'Ello guvnor!
Well, bugger my face if we're not living through a
Transformer resurgence of absolute golden age proportions!
We're basically buried in awesome toys and well-regarded comics and hype video games
and from somewhere in the maelstrom of wish fulfilment
came a sexy new tank-type Megatron, which just happens to be a major fun fetish of mine!
So if you'll allow me an indulgence, I'd like to take a minute to blab at a camera for a bit
about all the Megatanks I can muster!
Lock and load, lovelies, we doin' this!
So yes, in the post-G1 hellscape of the early nineties,
somebody somewhere decided it was just too dang convenient for the young 'uns to get their stinky mitts
on non-real guns that look like non-non-real guns
which is probably fair enough, but it didn't half put them Hasbros in a bit of a tight spot
seeing as one of their principal cast was an eerily lifelike P-38 pimpatron.
So they apparently thought about it for one second before blurtin' out the most bluntly obvious
but awesomely badass alternative imaginable!
Dorks and dorkalinas, this is Generation 2 Megatron!
Yes indeed, this was the first de-weaponised do-over Megaman
who busted onto the scene with something to prove
seeing as the Optimus he was up against was still basically the same old guy who'd been truckin'
unchanged for eight years solid.
So he's definitely bringin' his alpha game, but I get the sense he might have overdone it a bit
with like, a flab-to-movement ratio second only to friggin' Grandus.
Check out this monumental monoboob mantelpiece,
shamelessly solid-cast midsection,
and the legs are friggin' Shin City, save for the contractually obligated token feetie-flaps.
He could maybe stand to tone it down a bit an' all on the maximum-nineties neon camo colour job
with this visual blitzkrieg of secondary colours and daft little day-glo tramp stamps!
So posability's an absolute myth,
but old Megamegs comes from an era when action figures were content to rely on
daft electro gimmicks, rather than the ability to actually physically do anything!
Bugger's just rife with noise bombs, I mean, even the paltry arm posing triggers a daft pew-pew sound effect.
But the best one's definitely here under his marvellous Megatrony mug!
Check it out, like a cubist charicature, with like the daft inflated helmet and some heavy eyebrow action!
So you just give it a tap, and it's all,
Anyway, what about this absurdly immense centrepiece shoulder cannon!?
I mean, it totally dominates the already-ludicrous shoulder platform,
like, it sticks all the way out the front AND the back,
and it's got like zero clearance from his poor old noodle!
Once again, it's got some desperately unnecessary sound effects on the go,
like, it does a click-click loading sound which is totally drowned out by the mechanism
actually making the sound while you're already doing it,
then you get a fuzzy little boom under the insanely loud snap it already makes!
So, for bits and bobs, he's packin' half a dozen of these missiles
which you can stack up in there if you've managed to keep hold of more than one after 23 years.
Tasty little hand-held pistol there which does seem a bit redundant
and he's got like a green floodlight thing somewhere.
And that's about it for the robot mode!
It's just a giant, unrepentant, minimum-imagination sellout slab of plastic
with all the subtlety of a leopard-print bazooka that fires Jeremy Clarkson.
[HYPERACTIVE THRASHY POST-PUNK RIFF]
So, seein' as he's only got like six moving parts to his name
you could definitely transform it blindfolded in like one second.
I almost didn't speed it up!
What I love about this is that the robot's blatantly so almost a tank already
so like, there's no surprises, but it still feels good!
And what do you reckon to this blisterin' bulkbeast?
It's precisely as much of a slab as the robot mode is, but horizontal this time.
It's maybe a smidge too neon and flouncy to call "brutal"
and overqualified for "beefy",
It's just a big stupid tank with a turret that kind of tilts a bit and doesn't turn at all,
and it's gonna bust up in yer place, yell [DRAMATIC ACTION MUSIC]
run over all yer mates, [CRUNCHING/SCREAMING]
and then it's gonna kill you! [DRAMATIC MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
[pathetic click]
It is a tank, and that is it.
But check this out! He also came with a tiny baby version of himself!
I just love this thing! It's 1000% adorbs
but I can't figure out where the batteries go, which is a shame, 'cos I could use a digital watch!
Look, I basically worship this toy. This is, like, one of my favourite Transformers.
But I almost like the idea of the figure more than the actual figure.
Like, I like big beefy bots, I like Decepticons,
I like when the front of the vehicle becomes the robot chest,
and honestly, I like neon green and purple!
But in reality, he just kinda stands there.
But when it comes to this era, that ain't such a bad thing!
He just stands there with the best of 'em.
Megnificent!
A couple of years down the line then, it was time for a tidy up
so the Hasbros gave the rehash button an almighty smash
and presented to the world the recycled radiance of Hero Megatron!
Although, being the lowly Eurotrash peasant that I am,
what I actually hold here goes by the imposingly obtuse title of Archforce!
Yes indeed, the Euro bods apparently decided
they'd had quite enough Megatrons for the time being, thank you very much
and decided to send in his PAL!
It's clearly just Megatron, though.
I mean, the only discernable difference is this peculiarly vacant chest sticker here
which looks curiously featureless without his counterpart's vulgar ego-strokey slogan.
Americans!
So we're talkin mid-'90s now, and by this point TFs were down in the doldrums of "what do we got"
as they rapidly ran out of hacky gimmicks left to exploit.
I mean, by this point they'd already burned through electro voices, slideshows, water guns, colour changing
and those daft little helicopter pull-cord things that always end up in next door's hedgerow.
So of course, this guy exists in service of some daft air-pump death darts thing.
[Pthunk!]
Damn.
[AIRHORNS BLARING]
But it's bewildering to me they even thought they'd have to shoehorn that in
'cos in his own right, this fabulous freak's a pretty amazing engineering advancement!
I mean, it'd be pretty easy to just write it off as a cheap-out copy-paste downscaling
of the old Megasonic Teenage Warhead over 'ere
but he just isn't one!
He's a whole new fella, bringin' a completely fresh take on the old G1 Deceptiboss
with his own design and fresh sculpting and some sick articulation!
Yes indeed, Archforce brings a bit of the old Laser Rod dance revolution
with like proper hips and knees and bi-directional elbows and a waist swivel, even!
Pretty slick effort on the looks, with the black and purple givin' him a fierce bad guy vibe
and I love the eerily skin-toned face with its unsettling blood gaze.
He's just a sound little sucker that honestly wouldn't look too out-of-place with some of today's contenders!
"Megatron rules" indeed!
[EUPHORIC CLUB BANGER]
But for all his new robot mode bravado,
he's still broadly the same thing, so the transformation is about the same.
I mean, it does at least seem to snap in a little tighter, but it's basically business as before!
It's just a largely inert little chunk tank, but it does go some way toward gettin' me on board with the gimmick!
I mean check it out, the pump and the pipe almost look cool
like they're part of some future sciencey hyper-phaser.
So he may not be the full 15 storeys of awesome his old man was,
but Archforce has made some excellent life decisions and I couldn't be prouder of him!
Go on, my son!
Two toys in the bag then, and old Tank Megs took a back set for a decade or so,
occasionally droppin' the odd repaint here and there
along with a few Cybertronian spaceboxes
and a famously fiendish stint as the alien H-tank freak machine in Armada!
But that, I feel, is a story for another day.
The next time we'd see a garish real-world rad rad robotank
was when Classics kicked off on its righteous revisionist rampage
which, nine years deep, I sense will outlive us all.
And as the original nostalgia-centric TF toyline
it was, of course, absolutely oversaturated with Optimi and Megatri,
one of which was this little Legends-class doozy from the grand old days of Universe 2008!
Yes indeed, this baby badass is everything that was fabulous about G2 Megs
with its unflinching forthrightness and striking chunkitude
and equally what was so dumb about it,
seein' as this one carries off better posability at a fifth of the size!
He's bringin' some balls for a miniature menace! He's somehow got presence beyond his tiny trousers.
And I dunno if it's the permanent power stance or the actual head-mounted cannon
but I feel like he's gonna give me a bollockin' if I even look at him.
God, I hope he didn't hear that!
[SCREECHING METALCORE BREAKDOWN]
Check out this little chancer, still churnin' out the old arms-in, legs-round, rah-rah-rah
from sixteen years previous!
Tank mode's a bit irresistible though.
It's showcasin' a serious detail quota
and it's such a weirdly huge downward jump in scale that I still kinda get a novelty kick out of it!
Colours are lookin' somewhat hushed
on account of Universe 08's vague attempt at mild realism
but they are there!
Which, to my mind, makes this guy a perfect fun-sized serving of G2 joyness!
But before this guy, and after it, and about the same time as well,
came probably the most prolific Deluxe-class tankformer that just didn't know when to stop!
Classics Megatron
- not that one -
cropped up repeatedly alongside a deeply mediocre Optimus in versus pack after versus pack
over the course of about five years!
And like, it also came out on its own, and there was a white one,
and then there was the sexy one!
This is Transformers United Tank Megatron!
Yes indeed, this Japanese jerkoff was one of my first truly decadent Transformer purchases.
'Cos I didn't need it!
I mean - people generally don't NEED toys.
But like, I already had one in green, and I liked it, and I was happy with it,
but even so, even though it was a straightforward palette swap and a £25 import ripoff,
I was still just like, "Im havin' that!"
So yeah, this is about the 19th regurgitation of the slightly less camp of the two Classics Tronmen
and he's one of those ones that I really like, even if he's not necessarily that good.
I mean, for the most part he's a pretty solid effort,
with like, your standard Classics traditional-but-updated styles,
like this ribbed-for-her-pleasure pectoral precipice and the slightly space-age tread legs.
Head's lookin' pretty goddamn ultimate as well with the indestructible iron hat
and the spooky purple flesh face lookin' less like a robot and more like a light-piped Robert Z'Dar,
but the thing that really holds back this hapless homeboy from being a truly mega Megatron
is his majorly questionable arms!
I mean the shoulders look neat enough with some interesting Decepticonic angles,
and like, the left one's almost okay, if not for the cop-out moulded-in hand.
But the right one's just a nightmare!
Aagh!
So he's rockin' the tank cannon on his arm there,
sort of almost potentially like the G1 classic look but nowhere near as cool
and, I mean, he has to go without a hand for the sake of this garbage flaily gimmick
which at best looks silly, and at worst comes off!
Also, for some reason, this little Isengard pineapple on the end here can come off
so it can conveniently vanish behind yer desk.
Why?
But I suppose you can ignore it if you try hard enough
and at least they tried to put a new spin on it.
Other than that, it's hard not to love this lumpy little grump
especially in this sweet Toxo-Vipery catsuit!
And judging by the cheeky disregarded "Megatron Rules" signage on the boxart,
turns out this just might be the Generations Archforce you didn't realise you wanted!
It's what I do.
[BOUNCY CRUST GROOVE]
Transformation's sorta standardly surprise-free save for the old swivellin' head platter!
And once again, here I sit holding a little plastic tank
and once again, I couldn't be happier about that!
Check out this bouncy little brawler!
It's sort of a lovably clumsy rough-and-tumble little ratbag
lookin' a bunch more B-movie than some of his forefathers
with this sci-fi-tastic kaiju-botherin' maser barrel!
[GODZILLA ROAR]
[Thew singing a bad weird a capella version of the Godzilla theme]
[laser zaps]
[roaring / explosions]
So you can't really say this guy's top of the line but I just have the squishiest soft spot for him!
'Cos it's one of the things that got me back into collecting
and it's based on one of my favourite things ever
and the paint job just panders directly to my eyeballs!
Shocking electric blue, hot orange highlights
and two different purples!?
Forget about it!
So, regular as clockwork, Tank Megatron took a swift commercial break after two whole new toys,
passing the gauntlet to his Cybertronian self and a sickly slick-lookin' GDO repaint of the Bludge
before powerin' back onto the scene this year with the Leader-class comeback king that is
Combiner Wars Megatron!
Not that he actually combines with anything -
he's clearly just inherited the name 'cos that's what's happening right now.
But I'm sure you'll have noticed he's taken a fairly drastic style departure
from your standard disco'd up G2 Tankatron!
Yes indeed, this sassy senor brings a lovin' spoonful of original-series elegance,
flauntin' the old-timey silver-and-red shellsuit and the fearsome flat-chested sleekitude
bridgin' the gap between the revered but impractical 84 gun guy
and the mighty '92 tank-type beef bot
resulting in a satisfying amalgamegatron!
I really hope this means Megatron's just always gonna be a tank from now on.
I mean, I think we all get why he can't be a gun anymore!
Like, this bypasses the need to do the mass-displacement mental gymnastics
without having to entrust itself to the actual least trustworthy person ever.
So yeah, this mean Mega mother's packin' the harshest G1 Megs head for miles around
with a severely sullen sulk and might piping!
Bit annoying that this kibble chunk -
the ONLY kibble chunk -
gets in the way a bit, although you can French-door it out the way.
Torso's maybe a pinch static, but it is at least lookin' pretty peng
with the classic G1 pec panels and belly buttons
all pleasingly sculpted into a single tectonic chest plate!
Arms are denchly hench up here with some serious steak-knife shoulders
and some cheeky echoes of the G1 guy's red zones.
I mean you've got the extreme right-angle wizard's sleeve and standard wrist swivel.
Dunno how I feel about these weirdly exposed and unabashedly basic rawl plug-lookin' shoulders.
I mean, they just look so cheap and slapdash
and they're slightly too far down to give him a solid swivel without lookin' dumb!
And like, there is a reason they had to be there, but it just bothers me!
Like even on the old guys, it at least stayed level with his shoulder line.
Sort it out!
Feet are some pure ugly stompers down there
with a bit of a forward lean thanks to these robo-shin tendons
and he at least finally does somethin' sensible with the treads!
Check 'em out, embedded in the back there, that's way better than havin' them stapled onto the sides!
So he can bust out a split or a high kick, no sweat,
but the knees can only go to about four o'clock and the ratchets are just merciless!
I guess you'll be all right as long as you don't mind him moving exclusively in 20-degree increments.
So in keeping with this guy's G1-centric sensibilities, the old shoulder cannon's migrated down to his arm
for some wrist-mounted wreckage!
Also you can totally extenderate it out for this immense snipezooka
and, as if there were ever any doubt,
you can totally flip it around for the full-on G1 fusion cannon!
I dunno, maybe I'm just so used to these big clunky lumberbots
that suddenly skipping to so slender a tyrannotank just doesn't sit right.
Or maybe it's 'cos we've been so spoiled by the Movie-era Leader bots that anything short of
mechanical miracles feels like a raw deal now.
There's still a big part of me that expects lights and sounds and insane parts counts
and hour-long conversions for my fifty quid.
But, I mean, he definitely fills a hole
and there's something endlessly appealing about a nice, big Megatron!
Huh?
[persuasively] Huuuuuh???
[resigned] huhhh.
[THRASHY MATHCORE NOISE METAL]
[inhales]
Too easy.
While that thing I said a minute ago about the Movie leaders is still true,
I can't remember the last time I could be bothered to transform one.
But this just feels like too much the other way!
But it's all academic anyway when the tank mode's this jaw-droppingly eye-poppin'!
Yes indeed, as we've said, this thing eschews the time-honoured toxic jungle camo
and instead goes for sheer shameless shine power
with a lavish lashin' of luxurious armour detail!
For a semi-realistic non-OTT tankticon, this is probably the most impressive thing I've ever seen!
Gets a bit panicky up the back, but by and large, this is one snogworthy sexpot!
Turret looks pretty pulverisin' up there, and it packs a full 360 thanks to the internal turntable
but considering its the reason we had to sacrifice good shoulders,
it doesn't half feel a bit ropey.
I mean, the mechanism's so thunky, it feels for all the world like it's gonna shake itself into oblivion!
But at least they did it!
How many other otherwise-okay transtanks have been let down by frozen turret syndrome?
I can think of at least three.
Anyway, his hand cannon splits up into these twin turret toppers
and it looks like there's combining potential after all thanks to a veritable pox of Minicon ports!
Also, while we're talkin' extras, he comes with this cheeky sticker sheet
so you can make him an Autobot if you want
or you can whack on those naffo curly chest hair details with an awkward white background.
So that's your 2015 Megatron, and I just don't know how I feel about it!
It feels like a toy from 1995, but without the genuine charm of being a toy from 1995.
This is meant to be the G1-style Leader-class ultimate Decepticon badass!
This is one my inner nine-year-old's been achin' for and I REALLY wanna be blown away by it,
but it's just not quite there.
Sometimes it takes a disappointment to realise what something means to you,
and I guess, over the years, this has been a bit of a rollercoaster.
So, from glorious, to impressive, to charmingly almost-crap,
to frustratingly almost-not-crap,
it's been a wild old ride.
Thanks, tanks.
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Limited appeal, keepin' it real.