I might as well lump the other two uses of the Jazz mold here in one post.

The first, Shattered Glass Treadshot, I talked about a little already when the toy was first revealed.  He's an homage to a 2004 Treadshot toy which was pitted against an Ultra Magnus toy.  That Treadshot was a maroon redeco of Armada Sideswipe, and true to Shattered Glass's oft-repeated theme of rivals in each other's color schemes, this Treadshot is in Armada Sideswipe's colors.

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the fact that this BotCon toy is not only an Armada homage but, as he's a Treadshot paired off against an Ultra Magnus, also an homage to a 2004 Universe box set.  This is insane.

I like to think that this Treadshot IS that Treadshot, and that they are the same dude, and so I tried to find a way to get this Treadshot to interact with that Treadshot's Mini-Con partner, Nightbeat.  Treadshot has no Powerlinx connectors, and so I thought I was stuck with just balancing Nightbeat's motorcyle mode on his back or something.  But then I remembered Treadshot's speakers combine with his rifle to make a larger gun, and thought I could do something with that.  And I did.  And it sort of works.  I call it "The Chopper."

Treadshot was in the preregistration box set, but the other use of the Jazz mold was one of the at-show toys.  It was Kick-Off, and he's an Action Master!  BotCon has given us one Action Master recreation every year since 2009, and this is something I never complain about.  And I certainly wouldn't complain about Kick-Off!  I mean, I don't have a lot of feelings for Kick-Off in general, but this toy of him is amaaaaaazing.  And also frustrating.  Amazingly frustrating.  Let me tell you why.

He has florescent orange.  Or blacklight orange.  Whatever you want to call it.  That stripe that runs down the middle of his car mode is painted florescent orange.  And it is SO FRICKING BEAUTIFUL.  But it won't photograph.  I don't think RGB can do florescent.  And if it can, I sure can't figure out how.  This means when I try to share him with you via photography, he instead turns out looking kinda dreary.  But it is FANTASTIC, YOU GUYS, BELIEVE ME.

His forearms and weapons are molded in a bright orange I like to call "Action Master orange."  Lots of Action Masters got stuff molded or painted in this color, like Optimus Prime's detailing and weapons and Shockwave's accent colors.  It was the early 90s, after all.  If my childhood nostalgia could be embodied in a specific color, Action Master orange would be it.   And so with the florescent orange and the Action Master orange are coupled with black and white and a little red, it results in a crazy-awesome toy.

But one I can't photograph accurately, god dammit.

I am sitting here all grrrrrrrrrr.

I have two to talk about today!  I didn't write up a post for SG Soundwave, since he kind of bugged me.  Conceptually I'd been looking forward to him more than most, if only because I want an up-to-date pal for my SG Ravage, but his execution left me cold.  The head looked off to me, plus the idea that you have to buy his trademark headband separately sounds like an actual strawman scenario someone would cook up to malign Fun Publications.  There may be very good reasons for it, but there's still this nasty taste in my mouth.

Today's SG Treadshot reveal makes up for it.  My favorite things in every BotCon set tend to be the absolutely insane toy nobody else would have thought of or asked for in a million years.  Treadshot is this toy.  Waaaaaay back when, there was a toy in Armada called Side Swipe.  It was a very terrible-looking toy.  It remains a punchline amongst Transformers fans.  And because Hasbro loves us very much, they redecoed it not once but twice, and just barely.  They changed the blue once to maroon and once to purple.  These were not desired figures.

But the maroon one's name was Treadshot.

I have no idea what the thought process was that led FP to creating this figure, but Shattered Glass Treadshot is colored like Armada Side Swipe but with Treadshot's hood stripe.  It uses the Jazz mold's alternate head which hasn't been used yet at retail.  And it's pretty damn glorious.  I don't know why it exists, but now that it does I am super glad.  It is craaaaaaazy.  It makes the whole BotCon charade feel less cynical.

(Plus there's this part not-so-deep inside of me that wants to believe that the original Universe Treadshot and this SG Treadshot are the exact same dude.  Universe Treadshot was from a random, unspecified universe, and he was packaged versus an unspecified Ultra Magnus who seemed like kind of a tool.  Plus his symbol was the same maroon as the rest of him, making it neeearly SG Decepticon red.  Their stories could easily sync up.  It would delight me to no end to find out this 2003 Universe guy was from the Shattered Glass universe all along.)