New Transformers: Dark Of The Moon Villain Revealed Through Stolen Toys

Oh no! It's Javi blogging about new Transformers stuff...again.  It's been a known practice that Chinese workers will steal early copies of upcoming toys and sell them on eBay for toy reviewers.  This has been going on for a few years, and thanks to this rather illegal practice, we now have the first view of the main villain of TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.

Here is Shockwave courtesy of TFW2005, and ACTOYS.

Compare this image to his previous incarnation to the original 1980's cartoon, you'll see it's a good modernization of his character into the Michael Bay movies.  Unlike a lot of the more iconic characters, such as Starscream or Ironhide, Shockwave actually looks like his original design of a purple cyclops. In the original cartoon he turned into a Space Gun, and he was the Decepticon that stayed behind on Cybertron to keep things in check for Megatron, while the main cast of characters were stuck on earth.  For the movie, his alternate mode has been updated to an alien tank of some sort.

Hilariously, this shows Shockwave holding himself in Space Gun mode. Image courtesy of TFWIKI

What I like about this particular design is, like I stated before, all of his iconic characteristics are intact here.  You have the main purple body, the one-eyed faceless head, one of his arms being a gun and the hose that attaches to his back.  This is almost as close to an homage to the original as movie Optimus Prime was. 

As the main villain of the movie, he'll be a huge character, even if plot details are still rather sparse. We'll just have to wait and see. This is his main character description from TFWIKI: 

"Shockwave has been referred to as "a computer on legs." This is not far from the truth. Logic rules Shockwave's thought processes and is the source of his every inspiration. He sees emotion as a weakness and a distraction. His cold and calculating modus operandi is supported by his frightening and exceptionally powerful form.  Shockwave is possibly even more powerful than Megatron. Perhaps logic may one day dictate that the time to replace Megatron's flawed, emotion-fueled rule is at hand. After all, the only logical choice for Decepticon leader would be Shockwave himself."

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON comes out July 1, 2011.