Broadside is a character that people have been anticipating an update of for a while now, mostly because he was part of the popular Wreckers team int he comics. He’s one of the few members who hasn’t gotten a new toy in ages, though it’s somewhat understandable why he hasn’t. Broadside has two alt modes, one is a jet, one is an aircraft carrier. Working aircraft Carriers in with any level of scale is effectively impossible being possibly the largest vehicles on the planet.
There is a vague attempt to make scale work with Broadside. He includes a set of small aircraft sculpted to resemble the recently released Combiner Wars Aerialbots toys, that can be stuck on the carrier deck using little pegs. This does have the odd effect int hat it means his Headmaster in “reality” would be larger than Superion, but it’s still a neat effort. I plan to paint up my Aerialbots at some point since they are all white plastic.
Talking about small Aerialbots seems like a funny place to start out discussing a figure, they are just accessories after all. The thing is, I prefer to discuss the good points before the bad points, and the mini Aerialbots are the only real good point with poor Broadside. It’s fairly rare that I just flat out don’t like a toy, I try to find some redeeming qualities when possible, but I really just don’t like Broadside, he’s just a big ball of weird design choices and flaws.
So, continuing with the carrier mode. The flat deck essentially consists of a bunch of flippy panels that all sort of but don’t quite mesh together well, which kind of huts the aesthetics of the carrier. It’s also covered in a lot of ill fitting stickers. The stickers aren’t the problem on their own, it’s how poorly they fit and how the sticker detail doesn’t even attempt to match the sculpted detailing on the surfaces they attach to. Then there are the little landing gears on the carrier, which are mostly just used to allow it to sit on a flat surface, except the way they fold up is goofy and they are prone to folding up by mistake when trying to display the carrier. Lastly the goofy wings on the front end of the carrier. These wings sort of exist for the Jet mode, except they look goofy over there, as well in Robot mode. They just are all around poorly executed and get int he way in all three modes than they do help the look.
Moving on to the Jet mode. I will just say, an attempt was made, and leave it there.
On the robot, hid design is almost there, he’s nice and beefy and chunky, except his also just sort of gets int he way of himself. Those previously mentioned Wings just sort of hang off of his shins and get in the way. The carrier panels hanging off of his shoulders get in the way of the arms and shoulders. He’s also back heavy so posing him can be a little difficult as well.
I think my biggest issue with Broadside is mostly just how close he is in almost every area he misses. It just makes him frustrating to interact with in every way because everything about him mostly almost works but not quite. To add insult to injury, he seems to have been shipped alone to a lot of stores, which means he will likely clog up shelves for a while blocking other Voyagers from getting a more widespread release.
