I’ve talked about Soundblaster before, but here is an honest-to-goodness North American release of a Japanese-exclusive Transformers character.
“But, Andy,” you say. “The War For Cybertron: Siege Soundblaster toy came out a year earlier!” Yes, that’s true! But that’s actually a different character, with the same name and appearance. Confusing? You betcha!
THIS Soundblaster is a rebuilt Soundwave. The Siege Soundblaster is a clone of Soundwave. Know how you can tell the difference? Rebuilt Soundwave has a Decepticon logo on his chest. Clone-Soundwave has a Mercenaries logo on his chest.
See? Decepticon logo.
Anyways, Super7 totally nailed Soudwave’s animation model with this mold, and the only natural thing to do was re-relase him in his alternate black colors. And so they did, for their 2020 Black Friday sale, along with Stepper (a black repaint of Jazz), and two other black repaints we’ll take a look at someday.
Soundwave, Soundblaster, the Transformers, and all related characters are owned by either Hasbro or Takara, depending on what country you live in. International copyright laws are complicated!