MEGATRON

TRANSFORMERS: MACHINE WARS (KENNER)

The success that was Transformers in the ‘80s sort of waned as they moved into the next decade, with the Generation 2 rebrand never really finding its footing in the market.  The franchise was given new life, however, in 1996 with Beast Wars, which shifted the focus to creature-based alt-modes, and found a solid fanbase, which was a mix of old and new fans.  Some of the old fans were still longing for vehicle-based Transformers, and Hasbro/Kenner gave it another try in 1997, with the KB Toys-exclusive Machine Wars line.  It wasn’t really a smash success, running only 12 figures across different sizes, all of them re-using molds from earlier runs.  It did, however, serve to get some unused and rare molds out, so I guess that was pretty nice.  And, in a weird turn of events, it got me a Megatron.  Let’s look at that figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Megatron was released as part of the “Basics” assortment of Transformers: Machine Wars, which was the smaller scale line of figures.  He was one of four basic Decepticons, all of them jets.  Megatron shared his mold with his “clone” Megaplex (and indeed the art of the two characters is swapped between their packaging, with the Megaplex art appearing on Megatron’s card and vice-versa), and they both served to finally release the cancelled G2 Skystriker mold.  In his robot mode, the figure stands 4 inches tall and he has 9 workable points of articulation.  The articulation on these smaller guys was pretty solid, offering a good basic assortment of joints, with a good range of motion.  The arms and legs are all balljoints, so there’s a lot to be done with them, keeping him on par with the typical Legends/Core class figure of the modern line.  His mold is a good precursor of things to come.  It feels stylistically a lot like a G1 animation based figure, with a lot of good classic robot elements at play.  Though not sculpted to *be* Megatron, the head has a certain degree of a Megatron vibe to it, especially with the helmet shape.  Megatron’s alt-mode is an F-22 Raptor fighter jet, which he transforms into with some spring assistance under the back of the figure.  The arms and legs fold up decently enough, but definitely do just hang there a bit.  He’s got some landing gear, which folds out of the legs and the nose of the cockpit.  The color scheme here is a sort of turquoise/sky blue and white set-up, which doesn’t feel very Megatron-y, and in fact feels a bit more heroic, if I’m honest.  This, coupled with his lack of any sort of faction symbol, does kind of muddy a bit who he’s meant to be.  Megatron is packed with a blaster with a removable muzzle.  It can be disassembled and stored in the backs of his legs for when he’s in jet mode, or just doesn’t feel like carrying around a gun, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Megatron was more than likely my first ever Transformer, but I didn’t know it at the time.  My grandparents on my dad’s side got the four grandchildren each one of the jets for Christmas in 1997, and Megatron was the one I got.  I tore him open at our Christmas gathering, and the packaging certainly didn’t make it home, so I didn’t know his name or the line he came from.  When I actually got into Transformers later on, this guy’s total lack of any markings led me to believe he was a knock off of some sort.  He did get a lot of use, more often than not with my Star Wars figures, where he served as a droid companion.  Over the years, he fell to pieces and I honestly don’t know where any of my original figure ended up.  A few years ago, one of the later re-decos of this mold came through All Time, which led to me realizing it was an official Transformer mold and doing a little digging, resulting in my discovery of who exactly this guy was.  And then, not terribly long after, a full run of Machine Wars came through, giving me a chance to snag this guy to replace my original.  I really quite like this one.  He still doesn’t feel like Megatron, but perhaps that’s why I like him so much.  He can just be what he was to my much younger self, which was just a cool transforming robot toy I knew very little about.