Name: Silverbolt
Series: Generation 2
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Aerialbot Leader
Alternate Mode: Concorde Jet Airliner
CONCORDE MODE
Height: 5.5cm Length: 20cm Width: 11.5cm
Silverbolt is a Concorde supersonic passenger jet. The type run by Air France and British Airways. Of course, being the G2 version, this guy's a weird colour scheme - blue, silver and fluorescent red. Having said that, the colours are combined fairly well. The central block of the fuselage is die cast metal and painted silver. Most of the remainder is blue plastic, sprayed with silver paint. The tailfin is red, the rubberised nosecone and cockpit window black. The cabin windows of the original are gone, which is fine considering the realism's also gone. The right wing has a blue sticker with a red & white "5", the left wing has his name instead of the "5". His tailfin has "5"s on either side. There's also a chequered blue & white sticker just behind the cockpit, wrapping around the fuselage, with his name on either side. While this is a weird colour scheme, it's reasonably well done - the silver paint spattered over the blue helps quite a bit.
Silverbolt does have some kibble problems, with red and black bits showing underneath the front of his wings. Not horrible by any means, but clearly visible. There's also a really obvious post that swings up from the front of the fuselage. This wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't specifically for the rather lame base mode. At least they sprayed it with the silver paint.
His play value is actually a slight improvement on the original - he comes with missile launchers which can attach to holes under his wings (which are the only mould change for G2). The missiles shoot, too. He has a retractable front wheel and freely rolling undercarriage.
Then there's the base mode. Basically you turn him upside down, fold the wings down and attach a ramp supplied for this mode. It's pretty silly, you can place the smaller Aerialbots on top, but why you'd have a ramp on there so fighters can drive up onto a platform is beyond me.
A weird colour scheme that works better than it sounds, although the realistic colour scheme of the original still wins out. Considering some of the other G2 repaints (Slingshot is a shiny example), he's acceptable.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Fold the tail up onto the top of the plane. Fold out the legs from his underside, rotate them 180° and flip out the feet. Fold up the landing gear, slide down the red chest piece. Fold the nose down onto his back and flip up his head. Swing the wings back, which will bring the arms into position. Slide out the fists, attach the chest plate and give him his handgun. Incidentally, his hip joints are fragile considering the bulk of his legs and can break if you treat him too rough.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 16cm Width: 8cm
Well, the silver is almost gone, instead we have lots of that fluorescent red. This isn't a good thing. Blue is the main colour, but without the silver paint it becomes a fairly bright blue - which is fine in itself, but doesn't work with the red so well. He has a blue head, blue shins and blue torso (red upper chest), he has red forearms and thighs, black hands, upper arms and feet. He has red eyes and a silver face - the silver paint brings out the detail in his facial sculpt quite well. The blue chest plate has small wings attach to the sides which cover up most of the shoulders. There's no stickers in this mode, which is a pity since he's left with solid colours only. The blue and black are fine in themselves but the red's so bright and clashes with the blue.
I'm not a huge fan of the chest plate. The wings actually work to conceal the arms, and the proportions of it look wrong, since it doubles as the chest plate for Superion. Of course, if you remove it (or lose it) you're left with a series of parallel lines (intended for the base mode). I'd have preferred it had the base mode been abandoned so this mode didn't rely on the chest plate.
He's not very poseable. The elbows bend and that's it. Mind you, he has a tendency to overbalance backwards anyway (heelspurs, however small, would really help), so I think most poses would be out anyway. Sure, it's a G1 mould, but even then it wasn't all that poseable. Annoyingly, the missile launchers can't fit into his hands.
I'm not sold on this robot mode. The chest plate bugs me, and there's really not much play value. And the colours are far worse than either this toy's jet mode or the original's robot mode.
VARIATIONS
A recolour of the original Silverbolt, but no variations AFAIK.
OVERALL
The plane mode's colouring is weird but works fairly well, unfortunately the robot mode's colours don't work. The mould does have some inherent problems - the base mode is a waste of time. Silverbolt's a cool character, and is worth having, but you're probably better off getting the original, since G2 Superion's colour scheme is ruined by Slingshot - 4/10
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