Shattered Glass Soundwave's profile card begins, "There is no Decepticon in any universe like Soundwave."  Man, everyone always forgets Cybertron Soundwave.

As a big proponent of Recordicons in general, and Shattered Glass ones in specific, in many respects I was pretty happy to be getting a toy of SG Soundwave!  He's a fun guy!  It did bum me out when he got this particular body in the Club fiction years ago, since I'd already splurged on his original body (Sonic White MP3 Soundwave) and wasn't keen to get a replacement for it, but by 2012 he'd had this body for a while and he'd basically done all of his stuff while in it.  This body had become the character by then.  The old boxy MP3 body had become a footnote.

I do happen to be in the very tiny minority that doesn't mind the Ironhide/Ratchet body.  It doesn't bug me much that his arm transformation zigzags creases across the side of his altmode.  It results in an interesting transformation, so I'm cool with it.  The one thing that did bug me was the engineering error that kept the head from looking forward, and that was something the new Soundwave head for this toy fixed.  They just sculpted the neck at an angle so the head looks forward.  And so my potential complaint about the toy itself had been removed.

However, man, that new head didn't look so hot in photographs.  It was kind of like a hit to the gut.  I was excited about him, and the face sculpt took the air out of my sails.  I am happy to report that it doesn't look that bad in person.  Or I've grown used to it.  Either way, not a big deal, I guess.  What IS way better in person than in photos is his color scheme.  His blue is attractively electric.  ...and it appears to be entirely paint on top of otherly-colored plastic (probably black).  Which is fine, because its matte-ness is part of its appeal to me, I think.  It's an especially great white/blue color combination once you throw in the green highlights.

What's not cool is that headband.  I mean, I guess I'm glad it exists.  The headband is very important to Soundwave's visuals.  Without it, he's like Popeye without his pipe or Bugs without his carrot.  But, man, this headband does not look great.  It's very rough and there's a big line of mold flash across the entire perimeter.  And it's entirely the wrong shade of green.  Hrn.

Still, all together, I was pleasantly surprised.  Just not about the headband.  Everything else is pretty keen.