Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 8, 2010 19:10:00 GMT
Generation 2 Megatron
Generation 2 Megatron represents a significant step forward for Megatron. Since 1984 legislation had been passed making authentic toy guns illegal which prohibited a re-release for 1984's original Megatron. So Megatron's first reappearance as a Transforming toy needed a new alternate form. The only previous toy called Megatron released since 1984 was the Action Master Megatron, a poorly articulated figure with a vehicle. But in a way that release prefigures this one by having Megatron drive a tank - indeed the purple gun barrel is carried over into this release. Oddly enough Action Master Optimus Prime also foreshadows his new G2 form seen in Combat Hero Optimus Prime and Laser Optimus Prime by having Prime drive a long nosed truck !
The tank is green, a colour not traditionally associated with Decepticons, with a bright purple gun barrel, which is. There's a camouflage pattern on the vehicle also in bright purple which sort of works because the purple is closely matched to that of the gun. The tank is adorned with some garish orangey pink stickers & paint. The same green & purple colour scheme was used again the following year on G2 Brawl, the Combaticon tank. This may go someway to explaining the purple colours used on Combat Hero Megatron the same year. But that's jumping ahead a little bit. The tracks on this toy are moulded with embedded wheels. The main gun on the toy fires missiles, which is always good. The gun can pivot upwards but it can't do that and fire due to the mechanism being housed in the turret and even worse the turret can't turn which for a toy of this size is absolutely criminal. There's two supplied accessories for this mode - a laser gun and what's described in the instructions as a "light unit" (I'd have said it's a moulded missile array) which can be pegged in either side of the gun. Like his opposite number G2 Optimus Prime he has some electronics which make sounds: press the hatch on the front of the vehicle to hear it say "Megatron Attack" and pull back the loading lever for the missiles to hear the "lock and load" sound. There's a third noise heard when the missile is fired.
Transformation: Fold back the rear of the tank so it's pointing down under the vehicle. Open the doors on the underside of the rear, then fold the rear backwards and down under the tank to form the robot legs. Close the doors. Fold down the feet. Fold the sides of the turret out to the sides of the vehicle. Swing down at the rear so they're pointing down. Turn midway to form the arms and reveal the hands. Remove the laser gun and light unit then slide the turret gun to his right (your left) and peg the light array into the side of the turret. Fold the tank hatch back to reveal the head. place the gun in his hand.
Megatron's body shape has the front of the tank serving as the chest, with the shoulder mounted tank gun standing in for his fusion cannon. The head is a pretty good Megatron head - coloured silver with eyes in the same orange/pink as the tank details. The head is a good detail to get right if you're giving a character a new vehicle and robot mode. Upper body articulation is great with arms that bend at the elbows, swivel at the bicep, turn & fold upwards at the shoulder. Lower body articulation...... well the knees bend as part of the transformation but that's it. No hips or waist both of which should have been possible on a toy of that size in that time period. Ok so Megatron came out before the ball joint revolution - see the Cyberjets - but even a hip that just turns forward would have improved the toy. The only mitigating factor I can think of is that the top of the toy - tank front containing battery compartment and the spring loaded gun is quite heavy. But to add insult to injury Combat Hero Megatron just two years later has all the articulation this toy is missing and at a smaller size ! The sound gimmicks still work in this mode: You now press down on robot head to hear "Megatron Attack" but loading & firing the cannon produces the same sounds as before. As a nice added feature one of Megatron's spare missiles can be stored in each leg: There's a compartment in the lower leg found by opening the doors on the back of the leg.
Overall: decent tank, decently shaped robot but let down by what the legs can do. Even for a toy of that time I expected the legs to do more. It's obviously a success though: almost all non beast Megatrons since then have been tanks.
Beast Wars II Megastorm
Megastorm is Beast Wars II toy D-12 also appearing in VS-12 with Apache. He's the lowest numbered Destron in the Beast Wars II line and as such is the lowest numbered Transformer in the Japanese Beast Wars line with no beast mode.
At first glance Megastorm appears identical to Megatron. But most of the stickers have gone off this version, and the purple of the camouflage is now a pale browny green. The most significant change here however isn't a visible one: the sound box and associated electronics have been removed.
Robot mode too is very similar to the G2 Megatron. The only real changes are a Destron rubsign on his chest and a black domino mask over his eyes which are the only orange/pink paint remaining on the new version.
So if you've got G2 Megatron there's really no need to buy Megastorm. Oddly enough his VS partner Apache is hardly changed from Beast Wars B'Boom either ! If you're choosing between Megatron and Megastorm to buy now, I'd tend towards Megastorm because he's much cheaper especially if you can find a Korean version. But the need for a voicebox may sway you otherwise.
