Following the introduction of Devastator, the Transformers’ first combiner gestalt, the brand basically went combiner-team crazy with two new teams being introduced every season of the cartoon. Among the first combiner teams to be inducted into the fold was the Aerialbots, a team of Autobot jets who combined to form the massive Superion. The Aerialbots were a novel concept because before their introduction, the Autobots were made up primarily of earth-bound vehicles, so this team allowed the Autobots to take on Starscream and the Seekers in the sky. It was a fun concept that basically cemented the combiners’ place in the Transformers pantheon.
For the past few years, the combiner teams have been almost exclusively the province of 3rd-party companies, with several versions of each team available from a variety of sources — some of these sets have been pretty darn expensive too. Hasbro’s response to this intellectual-property pilfering has been “The Combiner Wars,” their foray into the combiner world with partners IDW. Sure, Hasbro has released some combiner sets in the past decade, but they’ve all left a great deal to be desired, which, ironically, had a lot to do with the rise of the 3rd-party movement. That’s why this new release of the Aerialbots is so exciting — it’s looking as though Hasbro is taking the correct approach to these teams. Today we’ll be looking at the Aerialbot Quickslinger to see if Hasbro truly is moving in the right direction.
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First of all, the name “Quickslinger” threw me off. I remember this guy as “Sling Shot” from back in the glory days, but Hasbro often has to change characters’ names due to copyright issues, so I’m assuming that was the case here, and I appreciate the nod Hasbro and IDW gave to the original name in the bio on the back of the card. Along with the figure is included an issue of the Combiner Wars comic, which I love to see because the whole world needs to be reading the current IDW Transformers comics, especially Transformers fans.
Quickslinger’s proportions come off as balanced and natural. He retains that “airplane backpack” the original Aerialbots did, so I prefer to look at that kibble as a G1 homage more than anything else, and none of it hinders his articulation (see the video for a full breakdown). He’s a bit on the larger side in terms of what we’ve been getting in the Generations line, so that alone makes him feel like a more satisfying figure.
The paint apps here are sparse, but effective. Most of his coloring comes from plastic cast in that color, but then simple paint apps, like the orange and blue of his face, end up popping like crazy against the off-white color of the majority of his body. Everything comes off looking clean and sharp.
His jet mode looks great from certain angles, but not all. Like the G1 figures, it tends to look like a jet with a robot packed on its underside. There’s a ton of detail packed into the sculpt, but it could really do with a wash or a Gundam marker to bring out that detail. For the most part, the jet mode looks great, but just make sure you don’t spend a lot of time looking at the underside of the jet — that kinda ruins the illusion a bit.
Now, he is part of the Aerialbots combiner team, but I haven’t been too on top of hunting down all the parts to build Superion because this was never one of my favorite combiners (I was always partial to the Decepticon combiners for some reason). As a result, we have to admire Quickslinger as either Superion’s arm or leg floating by itself in space for now.
Quickslinger does fall victim to some of the ills all modern Transformers do, like hollow-feeling parts, but I’m pleased with him enough to actually consider building Superion. He’s pure hand candy as a standalone figure, which is awesome for a combiner “piece.” His transformation was intuitive (I even did it without consulting the instructions once) and I like his articulation scheme. Based on Quickslinger alone, I think the entire team of Aerialbots would be a worthwhile purchase.
Quickslinger is a brand-new release, so I’m not seeing a listing for him at Big Bad Toy Store yet, but the other Aerialbots may be purchased as we speak. He should be hitting the pegs at your local stores soon as well.