General Information:
Release Year: February 2004
Retailer: General Release (Toys 'R' Us, Kay Bee, Wal-Mart etc.)
Price: $6.99 (Depending on Retailer)
Transformation Difficulty Level: 2
Accessories: Blade weapons x 2, Energon Star
 |
 |
The name "Divebomb" has its roots in the Generation One Predacon of the same name. There, he was a mechanical bird who joined with his fellow Predacons to form the giant Predaking. Energon Divebomb is a mechanical bird too, but that's where the similarities end.
Beast Mode:
In his beast form, Divebomb is a mechanical bird. What really amazed me about this toy was how compact they made the bird mode. Usually bird modes wind up with a significant amount of undercarriage junk because of the robot bits, but the designers found a neat way to keep the robot parts from getting in the way and looking ugly. The best example of this are the robot legs which act as the wings here. Since this is a mechanical bird, there's no pretense of having the wings "flap" for the bird to fly. These wings are somewhat thick, but they are covered with so much mechanical detailing that it's obvious these wings are meant to act as thrusters and lift off engines. The base of the wings have vents sculpted in while the middle has a VTOL fan on each side. The upper robot body is towards the rear of the body where it has thruster vents at the rear, a really nice touch.
For a basic level toy, there's a good chunk of detail happening here aside from the fans and vents on the wings. There are a few cross hatch spaces and many small details including circles and even sculpted "pistons" at the point where the outer wings can bend back. The beast mode head also has a really nice design. Several mechanical "feathers" sweep back from the beasts' face, and the top of the head has a nice ridge line iin the center.
Divebomb comes with Energon parts like the other Terrorcons, but some of these parts are integrated right into the body. When you fully expand the wings, each one has two translucent green extensions that splay out and in depending on how you have the wing positioned. These look amazing with the other wing parts. Divebomb's Energon blades can be attached to the holes on either side of his beast mode head (although personally, I think he looks better without them). And of course, Divebomb comes with an Energon Chip (or Star/Cell...whichever name pleases you) which can easily be attached to the Decepticon Spark Crystal section.
There is a variant with the Energon blades included with Divebomb. In the small, initial run of Divebomb figures, he had one blade with a peg at the end (for the toy to hold in robot mode) and the other with only a sharp edge (not sharp enough to cut anyone, but you know what I mean). This however, limited what you could do with the weapons since you basically had to link them together for Divebomb to hold them in his alt mode. Of course, at the same time, this earlier version was more show accurate than the now more common version. So what is the more common version? The one now out in stores everywhere has a peg on each blade weapon, so when you combine them, one will have a peg at the end. The benefit of this is that you can now have Divebomb wield them individually, one in each hand.
Divebomb's colors are similar to those found on Energon Tidal Wave. He's mostly white with gold and dark blue-green parts. Paint detail colors include gold, gunmetal, purple and red for the eyes. Often, a mostly white toy can look boring, but the additional colors are dispersed so nicely throughout this form that they all give detail and make Divebomb look interesting rather than dull.
Divebomb has twelve points of articulation in this form, three in each leg and three on each wing. One of the parts that surprised me were the bird feet. There is a hinge at the center which allows the heel portion to swing forward! While this is most likely for the sake of transformation, some fans have found that it allows Divebomb to pick up Battle Ravage like he does on the show. This is assuming that you have the Energon Star attached to Battle Ravage tightly first.
Transformation to Robot Mode:
- Detach the Energon weapons and set them aside.
- Split the beast mode head in half and swing up each half to form the robot arms.
- Move the wings up and then fold the gold end of each wing up to form the robot legs.
- Swing the lower body section up so the peg in the gold part of the body attaches to the hole in the robot waist/hips piece.
- Straighten out the arms and robot feet.
- Turn the robot head around.
- The Energon weapons can attach to each other or just fit into the fists as individual weapons.
Robot Mode:
It's always nice to see the character of an alternate mode carry over into a robot mode, and that's what Divebomb does. His beast mode is sleek, angular and fast looking. His robot mode has the same feel. Part of this is due to the head design, which has several features angling upward, even his mouthplate, which is inset more on the chin and comes up and out until you hit his angled, gold visor eyes. The chest design looks more like Divebomb transforms into a jet than a bird, with the two vents on either side and the central, cross hatching piece. And from the school of more "extreme" design, his knees are about as high as his upper legs, but they are angled such that it looks like a cool design feature and not a part that the designers just didn't know what to do with. This image is further enhanced by the feet, which start wider at the base and come to a point.
Divebomb has some nice detailing in this mode. The parts by his shoulders have circles sculpted into them that look like weaponry of some sort. The inner parts of his lower arms have nice line designs and the face has one mean expression on it.
Divebomb's color scheme from the beast mode carries over a lot here, with only a bit more of the dark blue-green being revealed and the robot head, of course. It's nice how the purple on the vents shows so well on his chest, this also offers some visual continuity with other Terrorcons.
The Energon weapons each have a Powerlinx activation hole in them, allowing you to attach this to other weapons with a Powerlinx peg or to Mini-Con connection points on Enegon and Armada toys. I really like the way each blade weapon looks nice on its own, and then comes together to form this boomerang blade weapon. A really nice departure from the typical weapon.
Divebomb has eleven points of articulation in this form, pretty nice for a basic sized toy. These include three points of articulation in each arm and knee joint articulation.
Divebomb is an awesome looking toy and fun to boot! Highly recommended.
