Living on the edge, not afraid to die

A few weeks ago I spoke about how excited I was for the new Kingdom version of Shadow Panther. Fortunately the Mrs found him a little bit back and I now happily have one. If you don't know who Shadow Panther is, let me educate you a little on him. His bio reads-Outer appearance looks like a Cybertron but in fact he is a Predacon soldier. Shadow Panther specializes in performing surprise attacks from the darkness. He doesn't stop his hunts until he has preyed upon countless Maximals. Depending on release, he may or may not be Ravage. That's because he was originally a Japanese exclusive character, however Hasbro chose to import him when they ran a collectors web store (pre-Hasbro Pule). Initially sold as Shadow Panther, however at some point they renamed the toy Tripredacus Agent.

If you couldn't tell, it's a repaint of Cheetor. However not a direct repaint as Shadow Panther has a different head. The first bath of Beast Wars toys had the mutant head gimmick. This would usually give the figure another head that could be swapped out to represent a battle mask or helmet. When it came to repaints, these mutant heads would usually serve as the new characters head. Shadow Panther normally used the standard Cheetor head, but for this release he has the mutant head. Considering there's another Cheetor likely on the shelf nearby, that's a pretty good idea. Not going to lie either, it's a good choice. Makes him look more savage. With that sickle/whip weapon and the black colors, Shadow Panther looks like the anime shadow warrior the bio makes him out to be. 

The black on yellow with silver colors look as good as ever to me. Silver on black is a classic look and the yellow is so strikingly different that it contrasts nicely. Not to mention, makes me think of a Henshin Cyborg. There's a pretty big Transformers iceberg, and it's probably a coincidence, but the similarity is hard to ignore. As you've guessed by now, I'm happy with this toy. You might be too. The base mold is already a good one and it's a character I have a fondness for. I'm pretty happy that Hasbro went with Shadow Panther for Kingdom. With the Netflix version of Cheetor also available, I would have assumed they'd pass over another use of the mold on the shelf at the same time. Sometimes it's good to be wrong.