For whatever reason, Hasbro left Target's "Buzzworthy Bumblebee" Transformers exclusives unannounced. They more or less just show up or leak. So Silverstreak leaked last year, was never quite officially announced by Hasbro, but started arriving in decent numbers in March. As it's a "Buzzworthy" yellow box item and also in the yellow boxes, it either straddles two lines, or we can just admit "Buzzworthy Bumblebee" is code for "Target exclusive" in this post-Toys "R" Us, companies-don't-want-store-names-on-product-boxes world. It's a good figure! If you got Walgreens' Earthrise Bluestreak - a silver and black car - it's a lot like that. Except Silverstreak is silver and blue... Diaclone/prototype Bluestreak colors. (A couple of exclusive toys have been made in this color scheme before, but this is arguably what most fans had in mind when they were anticipating a Blue Bluestreak.)
I was pretty excited to get this one and drove around to get it before the alleged on-shelf date of April 1 - it's just neat.
While Hasbro could have just taken the Bluestreak paint masks and swapped the colors, they didn't. Silverstreak's robot mode does follow a similar pattern to Bluestreak, where generally the silver car parts are now silver, generally the gray robot parts are white, and generally the red body parts are now white. The face paint on Silverstreak seems to be a little thick - it may not be to you rloking - with a bright yellow helmet crest. Reports are that the yellow paint is thin on some samples, so be sure to examine them in stores before taking yours to the cash register.
Articulation is as good as they tend to be these days, with swivel wrists, tilting ankles, swivel waist, a head that can tilt a bit, and other things we take for granted. It's par for the course in 2022, but I remember 2002 where Armada Hot Shot - an excellent toy - had no waist, no neck, and no ankles. Of course, he was also less than half the price, and had a mini-con buddy, so all I can say there is that it was a different time. Hasbro continues to cater to older fans, who seem to prioritize accessories and articulation over play features.
With two shoulder cannons and a big blaster, Silverstreak has more than you might expect. The shoulder blasters more or less fit perfectly, but sometimes I have clearance issues. Your mileage may vary. The big blaster fits in the fist with no problems. The white color pops nicely against the blue and silver paint, plus it makes those blast effects really pop.
I needed the instructions. Even though this is the fifth iteration of the mold after Prowl, Barricade, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen, I forgot that the robot arms lock the chest in place. (Some of these guys don't get transformed a lot given how much new stuff comes out lately.) Everything else folds up pretty nicely.
The car is a car. Only the hood is silver on Silverstreak, the rest of him is blue. Bluestreak has similar coloring, only its black hood matches the black roof - and the Autobot symbol is slightly different. Both are nice cars with wheels, but there are no toy features of which to speak. It's just a nice car that looks like one you saw in a catalog a long time ago, but probably never owned. There's a 5mm hole in the roof for his blaster, and smaller holes to mount the smaller blasters. Everything has a place.
I'm a big fan of prototype paint jobs leaping to the toy aisles, and I probably would've paid more for this as a BotCon item - thankfully, that's no longer something that happens. For $23 it's a nice figure, with a nice paint job, and it doesn't look like the many other repaints of the Prowl mold from over the years. It won't blow you away, but it's different enough to actually make you feel like you got something new. Given how collector figures go these days, that can be a challenge, so go buy this one and hopefully encourage Hasbro to do more familiar-but-new things for those who collect the Classics/Generations toys.
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