"I told you we should have bought more than four bullets."
Back in the late Eighties, Japan didn’t get Thunderwing. Instead, they gave Thunderwing’s oni-styled Pretender shell a new head and chest and tried to pass him off as a different, fully robotic character. He was Black Shadow, whose function was Space Mafia!
…well, it is if you’re not very precise at translating his function from Japanese into English, anyway.
No, he’s “just” a space gangster. Which is still space cool, but I think the phrase “space mafia” evokes the imagery of a single guy who is the ENTIRE friggin’ space mafia. He is all space gangsters combined. That always pumped up his reputation in my mind. He was not a dude to mess with. He runs everything, and not nicely. Black Shadow is a one-man Illuminati, with guns.
"Now who's ready to sleep with da fishes? ...because I brought this Finding Nemo comforter!"
And because Hasbro was on the Good Crack this year, not only did we get a new Thunderwing toy, but they also made sure he had an extra head and chest somewhere on the tooling so that we could get Black Shadow later. Though he’s “Sky Shadow” and his bio mentions nothing about gangsters or mafias or even racketeering.
Boooooo!
Ah well. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Its head might end up under your bed sheets later.
Someone has to say it: “We are the Robot Mafia. The entire Robot Mafia” – Don Bot, seen with his two henchbots, Futurama.
I love Black Shadow’s deco. The red, black, gray and tiny hint of gold make him look right at home amongst Cobra’s air fleet.
Black Shadow? Black? are you putting a man down for being black? Damn man, it’s not the 80s, people try to be politically correct now!
Besides, when you say a black man in the mafia, people assume you mean a drug dealer thug.
Also, Black Shadow was a bit redundant. I’ve never seen a yellow shadow, or a green one, or blue…..
Then you haven’t seen a lot of shadows. They’re typically a darker version of whatever surface they’re cast on. My Universe Hound on my desk in front of me is casting a brown shadow with a woodgrain pattern.
4 bullets is still 4 more than Sky Shadow needs to get things done.
Okay, let me ask you my usual question. Did you find this at local retail? Did you also see the Junkion repaint.
Found him at Walmart. No Junkheap, sadly.
I love this guy! Just found him at Target last night along with Junkheap….well okay, I FOUND Junkheap, but I didn’t end up getting him. I’ll probably regret it later, but it’s Christmas and I’m tryin’ to cut down on toys for myself. Didn’t want to miss Sky Shadow, though! ‘Course I didn’t have any prior knowledge about him – I just think he looks awesome!
Of course, to off-set my personal toy buying, I got this Princess Celestia/Princess Luna two pack as one of my neice’s Christmas presents. So there! I’m totally not selfish! Although I almost want the pack myself sometime, after that one episode where Luna comes back for Halloween. Man that shit is hilarious.
Presumably his non-gangsterness is related to his appearance in IDW (Last Stand of the Wreckers?) where he is one of Megatron’s Stage 6ers.
His bio isn’t compatible with that, either. It paints Sky Shadow as an eeeeeeeeeevil Decepticon leader alternative that even Megatron fears. Basically, a Thunderwing espy. Just like how Axor was a Lockdown espy. These retools need to stop being espies of each other.
You mean Expy? http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy
That’s the one!
Man, now I want another Last Stand of the Wreckers-style story, done as a heist/caper thing (as opposed to LSOTW’s war movie thing).
GET SKY SHADOW!
Oh yeahz! Got this guy coming in the mail this week. Figure of the year hands down. A note to Kyde (if he’s still working on the line) to do more Victory homages in the future.