It's bird, it's a plane, no it's just Powerglide. Not as fast as the Seekers, but skilled enough to do tricks in the sky. He was a pretty cool plane in G1, but lacked the weaponry to execute fatal shots. He's just good for flying around, tricking Decepticons with aerial spins, barrel rolls, and death defying nosedives.
In alternate mode, he is a A-10 Thunderbolt II, basically the same alt mode from G1. It's not as slim in the front, but rather wider due to transformation. This is an Ultra Class figure, so it's a bit bigger than Voyager, has lights and sounds as well. At first, you're probably thinking, this isn't Powerglide, why is he grey? Well to tell you the truth, I don't know either. Maybe to get it to be realistically accurate, who knows, it's like Takara's first MP Starscream release. The majority of him is not grey though, it's more of a very light tan. He has some red on the wings, tail fins, thrusters and front sides. There is some silver on the front of the thrusters, front sides, and cockpit. The thrusters and cockpit also have translucent plastic for lights and a orange button to activate lights and sounds. He also has some markings throughout the wings, fins and sides, the significance are not known to me...
The plane is nicely detailed, with lots of panel and rivets. He does have landing gear but it seems useless. The gun on his front underside sits lot, and the front landing gear doesn't work well, and the wing landing gears are too high and make the front of the plane dip down a bit. Also the gun has a missile, which when it connects into the peg, the missile will bend due to a piece in the way. I don't know if it'll be permanent if it sits there too long... Something that I dislike is the paint, it's rather sloppy and isn't accepted to me. Some of the red is over painted and runs off, some lines that look like the person painting had shaking hands, lack of paint, and even paint where there is paint no where near that area. It's just isn't that good. The translucent parts of course, light up, and has several sounds of the engine, swooshing in the air, and machine gun shooting. For the machine gun sound it's continuous if you hold the orange button down.
Transformation is pretty basic, it's real easy. There is the classic transformation sound at his torso, and when he turns back to alt mode, the sound is reversed. A real nice addition of keeping the classic feel of an updated figure.
When transformed, Powerglide stand pretty tall. Comparing him with my Animated Ultra Magnus, he is a few centimeters below him. When you look at him, you'll think he's bulky, but he's more crowded than bulky. All those pieces of his thrusters and wing assemblies are the main reasons, thus he looks strange. The robot mode is pretty accurate to the G1 cartoon though, wings on the sides, the head sculpt, it's all good. Still overall tan, but some grey plastic pops out on his torso, and legs, it's not a lot, but helps contrast. His thighs are like TFU Cyclonus, the plastics don't match up very well. Other than that, he's pretty bland. Detail is black too, still panels and rivets, but other details are basic, maybe too symmetrical for my taste.
Part of being in the Ultra Class line, he gets lights and sounds. It works the same as plane mode, press the orange button down. The button is concealed with pieces of the back tail assembly. All sounds are the same, this time his eyes flash red, not blue as the cartoon. His thrusters still flash too, though I am unsure of the cockpit because I took the batteries out before examining it...
There is a G1 reference not mentioned yet, and it's a heart. In the episode, Girl Who Loves Powerglide, a girl, or rather a young adult falls in love with him after he saved her, even after his Hank Pym abusiveness against her. At the end of the episode, Powerglide goes flirty flirty and asks if she'd like to go out next time he's in town, TAKE THAT MOONRACER! Anyways, after being ridiculed by the Autobots he goes into a secluded place and opens his chest panel to reveal LEDs flashing lights in a form of a heart. Well flip the chest panel on the figure and there is a sculpted heart, no LED, and it's like a fully sculpted heart, not the outline like the show. It would have been neat if they made that a translucent red or something and make it light up, but they didn't...
Articulation is good, swivel head, hinge neck is due to transformation. ratchet shoulders, hinged shoulders, swivel bicep, ratchet elbow, ratchet waist, ratchet swivel hips, ratchet hinged hips, swivel thighs, ratchet hinged knees, hinged ankles, and side to side movement in the ankles. As you might of notice, or should have noticed, he's built of ratchet joints to have stability and keep his structure. He can get is pretty sick poses.
His only accessory is the gun located on the nose of the plane in alt mode, which doubles as his Thermal Beam in robot mode. It's just the gun reversed with the missile facing out. The missile it self is plain, no detail what so ever. His gun is facing inwards though, he might shoot his arm off...PA CHEW PA CHEW!
As much as it seems bland as robot mode and alt mode, he's a very cool TF. Well constructed with a fun , yet simple transformation. Not a G1 accurate paint job, but physically he is. A good homage with the heart too. He stands pretty tall, and presents an overall modern design to a classic character. I gotta give it a 8 out of 10. Paint is something to be careful about on every toy, plus the randomness of the plastic is not the professional looking. If you want a more accurate Powerglide, there was, or is a Walmart Exclusive repaint which I never saw. I got this at TRU because I've been thinking of getting him for a while, and there is a half off sale ending today, get him now!!! For now, this may be my last review in a while, DTM Outz...
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