end of his pony/tail, and the pod on his left shoulder can flip up to reveal his spark crystal. The pod on his right shoulder also flips up, but there's nothing in there. Perhaps it's where he keeps his weed. In fiction, he can belch up clouds of noxious fumes and fire stink beams from an integrated blaster in his left forearm, but that's up to your imagination. Or you can also forget I just told you that, totally an option.

In Japan, the Predacon foot soldiers were sold individually, but the Hasbro release opted to bundle Gas Skunk, Dark Scream (a flying squirrel) and Slapper (a poison dart frog) together in one box. There are minimal differences between them, but if you find one loose on a $5 table at a toy show like I did, it's probably Hasbro's. Also, "Slapper"? Jesus Christ, Gas Skunk doesn't even have the worst name on his own team?? This is why localization can sometimes be good, weebs.

RID 2001 eventually encompassed molds from every previous Transformers series--a true celebration of where the franchise had been and where it was going. The late Beast Wars era turned out banger after banger while corporate was more focused on Episode I and neon Batmans and Pokémon PVCs. I wasn't into them at the time, and I've owned and sold several in my collector years. They're definitely an acquired taste. But given the state of things in 2026, with prices rising out of control and Hasbro ever more committed to recreating 1984 with all the whimsy stripped out, a freaky little mutant with shiny bits and stupid gimmicks is a taste I'm starting to acquire. Maybe it's just longing for an era we're not likely to see again.

JENNY GABS ON: Gigawatt (Transformers Collaborative, Hasbro,2020/2025)

 Jigga who? Gigawatt!

The DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future is one of the most iconic nerd vehicles of all time. At least I think it still is—the 80s were a long time ago, I’m on the younger end of people who are obsessed with 80s pop culture, and I’m less than a year from turning 40. It was featured pretty prominently in Ready Player One, right? Do the kids like that movie, or was that also mostly people my age and older? Regardless, for the milieu of Transformers Collaborative, it fits like a glove. I’m sure Naruto is cool and everything, but I’ll pass.

So it seems a lot of collectors just…leave their figures in robot mode forever? How reductive. With these crossovers the vehicle is a huge selling point, though, and as a model of the DeLorean time machine Gigawatt does an admirable job. The iconic gull wing doors can open (although the interior is obviously not filled out), and the wheels can flip down to put the car in hover mode. The stainless steel body panels have a nice texture, and the back of the car is decked out with all of Doc Brown’s modifications, all picked out with paint. As with most toys of the time machine, he does not have the DMC badge on the front. Did you know the DeLorean Motor Company is still around? 

Gigawatt is built off of the Siege Sideswipe mold and shares engineering and some parts with it; it’s one of the most solid deluxes of the modern era so no complaints on that front (I’m approaching Seeker numbers when it comes to how many copies of this mold I own). Take care when transforming his wheels because they’re not pinned and will pop off at the hinge if you use too much force. There are additional locks to keep his shoulders and chest together in both modes, and the flip-around chest panel with the flux capacitor and date display can be a little hard to maneuver past his head. They really pushed this little Deluxe to the limit in terms of retooling!

Gigawatt includes three accessories, only one of which—the rifle—is specifically for the robot. He also includes the lightning rod from the first movie, which can plug into his forearm as a “whip” as well as mount to the back of the car, and a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor that can mount to the top or back of the rifle as well as the back of the car to power its hover mode. Unofficially, it can attach upside down to his wrist as a “watch” to replicate the poster art, but I’m afraid it will scrape off the microscopic “Mr. Fusion” logo. All of his accessories can be stored in his vehicle mode, with the rifle pegging neatly under the front of the car. (The lightning rod and Mr. Fusion wouldn’t be equipped at the same time, but whatever, we love weapon storage.)

I don’t normally mention packaging in my reviews but Gigawatt comes in a G1-style box, complete with 1985-era Hasbro logos and a cutout Tech Specs card on the back. I’m fighting the urge to hoard by reminding myself that I decided to stop using packaged toys as home decor.

Initially sold at a premium price point, runaway inflation means you can now get Gigawatt for a few bucks more than a normal deluxe (or for your birthday from your awesome family). As a very solid model of the DeLorean time machine or as an addition to the legion of Sideswipe clones with extra flair, Gigawatt does it with style.