Cyberverse Slipstream

Prelude: Get your lawyers on the phone right quickly! Hasbro has their Transformers transforming into Gerwalk mode and Harmony Gold has been waiting for another opportunity to sue Hasbro for use of something very, very remotely resembling something from Robotech. I’m talking about Cyberverse Slipstream, of course, who transforms from robot to possible lawsuit. You don’t like it? Here’s a restraining order! Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: At first glance Slipstream in robot mode strongly resembles the Animated Activators Seekers, of which I’m a big fan. Which is also the main reason I bought this toy, as we never got around to having an Animated Slipstream and look-wise this figure here is probably the closest we got so far. Okay, the Animated Activators were better-articulated and slightly taller, but overall: pretty close.

The colors, purple and turquoise, look pretty good on Slipstream and while nothing has been retooled from this figure’s original use as Starscream to make it look more feminine, it still works pretty well as the character, I think. The arms are a bit short and thin, but otherwise the figure does very well in the looks department.

Upon closer inspection, though, a few problems come to light. For one, the guns are connected to the wings, not the arms, so the only way for Slipstream to shoot is to straighten out the wings, which has the guns pointing forward under her arms. It works, sure, but it’s not the classic Seeker look. Also, the wings are separate pieces that pop off very quickly. And as I already mentioned above, the articulation is a good deal more limited than it was a decade earlier for the Activators. No elbow joints, no turning head, and the knees can only bend about thirty degrees or so before they are stopped by a piece of plastic specifically placed there to prevent the knees from bending further. Why? No idea. I know a lot of people have simply filed those things off.

Also candidates for filing off are the two grey tabs connected to the crotch, which lock the thighs into place. If you want to move the legs forward or backward (which they can, thanks to ball joints), you first have to move them out sideways to get past those tabs. Which means that Hasbro designers intentionally installed no less than FOUR tabs to limit this figure’s range of movement. Those tabs serve no other function but that. Why? Still no idea, sorry.

So bottom line for the robot mode: great to look at, but with quite a few limitations, some of which seem to have been added deliberately for … reasons, I guess.

Alternate Mode: Now when it comes to the alternate mode, I fully admit that I was fooled. It was 2018, I was on a visit to the United States, I hadn’t really looked up the Cyberverse toys online much, and I saw this figure at Walmart. In my own defense, the packaging really does not make it clear that this toy, which is clearly a robot meant to transform into a jet, does NOT, in fact, transform into a jet. At least not completely.

Slipstream starts transforming into a jet by using the basic Seeker design we’ve seen dozens of times before, flipping the cockpit on her chest over her head, tucking in the arms, … and then she just stops. Her alternate mode is a jet with legs or, to use Macross / Robotech terminology, a Gerwalk mode. You can try and make it look more like a finished jet by having the legs point backwards, but it does not really work. 

The only other thing of note here is the gimmick, because folding Slipstream’s hips forward makes the wings and guns spin. It’s called the Sonic Swirl according to her packaging. But here’s the thing: nothing about that gimmick would have precluded Slipstream’s legs transforming into the back of a jet. The gimmick could easily have been done on a finished jet, too. So… yeah, I really don’t know.

To be fair: Slipstream looks pretty cool in Gerwalk mode. But it’s still just half a jet, not a complete one.

Remarks: Now I’m trying to follow the thought processes of Hasbro when it came to these Cyberverse Scout Class figures. Sure, they’re for kids, not adult collectors. Granted, they still transform from robot into something else. But given that said “something else” was clearly defined in the cartoon to be (in Slipstream’s case) a jet, why would they stop halfway and just have her become a Gerwalk-Jet? I mean, the Animated Activators were pretty similar in design and they managed a full jet mode. And I don’t think the spinning gimmick really justifies the lack of a proper jet mode. Plus there are those tabs that limit what would otherwise be excellent leg articulation. Sorry, I don’t get it. Thankfully Slipstream did get two other figures in the Cyberverse line that did actually transform into full jets.

So bottom line: Slipstream does good work standing next to my Animated Activator Seekers, but as a toy – even one meant for smaller kids – I find her very disappointing.

Rating: D+