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Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Categories: Mega Pretender
Year: 1989
Cover yourself with lies and no one will find you.
A two-faced, lying, cheating, back-stabbing scoundrel. The ultimate Decepticon villain. Armed with power-enhancing, impenetrable exoskeleton. Also equipped with electrostatic gun ports in shoulders and metal-eating laserbeam in forehead. Reserve fuel tanks in legs provide unlimited fuel supply and aerator hoses in chest emit noxious gases. Armed with cyclone cannon and transforms into interstellar jet that carries full payload of plasma charges. Outer shell jet equipped with neutron power pack that increases firepower by 50%. Combines with jet pod to form super jet armed with heat seeking laser blasters.
Robot Mode: Thunderwing's pretender shell is a transformable robot in its own right. The detailing here is pretty good, an odd mixture between organic and cybernetic-looking parts that leave it up to the observer whether or not this is a robot. The shell has the usual posability, the arms move at the shoulders, that's it. Because of the transforming capability you can bend the legs forward (but only if the inner robot isn't inside) and sit the figure down, but it doesn't look very natural. The inner robot is pretty simple, but has full shoulder posability and some in the legs. The shell robot has the two big guns, the inner one a smaller handgun (which I don't have). All in all both robots aren't all bad, but average at best.
Alternate Mode: Both the shell and the inner robot can transform into jets. The inner robot basically just lies on his stomach, folds out wings, and that's it, but it looks pretty good. The shell folds in the legs, flips out a cockpit from the back to cover the head, and there you go. On their own both jets look decent, but combined into a big superjet they look pretty spiffy. The combined jet mode is my favorite mode for Thunderwing.
Remarks: Thunderwing never played any role in the G1 cartoon series, but had a tremendous impact in the comics. The Marvel comics line featured him extensively near the end of its run. Thunderwing took over command of the Decepticons at one point and remains the only Decepticon to date to successfully wield the Autobot Matrix. In the IDW comics he was featured as a mad scientists who experimented on himself and became a mindless monster that nearly wiped out Cybertron. The figure as such is decent, if nothing more than that, and one of the better Pretenders, mostly because the shell can actually transform instead of being just an immovable brick. Still, if you want to get this toy, it's probably for his role in the comics and less because of the toy itself.
Rating: C+
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