Hot on the heels of Energon Skyblast, we have a carded pair of vaguely movie-related Unicron Trilogy repaints, one of which is a Skyblast repaint!
War of the Waves was apparently a Black Friday exclusive at Walmart in the US, which would most likely have made it an Asda exclusive here... But I've never been a regular patron of Asda, and didn't exactly scour their toy shelves at the best of times. If it didn't come from Toys'R'Us, it was more likely acquired at Sainsbury's or Tesco, neither of which have consistently stocked any US store exclusives. In fact, the only one I remember even seeing in any supermarket was the Walmart exclusive racing repaint of
Sidearm Sideswipe, which was a Sainsbury's exclusive over here.
I'd also assumed, based on the 'digital camouflage' paint job on Air Raid and the Sector 7 insignias stamped onto both toys, that this was a movie-related two-pack, but the instruction leaflet - shared between both figures in the pack - clearly labels it as being part of the Universe line... which both was and wasn't an extension of the movie line...
So, let's take a look at this curious,
cross-generational two-pack.
Air Raid
Vehicle Mode:
This Sector 7-branded repaint of Skyblast takes his name from one of the G1 Aerialbots, though his colourscheme is closer to the digital camouflage used on ground-based military vehicles - at least, I can't think of many aircraft that would feature on-body camouflage intended for blending in with foliage... Normally, they'd have camouflage nets draped over them, if necessary, while on the ground.
Most of the original toy's white parts have been molded in a dull green plastic here, with the original's red and grey plastic parts represented here in a lighter grey, which fits well with the green. The digital camouflage is a pattern of khaki and black over all the green plastic parts, with additional applications of red paint on the wings and gren backing for the Sector 7 logo. The nose section is molded in opaque black plastic, so much of the nose is overpainted with green, as well as the camouflage pattern, with the cockpit canopy left unpainted.
Lacking the G1 homage aspect of the original toy, this looks very drab... and, despite the Sector 7 insignia, it's very clearly not a terrestrial aircraft of any kind... But then, very few of the store exclusive toys that got shoehorned into the extended movie toylines ever made any sense.
He comes with the same Energon chip and spear components, all of which attach in exactly the same way but, now molded in opaque black plastic - same as the jet's nose section - so they lack the visual appeal of the coloured, translucent plastic from the Energon toyline.
Robot Mode:
As with his jet mode, taking the G1 Jetfire homage away and lumping Air Raid with a generic military paint job makes him look extremely dull and... well, generic. Curiosly, though, looking at him in robot mode does get me wondering if he was intended to be a homage to the BotCon 1997 exclusive Fractyl - a repaint of Terrorsaur - since this mold was used as the basis for the pre-Beast Wars Terrorsaur in the BotCon 2007 animation 'Theft of the Golden Disk'. Granted, Fractyl would ideally have needed a darker green, and more of a gold than a khaki as his secondary colour... Plus, he was a Predacon, and while the CGI model could simply omit the sculpted Autobot insignias on his wings, the toy could not.
Naturally, the spear accessory interacts with the core figure exactly the same way, it's just rather boring compared to the Energon version because it's molded in opaque black plastic. The shaft of the spear is perhaps a little more convincing as a gun because of this, but it's still far too long for a figure this size.
The curious thing about this repaint - which also possibly supports the Fractyl theory - is that Air Raid's eyes are painted red, traditionally the Decepticon eye colour ever since the G1 cartoon. Then again, this isn't the first time one of these store exclusive repaints hasn't followed that rule. Fellow Omnicon repaint Scout class Arcee - released in the US as a Target exclusive - also had red eyes, leading to her being repurposed as a Shattered Glass character. Of course, the fact that his helmet is green rather than khaki tends to work against the idea that this is an interpretation of Fractyl.
Storm Surge
Vehicle Mode:
I'm tending to think, as I write about this two-pack, that Storm Surge was my real reason for purchasing the set. I quite liked the Cybertron Shortround toy, and this repaint actually looks a bit more coherent and real-world thanks to a mostly quite subdued colourscheme. Shortround's cyan plastic is replaced with grey, the hovercraft's skirt is properly black and, while the main body of the vehicle itself is still white, the roof and cockpit area have been painted blue, with a single stripe each of orange and blue on each side, which looks a lot more like a branding choice than Shortround's bronzish stripe pattern. The wide orange stripe contains a Sector 7 insignia, stamped in black, on both sides of the vehicle, which somewhat works against the idea of commercial branding colours... and it also seems rather unlikely that Sector 7 would incorporate both Autobot and Decepticons into their ranks. I suppose it could simply be that Storm Surge has infitrated the organisation... Who knows? There wasn't exactly a lot of story attached to this two-pack.
The smaller touches of paint keep within the existing palette, with the tips of the missiles concealed within the rear turbines and frames on the roof-mounted turbines both painted orange, while the blade details therein, as well as the grilles below the rear turbines, are painted silver. There's an additional application of orange paint on the handgun accessory, the front rims of the rear turbines are painted the same blue as the roof, and the windows on the front section of the hovercraft are painted cyan.
Naturally, the key-activated gimmick of the original toy is retained, despite being as incongruous here as Air Raid's Energon chip and weapons, and the included key accessory displays the one and only instance of a Decepticon insignia on the toy.
Robot Mode:
So here we have the extremely odd-looking, lobster-clawed robot that maybe-maybe-not-should-have-been-Seaspray-but-wasn't-except-in-Shattered-Glass. As with vehicle mode, the colourscheme works a lot better on this version than the original, being largely quite toned-down, or at least complementary in its colour choices. Plus, the use of blue and white is somewhat evocative of G1 Seaspray, which may explain why this version was chosen to represent Seaspray within Shattered Glass.
This set represents something of a contradiction, in that the Autobot has red eyes and the Decepticon has blue eyes... running contrary both to G1 according to the TV show and to the established norms of Shattered Glass... With a yellow head and rear turbines, this could have just been called Seaspray, were it not for the Decepticon key. Given that Shortround came with an Earth key, they could just as well have substituted an Autobot key here, and packaged the pair as TransFormers Universe Autobot Air & Sea Defence, or somesuch.
Where Shortround's entire lower torso was painted grey, Storm Surge has grey plastic painted with cyan highlights, as well as more cyan paint substituting for gold in the recessed chest vents, but those are about the only unique features of his robot mode paint job.
It's entirely possible that some subtle changes were made to the Shortround mold for this repurposing, as I noted in my writeup of the Cybertron toy that the key was a very tight fit, to the point where it was sometimes difficult to remove. No such problem is evident on Storm Surge - inserting and removing the key is very smooth and easy, and the missiles deploy perfectly.
Despite my preference for this paint job, my copy of Storm Surge isn't perfect: the chest section doesn't screw together properly, likely because of some kind of internal damage caused during his assembly. However, the gap is very slight and, whatever the problem is, it hasn't become any worse over time.
This two pack is one I barely remember acquiring and, to be honest, I have just as much trouble remembering why I bought it, other than having been particularly amused by Cybertron Shortround. I'm just going to have to assume that many of the US store exclusives - both Walmart and Target - became Toys'R'Us exclusives in the UK, because they seemed more inclined to stock such 'special' re-releases, and multi-packs like this were more commonly available there.
It's a very odd pack, being Universe-branded, but made up of two toys from two different lines within what's now referred to as 'The Unicron Trilogy', each one featuring the Sector 7 logo from the live action movie series. It's all the more bizarre that both the Autobot and the Decepticon are somehow associated with that organisation... If only these toys had been packaged with a mini-comic giving some sort of context to their appearance. Storm Surge was apparently released first, on his own, as a Target exclusive, within the 'AllSpark Power' subline associated with the first live action movie, with Air Raid having been exclusive to this 2-pack.
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