Generation 1 Series Darkwind

Toys R Us Exclusive

Height: 20.5cm (head height); 26cm (overall vehicle length)

Articulation: 17 total points - swivel neck; 4 points each arm: universal joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow; 4 points each leg: universal joint hip, mid-thigh swivel, hinge knee.

Colors: Molded grey, purple, blue, sky blue, light grey, clear purple; Painted grey, purple, blue, gold, silver, sky blue, red.

Accessories: Missile launcher, missile.

Release Data: Released exclusively via Toys R Us in April of 2009 in the United States at a price of US$29.99.

Gallery: 28 images.

Additional Media: Transform!; Cannons; Engines; Maximum Burn!

Author: ExVee



There are those who might call Darkwind bitter or pessimistic. In his opinion, if you're not at least a little bit bitter, you're not paying attention. To Darkwind, life is one long, unedning trial of pain and suffering. What's not to be bitter about? Some guys with his attitude write poetry. Others paint themselves black and mope. Not Darkwind. If life is going to be nothing but a pit of darkness, he's going to make sure that at least it's worse for everyone else than it is for him.

Originally, the character represented by this toy was named Darkwing, and the original Darkwing toy could combine with Dreadwind whereupon their names would also combine, resulting in the "super jet" Dreadwing. However, due to potential trademark dispute (most likely with The Terror That Flaps in The Night) a minor rename has been called for.

Later update: "Hasbro can't use the original trademark—not, as you might suspect, because of the Disney cartoon show called Darkwing Duck, but rather because of the more recent Mage Knights miniature figure called the Darkwing Zombie." -from review on Disciples of Boltax.

It's not a big deal, since besides this mold not being designed to combine with anyone else, the only modern toy of Dreadwind was a BotCon exclusive from probably the most sought-after convention exclusive set in years. Not that it's stopped enterprising fans from figuring out ways of jamming this and the Classics Jetfire mold together to varying degrees of success and credibility...



Vehicle Mode

Darkwind's vehicle mode is a supersonic jet, largely based on the XB-70 concept jet. It must be very depressing to have one's vehicle mode patterned after a canceled prototype. Although it is vaguely accurate that supersonic aircraft have some degree of undercarriage structure below the wing line, I think we're running into a limit of suspension of disbelief. Despite styling some bits to look like intakes and maybe scramjets if you squint and tilt your head a little, it doesn't take a detailed examination to find that you practically have a complete jet body, wings and all grafted onto a compressed robot body. I'm not suggesting that no aircraft Transformer has suffered from the problem of some kind of obvious robot-ness in vehicle mode, but this really tops them all. If you try not to look at it from behind or underneath, the illusion might just barely hold up. But good luck beating Mach 3 with all that drag.

Jets are typically a bit more playable than a car or simple truck, but often have just as few (intentionally) moving parts to mess with. For Darkwind, the landing gear of course can be extended. The wheels are riveted in a little on the tight side and so don't roll very well on a smooth surface, though. Inside the compartment for the rear landing gear is a little bit of mechanical detailing. Always a nice touch to find a little hidden detail like that. The stabilizers are hinged, but otherwise the vehicle mode is fairly static.

A button in the rear section between the engines triggers some of Darkwind's sounds. In vehicle mode, you'll cycle from an engine fly-by sound, to something probably meant to be afterburners kicking on, and finally a burst from the cannons. The cannon burst can be extended by holding down the button, but otherwise it only sounds a few shots. These are the same sounds from not only the Silverbolt use of this mold, but also very similar to both uses of the Powerglide mold. Two of the sounds are accompanied by lights - the afterburners come with blinking lights in the engines, and the gunfire is punctuated by flashing lights in the cannon housings along the fuselage.


Transformation

Um. Well, it's pretty much a matter of folding up the jet and unfolding the robot. Note that these two processes are completely separate. Also, the only time to access Darkwind's final sounds are during transformation. As you finish up and reveal the robot head, the transformation sound triggers and Darkwind's eyes flash. An alternate transformation sound is triggered when returning to folded up mode vehicle mode.


Robot Mode

While I kind of doubt that this toy was designed with redeco into Darkwind in mind, it does the job surprisingly well. Though in truth, if not for the decorative winglets on the shoulders and the general design of the head both being giveaways of the Silverbolt origins, the robot mode could probably pass for a number of more generic-bodied Transformers. The fact is, when you effectively omit any part of the vehicle mode from being integrated into the robot body, you can gain a level of flexibility and the right combination of colors will go a much longer way towards selling the idea that this is who it's named for.

Though changing the mold wouldn't be in the budget, the masked appearance of Darkwind's face has been well replicated here by clever use of color layout. He does seem to have traded his visor for a pair of eyes. Personally I find a lack of depth perception much more depressing, but I guess it's easier to look depressed this way. The head can swivel freely, though the neck is slightly angled - more on this shortly - and it ends up tilted oddly when you get it around to the sides.

The main thing that can be said about the torso is that there's an entire folded up jet on the back. Since the nose of the jet folds over the back half of the jet, it blocks the sound button. But a pass-through button on the forward fuselage lines up, allowing the electronics to still be triggered. In this mode, however, only the cannon sound is available. Probably good, considering if the engines started up they'd just drive Darkwind into the ground. While the cannons still light up on the back, the lights in the eyes can't be activated again without partly transforming the figure.

The arms are basically typical. Sadly they lack the wrist swivel that I enjoyed in Onslaught. The shoulders and elbows use ratcheting joints, all of which work well and are nice and strong. The upper arm swivel isn't ratcheted, but it ordinarily doesn't need to be a load-bearing joint. The fists have 5mm holes, so besides the toy's own weapon, you can load him up with all kinds of other gear. The ratchets in the major joints opens the door to ridiculously big and heavy stuff too, if you've got it.  So, even though most any forward movement of the arms is entirely unimpeded, the big old backpack stops any notion of moving the arms backward.

Let's start with the feet here. The angle of the feet is such that the heel ends up projecting farther than the bottom of the foot, and the whole figure pitches forward a bit. Between that and the angle of the neck I mentioned, it's clear that this mold was meant to use the crotch-thrusting posture a few toys seem to have been geared to. Whether a fault of the mold itself, or just the way Darkwind's ratchets ended up aligning, if you do pose the figure as seemingly intended, it looks to me like the torso wants to pitch a bit too far back. It might just be the folded jet, but the angles involved look to me like they're bordering on the ridiculously extreme. In any case, should it not be in character for Darkwind to gaze even slightly towards the ground? There's something of a middle ground available, anyway. If you slightly bend the knees and spread the stance a bit, the face is pretty much looking forward, but without looking like back trauma has to be involved.

Much like the arms, the legs have good use of the joints at work here. There's a little play between notches, especially in the sideways joint in the hips, so you can get some flexibility between catching points. The knees can bend well beyond 90 degrees, mostly due to the requirements of folding up transformation. The rearward interference of the backpack strikes the legs as well, but it less important. It doesn't generally look natural to have the legs bent back and behind like that. The only major problem is that the lack of any ankle articulation and limited range of the toe and heel parts makes many poses difficult or impossible to balance. There's also that the heel tends to want to fold back into the rest of the foot and so is easily knocked out of place. Once it's all open the stance is stable, but it doesn't take a whole lot to get the feet collapsing in on themselves.





Paint and Deco

Normally I omit this section since outside of cases of catastrophic production failure, I find paint issues to fall within a tolerated level of individual variance. But we kind of have a special case that deserves note here. A recurring theme with this toy is an unusually high amount of paint. It's been said that paint to this level is often more a hallmark of the convention exclusive toys. Since this kind of character is typically something only ever had through the conventions, I find this incredibly appropriate.

In vehicle mode, the entire rear third, including most of the wings is purple plastic. Except that in vehicle mode, Darkwind is supposed to be primarily grey with just purple wings. So a large portion of the aft-most section is covered over in grey paint. For the most part it's done well, and matches color with the neighboring grey plastic very closely. I do find on my example that some of the edges in the very rear are uneven, and there's what seems to be a thin spot or two where more of the base plastic can be seen. Adding to the paint work here is an updating of the lightning bolt deco from the original toy, along with a gold highlight along the leading edges of the wings. Even the stabilizers have leading-edge paint, as do the canards on the forward section.

The robot mode does not fall short in paint work either. The entire head is painted, save the clear plastic eyes. Both the main grey color of the head and the blue around the mouth are painted. There's no spot on the head to even identify which base plastic is used. The forearms are entirely painted, as are the toe portions of both feet. It's an incredibly high amount of paint entirely for the purpose of color-correcting the toy to match the desired appearance. As goes purely decorative touches in robot mode, that's a bit more sparse. A notable exception however is the red and gold bands at the waist, again mirroring a sticker decoration from the original toy. That and the silver painted sides of the abdomen are among the best visual cues making this instantly recognizable as Darkwing/Darkwind.


Accessories

-Missile Launcher

Even for a toy the size of Darkwind, this is big enough to be called a cannon. Besides a banded barrel, this manages to be more than just a plain missile launcher. The grip and trigger block has a stylized B2 bomber wing with a miniature representation of one of Darkwind's engines embedded into it, making the whole weapon look like an aircraft with a comically oversized main gun. The missile, which is fairly plain in comparison will fire a good few feet.

For vehicle mode storage, the launcher attaches under the forward fuselage, becoming the comically-oversized main gun for Darkwind's jet mode. Being an accessory with a 5mm peg, many other Transformers are able to hold this accessory. Maybe Darkwind and Stormcloud should trade guns, then...


Closing Remarks

It's a fraction of the price, but with all the paint work and obscure character love you'd like to expect from a convention exclusive toy. It is a little bit more expensive than a general retail Universe Ultra, but some things are just worth paying a bit more for.

I'm really happy with this toy as being Darkwind, but we have to be fair. All the problems that made me pass this up as Silverbolt are still present: Either mode very obviously has the other inelegantly hanging on, and the transformation is a joke. It's a level of complexity that I'd be appalled at in a Deluxe, but is downright inexcusable in an Ultra. The mold makes for a good action figure, but a pretty lousy Transformer, joining the ranks of modern Action Master Elites with the likes of Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime and Animated Cybertron Mode Megatron, among others.

It's difficult to rate this. Setting aside how pleased I am to have a character such as Darkwind get the update treatment, I'm disappointed with the way the toy is engineered. It has a good robot mode, but mostly for the fact that it barely has to involve any parts from the vehicle mode. If a quick, simple transformation is to your liking, you'll probably find this to be at least Good, but I suspect many will be more interested in this toy for the character than its strengths as a toy. For myself, I have to rate Darkwind as Could Have Been Better because it doesn't meet the standards I hold for modern Transformers and I wouldn't have bought it if not for the character involved.

-ExVee