Dave's Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Rant: Wave 3 Optimus Primal Megatron These are the first (and possibly only) new molds for the anniversary line. Equivalent in size to the old Mega class, but still priced at $15, they're a bit more worth the money. With just two molds, they didn't go for a pack-in "Build-A-Figure", instead including little PVCs of the two starships in Beast Wars. And instead of DVDs of episodes, they have comicbooks. CAPSULES Optimus Primal: Fugly ape mode, interesting transformation, mediocre robot mode, fairly lame surfboard, good Axalon. Neutral. $14.99 at Target. Megatron: Marvelous beast mode, good transformation and robot mode, nice starship. I have some quibbles with it, but am still willing to give it a "Strongly Recommended." $14.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same overall box design as the recolor waves, with "Series 2" along the front bottom. The upper right of the front advertises, "Comic Book included!" and has the IDW logo. Same storyline text on the side panel. The cosells are for Megatron and Rattrap on Primal, and for Primal and Dinobot on Megatron. The case assortment I saw had two each of Primal and Megatron, plus one Dinobot and one Rattrap. I've heard tell of cases with only one each of the new figures, though. Each has a regular Jungle Planet Key, packaged in its own little blister tab to show on the right side panel, and also packaged so that you can see they have no codes. As with the previous assortment, they're packaged in beast mode. To the right of each figure is a little PVC of their ship (the Axalon for Primal, the unnamed Predacon ship for Megatron, aka the Darkside or Darksyde as a fan-name). The instructions are single-sided, and of the same style as Assortment 1's. They come loose between the cardboard tray and the box. Primal's twist-tied to a plastic blister that's tab-taped to his cardboard tray, as are his surfboard and the Axalon. His missile is held by its own twist-ties to the cardboard, and his comicbook is sandwiched between the plastic and the cardboard. The comic has a rubber band around it. More on the comic later. One tie holds the Axalon into the blister, two ties hold the surfboard, and five hold Primal himself, plus a hidden rubber band that keeps his beast hips together. On the back of the box, Primal is shown in both modes, plus smaller photos of ape mode riding his "'Jet-powered' hover board!", and robot mode holding the board in weapon mode, where you "Insert key to snap open assault blade!" Megatron's plastic tray is totally glued down to the cardboard, making it a bit harder to get out than Primal's. His missile comes mostly loaded (not far enough in to wear out the spring), so it's not separately tied down. One tie holds the Predacon ship into the blister, and it has the underside of the ship facing outward, oops. This isn't an assembly goof either, the tray is molded that way. I am a bit disappointed that they didn't give the ship an official name (there's a sticker on the back with "PREDACON ship included!", but I'm told that this just covers up a typo saying PREADCON, not an actual name). Six twist-ties hold Megatron in. A rubber band holds the knees together, and another binds the tiny little forelimbs. The back shows pictures of both modes, plus a smaller picture showing the Key gimmick in operation. It also states that "Tail becomes attack whip!" The comic that comes with each is a shrunken version of Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #1, cover A (the pre-beast Magmatron done by Figueroa). The pages are 6.5" tall by 4.25" wide (16.5cm by 11cm), or about two-thirds normal size. It has the entire story content of the original comic, the original inside front cover, plus the B&W preview pages of #2 and the misleading Grimlock cover for #2 on the back. I get the impression that IDW was expecting these toys to come out before The Gathering finished. A general note on the mini-ships that come with both. They're more or less the size of Titanium's Ark ship, but lack peg-holes for mounting on stands. However, the underside detailing on them is nice enough I don't want to make a hole myself. MAXIMAL: OPTIMUS PRIMAL Altmode: Mecha-Gorilla Planet: Jungle Previous Name Use: Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Universe Previous Mold Use: None Key Gimmick: Assault Blade Key Code: None Captain of the MAXIMAL research vessel AXALON, OPTIMUS PRIMAL was forced into the role of a warrior in the BEAST WARS. He rose up to become one of the greatest heroes in the history of CYBERTRON. His fate is tied in some fundamental way to that of the mad arch-villain MEGATRON. OPTIMUS PRIMAL knows this, and understands that it is he and he alone who must pursue MEGATRON across time and space in order to put a stop - once and for all - to his evil plans. STR 10 INT 9 SPD 8 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 7 SKL 9 Avg 9.125 Planet Key: Standard Jungle Key, but without a code. In my opinion, they should have used the Cybertron mold made for the Armada recolors, so that they could print Maximal and Predacon symbols on. Axalon: 3" (8cm) long and made of a light blue (CCFFFF) plastic with a density of about 1.8 g/cc (so it won't float). The mold detail is pretty good, and I may try to put a wash on it to bring out the panel lines. There's dark gray (666666) paint on the "fringe" around the front and on the cockpit windows. Darker gray (between 333333 and black) is on the main engine struts. There's also a few brown (CC6633) details here and there. There's no poseability, of course. The fringe parts wiggle a little, as this is a soft plastic, not rigid. Oh, and if you don't know what the Axalon looks like, it's kinda like a sort of ferry with outrigger engines at the back. Vaguely like the Voyager, just not full of annoying people. Beast Mode: Oh, lord, this sucks. Seriously. I really don't want to look at it carefully enough to review it. It compares unfavorably in significant ways to Happy Meal toys. It's not as bad as Rallnox, but that's probably not possible. In standard on-all-fours gorilla stance, it's 4.5" (11cm) tall. It's made of a badly matching mix of black, white, gray (999999) and red (FF0000) plastic. You'd think it'd be hard to make those colors clash, but they manage it. Add in light tan (FFFF99) paint on the chest and face, metallic blue (0033FF) on the shoulders and eyes, red accents various places...and bright white paint on what can only be described as a tiara. Yeah, a tiara. I thought maybe it was a reference to Mecha-Kong, but it's entirely the wrong shape for that. It makes it look like Optimus Primal has become a Pretty Sailor Senshi or something. Anyway, the white plastic glows under UV, nothing else does. A red Maximal symbol with silver border is printed on his left buttock. It's a Transmetal-sort of organic/robotic mix, mostly robotic with some fur details and an organic face. Except for the toes and ankle hinges, every joint is a ball joint. A badly designed, chunky clunky ugly ball joint. With random stiffness levels. Shoulders, elbows, weird wrists, hips, knees are all big white balls on over-long sticks. The foot thumbs are ball joints. The feet have 4mm peg holes for standing on his surfboard accessory. That object is mostly light gray (lighter than 333333) and some red plastic (mostly joints and the missile). It's about 6" (15cm) long and up to an inch (2.5cm) thick in places. There's metallic blue paint on top of the Key slot at the rear, and gunmetal details on both top and bottom (mainly on the hoverfans). It's generally cheap-looking, unfortunately. There's no wheels, and it's not horribly stable with the ape on it, especially with the ape being top-heavy. Putting in the Key makes a section of it fold out on two arms as a sort of sword that can't actually be used. This also uncovers the firing button for the missile (the one good thing about it, you can't accidentally fire the missile while the board is closed. The Key can stay in stably without triggering the blade. It's supposed to be holdable in robot mode as a weapon, but it's very unwieldy...and the fact that the pegs are 4mm instead of the usual 5mm mean no one else can try to hold it by the pegs. Transformation: Recto-cranial inversion. Literally. His beast face ends up shoved against his robot mode behind. It's otherwise a variation on the "arms become legs, legs become arms" primate transformation scheme, but with a lot more folding stuff around the torso. The transformation may be the best part of the toy, too bad it goes from crappy mode to mediocre mode. Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall. The head is gray plastic with metallic blue on the helmet, silver on the faceplate, and yellow eyes. The face itself is pretty accurate open-faceplate Primal, although the helmet is a bit weird. The chest is a bit deep, and he has significant gorilla kibble as a backpack. The joints look a little less bad in robot mode, and the hands have nice articulation with their red thumb and fingers. However, the hands can't really hold the weapon using their articulation, you have to peg it onto a hole in his palm, and the rest of the arm just barely cooperates. The shoulder area has issues with bare struts, though, and the toes are clunky. The head is on a ball joint, and the joints that are now ankles work a lot better that way than as ape wrists. Now, there's no peg-holes on the robot feet for riding the surfboard, and that's a shame. Because, due to the robot toes folding over the ape hands in beast mode, any holes would get covered up ANYWAY. So it's not like there's an aesthetic reason for not putting holes there. Fortunately, as mentioned above, the pegs are not the standard 5mm, but closer to 4mm. Why is that fortunate? Because Dremel doesn't sell 5mm cutters, but it does sell 4mm cutters. So I cut my own holes. Due to some of the internal stuff in the feet, it's not a great idea to make the holes as deep as the pegs are tall, but the safe depth is still deep enough for a good fit. The robot feet are bigger than the ape feet, so it's a little harder to get the trailing foot attached due to some greeblage on the board top, but it's doable. Overall: Ehn. The robot mode is barely acceptable, and while the transformation is interesting and the Axalon is good, that's really not enough to support a $15 toy. PREDACON: MEGATRON Altmode: Mecha-Tyrannosaur Planet: Jungle Previous Name Use: Every Transformers Series Ever, or close enough Previous Mold Use: None Key Gimmick: Missile launcher in tail Key Code: None An insane, hyper-intelligent criminal mastermind who led a group of renegade PREDACONS to Earth in search of the Energon they would need to conquer CYBERTRON, MEGATRON became so much more than a petty felon. He launched an assault on Time itself, seeking to change history to his benefit. He nearly destroyed CYBERTRON in his mad quest to exterminate the TRANSFORMERS, and was stopped only when OPTIMUS PRIMAL brought him down. Now, he has returned, and his battle with the MAXIMAL leader rages across the multiverse! STR 10 INT 9 SPD 9 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 9 SKL 10 Avg 9.625 Hm, only 9 INT for hyper-intelligent? Planet Key: Same as Primal's. Predacon Ship: This is called the Darkside or Darksyde by fans, because at one point in BW Season 1, Megatron says, "Welcome to the dark side" to a Maximal who is aboard the ship. However, officially it has not been named. [Someone who watched the ep more recently than I did informs me it was Terrorsaur to Cheetor, during the early 'teleport along energon lines' ep. Also, in some non-show, non-toy products the Darkside and Darksyde names have been used.] This is made of a sort of olive-ish green (close to 669900) plastic, same density as the Axalon. It looks kinda like the head of a trident, 2.75" (7cm) long. Note that the wrecked ship is almost always seen in bad lighting in Beast Wars, so the green color may initially strike people as incorrect. But it really is about that shade, if more metallic. The engines are painted dark gray (333333) with yellow (FFFF66) intake vents (I'm pretty sure that's the front end). There's little red (CC3300) details on the wings, and on much of the underside center. Beast Mode: While not without flaws, this is as cool as Primal's beast mode is crap. 9.25" (23.5cm) from snout to tail tip, and in the currently fashionable "horizontal torso" pose stands about 4" (10cm) high. Like Primal, it's a Transmetal-ish design, although the organic parts aren't as immediately obvious as organic. Very obvious armor plate pieces run along the spine, and there's a generally lean and mean look to the design. Not quite skeletal, but kinda like a T.rex with no body fat at all. If you look down the throat, you can see a set of concentric circles molded into the back that look like they might be the lens for an energy weapon. Most of the plastic is a pale lavender (no web-safe equivalent), with some darker purple (0000CC) on the underside and heel spurs, plus a bit on each thigh (from the connector joints that hold it on the leg). The neck, tongue and some connecting bits are black plastic. Metallic yellow-green (CCFF00) runs along the spine plates, under the eyes, on the snout and on the hips. A metallic cyan (66FFFF) can be found on the shins, and the eyes and tongue are painted red (FF0000). A purple Predacon symbol on a silver background is printed on the left hip. The light lavender plastic reacts slightly to UV. Some of the dark purple reacts moderately, some slightly... there's two different types of plastic in that color. The more reactive purple tends to be on joints. Poseability is excellent. The jaws open (the lower half is connected to the nec), and there's two swivels and a hinge in the neck. The forelimbs are on somewhat restricted ball joints. The hips are ball joints and have swivels below them, but the thighs restrict movement somewhat. The knees, ankles, toes and heel spurs are hinges. The tail lacks articulation, but this is largely forced by the fact it hides a missile launcher. Stability is pretty good. Some of the panels could come loose once the joints see some wear since they don't have pegs to snap onto, but it all holds together well out-of-the-box. The tail holds on VERY solidly, despite the fact that it's detachable in robot mode. Inserting the Planet Key so that the face of it is to the figure's right opens up the tail to reveal a dark purple missile. Inserting it facing left does nothing, and while it does allow for storage...well, you're kinda sticking the Key in awfully close to the cloaca, a dinosaur's all-purpose waste hole. As with Primal, the trigger is not accessible while the cover is closed, so no accidental launches. http://www.dvandom.com/images/bwxmegs.JPG Transformation: In rough terms, it's the same as the original "Barneytron" version of the character. Legs become legs, head becomes one arm, tail the other, torso warps around to become robot torso. However, the panel folding is a bit trickier in some places, and the tail comes off of a clawed hand. Robot Mode: A very leggy 5.5" (14cm) tall...his waist joint is 4" (10cm) from the bottom of his feet. The arms are a little stubby by comparison to his upper body, and very stubby compared to his legs. He also has very long feet for great stability. And you know what they say about Predacons with big feet...they have big tails too. While the clawed right hand can hold the tail loosely by its transformation connection handle, it's more intended to peg onto the forearm. This peg is 4.7mm or so, somewhat annoyingly. The peg hole can hold a standard 5mm peg, but with stress marks possible. And the tail weapon hangs a little loosely in a 5mm hole. The light lavender is now on the backpack wings, head-hand, tail weapon, pelvis, hip shields, left shoulder internals, and lower legs and feet. Dark purple makes up the chest, hip joints, shoulder covers, right shoulder joint, a bit of the right forearm, heel spurs, all of the left foreamr and some of the tail mechanisms and missile. The upper arms, thighs and head are black plastic. Silver paint is on the left arm's claws, and on the claw/tooth pattern on the chest. The face is painted purple, a pretty good match for the purple plastic. The border around the face on the helmet is metallic cyan, as is an H-shaped harness detail on the chest. The eyes and some stripes on the flanks are red. The tail weapon is a bit awkward when opened, no matter how you have the figure hold it, and the Key sticks out badly in most poses. A shoulder mount would have been nice, and there's even a detail on the left shoulder that almost fits the bill. Unfortunately, it's a little too narrow and too shallow to work. For alternate Key storage, the head-hand can hold it, albeit a little loosely. Overall: There's a few tweaks I'd make (differently colored head, better mounting for the weapon in robot mode), but this is otherwise a very good toy and a worthy anniversary edition, yes. Snag it if you see it. Dave Van Domelen, already stuck Primal off in a corner, but will put Megatron in a prominent place...in beast mode, of course.