Post by Philip Ayres on Dec 12, 2008 16:20:40 GMT
Fortress Maximus
Fortress Maximus is one of the giants of the Transformers line in more ways than one. At the time he came out in 1987 Hasbro was busy making large toys for the GI Joe line - the USS Flag aircraft carrier came out in 1985, the Terror Dome in 1986 and the USS Defiant & Mobile Command Centre in 1987.
Fortress Maximus comes packaged in robot mode. Also packed into the box are his Headmaster - Cerebros - which is a robot a bit smaller than standard Headmaster large robots - and a standard size Headmaster Spike which is the Headmaster for Cerebros. In essence he is a Double Headmaster. I haven't got the Japanese names for Cerebros and Spike here but it wouldn't surprise me if they followed the pattern bellow and were Fortress and Fort.
I'll summarise the colours on the toy here but will talk about the robot mode features when we return to it at the end of the review after the city and vehicle modes:
The feet, side panels on the legs, arms, the centre of the lower chest, the dual cannon and the large gun are blue.
The leg guns, guns in the leg command centre & lower chest, lower arm panels and other hidden guns are red.
The upper legs and upper chest are white.
The lower legs, some of the chest and the head is a darker grey.
The lower parts of the chest and the face are a lighter grey.
Spike is a standard looking two tone Headmaster with blue arms & legs and a grey body and has the standard Headmaster articulation of bending at the shoulder, hips and knees - though the last two aren't independently jointed. To TF him fold the lower legs up so they cover the chest turning the toy into an approximate cube. Put the toy's back towards you with his head poking down. Fold up the panel on the back to reveal the face. The robot's head - and the three panels behind it - insert into any Headmaster socket.
Cerebros meanwhile had dark grey arms, legs & chest panel with the rest of the body and head being light grey. Cerebros' arms bend at the shoulder, his wrists bend in and his legs move & bend to the sides at the hips. Cerebros has his own gun. The Japanese version of Cerebros has a sword. On Cerebros chest is a panel that folds down to reveal the tech spec meter activated by inserting Spike into the neck socket - each of the three dials is rotated into position by one of the panels behind the head on Spike or another Headmaster. Cerebros TFs into head mode by folding his fists into the lower arms, folding the arms behind his back then folding the legs up along the sides of the body. The panel on the back is then raised to reveal the face. The head can then be connected to Fortress Maximus' body, but it doesn't need Spike to be attached to make the attachment.
He also comes with Gasket - a four wheeled vehicle with two gun barrels on the top and Grommet - a tracked transporter vehicle. Gasket's guns unplug from the top and peg into his sides, then Grommet fits into the bottom of Gasket to form the robot Cog who has arms that bend at the shoulders and an extra gun for himself to hold.
TF to city mode: Remove the weapons, close the wrist panels up and remove the large head. Straighten the arms and fold at the shoulder so they point up. Reach behind his back and fold both halves of his lower chest out to the sides and forward so they meet together and form a tower. Fold the ramp up to cover his head from behind his back, and fold the small ramp out of the back of the large ramp. Fold up the grey door on the top of the chest so it completes the ramp. Swing the legs up and out to each side. Place toy on it's back. Turn the legs so the feet point away from the bulk of the toy. Fold the command centre box up behind his left leg but leave the guns folded up inside it. Fold the clear blue cover down on his left side of his chest. Fold the legs up at the hip so it's sticking up in the air then fold the bottom of each leg down at the knee so it covers the top half of the leg but the foot is touching the floor and so the command centre box slips over the bottom of Max's chest and the clear blue cover to form a helicopter landing pad. Fold down the top of the compartment covered by the clear blue panel Connect the radar dish into the hole on the central compartment at the top of the ramp. Fold down the ramps on the arms. Tuck Gasket and Grommet into the space on each foot. Fold the grey panel on the opposite side of the ramp to the helicopter pad up and forward so it hangs down over the front of the toy. Take Cerebros in head mode, fold the legs down from the sides and then bend back at the waist. Fold the top of the head down to cover the face, Slot into the space revealed by the hatch. Attach the gun and the cannon to the sides of the tower pointing upwards.
Max's City/Base mode has almost everything you could ask for in a mode of this type. Multiple levels, launchers, action features. Both arm ramps have a panel that can be slid forward with a vehicle on it. There's a lift inside the body that's powered by a crank that raises a vehicle inserted into the side of the base to the room at the top of the ramp so it can then be tipped out by pressing a button on the side of the toy. The radar dish is turned by a winding cog on the side. The side of one leg folds down to reveal a jail cell with a door that lifts up. The side of the other leg fold down to reveal steps to a room within that's labelled in the instructions as a repair bay. And high in the tower is a small command centre for Spike to sit in that faces out the back of the vehicle. It's incredible how much is crammed into this mode ! The grey of the legs works particularly well in this mode making the blocky towers at the back of the base look like genuine tower blocks.
Max is a triple changer though - close the leg flaps up. Remove Cerebros and close the flap over the vacated apartment.. Fold the bottom of the legs up into the air revealing the full leg, fold the full leg down to the side and turn so the feet face up. Bring the legs together behind the city and fold the feet down. Raise the cannons in the leg. Fold back the box half by the ramp and fold close the clear blue panel. Fold the command centre box round onto the side of the leg, fold the gun out and fold down so the guns face the same way as the feet. Raise the cannons on the legs. Fold large gun and dual cannon so they face the feet. Fold the arm ramps up. If he isn't already seat Spike in the tower cockpit - now facing in the same direction as the weapons.
It's not 100% clear what this 2 foot long vehicle mode is - I say vehicle because there are wheels underneath and it does roll forward. It might be some giant tank but it could also be a battle ship - all the forward facing weaponry makes me think the guys who illustrated that marvel issue where Max is floating on the set got it right after all.
TF back to robot: Fold the feet up and stand on the feet. Remove the dual cannon and large gun. Fold the command centre on the legs back behind the leg. Split the tower in half and fold back securing alongside the body. Fold the arms down. Turn Cerebros back into head mode and plug in - if you keep Spike separate he can go in the command centre compartment behind the clear blue panel on the chest. Place cannon and gun into hands.
Robot mode is two feet high ! He's the largest Transformer robot there's ever been. His arms bend at the shoulders & elbow and the wrists turn. The legs move forward and backwards at the hip. The knees only bend out to the sides as part of the TF but with a little modern engineering and a swivel joint above and bellow the knee I'm sure you could get a working knee joint in there. The feet bend at the ankle.
In addition to the two guns he's carrying there are a number of built in weapons he can use in this mode: The command centre on the back of his leg folds round the side of the leg and the gun barrel fold out of that. You've got the dual cannons on his leg that can be raised up still in this mode. Inside the tower halves on his lower chest there's a cannon on each side that can fold forward. The red panels on each forearm fold to the sides to reveal a dual cannon that can lift up out of each wrist. Finally each fist has a panel on the back of it that can turn round exposing another lift up dual cannon. I make that 16 forward facing guns on the robot mode - 19 if he's holding his hand weapons.
The Japanese version of Fortress Maximus has an extra weapon - the Master Sword - which Fortress Maximus can hold though it does mean he can't hold one of his hand guns. See the link to Grand Maximus bellow for pics of the recoloured versions of both the swords included with this toy.
Overall: Huge robot with good upper body articulation that's stable on his feet. Decent vehicle mode and superb base mode. A real high point for the TF range.
Masterforce Grand Maximus
The following year in Japan the Japanese version of Fortress Maximus (including swords) was re-released in a new colour scheme.
Cerebros became Grand and gained a pretender shell for his robot mode. The shell has arms that move at the shoulders, splits round the sides and can hold both of Grand's weapons. The spikes on the shoulders make it resemble the Classic Pretenders somewhat, but the main body is more square and blocky than any other Pretender - complete with a Convoyesque face & face plate. This is one of two Japanese Pretenders not released in the west, with two others being heavily modified versions of western ones.
For this release the Spike Headmaster - grey with red limbs - became known as Gran..
Cog retained his name and gets the same grey body and red limb colour combination as Gran but Gasket & Grommet became Onomus & Koko respectively
The feet, side panels on the legs, arms, the centre of the lower chest, the dual cannon and the large gun wear blue and are now red.
The leg guns, guns in the leg command centre & lower chest, lower arm panels and other hidden guns were red and are now blue.
The upper legs and upper chest were white and are now silver grey.
The lower legs, some of the chest and the head were a darker grey and now are a grey blue.
The lower parts of the chest and the face were a lighter grey and are now white.
All the clear blue plastic remains clear blue, but maybe a slightly darker shade.
Grand Maximus is in many places an inverse version of Fortress Maximus with the red and blue swapping in many places. In city mode it looks more like a night time version with generally darker towers. I've only seen it in the plastic once but it surprised me quite how good it looked as I'd previously had it down as a garish recolour.
Due to it's Japanese only availability it's hard to find a Grand Maximus to buy.
Car Robots Brave Maximus
Brave Maximus is Car Robots toy C-027. I'm quite keen on the name, it's like a tribute to Takara's other transforming robot line Brave from the 1990s - there's a few Brave reviews on my site.
Cerebros becomes Brave and Spike becomes Plasma - pinky purplish limbs and a dark grey body
These are known as The Emissary and Cerebros respectively in the RID Cartoon - Brave Maximus is called Fortress Maximus there. There's no US version of Brave Maximus - presumably it would have used those names - because the toy failed a drop test.
The feet, side panels on the legs, Cerebros' legs and face cover are now black.
The leg guns, guns in the leg command centre & lower chest, lower arm panels and other hidden guns were and are again red. In addition the grey box panels on the upper body are now red too.
The upper legs were white and are now light blue as are the majority of the arms.
The centre of the lower chest, The lower legs, some of the chest were a darker grey and now are dark blue as are the shoulders and hands.
There's some additional silver grey on the chest and main robot face and the panel between the tower halves is now metal.
All the clear plastic is now clear green.
There are several pieces not included with this release: No Cog or Cog's gun, no large gun or dual cannon, no small sword or master sword. This had led to a reasonable trade in reproduction Fortress Maximus weapons in various colours. Part of the problem is nobody can be sure which colour they should be ! Same colour as the feet, the shoulders or the arms - all the same colour as the weapons on the previous release, but different colouirs here. I've even seen sets made in red ! There was a competition prize version of Brave Maximus that did include these parts but I can't remember what colour they were there. Although he's missing the Master Sword, one was modified and included with the Clear God Fire Convoy set.
Brave Maximus comes with a play mat printed on the back of the instructions.
Being the one character who appeared in the Robots In Disguise cartoon without getting made into a toy in the west demand is very high for Brave Maximus. It was this toy that led people to discover the Korean Songkong releases of Transformers toys when it was discovered you could buy this toy cheap. The Korean version is notable for having the Autobot symbol on the tower on upside down leading to accusations of poor quality control against the entire range. I've got several Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo toys from Songkong and the quality is excellent.
Even stripped of it's hand weapons this is still a well armed toy. The dark blue colour scheme together with some clever placement of bright yellow paint on the legs/towers and command tower give the illusion of a toy in the dead of night. Works very well with the Spychanger toys released at around the same time - they make an excellent crew for Brave Maximus and can be stored within it easily.
If finances permit it's well worth getting one to complete your R.I.D. collection.
Fortress Maximus is one of the giants of the Transformers line in more ways than one. At the time he came out in 1987 Hasbro was busy making large toys for the GI Joe line - the USS Flag aircraft carrier came out in 1985, the Terror Dome in 1986 and the USS Defiant & Mobile Command Centre in 1987.
Fortress Maximus comes packaged in robot mode. Also packed into the box are his Headmaster - Cerebros - which is a robot a bit smaller than standard Headmaster large robots - and a standard size Headmaster Spike which is the Headmaster for Cerebros. In essence he is a Double Headmaster. I haven't got the Japanese names for Cerebros and Spike here but it wouldn't surprise me if they followed the pattern bellow and were Fortress and Fort.
I'll summarise the colours on the toy here but will talk about the robot mode features when we return to it at the end of the review after the city and vehicle modes:
The feet, side panels on the legs, arms, the centre of the lower chest, the dual cannon and the large gun are blue.
The leg guns, guns in the leg command centre & lower chest, lower arm panels and other hidden guns are red.
The upper legs and upper chest are white.
The lower legs, some of the chest and the head is a darker grey.
The lower parts of the chest and the face are a lighter grey.
Spike is a standard looking two tone Headmaster with blue arms & legs and a grey body and has the standard Headmaster articulation of bending at the shoulder, hips and knees - though the last two aren't independently jointed. To TF him fold the lower legs up so they cover the chest turning the toy into an approximate cube. Put the toy's back towards you with his head poking down. Fold up the panel on the back to reveal the face. The robot's head - and the three panels behind it - insert into any Headmaster socket.
Cerebros meanwhile had dark grey arms, legs & chest panel with the rest of the body and head being light grey. Cerebros' arms bend at the shoulder, his wrists bend in and his legs move & bend to the sides at the hips. Cerebros has his own gun. The Japanese version of Cerebros has a sword. On Cerebros chest is a panel that folds down to reveal the tech spec meter activated by inserting Spike into the neck socket - each of the three dials is rotated into position by one of the panels behind the head on Spike or another Headmaster. Cerebros TFs into head mode by folding his fists into the lower arms, folding the arms behind his back then folding the legs up along the sides of the body. The panel on the back is then raised to reveal the face. The head can then be connected to Fortress Maximus' body, but it doesn't need Spike to be attached to make the attachment.
He also comes with Gasket - a four wheeled vehicle with two gun barrels on the top and Grommet - a tracked transporter vehicle. Gasket's guns unplug from the top and peg into his sides, then Grommet fits into the bottom of Gasket to form the robot Cog who has arms that bend at the shoulders and an extra gun for himself to hold.
TF to city mode: Remove the weapons, close the wrist panels up and remove the large head. Straighten the arms and fold at the shoulder so they point up. Reach behind his back and fold both halves of his lower chest out to the sides and forward so they meet together and form a tower. Fold the ramp up to cover his head from behind his back, and fold the small ramp out of the back of the large ramp. Fold up the grey door on the top of the chest so it completes the ramp. Swing the legs up and out to each side. Place toy on it's back. Turn the legs so the feet point away from the bulk of the toy. Fold the command centre box up behind his left leg but leave the guns folded up inside it. Fold the clear blue cover down on his left side of his chest. Fold the legs up at the hip so it's sticking up in the air then fold the bottom of each leg down at the knee so it covers the top half of the leg but the foot is touching the floor and so the command centre box slips over the bottom of Max's chest and the clear blue cover to form a helicopter landing pad. Fold down the top of the compartment covered by the clear blue panel Connect the radar dish into the hole on the central compartment at the top of the ramp. Fold down the ramps on the arms. Tuck Gasket and Grommet into the space on each foot. Fold the grey panel on the opposite side of the ramp to the helicopter pad up and forward so it hangs down over the front of the toy. Take Cerebros in head mode, fold the legs down from the sides and then bend back at the waist. Fold the top of the head down to cover the face, Slot into the space revealed by the hatch. Attach the gun and the cannon to the sides of the tower pointing upwards.
Max's City/Base mode has almost everything you could ask for in a mode of this type. Multiple levels, launchers, action features. Both arm ramps have a panel that can be slid forward with a vehicle on it. There's a lift inside the body that's powered by a crank that raises a vehicle inserted into the side of the base to the room at the top of the ramp so it can then be tipped out by pressing a button on the side of the toy. The radar dish is turned by a winding cog on the side. The side of one leg folds down to reveal a jail cell with a door that lifts up. The side of the other leg fold down to reveal steps to a room within that's labelled in the instructions as a repair bay. And high in the tower is a small command centre for Spike to sit in that faces out the back of the vehicle. It's incredible how much is crammed into this mode ! The grey of the legs works particularly well in this mode making the blocky towers at the back of the base look like genuine tower blocks.
Max is a triple changer though - close the leg flaps up. Remove Cerebros and close the flap over the vacated apartment.. Fold the bottom of the legs up into the air revealing the full leg, fold the full leg down to the side and turn so the feet face up. Bring the legs together behind the city and fold the feet down. Raise the cannons in the leg. Fold back the box half by the ramp and fold close the clear blue panel. Fold the command centre box round onto the side of the leg, fold the gun out and fold down so the guns face the same way as the feet. Raise the cannons on the legs. Fold large gun and dual cannon so they face the feet. Fold the arm ramps up. If he isn't already seat Spike in the tower cockpit - now facing in the same direction as the weapons.
It's not 100% clear what this 2 foot long vehicle mode is - I say vehicle because there are wheels underneath and it does roll forward. It might be some giant tank but it could also be a battle ship - all the forward facing weaponry makes me think the guys who illustrated that marvel issue where Max is floating on the set got it right after all.
TF back to robot: Fold the feet up and stand on the feet. Remove the dual cannon and large gun. Fold the command centre on the legs back behind the leg. Split the tower in half and fold back securing alongside the body. Fold the arms down. Turn Cerebros back into head mode and plug in - if you keep Spike separate he can go in the command centre compartment behind the clear blue panel on the chest. Place cannon and gun into hands.
Robot mode is two feet high ! He's the largest Transformer robot there's ever been. His arms bend at the shoulders & elbow and the wrists turn. The legs move forward and backwards at the hip. The knees only bend out to the sides as part of the TF but with a little modern engineering and a swivel joint above and bellow the knee I'm sure you could get a working knee joint in there. The feet bend at the ankle.
In addition to the two guns he's carrying there are a number of built in weapons he can use in this mode: The command centre on the back of his leg folds round the side of the leg and the gun barrel fold out of that. You've got the dual cannons on his leg that can be raised up still in this mode. Inside the tower halves on his lower chest there's a cannon on each side that can fold forward. The red panels on each forearm fold to the sides to reveal a dual cannon that can lift up out of each wrist. Finally each fist has a panel on the back of it that can turn round exposing another lift up dual cannon. I make that 16 forward facing guns on the robot mode - 19 if he's holding his hand weapons.
The Japanese version of Fortress Maximus has an extra weapon - the Master Sword - which Fortress Maximus can hold though it does mean he can't hold one of his hand guns. See the link to Grand Maximus bellow for pics of the recoloured versions of both the swords included with this toy.
Overall: Huge robot with good upper body articulation that's stable on his feet. Decent vehicle mode and superb base mode. A real high point for the TF range.
Masterforce Grand Maximus
The following year in Japan the Japanese version of Fortress Maximus (including swords) was re-released in a new colour scheme.
Cerebros became Grand and gained a pretender shell for his robot mode. The shell has arms that move at the shoulders, splits round the sides and can hold both of Grand's weapons. The spikes on the shoulders make it resemble the Classic Pretenders somewhat, but the main body is more square and blocky than any other Pretender - complete with a Convoyesque face & face plate. This is one of two Japanese Pretenders not released in the west, with two others being heavily modified versions of western ones.
For this release the Spike Headmaster - grey with red limbs - became known as Gran..
Cog retained his name and gets the same grey body and red limb colour combination as Gran but Gasket & Grommet became Onomus & Koko respectively
The feet, side panels on the legs, arms, the centre of the lower chest, the dual cannon and the large gun wear blue and are now red.
The leg guns, guns in the leg command centre & lower chest, lower arm panels and other hidden guns were red and are now blue.
The upper legs and upper chest were white and are now silver grey.
The lower legs, some of the chest and the head were a darker grey and now are a grey blue.
The lower parts of the chest and the face were a lighter grey and are now white.
All the clear blue plastic remains clear blue, but maybe a slightly darker shade.
Grand Maximus is in many places an inverse version of Fortress Maximus with the red and blue swapping in many places. In city mode it looks more like a night time version with generally darker towers. I've only seen it in the plastic once but it surprised me quite how good it looked as I'd previously had it down as a garish recolour.
Due to it's Japanese only availability it's hard to find a Grand Maximus to buy.
Car Robots Brave Maximus
Brave Maximus is Car Robots toy C-027. I'm quite keen on the name, it's like a tribute to Takara's other transforming robot line Brave from the 1990s - there's a few Brave reviews on my site.
Cerebros becomes Brave and Spike becomes Plasma - pinky purplish limbs and a dark grey body
These are known as The Emissary and Cerebros respectively in the RID Cartoon - Brave Maximus is called Fortress Maximus there. There's no US version of Brave Maximus - presumably it would have used those names - because the toy failed a drop test.
The feet, side panels on the legs, Cerebros' legs and face cover are now black.
The leg guns, guns in the leg command centre & lower chest, lower arm panels and other hidden guns were and are again red. In addition the grey box panels on the upper body are now red too.
The upper legs were white and are now light blue as are the majority of the arms.
The centre of the lower chest, The lower legs, some of the chest were a darker grey and now are dark blue as are the shoulders and hands.
There's some additional silver grey on the chest and main robot face and the panel between the tower halves is now metal.
All the clear plastic is now clear green.
There are several pieces not included with this release: No Cog or Cog's gun, no large gun or dual cannon, no small sword or master sword. This had led to a reasonable trade in reproduction Fortress Maximus weapons in various colours. Part of the problem is nobody can be sure which colour they should be ! Same colour as the feet, the shoulders or the arms - all the same colour as the weapons on the previous release, but different colouirs here. I've even seen sets made in red ! There was a competition prize version of Brave Maximus that did include these parts but I can't remember what colour they were there. Although he's missing the Master Sword, one was modified and included with the Clear God Fire Convoy set.
Brave Maximus comes with a play mat printed on the back of the instructions.
Being the one character who appeared in the Robots In Disguise cartoon without getting made into a toy in the west demand is very high for Brave Maximus. It was this toy that led people to discover the Korean Songkong releases of Transformers toys when it was discovered you could buy this toy cheap. The Korean version is notable for having the Autobot symbol on the tower on upside down leading to accusations of poor quality control against the entire range. I've got several Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo toys from Songkong and the quality is excellent.
Even stripped of it's hand weapons this is still a well armed toy. The dark blue colour scheme together with some clever placement of bright yellow paint on the legs/towers and command tower give the illusion of a toy in the dead of night. Works very well with the Spychanger toys released at around the same time - they make an excellent crew for Brave Maximus and can be stored within it easily.
If finances permit it's well worth getting one to complete your R.I.D. collection.
