(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Autobot Alliance Special Ops Jazz. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Autobot Alliance Special Ops Jazz here.)

    Shattered Glass Treadshot here is a bit of an obtuse homage. On first glance, given the color scheme one might think he's an homage to Armada Sideswipe-- and indeed, if you put an Autobot sticker over his Shattered Glass Decepticon symbol, he functions pretty well as one (even if the car mode is way more aerodynamic than Armada Sideswipe's). However, the reason he's a Decepticon named Treadshot here is, A, there's already a Shattered Glass Sideswipe; and B, there was a Universe 1.0 "Battle in a Box" set that featured a Decepticon redeco of Armada Sideswipe with an oddly reddish Decepticon symbol versus Ultra Magnus. Since Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus is in this set, that little feud between rivals has now carried over into actual fiction beyond a store exclusive versus set! However, since this is "Shattered Glass" after all, Treadshot has Armada Sideswipe's color scheme, though he does still have Universe Treadshot's silver stripes on one side of his vehicle mode. As for the colors themselves, they're spot-on Armada Sideswipe-- they got the shades of the colors down perfectly. The dull sky blue is a particularly nice shade, though the orange-yellow has never been one of my favorite colors, and this toy does nothing to change that opinion-- in fact, due to the plastic sprue layout, there's a bit of yellow that shows through on the sides of the car mode, which looks a little unsightly. All that said, the yellow and blue ARE complementary colors, and the black serves as a nice "go-between" color. There's also several paint apps on Treaddshot, including the bright orange taillights and red headlights, that are present on Armada Sideswipe. His rear window in vehicle is also painted-- a relative rarity for this mold. It's a bright yellow paint and totally doesn't mesh with the transparent dull yellow used for his actual transparent plastic, but it's better than nothing, to be sure.
    Treadshot has a new headsculpt, though it's not one Fun Publications (the folks who run Botcon) created-- rather, it was one of the alternate heads created initially for the mold, but was simply never used until now. Repurposing this new head as Treadshot/Sideswipe works remarkably well, with the few differences making his headsculpt look better, not worse. However, on the downside, this head sculpt is just a smidge to wide, to the point where the chest doesn't come down over it quite all the way in robot mode, which can be mildly annoying.
    Shattered Glass Treadshot is a great mold and a nice nod for people who might like really obscure homages or Armada Sideswipe's character, but wanted a better toy of him. However, the color scheme (though not bad) isn't particularly exciting to me, and it really feels like they were stretching on this homage. This is definitely one of the weakest uses of this mold.

Review by Beastbot

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