"Upgrades" Part 22 - Carnifex, Shockwave, and Contact Shot

Another batch of figures gets the upgrades treatment. I picked up a couple of figures a couple weeks back, figured I should toss them in the tent for a shoot. 

MP Shockwave is one of the most accurate figures, but they made him a tiny bit too small, which pissed some fans off, and they kept their third party figures of him, I don't like either of the 3p choices all that much anymore, thanks to the ingenious leg transformation on the MP, I like that the original's feet can hold it up in gun mode. The biggest improvement on the MP is that the barrel is no longer removable, it transforms onto his back. The hose is a spring, which I thought was neat, saves the cracking that plagues the original's. 

The colour is another controversial point among fans, it could have been a little bit darker, but I am okay with it. I love that they included a tiny alt mode for him to hold, shows that Takara has a sense of humour about the animation mistakes. He comes with two different sets of hands, clear and solid in colour. He has electronics in him to make the gun barrels light up. The gun stand covers the barrel on his back to make it more like the original since the back of the gun is used to flesh out his legs instead of flipping onto his back. Overall, I really like him, I'm glad Quakewave was made, but he wasn't quite there to where I wanted him to look, Shockwave stands on a pedestal in my display to hide the size a bit beside Megatron. 

Maketoys Contact Shot (with Reprolabels) is next on the list, I really love his vehicle mode, except the fact that you can't mount the gun properly. I left the legs slightly separated in order to slide the handle in there, it's not perfect but it will do. The vehicle mode is more sleek than the original and matches the animated version more. 

The cockpit actually opens on the Maketoys version for Peacemaker to sit inside if you want to do that instead of have him mounted in gun mode. they did a bunch of cool detailing in there too. 

Speaking of peacemaker, he's a lot more articulate than the original, but lacks the height. I love how the barrel folds up on his back though, pretty neat feature instead of having it hang down like the vintage one.

In bot mode, wow...he looks like he just stepped off the screen, I love how he looks and they nailed the face on him. Articulation is of course great, but my sample has weak ankles, so you have to position him just right. the gun is pretty well done, and they added an additional barrel to go over the one that's attached to make it bigger and more screen accurate. The transformation is complex, but not frustrating like some of the other figures I've handled, everything is very intuitive.

Lastly, we will take a look at MMC Carnifex. I'm very fond of the original figure and character, so the comic one isn't 100% my thing, if I had to pick one character over the other it's not even a contest. In tank mode, it fails utterly to be an earth tank, but is decently close to the comic version. Under the teal panel on the front there is space for the powermasters, I haven't gotten the upgrade for him tto include them or make it closer to the G1 version, not sure if I will. 

The jet mode, however is great, and looks better than the comic version imo. I really like that they kept the cockpit close to the shape of the original, while getting the updated classics look going on. The way the wings come out of the top and transform is really neat, but the shoulder things transforming is so frustrating I don't want to do it again for a while haha.

 The combined jet and tank that was added for the show like Victory Leo's jet mode or Sixshot's winged wolf mode is pulled off much nicer with Carnifex. It's pretty cool they even integrated the cannon and swords into that mode so there's nothing left over on the table when you form that mode. 

In Masterforce, Overlord makes a Decepticon base. It's much more convincing than Carnifex's which just looks like someone decided that this was a base instead of purposely being added. I love the original's base, I forgot to get the little car out that came with it, but it holds one of the powermasters. 

In Masterforce, the life force for Overlord is provided by Mega and Giga. a husband and wife that command the jet and tank individually and the combined robot simultaneously. Their character is probably one of the most well written in Transformers. 

It's hard to compare the robot modes of these two since they're working off two very different source materials. Both match the source very well, and they both have his stomach weapons. The Reprolabels set really makes him pop, I love the edging on the swords and wings. I kind of wish the purple matched the vintage a little better, but that's about it for colour changes, the blue is fantastic. All in all, I like them both for what they represent, but my love for the vintage is pretty hard to beat.