DOTM is really a line I want to pass. Maybe pickup only a few but will pass the majority. Honestly it’s not that easy. I’ve been trying to control myself very hard and so far I got three already and there are another two in my Ws list. So why I got this? Because his name is Shockwave.

I don’t have too many special feelings about Shockwave in his G1 cartoon. He wasn’t that special and pretty much stayed on Cybertron doing who knows what and then disappeared (or died) after The Movie. But after going through comic books, oh my, how can I not have him. But he isn’t that much available. Passed his G1 mold (which is his best incarnation, but…..), don’t like his Energon mold, thought about Alternator/Binlatech mold but that didn’t feel quite fit. Now comes to this, a very G1 homage Shockwave but full of movie alien design. I decided to give him a chance.

Shockwave’s alternate mode is a Cybertronian tank. Normally I wouldn’t pick up those non-earthling alt modes (like Megatron) for movie line but not on Shocky’s case (see above). So this tank is pretty much a pile of metals (plastics) put up together and then put a gun on top. Everything connects tightly and every piece has a place to clip on. Pretty generic and not much special and I don’t even bother rolling it. One fun part is his robot head is hiding behind a frame at front so it looks really like he is wearing a helmet peeking from inside. Also if you detach the front wheel part, it can do some minor left and right rotation and then this whole thing looks like a bug.

The transformation is not difficult but since every piece connects well together, you have to disconnect them and then connect some of them back in robot mode. Shockwave’s robot mode is what it wins all. His body is so clean and no kibbles hanging around to limit limbs movement. His thick legs and feet design plus the thin chest provide him excellent balance. Head cannot look up and down but turn freely left and right and his one eye light piping works perfectly. The mech-tech featured weapon works perfectly but can only put on his right arm (hey Hasbro, in cartoon and comics, his left hand is a gun and we all know that). Can still put on left arm but won’t be stable. The only annoying part is the weapon pipe. No matter where you connect it to, either on the back shoulder or lower back, the arm just won’t swing and pose freely and the pipe will pop out. There is no problem just getting rid of it and he can actually hold it like a whip. Due to many reasons that I don’t want to discuss here, he is somewhat small for a voyager class but this is the common thing for DOTM line.

Now here come the problems but actually the fun part. His shoulder joints are way up high which reach about the height of the ears. This can be simply fixed by just take the two screws out and split the shoulder, then cut one tread out on each side and put them back. Do the same thing on other side, then, there you go. His shoulders are lower now and the figure proportion looks better. Another one is he has monkey arms, same like movie leader class Starscream. So this starts my first operation. After several discussions with a friend on Seibertron, we decide adding a ball joint is the best solution. So I ran out and bought a saw, cut his hands, find the proper ball joints and sockets from my old Gundam figures, drilled a hole on the arm pin swirl joint and glued the ball joint rod, and drilled and cut his hand to fit in the socket. Wha-la! Done! He no longer has monkey arms and that looks fantastic. The process sounds easy but really doing it took me a lot of time, especially this is the first time doing this. But this is fun and worth the effort. Check here if you want to see the pictures of how I did these.