Dreadwind

Power of the primes is currently underway, and although it won’t be as long or maybe even as well remembered as it’s predecessor Titans Return, I still really like it. It’s like Combiner Wars but more varied, with a wider variety in alt modes and transformations, so in that spirit of the newfound variety sparking some further life into the already practically perfected play pattern started by Combiner Wars let’s review a figure that reuses many ideas from… the Aerialbots.

In reality, the sharing of Transformation ideas and schemes doesn’t really bother me, as in my opinion the grievances found from that practice only matter when you look at the line as a whole, because I think every Combiner Wars figure, and by extension Power of the Primes, are all very solid individual figures in their own right. For that, I’m very excited to present Transformers Power of the Primes Decepticon Dreadwing.

I really love the bright pastel garishness of late G1 Decepticons, and Dreadwing is definitely no exception. The light blue white gray and purple of his alt mode really does it for me, and although the actual construction of his jet mode is much like a Combiner Wars Aerialbot in nature, with his arms, legs, and head clearly visible from the underside, but some unique touches like the laser cannons at each side of the jet’s body, and the white panels covering the top of his robot mode arms. Both of these additions give this late G1 pseudo-futuristic jet a lot more personality than just being a standard Aerialbot remold, although as we’ll see later, the Transformation isn’t the only thing from an Aerialbot to be found on Dreadwing.

Dreadwing’s Transformation is basically the standard Combiner Wars scheme, aside from a few deviations that make him a little more unique. First of all, the arms pivot around to their position in robot mode instead of flipping out, and the wings actually double hinge downward to the legs instead of just sitting on his back.

In robot mode, Dreadwing is a really fitting modernization of his G1 self, and he embodies everything about the late G1 that I love. The shins are repurposed from a couple of the aerialbots, but there are more than enough new additions like his head, body, and arms to both distract and justify that reuse of parts in my opinion. Dreadwing’s arm and leg modes are a similar story, not much to report on them except for the new hand piece.

Speaking of which, the new gimmick of Power of the Primes in addition to combining comes in the form of prime armor, where a crucial combination component such as a hand can be attached to the figure as chest armor. This looks about as good as you could expect as in it really doesn’t. I just use the new two-thumbed hand as a gauntlet, which looks nicer to me. Another feature of the prime armor is the small panel that can be removed to be used as a gun. It only looks vaguely gun like, and the space it leaves in the hand can fit both a titan master or the new prime masters. I’m not too thrilled about this whole prime armor gimmick, but it is funny to just put a Titans Return headsculpt in the prime armor!

Dreadwing’s other accessory I like a lot better, and it’s just a simple light blue gun.

Dreadwing’s height is pretty typical for a deluxe, and that is just fine considering he has to be that size in order to be an effective limb.

Overall Transformers Generations Power of the Primes Decepticon Dreadwing is a solid figure that admittedly borrows a lot from the Aerialbots, but also adds some other little unique touches in the T
transformation, and the robot mode’s design is bright and garish enough in the best way to give him more personality than his contemporaries. Your mileage may vary with the prime armor gimmick, it’s really a little underwhelming for me, but it definitely has its charm, and I can see why some people would like it. Honestly I kind of wish his hand didn’t have two thumbs on it, because that would really only make sense for the Dinobots and terricons but honestly that’s just nitpicking. I highly recommend Dreadwing to any fans wanting to fill out the ranks of their Decepticons, have another limb for their combiners, or because Blackwing is also out now, because this is one figure that is great for all three.