Perfect Effect PE-10X Shadow Bat Reviews

Available from the robot kingdom booth at Botcon 2012, the black repaint of PE-10 King Bat. Packaging is the usual small box with a plastic tray and cover:





Shadow Bat has three modes, jet, bat, and sword. The transformation is a bit difficult to describe, but the instructions are straightforward and easy to understand. He's black with very nice silver and teal details, plastic quality is top notch. The translucent red plastic on the wing blades and sword edges is nice. Overall it looks very nice and was well worth the $35.

Jet mode:
Tail fins flip up on the back



Bat mode:
The head from jet mode flips down, the feet flip down, you leave the tail fins or fold the back down
Front

Back


Sword/staff mode:
I just grabbed the closest figure since I couldn't dig out a nemesis/black figure that this is obviously intended for. It's a little big for a deluxe, but scales well for a pre-2011 voyager or larger. I think it will ge a great addition to universe classics nemesis prime, or the almost-certain battle tanker for next year's TFCC Scourge. Pics below are mainly just to show the mode and detail, I'll bet that Agent_Adam will get some good pics with other bots:



Other thoughts:
My only real concern is the staff mode hilt, it's built by piecing three rods together. They fit together well and nothing is loose, but it may sag over time. The sword hilt forms the peg that is supposed to hold the handles of the staff, and this can be tricky to get pegged together so that it is solid enough keep from falling over. I still need to experiment with it more, and I'll update this is I find a better method to get everything to hold together.

I've had the original Kingbat from PE for a while now, and although there is a TON of hate for this figure as a minion for Soundwave, I think it's best function is as the bigass sword/trident.

The three piece handle is the biggest worry though. The pegs seem to be a tad bit too big for the holes and one of mine has developed a stress mark at the conection point because of it. It still holds together very well though.

I honestly don't mind the batmode all that much, but I know a lot of people are less than satisfied with it. Maybe it's because I never had a RatBat as a kid, or maybe it's because I like the weapon mode so much that I am able to overlook it. I don't know.

I do like the jet mode a bit better though. The transformation is pretty cool how it collapses on it's self, and I appreciate the little details molded into this thing too.

One thing it looks like you forgot from looking at your pics, is that the jetmode has landing gear. The feet in batmode are the rear landing gear and there is a little tab directly over the three dots that folds down the single front wheel.

All in all I think this is a pretty awesome little accessory from PE, and this repaint is pretty damn slick. Looks to be a great addition for a Nemesis collection.

Great looking pics by the way.

I was just wondering. The box is red, which may have just been done to make it look less like Kingbat, but for Perfect Effect toys usually means the toy is allied with the Autobots.