Tag Archives: Megatron

#4142: Megatron

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

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.

#2243: Megatron

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , ,

CLASSIC ANIMATION MEGATRON

TRANSFORMERS WAR FOR CYBERTRON: SIEGE (HASBRO)

See, we’re kind of doing this one and one deal with me and Super Awesome Wife reviewing the Transformers now.  Why?  Well, because as she’s pointed out to me, legally the site is half hers now, so there’s not a lot I can do to stop it.  Guess this is just my life now.

At the beginning of me falling down the Transformers rabbit-hole, there was one major obstacle to overcome to get me really into that Transformers mind-set: owning an Optimus Prime.  Well now I have four of those.  You know who I still didn’t own a single figure of, though?  Optimus’s opposite number from the Decepticon side, Megatron.  Well, that changes today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Like yesterday’s Optimus figure, plus the Soundblaster and Silverstreak  Bluestreak from last week, this guy is part of the Walmart exclusive “35th Anniversary Commemorative Series” sub-line of Siege figures, which started showing up on shelves towards the end of October.  While Silversteak Bluestreak and Soundblaster were more conventional re-decos, Prime and Megatron are based on the cel-animated appearances from the G1 cartoon, which gives them a fairly distinctive flair.  Like Prime, Megatron is a re-deco of his Voyager Series 1 release from the beginning of the year.  Unlike Prime, that makes him totally new to me, since that’s one of the few Siege items I never got around to picking up.  In robot mode, the figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and has 26 practical points of articulation.  Much like his counterpart Optimus, Megatron’s sculpt aims to be an idealized version of the G1 toy…more or less.  As with any modern update of Megatron, there are some needed changes, which I’ll touch on more when I get to his alt-mode.  The robot mode is pretty posable, though compared to Prime, it’s a little more restricted.  Not terribly so, and a lot of it owes more to his actual character design than to any design choices on the toy itself.  Compared to Prime, Megatron doesn’t have quite a clean and polished look, with slightly more deviation from that G1 animation design.  All of the important notes, are there, of course, but he’s more prone to some creative liberties, such as the far more obtrusive “backpack” that houses the alt-mode parts when he a robot.  It’s not a terrible way of handling things, but it’s also not as clean as the way Optimus does things.  Additionally, there are a couple of hollow spots on this figure, which Optimus mostly avoided.  That being said, Megatron still makes for a pretty solid robot.  The new paint scheme here is a major departure from the standard.  As a whole, he’s brighter, more eye-catching, and cleaner than the prior release.  He’s also got a cool, very artistic look, which simulates the cel-shading of animation.  While I felt that both Optimus figures were of a similar quality, seeing the updated Megatron really did a lot to salvage this particular figure in my eyes.  Now, about that alt-mode.  Megatron joins many others in losing his original G1 alt-mode, which was an accurate recreation of a Walther P-38 pistol.  With current safety laws, there’s absolutely no way that would fly, so this figure’s alt-mode is a tank, which has more or less become his accepted modern-day alt-mode.  The shift to tank from gun obviously requires some changing of the robot mode, but the figure manages to balance both alright.  The tank transformation is actually pretty straight forward, and I was able to get it most of the way without the instructions, so that’s good.  It’s a fairly cool looking design, and feels imposing enough to associate with a character like Megatron.  Megatron is packed with his usual arm cannon, as well as a large sword that calls back to the original Takara release, both of which are worked into the transformation.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As much as Optimus impressed me, I just never could bring myself to drop the money for the standard Siege Megatron.  I wasn’t trying to avoid the character on purpose, though, and I wanted a good one for my collection, so I was looking at other options.  I even considered picking up the Combat Megatron, but that seemed too drastrically different for me.  When I first spotted the 35th Anniversary figures, I did think this guy looked pretty slick, but ultimately held off.  But guess who didn’t.  Did you guess Max?  Yeah.  He bought one, and brought it into the store and let me mess around with it, at which point I pretty much knew I wanted one for myself.  And here we are.  Honestly, he’s a lot better than I’d expected, and he feels like he sort of completes a very important piece of my collection, so I’m glad I decided to give Megatron another try.