Power of the Primes Voyager Starscream Pictorial Review

While many are enjoying their deluxe and legends class toys from Power of the Primes, which have been fine for the most part, the voyagers are definitely the most divisive toys from the line. For a reason that still boggles the mind, Hasbro never did reveal that Voyager Starscream could turn into a torso, nor is that torso mode found in any promotional or stock images. This simply added more mystery to a toy that many were lukewarm about. So below is a pictorial review to help you see what the toy is all about.

Jet Mode

The Jet mode is as serviceable as Silverbolt's was. It is still a robot hiding under a jet (even more so than Silberbolt). Unlike Silverbolt though, we are treated to a staggering amount of foil stickers. While they don't look anywhere near as good as paint, I did not find this to be the main flaw with the toy. It does give more of a sense that this is a toy for an audience much younger than me (which is exactly what it is), but none of it was peeling and the application was fine, with lines meeting up.









I remember Hasbro stating that they really tried to have that exact shade of off white plastic fans associated with Starscream back when they released the Combiner War leader figure. However, I always found the end result rather dull. The plastic is a tad bit lighter/brighter here but not by much. The red and blue are much brighter though and make me realize how the colours on the leader figure look faded.



You can open the cockpit to place a Prime Master or Titan Master (it's more made for them in their "cube" mode). I don't find it to be a great look. You can place the smaller figures all across his jet mode though.



A big issue I have with this toy is a design flaw with two robot leg panels which fold down so that the legs (which make up the back of the jet) can recede closer to the jet body. These panels each have a peg for them to stay secure to the knees in robot mode. Howver, them being symetrical means they end up protruding at the same spot and hit one another in jet mode so it looks like the jet is permanently split in the back. To me, this is a much bigger mishap than the use of stickers.





Robot Mode

The conversion from jet to robot is more complex than I thought and by that I mean that it isn't just 3 steps. There is a nice moment where you have to pivot the wings 180 degrees. I always love when Takara gives us transformation with big movements like that, it makes the transformation feel more dynamic.









The end result isn't great though. This mode is where the biggest flaw with figure comes into play, the proportions. Having his forearms be the same colour as the armour gauntlets was a bad idea. He looks like Popeye. The feet are giant too, plus he has a small head. These proportions have given a false sense of scale in the past (he is smaller than I imagined) so I have several comparison images below to give a sense of scale. I don't know about you, but he really seems to not mesh in style with any of the other toys we would line him up with.















Now a reason for the odd proportions is that his arms hide the combiner ports. And to that I say "so what?!" Silverbolt's did as well but you don't see him with giant gauntlets. And those giant gauntlet flaps dont even cover anything since the combiner hole ends up being in his inner wrist so there is no point to his arms looking this big aside from the designers wanting to do something new and different. While I will always give an A for effort, the result and actual grade is far from spectacular. And plus they expect you to add the combiner feet to make even bigger gauntlets. Thanks, but I will pass. The null rays are nothing to write home about either. They just seem there like it was in their contract and they didn't find a way to get out of it in time.













I really dislike those feet stickers. They definitely make this toy look like something from Imaginext. The head is also very generic. We have had tons of Starscream heads but they always find some way to invigorate them, like the Ghost Starscream head we got in Untie Warriors or the one we got in Robot in Disguise. But here it really is simply generic. And so is the combiner head for that matter. Which leads me to...

Torso mode

Firstly, the transformation into torso mode is stellar. It is by far the most involved transformation we have ever gotten from a combiner torso and it has a unique look which doesnt seem to be just a leftover from other modes (like Volcanicus). Plus it has a fun homage to movie Stasrcream's Doritos body and is incredibly solid. I still stand by the fact that the best torso is Silverbolt's (well, technically for me it's Galvatronus, but you catch my drift) but his chest can become undone. With Starscream, it's rock solid. Plus you can tab in the null rays for storage in an elegant manner. There is the idea that you can also plug in his enigma of combination and well, you will see the results below. The face is quite dull though, as generic as his robot mode face, and the crown seems to have the same contract the null rays got. But it is cool to have the cockpit form the chest, making him look like a bigger version of himself. I think that is very witty and gives a lot of sense to the smaller fake cockpit we see in his robot mode.

























There are of course flaws with the combiner mode, but not necessarily the torso. The combiner feet are far too narrow and while I appreciate the ankle tilt, him being so wide at the torso makes me avoid spreading his legs since it looks off and the lack of ratchets at the robot mode elbow makes him harder to pose properly. Adding the extra hands to the back of the feet is something I do not recommend. Firstly, with so much kibble in the front of his torso and most legs having more bulk in the front, he has more of a tendency to fall forwards, so there is no point to enforcing heels. Plus, you have to be really parallel to the feet or else you will just make any stance more unstable. So basically, adding them only raises the possibility of him being unstable while never adding to the stability.


All in all, I don't think I will keep this toy, but there is a lot of potential with the torso mode which is why I am still going to pick up Elita-1.