Swoop
(Power of the Primes)
Swoop's beast mode is, of course, a robotic pterodactyl, and it's quite G1-accurate with some modern enhancements-- though not as many as I'd have thought. Proportionally the head is great, and although the wings are a bit skinny, wing-span wise they're probably in the ballpark. The main body, though, is where this mode is easily the weakest, and that's usually been the case with any Swoop faithful to the G1 design. Although the fists are tucked in, the arms are fairly obvious on the sides of the main body (though at least they're mostly covered up by the wings), and he's got a "jet backpack" as opposed to that mass going into a proper back end. Instead, he has small feet that-- though they're proportionally okay-- actually hang down from the TOP of the back end of the bottom, so even if you extend them to full length they just BARELY touch the floor, and that's if you angle his feet. It's just kinda weird how he's basically part pterodactyl, part jet, but has these useless little feet behind him. Again, this is accurate to the G1 source material, but I wish they had changed this a bit more. The mold detailing is quite impressive on the toy and the biggest visual upgrade from his G1 self, with vents, circuitry, and panels present practically everywhere, ESPECIALLY on his wings. Like most of the other Dinobots, Swoop's color scheme is mostly a milky gray-- not quite the light shade that's VERY blah, but it's still kind of a bland shade, even if it is a bit darker. His pterodactyl head is mostly made of clear plastic, but then painted on the underside with some metallic gold paint, which just looks so cool, and I'm glad it was done to all the PotP Dinobots. There's an Autobot symbol on the middle of his beak, while the rear section of his head, his eyes, and his bottom beak are painted red-- along with some circuitry details on the sides of the back and the lower portions of his pterodactyl feet. To help add in another shade, black is used for the neck, the portion that becomes his robot feet, part of his arms/sides of the body, part of the back, and on his Prime armor piece. (Like other Prime armor pieces, you can take out the clear plastic piece in the center and put a Prime Master in the spot; otherwise it serves no function in this mode, and plugs onto the top of his back. The spikes on the front are pretty cool, though.) For some minor accent colors, there's some silver on the sides of his pterodactyl head. His sword weapon can also store underneath his beak-- it looks a bit odd, but I guess it gives him a way to more easily impale 'bots while flying. For articulation in this mode, Swoop can open/close his mouth, move his neck up and down slightly, move his pterodactyl legs at two places (for all the good that does), and his wings can move out-and-in at the midpoint and up-and-down near where they meet the body, which is pretty decent for this kind of alt mode. It should also be noted Swoop has six pegs on the top of this mode that Prime/Titan Masters can stand on-- two near the base of each wing, and two on his back.
As with most other Swoop toys, the transformation is pretty simple-- the back folds out to become his legs, the arms fold out from the sides, and the pterodactyl head folds down onto his chest, with the rear portion becoming his robot head with that characteristic pterodactyl headcrest. Proportionally, this mode is pretty solid overall, though his arms do seem a bit small, particularly for a Dinobot. (Of course, if they were bigger they'd be bigger eyesores in alt mode, so I guess there's that.) The biggest color reveal is the blue on his chest in this mode, which looks great and helps give him a bit more contrast, especially when compared to the other Dinobots. The aforementioned enhanced mold detailing also really helps make this mode more interesting visually, not just with the wings but all the little bits of detail on his lower legs, the arms, and the chest. Beyond the pterodactyl head on his chest, he's got some silver G1-like paint decals on the sides of his chest, along with a nice shade of metallic forest green on his wrists that looks so good against the milky gray I wish it was used more, G1-accurate or not. The pterodactyl feet on his lower legs help keep those pieces visually interesting, and his headsculpt is solid, complete with minor silver-painted side vents and a fairly neutral expression on his "normal" face, with triangular, light metallic silvery blue eyes on a silver-painted face. For articulation in this mode, Swoop can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows, inwards at the wrists, rotation at the waist (if you unplug his pterodactyl head from his chest slightly), and movement at the hips (at two points), knees, up-and-down at the ankles, back-and-forth near where the wings meet his body, and up-and-down at both the base of the wings and about halfway up each. Thus, he's pretty darned articulated, and pretty well-balanced as well. Swoop's Prime armor piece can fit either directly into his hands or on a peg hole on the side of each lower arm piece, but generally it's kind of a large fist-like shield in this mode, and not really impressive.
