I've been realizing that in these past few months that, hey, I have toys of Soundwave in his briefly-appearing satellite form from Revenge of the Fallen, but I don't have one of him in his Earth mode in which he did stuff with other characters. The tiny Legends Class toy reached the United States, but not the two larger toys.  I'd have to import them from Asia.

And so I did.  I had to choose one over the other, and that took a bit of research and photo-staring.  The "normal" DOTM Soundwave is likely considered the Deluxe Class toy, but it didn't come with a Laserbeak and would likely be smaller than I'd want versus most other characters.  I don't want Bumblebee to tower over Soundwave, after all, and worse than that is having a Laserbeak be as big as he is.  Placing Deluxe Laserbeak on Deluxe Soundwave's shoulder seems like it would be an impossibility.

On the other hand, the Human Alliance version of Soundwave, which comes with its own Laserbeak, might be too big!  The biggest Megatron that came out for DOTM was the Voyager, and the Human Alliance toy would likely dwarf that toy in mass.  Plus it costs more!  And so I had to determine my priorities.

Eventually, I decided I prioritized Soundwave's scale versus Laserbeak and (secondarily) Bumblebee over his scale with Megatron.  So Human Alliance it is!  Plus, dudes, I have been seriously craving a McDreamy Dylan Gould toy.  How can you say no to that.  Since Transformers toys have been shrinking a little over the years, the Human Alliance version of Soundwave is actually not too badly scaled next to Deluxe Bumblebee.  He's bigger than Bumblebee by a little bit, which is fine, because that's how I prefer my villains.  (It probably helps that most of his mass goes to kibble behind his arms, which doesn't add to his height.)  And, obviously, the Laserbeak he comes with isn't too big for him.  Laserbeak clips to his forearm or can transform into a hilarious missile-launching vehicle for McDreamy to ride.

Soundwave himself is... intimidating.  If you don't like complicated toys, stay far away from him.  He's a bit of a mess.  Just orchestrating the layers of car parts on the backs of his arms is work enough.  He's seriously a chore to transform.  It's not that there's any terrible parts, it's just that there's so damn much of it.  Fortunately, he looks nice in both modes.  And I'm amazed at how efficient his... leg transformation is?  The entirety of both his legs fit into his rear bumper.  They unfold out of an area the size of a Chicken McNugget.  His legs are admittedly stumpy, but I recall DOTM Soundwave's robot mode was pretty gorilla-like in proportion anyhow, so.

Plus, again, he comes with McDreamy.