Megatron

Namesake of a Pistol

Hasbro Transformers Generation Two, 1992

Whether it’s toys or the mecha genre, Hasbro’s Transformers hold a hallowed place in the hearts and minds of all. But where there is love there is also heated controversy stemming from the slightest deviation of the established and accepted norm. And nowhere is this more evident than in the vehicle modes of the beloved Transformers. Consider for a moment the ardent debates about Optimus Prime in the 2007 live-action movie. All other aspects of the debate aside, many griped and complained that he went from a flat-nosed truck to an extended-cab truck. He didn’t even change vehicle types and people still got pissy.

The origins of this debate could arguably date back to the Transformer’s line rebirth in the early 90s with the Generation Two series. While Gen-2 saw many of the original toys refurbished and repackaged, others were recreated, including Optimus’ nemesis, the leader of the Decepticons, Megatron.

　

Background

When the original Transformers series ended in 1989, it left a vacuum in the hearts and minds of fans everywhere. The toys managed to endure for sometime after, but without the animated series to promote them, they quickly became more of a novelty than anything else. That changed in 1992 when Hasbro relaunched the Transformers line as Transformers Generation Two. While most of the toys remained unchanged despite some slight cosmetic alterations, one toy was radically re-imagined: the leader of the Decepticons, Megatron.

Megatron originally transformed into a Walther P-38 pistol that was so accurate in its detail, urban legends sprung up about Megatron toys being used in an assortment of crimes (the validity of these stories always remaining highly suspect). While this is often pointed to as the reason for Megatron’s reimaging as a tank, there are other equally if not more believable explanations. Megatron’s transformation sequence from giant robot to robot-sized pistol challenged the suspension of disbelief for many fans…fans of a show about alien robots that transform into earth vehicles. When the series would be translated into the live-action movies, this issue would be revisited with the writers of the movies stating ‘Megatron turning into a pistol would be sort of like Darth Vader turning into a lightsaber and having some else wield him’. And while the thought of a Darth-Vader-lightsaber wielded by Boba Fett is certainly compelling, the argument still stands.

Whatever the motivation, the solution was to have Megatron transform not into a pistol but into a big honking tank, complete with firing cannon. This actually silenced some complaints about Megatron’s new form because in the end, going from a pistol to a tank is kind of an upgrade.

Appearance – 3 out of 5

It’s a little tricky judging this toy’s appearance because of it’s not clear what to judge its appearance against. If we compare it to the original Gen-1 Megatron, then it fails to look as realistic, but it succeeds in looking more like the Megatron from the animated series. Seriously, check out the face and body of the original Megatron toy and you’ll see it looked nothing like Megatron from the series. As this is a tank – and a kind of neon camouflage tank at that – this Megatron toy doesn’t look like he did in the series. However the face is not only dead-on but it actually captures the overall identity of the character from the animated series. Likewise, when compared to other toys in the line, the physical size of this toy definitely helps to lend some credence and credibility to the role Megatron plays in the narrative (IE being a source of fear).

Representing the animated series’ character aside, this is a solid mid-range toy when it comes to appearance. There are lots of tactile details, but most of them are a bit weak in their overall execution. This is by no means a model of a tank, but it does fit in with the way the Transformers were/are generally depicted.

Construction – 2 out of 5

The Generation 2 toys were a bit of a sad time in toys because it really marked a turning point in the Transformers line because fewer and fewer of their figures were being made out of the beloved die-cast metal. Worse, the plastic that was being used had a tendency to be a little on the light side. Megatron is no exception and while the toy is not outstandingly weak or found lacking, it is a bit noticeable how light the arms, legs, and the toy overall is when held in the hand. It’s not bad, but it certainly could be a lot better.

Movement – 2 out of 5

The figure’s movements are pretty limited to linear shoulder rotation and elbow joints (not including the wheels meant to simulate the tank treads). There are knees and a waist, but their movements are more connected to the transformation sequence. The head doesn’t rotate, which is a shame. The gun does elevate partially, but that’s about it.

Extras – 3 out of 5

I can’t decide if it is disappointing or expected that Megatron would come with so few extra components. The Transformers line(s), for all their strengths, have never really been one for extras. Megatron comes with a pistol (that doubles as an anti-personnel rifle in tank mode) and six missiles that the cannon can fire in either mode. Only four rounds can be loaded at a time, but there is storage for the extra rounds in Megatron’s legs.

What few extras it has, I think this toy does a very good job. Everything can be used and utilized in every mode and everything the toy comes with can be contained in the toy itself. It’s this trait that I really wish we’d see more of. Likewise, the use of electronic sound effects (cocking the gun and firing the gun – which is two separate motions, which I must highlight as being awesome – raising the left arm for laser-firing sounds, and an ‘I am Megatron’ voice effect when the head is pressed down) is effective (though the voice doesn’t even remotely sound like Frank Welker) but not overbearing. I think this section might have ranked higher if it had just worked with a few more extras.

Packaging – 4 out of 5

Hasbro knows packaging, there’s no doubt. The Generation 2 toyline looked cool and the packaging used a lot of the classic toy designs along with new approaches to packaging. There is a bio card with a personal quote, character stats, and a general overview of who the character is. Likewise, there are Transformer points (that unfortunately never ended up being used, unlike the original line where Reflector could be ‘bought’ using the points) and a review of the story and the character.

Overall – 3 out of 5

This kind of toy is one of the hardest to rate because it falls so squarely between a Three and a Four. If they’d done just a wee bit more with the toy or had done things just a wee bit better, this would be a fantastic toy that every kid, collector, and fan would love to have. As it is, just one too many elements come in just under expectations, leaving this version of Megatron on the upper end of the mediocre side of things.

Ultraman

Disappointing A Loyal Fandom

Tsuburaya and Bandai, 1990

Recently, I’ve gotten some correspondence from people regarding my grading methods as well as my selection of toys, both of which seem to be a source of some confusion and/or consternation. That’s an issue for another posting, but I wanted to mention it here to help explain why this particular toy was chosen.

To start off, I love Ultraman. I’m kind of a nerd for the big rubber suit monster movies like Godzilla and others, so it was only natural that I would be a HUGE fan of the Ultraman: Towards The Future series in the 90s. The series ended too quickly for my tastes and the lack of a DVD release is a shame. But there were some toys and they were, in a word, awful.

Background

Ultraman is the Dr. Who to Godzilla’s Star Trek. Back before computer graphics could make a giant monster out of thin air, the only way to make such monsters was to build a miniature of a city and then have a guy in a big rubber suit smash it to bits. Hence the genre of Daidocugi movies, or ‘big rubber monsters’ movies. After Godzilla hit it big, a host of imitators and innovators appeared, including Ultraman (created by the same company as Godzilla).

The plot of Ultraman varies from series to series, but it generally involves Ultraman, the benevolent alien from Out There, bonding with an equally altruistic human in order to defend the earth against a weekly onslaught of giant monsters. The series that inspired this toy however broke from tradition and was set not only somewhere other than Japan, but starred a mostly non-Asian crew. Ultraman: Towards The Future (or Ultraman the Great for some audiences) was filmed in Australia and contained a pretty diverse cast who belonged to the Universal Multipurpose Agency (or UMA). They dealt with a variety of problems that always ended up with their maverick agent, Jack Shindo, calling upon Ultraman to fight a giant monster.

Ultraman: Towards The Future lasted one season in the United States, but legends abound of a second season that was filmed but never released. The season itself was divided with the first half of episodes following what was known as the Gudis story arc (Gudis being the over-arching bad guy) and then a series of misadventures with a different monster/threat each week. The toys to support the series appeared quietly and disappeared about as quickly, possibly due to their overall substandard nature. There were five toys (four monsters and Ultraman) along with two vehicles (for the UMA agents) and a playset. The vehicles were, by and large, leaps and bounds superior in their construction…or at least appeared to be on the back of the packaging because so few people ever found them to buy them.

Appearance – 2 out of 5

The Ultraman figure looks good and is a dead ringer for the character from the show. They do a pretty decent job of matching the colors and getting his overall proportions correct (action figures are notorious for beefing up their heroes), making him look fit and strong but not turning him into a muscle-bound he-man. The Jack Shindo figure that comes with Ultraman is generic at best, with almost no remarkable features. The only outstanding praise is to the weapon Jack Shindo carries being quite impressively molded to look like the weapons from the show. Otherwise there’s nothing outstanding about either character’s appearance.

Construction – 1 out of 5

The figure isn’t particularly rugged or heavy and the plastic that it is made out of is a bit on the sturdy side, but not remarkably so. Imagine the arms from the He-Man figures, only if they were hollow, and if they were the entire figure. The figure is about as heavy and feels about as sturdy as a bottle of aspirin.

Movement – 1 out of 5

The damn thing can barely move! It has two linear shoulder joints and a linear neck joint and that’s it. Yes, TECHNICALLY, is has hip joints, but about the only thing they’re useful for is changing his stance from a martial arts horse stance to doing the cha-cha. And his waist joint, assuming that’s supposed to be a joint, can’t rotate at all. I’m not kidding when I describe this thing as a semi-poseable statue. The Jack Shindo figure has linear shoulder, hip, and neck joints, giving it pretty rudimentary movements. But that means that the little toy accessory is more mobile than the main toy itself!

Extras – 2 out of 5

I will give the toy some credit that it comes with the Jack Shindo figure, which is superior in just about every fashion. Ultraman doesn’t have any tools or weapons, so it makes sense he wouldn’t come with such, so they had to do something. Unfortunately, their plan to ‘do something’ was to upstage their own figure.

Packaging – 3 out of 5

The packaging for the figure was possibly the best part. There was an exceptionally generic explanation of who and what Ultraman was (that read like it was ripped off from a Voltron toy) and a list of every toy in the line, basically giving you the entire catalog in one go. The packaging was brightly colored and it showed you the toy inside through a plastic window.

Overall – 1 out of 5

Normally toys of this ilk (ie semi-posable statues) are not something I review. But I wanted to do so now to illustrate just what ranks as a One in my book. And as much as I love the Ultraman Franchise, and the Towards the Future series that inspired this toy, it doesn’t change the fact that this figure is so disappointing, it barely counts as a toy at all.

Inferno Fury

Xevoz: STIKFAS on Steroids

Xevoz Line, Hasbro, 2004

After the sheer disappointment of last week’s toy, I wanted to follow this week with one of the best toys in the last decade. Sadly, the Xevoz line turned out to be none too popular, which is a real shame. These were absolutely wonderful figures with incredible possibility, great accessories, a hearty sturdiness, and a nearly limitless possibility for expansion. Seriously, these toys should have been the next big thing because all the key ingredients for success were there.

Background

STIKFAS are the great secret of toy aficionados. The toys appeared very quietly and with limited release back around 2002, largely through the Internet and similar bizarre outlets. They saw little if any widespread availability. But Hasbro, being the ever-vigilant opportunists, took the STIKFAS toys and created a toyline around them, calling them the Xevoz line. What made the STIKFAS figures so appealing was that all joints were ball joints and they came with an array of generic parts, leading to nearly limitless possibilities when it came to posing and customization. The Xevoz would take this idea and jazz it up, but keep the core concepts.

There were a handful of different Xevoz toys, all of which were bizarre sci-fi concepts taken to a colorful extreme. Just about every part was interchangeable and the figures themselves were extremely study and yet maneuverable. There were different times (like the humans, the metahumans, the elementals, etc) as well as an online game component. There was even a dice-like game that could be played to simulate battle. Load the triangular extensions into the hexagon tops and roll it like a die. The bar that came up told you what damage you take, or what damage you did. It wasn’t a simple game, but if you got the hang of it, it added a whole new element of play to the figures.

Appearance – 5 out of 5

There’s no two ways about it; this thing looks frickin’ cool. The toy does a beautiful job of capturing the image of molten rock, flowing lava, and flickering flames all in one go. The transparent pieces are pretty uniform an nicely colored, making the toy almost look hot to the touch. The sheer number of joints as well as all the pieces gives this toy an almost infinite number of looks, from the demonic monster to the hallowed angel of the elements, and everything in between.

Construction – 5 out of 5

Hand in hand with the toy’s appearance is how well it’s constructed. Even though this particular toy is transparent, it’s still exceptionally sturdy and well-made. Each individual piece feels rugged and so strong, it feels like it would take a hammer blow to damage it.

Movement – 5 out of 5

I gave serious consideration to giving this a Six because of just how obscenely mobile this toy is. It can take any pose the human body is capable of, and then so many more. The plethora of joints (18 on the figure as shown), all of which are ball joints ensure that it’s extremely flexible and has mobility to spare.

Extras – 4 out of 5

The toy comes with numerous bonus features, including a spring-fired weapon, a sword and a staff, griping hands, and three different heads, all on top of the dice-like rolling game that each figure comes with. The only thing that keeps this toy from ranking higher is that there’s no arrangement of pieces that keeps them all on the figure: there are just too many. And without some kind of rack to put them on, keeping track of them can be a bit problematic.

Packaging – 2 out of 5

For all of the Xevoz line’s strengths, it’s packaging was definitely lacking. While it was striking and colorful, it wasn’t terribly memorable. There was an illustration of the figure on the front and a basic rundown of their personality and characteristics on the back. However, there was no real explanation as to any kind of narrative – even a basic one (hell, even Chutes and Ladders has a plot). There was also what appeared to be a haphazard collection of three other Xevoz shown, meant to tantalize the buyer, but it ended up just confusing at least this buyer because it was unclear just how many factions were represented in the line.

　

Overall – 5 out of 5

This is an unbelievably awesome toy! Seriously, minor packaging gripes aside, the only other problem was there were too many accessories to fit on the figure. That’s the best problem in the world for an action figure to have! Between the ruggedness, awesome look, customizability of the figures because of the different parts, interchangeability of said parts between different figures, and the rolling dice game element, and this was a toy line that by all rights should have taken the world by storm. It’s a mystery to me why the Xevoz line isn’t around to this day because I’d be the first one in line to buy every single friggin’ figure.

Super Zeo Megazord

Power Rangers 2.1
Power Rangers Zeo, Bandai, 1996

　

I wanted to follow-up last week’s review with one in a similar vein. I think the Power Ranger toys deserve some serious scrutiny because they were quietly some of the best toys on the market for quite a long time. The figures and other accessories were noticeably lacking (to be reviewed at a later date), but the mecha really were some of the best toys we had to play with in the late 90s.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of missed opportunities that it seems like a little forethought could have helped to realize. Last week, I reviewed the Shogun Ultrazord and talked pretty extensively about how it benefited from using figures from previous lines (specifically Titanus from the original Dino Zord line and the Falcon Zord from the Ninja Zord line). Today, we’re going to go in the opposite direction and look at one of the most disappointing of the toys, the Super Zeo Megazord.

Background

For the first three seasons of the Power Rangers, you had (mostly) the same cast and the same costumes. As zords came and went, you still had the same team of Rangers. But at the close of the third season, with the Shogun Zords in play, there was a protracted story arc about the destruction of the Rangers’ Dino Zord coins (the source of their powers) and a general disability to continue to protect the earth. What followed was an admirable quest to uncover a new source of power: the Zeo Crystals.

The Zeo Crystals gave birth to a new set of Ranger powers, costumes, etc, and marked the first real transition for the show. Power Rangers Zeo would eventually transition to Power Rangers Turbo (kicked off by a god-awful movie), which would likewise transition to Power Rangers in Space. PRiS would mark the end of the six-season Zordon Saga and from there on, each season would have new Rangers, new mecha, and generally be their own self-contained stories with little connection to the previous series.

Anyway, back to Power Rangers Zeo, the Zeo Rangers would end up getting a second set of mecha called the Super Zeo Zords. In the show, these kicked ass and took names, but the toys really fell short. While the individual Super Zeo Zords are all that bad, the combined form of the Super Zeo Megazord is really kind of lacking. This is especially true when you realize that the Super Zeo Megazord couldn’t utilize the other toys in the Zeo Rangers toy line. The Super Zeo Megazord couldn’t combine or meaningfully connect with the Zeo Megazord or the Red Zeo Megazord (a self-contained giant mech specifically piloted by the Red Ranger), and pretty weakly combined with Pyramidus, the Zeo Ranger’s version of Titanus. This would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for many Power Rangers fans who were fed up with having an increasing number of toys that couldn’t connect/combine to one another.

　

Appearance – 2 out of 5

I don’t want to say the Super Zeo Megazord is ‘phoning it in’, but I will say that it seemed to be the start of a disappointing in the Power Rangers toys of being a little cheaper and lower quality than previous iterations. The Super Zeo Megazord looks good and looks like the mech from the show, but it just doesn’t really stand out. The joints are painfully obvious, as are the bolts and seams that put the toy together. It’s not all that bad looking of toy; it’s just with the standard set by the previous Megazords, it really pales in comparison. However, it’s worth pointing out that while the Super Zeo Megazord looks like the mech from the show, the individual mecha (Super Zeo Zords I through V) do not. The figures only casually look like the figures from the show. Some are so grossly disproportionate and out of balance, it’s almost laughable (I’m looking at you Super Zeo Zord IV).

Construction – 3 out of 5

The toy itself is decent if unremarkable in its construction. The plastic is fairly hefty and the joints are quite solid, but there’s not a lot to write home about.

Movement – 2 out of 5

Sort of like last week’s Shogun Ultrazord, the Super Zeo Megazord is really lacking when it comes to movement. The arms, shoulders, and elbows have simple joints that add up to some pretty decent arm mobility. Sadly, the head and legs are stuck in one position. The individual mecha/zords who make up the Super Zeo Megazord are pretty equal in there subparness in that they have simple shoulder and knee joints, no hip joints to speak of, stubby little arms that can barely reach past their chest plates, and none can turn their heads (with the exception of Super Zeo Zord V and that’s directly related to its transformation).

Extras – 1 out of 5

It’s pretty disappointing that this figure only comes with two identical swords that are pretty flimsy (although not quite as flimsy as the Shogun Megazord’s sword) and made of one piece of plastic that’s all one color. It’s makes you wonder why they even bothered at all. The swords can only be held by the Super Zeo Megazord and not any of the individual zords. Moreover, none of the individual zords come with their own weapons or equipment or even the capacity to hold such equipment if they did come with it.

Packaging – 2 out of 5

By the time Power Rangers Zeo had started, the packaging was beginning to take the backseat. In this case, the packaging offered little information about the mecha itself, or really anything other than the absolute most basic and generic of plot descriptions. The packaging looked nice, but offered little information about the toy, the toyline, or the franchise to which it belonged.

　

Overall – 2 out of 5

This toy is pretty disappointing. The Power Rangers toys have been a staple of the action figure section for closing in on two decades now, and you’d think they’d have learned how to do them right. Sadly, with examples like the Super Zeo Megazord, it’s understandable while so few people take the line seriously. Most everything about the figure appears to have been half-assed, which is disappointing considering the lineage to which it belongs to. This toy could have, and should have, been a lot better and it’s a shame it wasn’t.