Man oh man. This Studio Series is kind of on a roll. While I wasn’t SUPER Impressed with Bumblebee, Stinger is excellent. Then I had the Leader Class figures show up, and cracked open Blackout. He’s incredible.
He’s big, bulky, menacing. He’s as he should be. Being the first Transformer we see in the first movie, Hasbro and Takara (who are working in conjunction on these I guess) had their work cut out for them, as Blackout is a pretty complex design.
Everything here works the way it should. Blackout has his rotor “cape” in back, he’s rocking his “neutral grey” color scheme without having some goofy flashy colors added in “for the kids”. He even comes with a little Scorponok, who can attach to his back, just like in the movie!
He has incredible sculpted detail in every part and panel as well. I never owned the older Voyager class figure(s) but it’s a moot point now. This is the Blackout toy to own. Probably the most impressive feature is his head sculpt.
I mean, C’mon!
His Alt-mode design is also spectacular.
With a crazy amount of detail and screen accurate markings (except for his tail rotor having “Blackout” on it, it’s a great example of how much engineering went into this toy to make it convert from such an imposing robot to such an accurate (and massive) helicopter.
Scorponok stores under the tail of the Helicopter as well –
BOTTOM LINE:
Would I recommend Blackout? Enthusiastically YES! Whether you’re planning on picking up the Studio Series line or not, Blackout is an example of a fantastic Transformer, with a top-notch design, tons of articulated joints and Scorponok, he’s a must have. The only real “issue” I could complain about is that his hands do not have a rotation joint, so they’re mostly stuck “palm down”, but he has three big fingers, so it’s not that big of a deal. Also, the tail rotor attaches to his forearm so you can mimic the buzzsaw weapon from the end battle in the movie:
Pax Cybertron 
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