What's shakin', eggs and bacon?
So this summer, Transfivers 5 briefly crashed through everybody's life and blew clean out the other side
leaving almost no impression and no brain cells intact
but somewhere among the paralysing visuals, the stroke-inducing plot,
and the bizarrely fluctuating aspect ratio,
it did seem for a moment like we were finally gonna get a sick new Decepticrew!
Like, I think we can all agree that that Guy Ritchie Suicide Squad introdump sequence was great fun,
and it got me super pumped for some malevolent misadventures and bad guy banter!
But with tedious inevitability, almost everybody involved got their faces blatted off within about six minutes,
spoilers.
Case in point: Nitro Zeus, the disarmingly brash Decepticon big shot with the best name in the universe
who it fleetingly seemed might finally bring some long-term right-hand backup to poor lonely Megatron
but sadly, even his instant fan-fave awesomeness got wiped off the roster before the credits rolled.
So, what do you say we at long last give him more than eight seconds of screen time!
Yes indeed, here we go with Voyager class Nitro Zeus -
thats "Decepticon Nitro" if you're boring -
and he is literally the only figure from The Last Knight - or TLK - that I'm bothered about.
Definitely been a weird toyline, hasn't it? All repaints and bad-looking dragon bots, and like,
No.
Anyway, as many were quick to point out, Nitro Zeus's's character model seemed to be
repurposed from some generic baddie robot from the last film that I can't remember.
But that's fine. Maybe that's him! Maybe he survived!
Or maybe he scanned one of those.
And then also scanned Shockwave's face.
So being a recycled body type with the wrong face and the most boring paint job you've ever seen,
he's kinda lookin' like crap on paper.
But we're talkin' plastic, baby, and Nitro Zeus is puttin' on a clinic!
Like, he brings a certain signature streamlined sass to the typical hectic movie aesthetic
and comes out lookin' ferociously fresh!
So, the torso's a solid hunk of semi-skeletal body armour with an implied jacked physique
somewhere among all this underlying oily blackness
pimped out with shoulder-mounted micro-miniguns and a six-pack made of bullets!
Love these hefty engine columns loomin' over the back like mad D batteries
with these missiles that seem to have wandered in from another toy?
Or like an Airfix kit or somethin'?
Arms seem to be doin' like a Beast Wars thing with the alt-mode's entire face end cemented around this fist,
kinda like if Megatron had been a pterodactyl with a pop-out climbing axe.
Other arm's somewhat more conventional, save for the extendable built-in minigun
like a massive middle-finger topped with other, smaller middle fingers
like an arm-mounted entire Isengard!
Definitely feelin' the polished curves on this dino bone shin armour with the bottle opener kneepads!
I don't think anyone else really looks like that. This is pure Zeus, baby!
Love these thunkin' turbo-soolnds down here, with like these cloven hooves
and like, phantom gorilla toes out the back? Why?
Tail fin here doesn't look great, but you can kinda use it to clamp him on to stuff
and convert your flat screen into a Nitro Zeus perch.
Every home needs one!
So, the head's a pointy little monocular menace with his one creepy empurata optic
peerin' out of a haunted mirror of madness!
Comes off a bit sinister, seein' as how Nitro bro's more of a sort of jovial cheeky chappy womaniser.
I forget, did he say he banged that dude's wife?
How would that even work?
Don't answer that.
Anyway, the old Zeus cannon's for some reason packin' a sort of pseudo-Titanmaster dealie.
It's probably from that epic moment in the movie
when Cogman commandeered his jet mode and flew everyone to safety in the nick of time!
No wait! That didn't happen!
So his head comes off and does nothing, but if you want you can swap in some other Titan figures,
but it doesn't really do anybody any favours.
I mean, Megatron looks kinda cool, but mostly it just amplifies how boring his paint job is.
He's definitely not bringin' it, is he, with like this prototypey grey, detail-devouring black
and these thrilling accents of brown
and like, some numbers on him?
Is this like some hidden message Illuminati business? Or is it just an SKU?
But, boring colours aside, the Nitro Zeus robot mode is a total scene stealer!
He's one hefty heartthrob with a smooth signature look and there just ain't nobody else like him!
Such a shady bitch.
[CLAMOURING THRASHY HARDCORE]
Maaaate!
That's gotta be one of the slickest transformations I think I've seen since like
ever?
It's like really unexpectedly smart and super Beast Wars!
Like, the way the arms work and everything sorta twists round a step, and the wings are just Godlike!
Although I don't know if it's actually possible to do it at all without the engines poppin' off,
and sans instructions, I don't think i'd ever have figured it out.
So yes! Always love me a Voyager jet mode and Papa Zeus totally makes
a serious enough surrogate Starscream!
Form-wise, it's fiercely forward-facing with these scorchingly sharp arrowhead angles
and it's all dominated by this killer corvine nosecone!
Check out this bleak black beak!
Seriously though, it's definitely "the feature",
it's like a million miles long, and it's the only bit of the whole alt-mode that actually does anything.
Like, it packs in this monstrously long landing gear beanpole, and the cockpit
can do the Titanmaster thing, even though the head doesn't.
So you might as well jam Gatorface in there just to get some colour on the go.
Seriously - grey, grey, grey, black, black -
this is the finished thing, right?
Anyway, aside from the nosecone he's got some engines, and some surprise collarbone nano-wheels
and this optional Barad-Dur buttpipe
and like, is this kibble under here?
Like, it doesn't look like jet bits, but it doesn't super look like anything.
Just a vaguely Gigery technorganic fatberg.
It's not a problem. I'm just talkin'.
So yes, old Nitrozeus packs in an extremely solid alt-mode!
It's like listening to the new Crowbar album.
It's good.
I'm a fan.
I'll take it.
But, when the robot form's such a banger and the transformation totally crushes,
all the alt-mode has to do is not ruin it. So great job!
Nitro Zeus, then, is a bodaciously bang-on bad boy!
He's kinda taken all the fun, credible, non-flaky bits of the movie figures,
bashed in a bit of Beast era engineering ethos and put a donk on it!
It almost kinda feels like one of those superb non-character Bayformer toys I keep bangin' on about
except he happened to land a cameo in the film this time.
King of the extras!
But y'know what'd make me REALLY happy, is if Nitro Zeus got the same treatment as Lockdown and Lugnut
and was absorbed into the broader TF canon?
I mean, there's always room for another memorable, charismatic Decepticon with a bomb-ass name, right?
Come on, man, we need him!
And that's all from me! Farewell and goodnight
...ro Zeus.
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Limited appeal, keepin' it real.