Home Special Features Evolution Revolution: A Beast Era Retrospective
Metals Megatron
Height: 16.5 cm; 23cm (beast mode overall length)
Articulation: 15 total points - Ball joint neck; 3 points each arm: ball joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow; 4 points each leg: universal joint hip, thigh swivel, hinge knee; Plus various additional points specific to beast mode.
Colors: Molded black, copper, metal-flake grey; Painted metallic purple, red, white; Vac-metal purple, silver.
Accessories: Tail cutlass.
Author: ExVee
Great reward requires even greater risks, and to obtain the ultimate goal justifies the greatest gamble of all. This philosophy is not lost on Megatron. His quest is not just for personal power, no! Megatron's ambition extends to all Predacons, and delivering them from their oppression at the hands of their Maximal conquerors. Megatron will use any means at his disposal to reach his goal of overthrowing the Maximals and taking over the Cybertron that rightfully belongs to the Predacons and is his alone to rule. Even rewriting reality itself is not beyond Megatron's consideration, and with a secret message discovered on an ancient Maximal relic, the means may already be in his hands.
Megatron is brilliant, but a rogue. He causes too much trouble. The true leaders of the Predacons would sooner scrap him themselves than allow him to carry out his agenda and bring the wrath of the Maximals down upon all Predacons, or worse. While the Tripredacus Council is certain the Predacons' day will come, Megatron is unwilling to lie down and wait. He will take the future firmly in his own hands, or die trying.
"Treachery keeps the wits sharp."
Megatron is another of those cases of extreme difference between Hasbro and Takara releases made possible by the year or so delay between them. And sadly the difference moves past just the colors here, for Hasbro's Transmetal Megatron will inevitably snap apart in your hands one day. The brown plastic that makes up most of the robot mode body is most likely, but seemingly any of the plastics will eventually degrade and fall apart. Metals Megatron is made of wholly different plastics and thankfully is free of this fate. And the colors are much more similar to the show. Double bonus!
Beast Mode
Though in general characters gained new color schemes with their upgrades to Transmetal, Megatron manages to retain some of his previous form's purple, though just on the chromed portions of the body in beast mode. The majority is done in metallic colors like copper and (not quite) silver, but without vac-metal outside a couple of silver chrome spots. This Megatron has a similar amount of articulation in beast mode as the previous form did. The stubby little arms swivel on restricted ball joints at the shoulders and the knees can bend. Since all the gimmickry used in the original Megatron toy is not present here, the Transmetal's jaw can articulate freely. Likewise, the tail is now articulated along seven ball jointed segments. Unfortunately, this is another case of ball joints wearing down with age, as my own Megatron's tail has a bad case of sagging. Nothing a little time with some super glue wouldn't fix, though.
Most of the mechanical aspects are really generalized, not really looking like any particular kind of mechanism. A few exceptions exist, such as pistons molded into the legs and forelimbs, as well as the sides of the neck. One particularly neat bit of detailing has a large screw molded in on the outside of the jaw's hinge. On the opposite side of the head is an actual screw that holds it all together. Too bad they didn't paint the screw purple to make the color match too.
Sadly due to the smaller size and more limited number of parts, this Megatron could not have the flap piece that closes up the beast mode chest like the Ultra predecessor. In this case that means the robot arms are hanging somewhat visibly in the chest. The forearms are the same copper color as most of the body which minimizes their appearance, but they still don't blend in to the lines. Visually it's really the only failing point of this beast mode.
Transmetal Transport Mode
The Mega Transmetal leaders really had the best transport modes. Megatron is a VTOL T-rex with rollerblades. Just think about that sentence for a moment. Only Optimus Primal is possibly more awesome than that.
The VTOL fans flip up from Megatron's hips - the energon chip rubsign then revealed on the left hip - and the feet fold up to deploy the roller skates. Alas, the skates do not roll, as I fear that would have simply been too much awesome for a single toy to endure. The VTOL fans spin freely, however.
Transformation
Simple and intuitive, but still involved enough to keep interest. Now, on Hasbro's version, there's some points that are risky. Most commonly Hasbro Megatrons will fail at the waist as you rotate it, but they can also break at one of a few points at either (or maybe even both) shoulders. It's scary stuff, man.
Robot Mode
For fans of the show, this is probably the form most often associated with the character. In this robot mode, Megatron carried out many of his more memorable plans. Amazingly none of them involved a giant purple griffin.
The catch of Transmetals besides the transport modes is that they're machines on the outside with a semi-organicy filling. In this case it's shown most strongly in Megatron's head. The helmet has a very rounded form with many wrinkles that make it appear as some form of thickened armor tissue, in contrast to the straight lines and sharp edges of other Megatron helmets. Megatron's head has somewhat limited articulation due to an obstruction directly behind the head, preventing it turning more than a few degrees to the right or left. The neck post is long enough, however, the the head can tilt to either side or forward a respectable distance on its ball joint.
Not a lot going on with the torso. The VTOL fans are up on the back, but since they open open out to the back in robot mode, they're not of much use here. The Mainframe animators fudged this a bit by adding a swivel in there so they'd appear useful. At the waist is a holder for the tail weapon. In fact it's the same piece the tail attached to in beast mode. It can swivel around the waist joint and so be set to either the right or left side. ...or straight out in front if you're that easily amused.
Megatron's arms, though well jointed for a toy of its time, aren't terribly special. Notably the arms use the single hinge placed far enough out on the arm to give it around a 180 degree range without needing a second hinge. Megatron also features 5mm fist holes, giving the creative type a range of interesting accessory options. It also made it a good choice to recolor in Armada...
The legs are about like the arms in the articulation department, except they didn't try to give double-joint range to the knees. Megatron's hips ratchet forward and back, but are smooth to the sides. of note to watch for here is that since Megatron's heels are actually the front wheels of his roller skates, Megatron is subject to easy tipping backwards in robot mode. Beast mode offset this some by having enough body mass forward of the legs, but in robot mode there's a bit more in back than the front. You may never even notice this problem, but if you're working with a lop-sided table...
And of course the roller skates can be deployed in robot mode. I think it's even funnier having robot mode Megatron on roller blades than it was having a robot dinosaur.
Accessories
Megatron's tail in robot mode becomes... well, a tail with a handle at one end and a serrated claw at the other. Nobody ever accused Transmetals of having good weapons. The show reimagined this as an energy weapon worn over Megatron's forearm. In either case, this isn't working well these days. The handle itself is loose for a start, which tends to leave the tail swinging to one side or the other. Plus the previously mentioned issue of the ball joints wearing out starts making this really kind of sad.
Conversely, the claw on the tail is almost too tight. Either that or it's geared (er, as in designed, not literally gears) to move in 45 degree increments, since trying to open it less than that will usually see it start to close again all by itself.
Things To Look For When Buying Loose
It's not going to be a common condition to find Metals Megatron loose (although I did...), but the only part meant to be removable is the tail and everything else should be obvious from a robot mode picture. If we're talking about Hasbro's Transmetal, no matter what you see in the picture you need to ask about the condition of its brown plastic. Broken waist joints can be disguised in beast mode, and the upper arms especially are hard to see in straight on robot mode shots.
If you're looking at a loose toy and are not sure which version it is, remember that Hasbro's Megatron has a main body in robot mode that brown while Takara's is black. All of the plastic colors are different between versions, but this is the most obvious difference. Takara's also has a stamp on the right shoulder armor that says "Destron" and has a tiny Predacon faction symbol, where Hasbro's just says "Megatron" there. If you can't tell any other way you'll always be able to determine from that.
Closing Remarks
We have here yet another installment of the long and winding road of Mega development. Unlike the five previous toys at this pricepoint, Megatron has no gimmick unique to his size class. Instead, the designers seemed to focus on just making a really good figure that used the line-wide feature. To this end, Megatron has above average articulation all over and is generally a very solid Transformer. In effect, he's Super Deluxe. In this case I'm very okay with that since it means that no matter what I might think of other Megatron toys, I'll always have at least one really good one to represent the character.
While the Hasbro version is fraught with danger on a material level, other problems like the loose tail are simply an issue of age and for the most part can be corrected. The Metals version of Megatron is most definitely recommended here, but those can be difficult to find and usually kind of expensive when you do. But even buying an unopened Transmetal Megatron is no guarantee - the problem that results in snap crackle and pop isn't related to wear over time. The plastic just expires at some point and there's no way to avoid it. Metals Megatrons appear in small numbers on Ebay every once in a while and while more expensive, the investment is worthwhile if you want a long life from your toy.
The mold is Excellent in either color, but if you decide to take your chances on the Hasbro version... well, just beware.
-ExVee
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