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Series: Universe
Allegiance: Autobot
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2003
Even in the face of the darkest nights, justice will ultimately prevail.
Hailed as a Maximal hero by the general populace for his role in the liberation of Cybertron from the Megatron's rule, Silverbolt had finally been able to recover from the nightmare of the constant battle, and begin an idylllic life with his love, Blackarachnia. However, once Unicron, the ancient monster planet resurfaced to threaten the cosmos, this new dawn of peace and prosperity for the reborn Cybertron had abruptly been cut short as the planet's populace must again prepare for battle against the ultimate evil. Silverbolt exemplifies the finest qualities that one might expect from Primus' defenders: He is an honorable and brave fighter, righteous in his cause, and noble in his bearing. In his newly reformatted Fuzor body, Silverbolt has reverted to the powerful form he started out with in the beast wars. In beast mode Silverbolt possesses keen olfactory sensors enabling him to track his prey like a bloodhound. In both modes Silverbolt boasts both superior speed and agility. In robot mode his main weapons are bio-mechanically created feather darts that can be fashioned into swords or launched as explosive missiles. In the battle against Unicron, Silverbolt's primary goal is to save and recover Blackarachnia from the Chaos Bringer's corrupting influence. However, his feelings for her are even stronger than his own sense of preservation, and can easily be exploited by his enemies.
Prelude: Universe Silverbolt is a repaint of Beast Wars Fuzor Silverbolt, so this review will focus mainly on the differences between the two figures.
Robot Mode: Let’s get the most obvious thing out of the way first: Universe Silverbolt is a screaming, eye-gouging, cerebral haemorrhage-causing shade of purple with yellow and black highlights. Now the original figure wasn’t exactly exploding with colour, being mostly grey, but the Universe version really overcompensated in that regard. I have yet to see any natural animal - be it eagle, wolf or anything in between - even come close to that colour, unless it’s some highly poisonous tropical fish.
Apart from the pupil-searing colour, the figure is the same as it was in Beast Wars. Highly articulated, though somewhat restricted by the positioning of the shoulder wings. Nicely detailed, including the removable feather swords he uses as weapons. The only real downside this figure has design-wise is the fact that the shoulder wings restrict its movements somewhat. Apart from that, though, still an excellent robot mode. Just don’t look at it for too long.
Beast Mode: Silverbolt once again transforms into the same kind of winged wolf creature (called Fuzor in Beast Wars) that he did before. In his beast mode he actually looks less purple than in robot mode, mostly because he has a kind of... I don’t know... mark? Tattoo? Thingy? ...anyway, it’s on his back and it’s red and silver with dark grey veins or something like that. Maybe it’s supposed to be a mark of the corrupting influence of Unicron or some such, but it looks like he laid down somewhere really hot for a good long while and only noticed when his back started to sizzle.
Nothing new here apart from the paint job. Still the most natural-looking of the various Fuzor creatures Beast Wars pumped out and with no flaws worth mentioning.
Remarks: As a series Beast Machines had its highs and lows. Most people seem to agree that the lows outnumber the highs, but that’s a pretty subjective matter. What almost everyone agrees on, though, is that the Beast Machines incarnation of the Maximals’ cheesy hero Silverbolt (both the TV character and the toy) were crap (even his Universe profile text says as much, more or less). So it’s not a big surprise that the Universe series, which served as a Beast Machines sequel story-wise, decided to reformat Silverbolt back to his original self, the Beast Wars Fuzor figure. Well, almost. It wouldn’t be a repaint without a new paint job, of course. And what a paint job it is.
Leaving the paint job aside, Universe Silverbolt is every bit as cool a figure as Beast Wars Silverbolt and unless you find the concept of Fuzors (or Beast-formers in general) to be total garbage, you should own a version of Silverbolt. If possible, though, I recommend the grey Beast Wars version. It’s TV accurate and doesn’t carry the danger of causing cerebral haemorrhage if you look at it too long. Me, I just bought this one because it was cheap and I was in a spending mood.
Rating: C+
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