Today's subject is the
Universe figure,
Stormcloud, courtesy of Hellscream. At first glance, Stormcloud appears to be an evil version of
Powerglide, in that he shares the same mold and he's primarily black and purple - classic evil/Decepticon colors. In actuality, Stormcloud is an homage to the Micromaster of the same name (well,
Storm Cloud - close enough). His color scheme mimics that of the original Storm Cloud (right down to the greenish face) and the MM-89 reference printed on him stands for Micromaster and the year of the original release (1989), but the alt mode (
A-10 Thunderbolt II assault plane) is that of Storm Cloud's patrol buddy,
Tailwind. Why Hasbro didn't go with a straight Tailwind homage - who knows? Perhaps they didn't want to release a blue A-10 Thunderbolt II (because of the G.I.Joe Rattler look), or maybe they didn't want a character called Tailwind sitting on the shelves, fearing that today's youth will be irreparably corrupted by potential robot flatulence humor. Get it...get it? Tailwind. Tail....wind? Do I hear crickets chirping? Oh, come on - like you never snickered at poor ol'
Windbreaker. Just be thankful they compromised and didn't go with his original working name -
Assblast. :-)
