by ShadowBlaze » Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:27 pm
Today I stumbled upon a single Siege Sideswipe among a full display of Wave 3 and 4 Deluxes at a San Diego Walmart. The package was a little dinged, but the figure inside was complete and all of the little plastic bands securing him to the insert were intact, so I suspect he was put out after someone discovered him lost in the stockroom or wedged elsewhere in the store. I noticed right away that his "horns" seemed too small, and when I compared him to a Red Alert figure on the pegs, I could see that both figures indeed shared the exact same head-sculpt. Uncertain as to whether this was some kind of goof, I decided to buy him anyway.
Upon getting him home and opening him up, I concluded that this was NOT somebody's returned kitbash. The head is cast in the appropriate black plastic, and both the sculpted and painted elements are sharp and flawless. And again, the clear plastic "restraints" had all been in place, and the tape on the box hadn't been sliced, reinforced, or otherwise resealed, meaning there would have been no easy way for someone to simply swap noggins and repackage the figure. Still, internet searches for production variants or running changes of WFC Sideswipe have yielded nothing but photos of the standard figure with the correct head. I actually prefer the Red Alert head with nubbier horns, so I'll happily be hanging onto him, but I'm utterly perplexed as to what I've got or where it came from.
Has anyone else encountered a Sideswipe with Red Alert's re-tooled head?
