Bot Reviews: Transformers: Generations Comic Edition Emirate Xaaron, and Flame

If I’ve counted correctly, and if you can believe it, this is actually the 300th review that I’ve posted here on Children of Primus, since I started in 2020. And what better thing to look at this time around than sonething related to one of my little areas of expertise: Obscure Transformers comics characters.

So, this two-pack here’s a part of the same Generations Comic Edition series as the Straxus I reviewed some time ago. The line was a series of premium boxed figures that you could mostly only get from Hasbro Pulse in the US. That made these guys prohibitively expensive for me to grab, until I noticed that the wonderful Comic Alley Toys, over in Oshawa, had a loose set, with the box, for a good price.

The most notable thing about Xaaron and Flame, though, is that they represent a rare accomplishment when it comes to modern Transformers: They’re both Generation One characters, straight from the 80s, that have never once gotten figures made of them before, mostly due to their obscurity, and how they belong to the Marvel UK comics, instead of the US ones. 

As I recounted during my review of Death’s Head, the Marvel Transformers comics in the UK were published weekly, instead of monthly, but with a much smaller pagecount than the American book. So, they’d chop each American issue into multiple parts, and serialize it across the weeks, but even then, ran out of material fast, resulting in a stable of British artists and authors (eventually, almost entirely just Simon Furman as the writer) creating their own stories, taking place between the US issues. But instead of just making them quick filler, Furman and company decided to put their backs in to it, and tell their own set of unique, darker stories, often exploring settings and characters that the American book didn’t have the time to linger on, or use at all. These stories really resonated, making the UK edition of the comic more popular over there than the cartoon ever was, even as these stories remain obscure in the American market.

But, enough with the backstory, let’s talk about the characters!

Emirate Xaaron

Introduced pretty early on in Furman’s UK comics, Emirate Xaaron was an ancient Autobot senator, who, in the present, served in the important role of leader of the Autobot resistance back on Cybertron. He wasn’t a ‘bot of action, and hadn’t even transformed in eons, but he was great at inspiring the troops, while also being cunning enough for Impactor, leader of the Wreckers, to persistently call him a “wiley old buzzard.” Xaaron’s probably the less obscure of these two characters, both because he was in a lot of stories, but also because he did eventually make the leap to the American Marvel books, when Furman took them over. Still, he’s really only had tiny cameos in other works since the 80s, and the whole thing with him being, y’know, a politician, means he wasn’t the first choice for getting merchandise, until now.

Robot Mode

Xaaron arrives in plastic form as a retool of the old 2019 Siege Deluxe Refraktor (aka Reflector) figure, which I reviewed ages ago when it came out in a special three-pack. The thing about Reflector’s design is that he makes for an extremely generic robot, a pile of boxes in the shape of a person. And, wouldn’t you know it, that’s what Xaaron was also drawn as, making this the perfect tooling to make him out of. There’s even less retooling on him than I thought, with only his head and chestplate being new.

I guess, technically, a lot of smaller details on Xaaron are off from his comic design, especially considering all the techie greebling sculpted across his body, but it feels very correct unless you’re literally comparing him to comic art. His new chest is incredibly accurate, though, including a little triangle of damage at his left pec that he was always drawn with, which helps sell the design.

One disappointing thing about the Reflector body, though, is how hollow it is from the back, with big, visible holes behind his legs, at the small of his back, and under his forearms, with the weapons ports on those forearms often showing what’s behind him, so he can come off as a bit chintzy when he isn’t covered with accessories, to say nothing of him feeling kind of small for a Deluxe. 

On the positive side, he’s got a great new headsculpt, with a helmeted, crowned head. Xaaron was designed early enough that Transformers design language hadn’t really been nailed down yet, so his weird vent-mouth really stands out.

Xaaron’s sculpt may be generic, but he makes up for it with a unique, eye-catching set of colors. They picked a good shade of gold to be his main color, not too metallic, but not too yellow, often a hard line for figures to walk. He’s also got some light gray, and accents of silver, bronze and black, all laid out precisely how he appeared in the UK version of the comics (his US appearances saw him get a more monochrome solid-gold deco.)

There’s also the unique color gimmick this entire toyline shares, a set of complicated black accents across his lower legs and torso, designed to resemble comic art shading, and a scattering of dots across the left of his chest, in imitation of ben-day dots. As I said in my review of Straxus, it’s not an aesthetic choice I was initially fond of, and its use turned me off the first wave of this line, but it’s subtle enough on Xaaron that I think it actually works for him, and just reads as additional bits of weathering on a robot that’s already supposed to be ancient.

Despite his hollowness, Xaaron’s still solidly-built, if a bit on the light side in your hands. His joints are tight, and despite his lack of heel spurs, he’s got no problems staying standing. 

For articulation, Xaaron’s got the standard Siege Suite (™), including ankle tilts, knee and thigh swivels, universal hips, a swivel waist, shoulders with enough swivels to be universal, bicep and elbow swivels, and a head that’s on both a ball joint, and a transformation joint that lets it look really far up and down. No wrist swivels, but that’s down to the transformation. I do think his shoulder articulation looks a bit odd, though, thanks to the outward swivels on them being a bit lower than they should be on a person. Aside from that, though, he’s basically bendy. 

Xaaron’s accessories are interesting, because they’re both brand new toolings, and also stuff that they just made up for the figure, since Xaaron never once used a weapon during his comic appearances, at least that I can remember. Firstly, though, he’s got a pair of tank treads, cast in gold, with silver and black paint, that are meant to clip onto his lower legs, mostly intended for his alternate mode. For armaments, he’s got a tank turret, which can split apart into the barrel, and the turret itself, to form both a long gun, and a shield.

Both of them are in gold, with bronze paint, and more of that inky black shading on the gunbarrel. The shield can peg onto his back, or on his forearm, and he can hold or arm-mount the gun, as well as recombine them on a 5-millimeter port.

It’s a made-up set of stuff, but it fits him well in an amusing way. It’s like how, for a long time, Star Wars figures of officers, politicians, and civilians all came with guns they never actually used in the movies. 

Xaaron’s other feature, though, is his Weaponizer potential. The original figure’s from early Siege, when that was a hot new gimmick, so they made sure he was lousy with 5-millimeter ports and pegs.

I count 11 ports and two pegs on his body, more if you count his accessories. It’s funny how much stuff you can give this unassuming character. 

Transformation

The original Refraktor tooling was meant to combine with two other copies of itself to make a camera, but each individual release had a “spaceship” mode, so he could technically work independently. That’s what you’re changing Xaaron into, but, to be clear, you can still cube him up and make him part of a combined Refraktor camera mode, though the instructions won’t tell you how, and his retooling means he can’t form the center portion.

As for the transformation you’re supposed to do, it’s a more involved process than you’d think, with a fair amount of flipping around of limbs, and a ton of dedicated tabs and slots to fit everything together. Controversially, he’s also a partsformer, with his clip-on tank treads and turret.

According to the designers, this is on purpose, since The Canonical Xaaron hasn’t transformed in eons, and needs the parts to help him along. A clever way to justify it, I suppose, and I’m on record as never having minded partsforming. More Transformers should be open to it.

Vehicle Mode

To be clear, this is an Action Master Elite-esque, Pretender-inner-robot-altmode-esque mess of a thing, a slab of folded up person that can’t decide if it’s pretending to be a tank or a spaceship, thanks to the tiny little cockpit and general shape clashing with the turret and treads, which feel like they’re at an entirely different scale than the rest of him.

But, honestly, he’s kind of charming. It’s this cute, confused little rolling vehicle, and despite my grousing, feels more cohesive in hand than you’d think. It’s supposed to be a bit makeshift, and it looks like it.

In terms of colors, we’re in the same territory as the robot mode, with only some extra silver windows making an appearance, and in terms of build quality, despite many of his parts being held on by 5-millimeter ports, he stays together just fine. Well, mostly. I find myself fiddling with his tank treads a lot, I swear they’re never quite properly lined up with the ground.

In terms of features, he can’t roll at all (even fictionally, since he’s held up by a middle leg without wheels). The most action you get is a rotating turret, with a barrel you can stick blast effects in.

Of course, you can also Weaponize him, and he’s got six ports and a peg available, before you even take his tank parts off, which makes it eight ports and two pegs.

I dunno, it’s simple and strange, but I find it oddly compelling. 

Overall

This is an odd one to rate, because the whole point of him is that he’s not a ‘bot of action, he’s a politician, so that can be hard to translate into a dynamic, transforming action figure. But they kind of pulled it off here, and I’m surprised at how much I like him. His colors prevent him from being nondescript, his accessories and weaponization potential make him fun, and I’m way more fond of his strange, kitbashed alternate mode than I thought I’d be. I’d say he’s worth grabbing, both for the quality, and for how unique he is.

Honestly, I partially got him for obtuse reasons relating to a game of Masqueraiders I’ve been playing, but he’ll spend equal amounts of time being Xaaron, the Action Senator to me, because of how fun he is at being that, too.

Flame

Flame’s definitely the more obscure of this pair, in that he only appeared in the UK Marvel comics, and only for one multi-issue story arc, albeit a memorable one, often collectively called City of Fear, which ran from Marvel UK issues 164-169. Flame was a pretty unique character concept for the 80s: An Autobot, complete with the faction symbol, that was outright evil. In Flame’s case, he was a mad scientist, determined to activate ancient planetary engines that could move Cybertron through space. Calmer minds than his knew that activating these engines would destroy the planet, but Flame was so determined to be proven right, that he worked on them in secret, and then raised an army of robot zombies to defend his laboratory (y’know, like a normal, non-mad scientist would do). It fell to the Weckers, and, surprisingly, Xaaron himself, in a rare role of action, to stop him. Like Xaaron, though, Flame’s only gotten tiny little cameos since, but as a deep cut character from a story I enjoyed, that’s part of the appeal.

Plus, he’s a retool of Studio Series War for Cybertron Megatron, pictured above, a figure I’ve never handled before.

Robot Mode

Flame’s on the larger side of Voyager-class, and looms fairly impressively over Xaaron, specifically.

War for Cybertron Megatron’s got a pretty unique design, one I’m familiar with from playing the game, so it’s impressive how Flame doesn’t immediately read as Megatron to me. It helps that they changed more than just the head and chest, also giving him a new pelvis and thighs, making him feel nicely accurate, again, to his comic book iteration, even if some of the specific details are off.

Still, there’s some obvious War For Cybertron Megs DNA left in here, like his asymmetrical shoulders, the “crown” detail behind his back, and his spiky, trapezoidal legs, but at a glance, it works way better than it ought to have. It helps that the retooled bits are extremely comic-faithful, giving him the ridged tubes and curved shoulderpads he had in the comic, and the sculpted flames on his chest that seem to mimic Hot Rod’s design, among other things.

There’s one ugly bit of design work, though, and it’s his lower legs, which have this folded-up mess of tank treads on either side that don’t really come together in a cohesive way, and also have hollow bits flagrantly sticking out on the front. There’s also a bit of hollowness on his torso around the back, too, but it’s sculpted to look kinda tech-y, so I tend not to notice it.

Uptop, Flame’s got a great headsculpt. It’s less accurate than Xaaron’s, in that it doesn’t really doesn’t imitate the big, flared shape of Flame’s noggin in the comics, but is more, well, Megatron-shaped, due to transformation needs. But he’s got all the details present, including sculpted flame patterns all on his helmet, and, importantly, a distressingly happy look on his face. This is a mad scientist who’s just stoked at the horrible things he’s created. 

Flame’s colors are really bright, and really impressive, as theatrical and loud at the character is. He’s mostly glaring orange and yellow, with a slightly darker red, and light gray, with bits of black and silver. That, plus the Autobrand on his chest, is really giving me “related to Hot Rod,” even if Hot Rod prefers pink these days.

Like Xaaron, Flame’s also doing the Comic Book Colorscheme thing, but it’s even milder on him. There’s none of the ben-day dot stuff, he’s just got some inky black accents on his legs, and a little on his torso, but they’re very unobtrusive, and read as general detailing to my eyes, especially the one on his torso. Funny how I’m, again, like “The feature I don’t like is barely here,” though. 

For build quality, Flame feels nicely hefty by Voyager standards, has joints that are nice and tight, and, while he’s got an odd footprint (tiny feet in front, separate heel-spur pieces a ways back), he stays standing just fine.

There’s one big, huge design flaw with this tooling, though, one he apparently inherited from Megatron…which is what I’d say, if the previous owner of this copy hadn’t already fixed it for me. The supposed problem is that he’s got a plastic spike sculpted into the back of each of his knees, and they collide with his lower legs in a way that directly prevents those knees from bending more than a little bit, blocking a major point of articulation. It’s a bizarre, unforced error in the sculpt, but one that you can apparently fix by simply cutting, or sanding the spikes off of him. That’s what happened on my copy, and if I hadn’t heard about this issue in advance, I wouldn’t have even noticed that the figure had been modded.

It’s bad to have a design flaw like that, but it seems easily fixable, and even if you left it on, it’s not a Haslab Omega Prime or Earthrise Grapple situation, he won’t break, he’s just not going to be as bendy as he ought to be. 

Speaking of that articulation, once you unblock those knees, Flame’s got plenty of it. He’s got strangely well-articulated feet, with multi-joint ankles, tiltable toes, and movable heel spurs. Moving up, he’s got the usual swivel knees and thighs, universal hips, a waist swivel, a balljointed head, universal shoulders, and swivel biceps and elbows. No wrist swivels again, though! It’s almost the exact same set of joints as Xaaron, even. Importantly, he sure can wave those arms around like a scientist bellowing at the heavens that it is, in fact, alive. His articulation, combined with that grin of his to just make him incredibly expressive in a way that I love.

For accessories, Flame’s got Megatron’s fusion cannon, which you can specifically only peg onto his right arm, on a 5-millimeter port.

The cannon’s War for Cybertron design was already a pretty big departure from Megs’s traditional look, though, kind of short and stumpy, with a flared, techie front end, so it manages to not look too specifically Megatron-y. It’s got a ton of paint on it, too, with orange, red and yellow, plus more of that inky black comic shading, in a way that makes it look like a racing stripe. The cannon itself also has 5-millimeter ports on the front and back of it, for blast effects, or other weapons.

Another amusing little feature that all the War for Cybertron figures shared is that their forearms could detach. Flame’s still got that, and comes with a left forearm that pops off to reveal a 5-millimeter peg. The idea was that you could swap weapons with other figures in the range, to simulate the way each character would morph their forearms into their equipped weapon in the game. For Flame, diegetically severing his arm and sticking other things on there feels like a thing he’d do.

You can also, amusingly, stick that severed arm to his backside, using a pair of dedicated tabs. 

Besides that, Flame doesn’t Weaponize as much as Xaaron, though, with there only being a lone extra 5-millimeter port on his back, on top of the ones I mentioned already. 

Transformation

This is a complicated one, mostly because of how unique it is, especially for a tank-former. The most interesting thing about how Flame transforms is that his asymmetrical arms serve asymmetrical purposes, with one going where his chest was, and one swinging around to his back. The other impressive thing is what happens to his legs, which unfold into big, hollow bits of cowling that fit around either side of the body to finish off the tank.

I do find the Final Squeeze you do with those exploded legs a bit challenging, though, with a lot of micro-adjustments, but the clever engineering conquers any frustrations I might have. 

It’s a bit challenging to remember where everything goes, but the designers included that lovely little trick of bespoke tabs and slots that serve to jog your memory.

Tank Mode

Unlike Xaaron, Flame actually did transform in the comics, into a treaded sci-fi tank, and so does this figure. This mode does less to pretend it’s not War for Cybertron Megatron, though, with no visible retooling, or anything to imitate Flame’s comic look, outside of the colors. It’s just the Tank from the Video Game, in red and orange!

It does create the interesting visual of Flame completely switching aesthetics when he switches modes, though, and it’s still a cool-looking vehicle. It’s all triangles, and odd trapezoidal angles, with barely a rectangle in sight, compared to Xaaron being All Cubes.

The treads amuse me, because they’re not pointed in a way where he could possibly roll on them, but are instead sideways in a hovering configuration. I’m pretty sure that’s how it worked in the game, though the camera tended to cut off the bottom of the tank. Similarly, while it mostly manages to avoid looking like a folded-up person, the back of the tank is where that fails, with a hollowness exposing his bent knee joints. I know you couldn’t see that in the game, because the camera was always looking at it.

For colors, Flame’s similarly a lot simpler in this form. He’s mostly now two-tone orange and red, with most of the other colors being minimized, limited to the gray treads, and the yellow at the end of his tank barrel, plus a black stripe along said barrel, and a bit of black on the side of the tank, again coming off more as diegetic scouring than the odd Comic Book Art effect it’s supposed to be. It’s plain, but plan isn’t bad when you’ve got base colors this vibrant. 

For build quality, despite all the little adjustments you need to make to get the tank snapped together, it sticks really solidly to itself. For features, though, Flame feels like he doesn’t do too much in this mode, beyond a bit of weaponization. At first I was all like, “the turret doesn’t move! That seems like a huge oversight.” And then I watched some game footage, and remembered that it actually doesn’t rotate in the, either, so it’s fine, I guess, same with him not being able to roll, because he’s a hover-tank.

As for that weaponization, the Flame Tank’s got a 5-millimeter ports on his tank barrel, and another right above it, plus you can pop the barrel off for a 5-millimeter peg, so there’s a few options, even if it’s a bit more threadbare than I’d like.

Overall

Flame’s probably the weaker of this pair, but only on technicality, and I’d like to stress, he’s still really great. He’s a big, beefy Voyager, with personality and presence to burn in his robot mode, and an intriguing transformation. His only real problems are those weird knees that you’ll want to fix, and a tank mode that’s competent, but oddly dull compared to Xaaron’s inventively strange one. He’s still definitely worth a look, though, especially if, like me, it’s a tooling you haven’t messed around with before. And how likely are they to ever make another Evil Autobot Scientist Flame?

The Whole Set Overall

That’s really the big caveat hanging over this two-pack: These are a pair of delightfully obscure comics-only c-listers (well, d-lister in Flame’s case), who have never gotten figures previously, and who, honestly, probably won’t again for a long time, if ever, so if you’re interested in the characters themselves, this is your one-stop shop. But beyond that, I genuinely do like the pair a lot, on their own merits. They took a couple of figures that were already really good, and cleverly retooled them into this unique pair. They’re a fun set, and the whole “Comic Book coloration” thing that turned me off the line’s not really a factor, either. So, I’d say to definitely track them down if you have the chance. I paid $60 Canadian for the pair loose, with their box, and I feel like that’s a pretty good deal for a set that were once far more costly. I’d go so far as to say they’re worth a bit more than that, especially if you like the kinds of obscure pulls that I do. 

…And that’s a wrap on review #300. Honestly, I’m startled that I’ve talked that much about plastic robots. I can’t help it, though, I compose these things in my head inadvertently, and putting them on the page is a bit like an exorcism. Either way, I’m grateful for the platform to write and release them on, and if you’ve read even one of my ramblings, thank you very much for taking the time, as well. 

I’ve definitely slowed down over the years (I buy less figures, and I only put reviews out fortnightly), so it would take me much, much longer to do another 300, but either way, it’ll be a long, long time until I’ve got nothing more to say about the Transformers. Either way, thanks again for lending me your optics!