Dave's Titanium Series Rant: 6" Series Wave 7

     Megatron (War Within)
     Ultra Magnus (G1)

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/6Ti7

     Sadly, Ultra Magnus not only looks good, it's also total scalper bait,
not available in many stores (I didn't get any sightings until I posted my
review of Wave 6, then got one "Oh, I saw it at Wal-Mart" response) and sold
out at hasbrotoyshop.com within seconds.  It's available, in theory, other
places, but at markups starting at "too much" and rising from there.  Thus,
odds are this review will never have my comments on Ultra Magnus.
     Update 7/28/07: Turns out they're not too hard to find in Canada.  I'm
doing a trade for Magnus, expect a review in early August.
     Update 8/4/07: Added Ultra Magnus.


CAPSULES

     Megatron: Nice robot mode, but some problems in the shoulders.
Simplistic transformation and "because I say it's a tank" vehicle mode, but
it's faithful to the comics.  Mildly recommended.  $15 price point, but
unlikely to be found anywhere near that.
     Ultra Magnus: Loose in both modes, but decent design otherwise, and
it's nice to have a dedicated Ultra Magnus rather than just a recolor or
power up for Optimus Prime (it's happened before, but not often).
Recommended, but good luck finding it for anything like a reasonable price.
$23.99Cn in Canada (exchange rate at the moment is nearly one-to-one).


RANT

     Packaging: Megatron's in the standard box.  Has the "final wave" catalog
that came with Wave 6.  Co-sell is the other member of the wave, as usual.

DECEPTICON: MEGATRON
Unique Feature: No known weaknesses

     For years he waited.  For years he planned.  For years he sat in the
shadows of the arena in Kaon watching as TRANSFORMERS fought and died.  As
the taste for destruction grew within those who fought, he sowed the seeds of
his own rise to power, and the subjugation of CYBERTRON.  Those who proved
themselves worthy through a talent for viciousness or simple, raw power, he
recruited.  No more would they call themselves TRANSFORMERS.  Now they are
DECEPTICONS.
     When the time came, his DECEPTICONS rose up all over the planet.  In
that first lightning strike, thousands ceased functioning.  So far, all of
his planning has gone perfectly.  Before his assaults, the AUTOBOTS are
helpless, capable of fighting only long enough to barely manage a retreat to
the next fallback position.  All the while, his plan progresses.  The
AUTOBOTS will be destroyed utterly, MEGATRON thinks, the universe subjugated
beneath my immortal heel, and the history of my conquest read by the
flickering flames of a thousand burning civilizations.

STR 10  INT 10  SPD 4  END 8  RNK 10  COUR 9  FRB 10  SKL 9  Avg 8.75

     Coulda used some quotation marks in that last sentence of the bio.
     Three through-ties, same barbed wire style that proves someone at Galoob
hates us all.  Four snipped-off ties to the blister that require wire cutters
or needlenose pliers.

     Main Weakness: The shoulders don't stay plugged in very well.

     Robot Mode: 5.75" (14.5cm) tall at the head, 7.25" (18.5cm) tall at the
main gun if it's left pointed up.  9.75 ounces (276g).  The upper torso and
boots are metal.  The toes, pelvis, hip flaps, tread units (on shoulders and
boots) and main gun are black plastic.  The "because G1 Megatron has it" back
barrel and pistol are rubbery silver plastic.  The shield is a faintly bluish
silver plastic.  The elbow joints, main cannon strut, knee joints, flank
pieces that connect shoulder to torso, peg holes for the shield to go in
vehicle mode and undocumented clip (see below) are light gray plastic.  The
head, shoulders, forearms, abdomen and upper legs are rigid silver plastic.
There's a few bits of milky white plastic, on the peghole of the shield and
on the joints for the toes.
     The upper torso is mainly painted silver with some yellow accents on the
chest and a violet Decepticon symbol on the left pec.  The boots are painted
black with a little bit of red on the parts where they clip together (evoking
G1 Megatron again).  The face is painted faintly violet silver with red eyes.
The main gun is red at its base.  The abdomen has red and black paint, and
there's also some red paint on the pelvis.  The hip flaps have little molded
circles (either rockets or mini beam weapons) painted yellow, 17 to a side,
plus bluish silver domes on the sides.  The tread chunks are painted a sort
of pearly silver in the non-tread parts, and there's Decepticon symbols
printed on the middles of the ones on his shoulders.  The pistol has a black
barrel, and there's silver paint on the toes.
     Undocumented feature: There's a clip on the back of his "belt" that can
hold the shield/gun combo if you don't want it in the figure's hands.  Also,
the instructions show his gun placed on a peg-hole on his forearm, but it
won't actually go there...not well, anyway.  It goes a little better in one
of his shoulder holes, letting him have a double gun over his shoulders.
     The head turns smoothly, while the waist soft-ratchets with 45 degrees
per click.  The shoulders are ratcheting swivels with 45 degrees per click,
the elbows are smooth hinges, and there's a smooth swivel below the elbow and
also at the wrist.  The hips are ratcheting universal joints (45 degrees per
click forward and back, 22.5 degrees per click out to the sides).  Mid-thigh
is a ratcheting (45 degrees per click) swivel, and the knees are ratcheting
hinges (22.5 degrees per click, can only go two clicks the right way and one
click the wrong way).  The toes can point for transformation.  The main gun
can point up or forward along one joint, and turns around on a ratchet (45
degrees per click).  So you can stow it on his back pointed down, if you
wish. 
     As mentioned in Main Weakness, the shoulder attachment is weak.  The
struts are on ball joints, so it's easy to pop the strut off if moving the
arm in any direction not allowed by its own joint.

     Transformation: Pull the shoulders aside and rotate the upper torso
around 180 degrees, then reattach the shoulder struts.  Stow the arms in the
shoulders (getting the arms back out for robot mode requires strong
fingernails or a tool of some sort).  Point the toes, connect the boots
together and shorten the legs.  Then put the shield over the robot head and
plug the pistol into it.  There's no way to move the hip pods to become
useful weapons in vehicle mode.

     Vehicle Mode: It's your basic "it has treads and guns, so I guess it's a
tank" vehicle mode.  7.5" (19cm) long and at its widest 4.5" (11.5cm).
Stability is so-so, mainly due to the shoulder struts not staying in very
well.  The front half is predominantly silver, the rear mainly black.  It
rolls along on four little wheels concealed in the tread chunks.  The wheels
are gear-like to give a rougher ride.
     Weaponry is mainly front-mounted.  The pistol and the rubbery gray
"shoulder gun" become fixed forward cannons.  The main gun is like a very
spindly turret that can point anywhere on the horizontal plane, but can only
elevate while pointing backwards.  Swat those pesky pursuing fliers, I
suppose.  

     Comparison To Comics: The actual sculpt is spot-on to Don Figueroa's
designs in The War Within, with two exceptions.  One, as mentioned, he can't
really connect the pistol to his forearm very well.  Two, the few times he's
in tank mode in the comic, his "shoulders" are closer together and the
overall shape is more rectangular.  The tank mode of the toy is more
T-shaped.  As for the colors, it's fairly close, with the main difference
being that the main cannon is all silver in the comic (and usually stowed
pointing down, rather than up as in the instructions) rather than black and
red.  The blacks are more of a dark gray in the comic, but that's more likely
a "so you can see the details" convention than anything else.

     Overall: It's okay.  The vehicle mode is decent for a "because I say
it's a vehicle" type, and the shoulder issue might be fixable (altough adding
a peg or two in the production stage would have been the best solution).  A
nicely menacing and bulky robot mode, and while the shoulders may pop off,
they don't leave the toy completely as with WWi Prime.  Kicks the butt of the
original Titanium Megatron, but that's not too hard.


AUTOBOT: ULTRA MAGNUS
Unique Feature: Commander of AUTOBOT City

     No AUTOBOT is more pure a soldier than ULTRA MAGNUS.  He is a supreme
battlefield commander who combines an encyclopedic knowledge of pure tactics
with a talent for improvisation that allows him instant and total control
over almost any combat situation.  When other AUTOBOTS look at the tide of
battle and see a lost cause, he displays a sixth sense for knowing what
chances to take and when to pull victory from the certain jaws of defeat.
Only rarely do his guesses prove wrong.  He is a brave, capable warrior with
no interests outside of his command, and no will or desire except victory for
the AUTOBOTS.  It is for these reasons and many others that OPTIMUS PRIME
chose him as commander of AUTOBOT City on Earth, and as the next bearer of
the Matrix.  He only hopes that he might prove himself to be half the leader
OPTIMUS PRIME was.  With CYBERTRON falling under the shadow of UNICRON, and
the DECEPTICONS turned into an unstoppable tide of destruction by their new
leader GALVATRON, surely now is the darkest hour for the AUTOBOTS.

STR 9  INT 9  SPD 6  END 8  RNK 8  COUR 9  FRB 6  SKL 8  Avg 7.875

     I got this in a trade with a reader in Calgary, where Titanium 6" is
still apparently going strong.  It came in trilingual packaging, which is the
same shape as the U.S. packaging, but generic by assortment.  Red on top and
sides, with some tech patterning on the top (identical to the top of
U.S. Rodimus Prime's box) but just a red to dark red gradient on the sides.
The back has touched up photos of the vehicle modes of Starscream, Rodimus
Prime and RiD Optimus Prime, touting the die-cast metal on all three, the
display stands on Starscream and Rodimus, and the hidden arm blasters on
Prime (ha!  Not an undocumented feature in Canada!).
     To make up for this, the instructions are a two-sided sheet.  On the
front is the usual instruction, on the back is the stuff normally seen on the
back of a U.S. 6" Titanium box, albeit in grayscale with red accents.  Photo
of Magnus in vehicle mode dominating the top, with robot mode "bust" in the
middle left, and a co-sell of Megatron (bust only) on the middle right.  The
bio note is done in English, French and Spanish.  No guarantee that this is
exactly the same as the U.S. version's bio note.
     The inner tray part seems to be the U.S. version, as it's custom to the
character.  Big red Autobot symbol flanked by white ladder-pattern posts on a
blue background.  Three twist-ties through to the back, easily opened.  Five
more just to the blister tray, four of which require tools to remove.  Plus
rubber bands holding the shoulders in, and one around the chest.

     Major Weakness: Bad pegging.  The shoulder missile launchers aren't very
solidly connected (the right arm one keeps falling off), the gun doesn't stay
in the hand, the boots don't stay together in vehicle mode.  Swapping the
launchers in robot mode helped, at least.

     Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall at the head, 6.5" (16.5cm) at the shoulder
towers.  Despite a fairly bulky form, it's only 9.785 oz (280g), since
there's not a lot of metal in the mix.  The torso front (but not front armor
"T" shape) and the inside halves of the boots are metal, that's pretty much
it.  The head, hands and missile launchers are made of rubbery white plastic,
the gun from rubbery gunmetal gray.  The flip-up chest armor, shoulders,
torso flanks, forearms, pelvis and boot outers are metallic medium blue
plastic.  The upper arms, elbows, torso core, thighs, knees, lower legs
(inside the boots) and backpack are rigid white plastic.  Both the blue and
rigid white plastics glow under UV.  The wheels are all black plastic.
     There's a good paint match of the metallic blue plastic on the helmet
and boots.  The white paint on the chst, boots and other details is a little
less bright than the white plastic.  There's bits of red on the chest and
boots, plus on the missile tips.  There's yellow circles on the abdomen, and
slightly darker blue paint on the eyes than on the helmet.  Silver and red
Autobot symbols are printed on the shoulders.
     The head is on a ball joint, and pops off easily.  The shoulders are
also ball joints, and pop off more easily than some of the other joints in
the arms will move, oops.  They're a bit restricted.  The elbows ratchet
bend, and there's a VERY stiff ratcheting swivel on the long axis of the
forearm just below the elbow.  The wrists turn freely, and you do need to
tilt the hands a little to get the gun to sit properly.  The arms can extend
on transformation joints for power punching action.  The waist turns on
another really stiff ratchet.  The hips are universal joints that ratchet
both ways, although the shape of the pelvis keeps the legs from spreading out
more than a ratchet or so.  There's a ratcheting swivel at mid-thigh, and the
knees are ratchets...that go one click in the "right" direction and two in
the "wrong" one for transformation.  Hm.  No ankle articulation, but if you
keep the feet together, the wheels on his feet are all that rest on the table
and he can rollerskate along.
     The missile launchers on his shoulders (non-functional) are identical,
and can go on either side.  This is to take advantage of the pegs that hold
the shoulders together in vehicle mode, so you have a peg on one side and a
hole on the other.
     The blue chest armor "T" can flip up to reveal something that vaguely
looks like a Matrix compartment, but is not actually hollow.  And since it's
a metal part, I can't just carve it out to store a spare SCF Matrix.
     Ultra Magnus has a significant backpack formed from the cab of the truck
mode.  It's hollow, and can be used to carry groceries or something.

     Transformation: Well, the basics are pretty straightforward.
Unfortunately, the few subtle points aren't really covered well, or at all,
in the instructions.  The forearms need to rotate to peg together, and they
just sort of rest in the knee area, no pegging involved.
     A couple of undocumented steps.  One, the chest armor flips up to create
a headache rack (and free up just enough space to fit a Hot Wheels sized car
on the lower deck, or a Legends Movie Bumblebee or Jazz).  Also, you can put
the rifle betwee the missile launchers up front.

     Vehicle Mode: A car-carrier truck, or about as close to one as the G1
version was.  Which isn't very, all things considered.  6.5" (16.5cm) long,
2.5" (6.5cm) tall, 2.5" (6.5cm) wide.  As mentioned already, you can fit one
car in the underdeck.  Two will go on top if you push it.  However, it's not
really 1:72 scale, it's closer to World's Smallest Transformers scale,
although the decks are too uneven to really hold those stably.  All ten
wheels roll freely.  
     Pretty much everything was visible in robot mode, aside from the truck
cab (which is mostly visible anyway).  It's white plastic with black windows,
silver bumper and grille, yellow headlights, and a silver and red Autobot
symbol on the roof.  Oddly, one rear view mirror is silver, the other is
black (splashover from the window, maybe).  It has short stacks in rubbery
silver (or silver-painted) plastic.  There's no pegs holding the cab in
place, just a ratcheting joint with a big chunky ratchet clamp inside the
otherwise hollow cab.

     Overall: Well, it's notable as being the first transforming G1-style
Ultra Magnus that isn't a Super Armor, and one of very few Ultra Magnus toys
that isn't just a white recolor of Optimus Prime (God Magnus/RiD Ultra Magnus
being the main other example, along with PVC figures that don't transform).
That alone makes it worth picking up if you can find it for a reasonable
price.  Unfortunately, you're not likely to find it for a reasonable price,
given how it seems to have been massively short-shipped everywhere but Canada
(and there it's $24 shelf price).  Purely on its own merits, though, it's a
decent Titanium figure.  Some looseness issues and one or two odd choices of
how to make joints work, but that's sadly par for the course in this line. 

     Dave Van Domelen, also got a Red Banshee (Sigma 6 transforming
motorcycle bot), but won't be writing a full review.  It's decent.