Bot Reviews: Transformers: Generations Selects Super Megatron

The year was 1991, and the Transformers franchise, despite being dead in the West, was still chugging along in Japan (and Europe). That year, Takara’s Transformers line was called Transformers: Return of Convoy, and centered around the resurrection of Optimus Prime, powered up into Star Convoy, with a huge new toy of him as the centerpiece of the year’s offerings.

There was no cartoon to speak of for Return of Convoy, but there was a single manga story, and gorgeously-illustrated story pages that told the ongoing saga of the line (which are now translated and available to read in Viz’s third volume of Transformers: The Manga). In those stories, Star Convoy and his Autobots faced a mysterious alien called Dark Nova, who countered them by resurrecting and restoring Megatron into a powerful new form, called Super Megatron (and later, after another upgrade, Ultra Megatron).

Despite being the most prominent bad guy in the story, starring in the one-shot manga chapter they made, and having a pair of detailed, transforming character models drawn up, no toy of Super Megatron was ever made. In fact, the Return of Convoy line didn’t have ANY Decepticon figures in it at all, apparently because at the time, Takara thought bad guys didn’t sell (then who were the kids going to have all those heroes fight?).

In 2019, Takara released a new version of Star Convoy, as part of their branch of the Generations Selects line of exclusives. He was one of those crazy retools they’re fond of doing, where they excessively rework figures into something totally unrelated, in ways that are impressive, but often a bit dicey in terms of engineering stability as a result. I reviewed Star Convoy when he came out, and found him, like most of those releases, fun and interesting, but a bit janky and unstable. In 2020, Takara finally released his nemesis for the first time, creating the first official Super Megatron, through extensively retooling 2016’s Titans Return Voyager Galvatron. That version of Galvatron was, not to put too fine a point on it, a pretty bad figure for numerous reasons, so this version is tasked with making it better, on top of being the first Super Megatron ever. My Hasbro Pulse order finally made it to Canada, so let’s see how he holds up.

Super Megatron Spaceship Mode

There’s this theory I’ve heard about this toy, and it’s that he somehow represents Every Megatron, Unified. Certainly, this spaceship makes me think of a stylized, anime-esque version of the 2007 Movie Megatron’s spaceship mode.

In terms of its look, this ship mode’s modestly accurate to his manga design. The big difference is that the original version had a sort of gunbarrel stand beneath it (since it was literally a flying gun), while this one does not. It still sort of looks like a flying gun, though, with its long nose and yellow dish on the end. Speaking of that long nose, combine that with the shape of its wings, and its cockpit placement, and it’s also strongly evocative of a Star Wars X-wing.

But putting all that aside, the exceptional thing about this design is, unlike most Cybertronian altmodes, he actually manages to look like something cohesive, and not just a messy collection of robot parts with wings, wheels or treads tacked on. He puts Transformers Prime Megatron to shame.

While Super Megatron is technically a Galvatron retool, you almost can’t really compare him to Galvatron’s spaceship mode, because in the process of retooling him, they finagled an entirely different transformation, so the pair look almost nothing alike.

While the body of this spaceship’s your standard Voyager in size, Super Megatron has a lot more mass to him thanks to his fairly impressive wingspan, and that long nose of his. He’s decked out on the traditional Megatron colors of grey, black, red, and yellow. The grey and black are mostly plastic, while the red, and the bit of yellow on the cockpit are mostly paint. One problem with the red paint is that it wasn’t applied very well, and there’s a number of tiny drips and splashes across my copy, though nothing especially heinous.

Even more impressive is how solid he feels in-hand. It almost feels like they upgraded the materials that he’s made out of when they retooled him. He’s more solid-feeling than the loose, hollow, slick, slippery feel of most Prime Wars toys, though he doesn’t quite have the heft and graininess of the War for Cybertron line. The important part is that he holds together perfectly, and doesn’t look or feel like he’s been heavily re-engineered from something else. If you wiped Galvatron from your mind, you could pass this off as a new mold.

Technically, Super Megs doesn’t really have any features or gimmicks in this mode, just presence. That being said, either through accident or design, he has holes on the small pods beside his cockpit, and on the undersides of his wings (three to a wing) that are compatible with War For Cybertron accessories. I’ve found that Powerdasher Cromar works well with him, thanks to the similar colors. I appreciate that his wings can be bent and repositioned thanks to the transformation joints in them, which is something that helps when applying extra accessories to them.

He does have one stability issue in this mode, and it’s that the tank treads on the spaceship’s rear don’t peg down like they’re supposed to, and if you touch them, they’ll flip up easily. But it’s a very minor thing.

Transformation to Super Megatron Robot Mode

This transformation feels really good to do in-hand, and speaks to what an upgrade this is over Galvatron. I particularly appreciate the way his wings furl and fold and compress into his back. It just looks and feels neat. I also appreciate that his fists fold out easily, as having to pry them out is a common problem point on a lot of Transformers.

He does have a tab-fit problem during this transformation, and it’s that his gun doesn’t really want to peg onto his arm, thanks to the arm’s tab being a bit too big. I can get it on, but it’s a tight squeeze. There’s no signs of stress marks yet, but I’m keeping the idea of sanding it down in the back of my mind.

Super Megatron Robot Mode

This really is Anime Megatron. Between the fins on his shoulders, the new look of his fusion cannon, and a million other aspects of his architecture and aesthetic, this is Megatron through the lens of a Japanese super-robot.

Once again, Super Megatron is fairly accurate to his original 90’s art, with a few liberties taken here and there.  His wings fold away instead of flare out, his shoulders are straight instead of arched, and a few smaller cues have changed, but he’s pretty close. More importantly, he looks good on his own merits. For example, his headsculpt has been altered from the vintage design in ways I dig. His more demonic face, and “judge’s wig” helmet have been reworked into a strangely young, handsome face, and a more streamlined helmet. It’s like he had his youth restored. Another thing that makes him look better is that the funky “SM” on his forehead is now a more stylized, combined logo.

He IS a bit hollow from the back, but only barely so. He also technically has a backpack made up of his folded-up wings, but honestly, it still looks pretty good.

In this mode, Super Megatron’s got the same colors, the fact that he has more red scattered around his robot form than the traditional design really adds to the super robot look. If we continue with that All Megatrons theory, he has a little bit of Animated Megatron in him (admittedly, because Super Megatron inspired that design), but he also has a lot of Lost Light-era IDW Megatron in him, as plenty of fans, and even a panel in one of the Selects Mangas pointed out.

Also in this form, we can finally directly compare him to Galvatron, and what’s surprising isn’t what’s been changed, but what they kept.

His legs and hips are entirely the same, just recolored. Most of his arms are the same, with only the middle part of them (above the elbow, below the shoulder) changed. Meanwhile, it seems like his entire upper torso, head, and weapon are totally new. It’s strange how cohesively this retooling comes together. It can’t have been planned in advance, yet it feels like it was.

Super Megatron’s still very stable and solid with his poseability added in. His shoulders are oddly tight, but not distractingly so, and the rest of his joints feel just right. And for a figure without heel spurs, he has strangely good balance. Star Convoy felt rickety, Super Megatron doesn’t.

For poseability, he’s, surprisingly, up to the Siege Standard, which means he even has ankle tilts, which Galvatron had, too. He’s missing wrist swivels, but that’s common when a transformation involves fists flipping in. I appreciate the little joints on the sides of hip-skirt which help it stay out of the way when posing him.

For accessories, Super Megatron is armed with the nose of his spaceship mode, as a giant laser gun, meant to be permanently affixed to his right arm (the tab isn’t present on his left). He can also hold it in his hand pretty well, if you like, though it’s big enough to threaten his stability.

You can also, again, make use of the weapons ports on his shoulders, one on his back, and one on his other arm to either mount his own weapon, or War for Cybertron accessories.

Transformation to Ultra Megatron Robot Mode

In the original story pages, this was a permanent upgrade, in the style of Megatron to Galvatron, but here, a fairly simple, Punch/Counterpunch-ish transformation represents it. Basically, you unfurl his wings, swap his chestplate, split and transform his weapon, and rotate his forehead. This last step is, admittedly, difficult to do with full-sized adult hands, as it’s a tiny sliver that needs to be spun around. One feature that helps is that you can flip his head back, and actually remove his chin and part of his helmet, as they’re attached by a simple clip, giving you more room to grab at it.

Still, it’s the only difficult part, and splitting and changing his weapons feels remarkably satisfying.

Ultra Megatron Robot Mode

Ultimately, there’s not too much difference with this upgrade, but then again, there wasn’t much change in the original art. Basically, he has a different, asymmetrical chestplate, a red gem-like mark on his forehead, spread wings, a different, rounder arm-mounted weapon, and a three-barreled cannon on his shoulders. So, while there’s not much difference here, the bulked up silhouette and extra weapons certainly make him look more imposing.

Less imposing is his square slab of an arm-cannon-shield thing, which tends to bump against his body, but, again, that’s basically what it looks like in his original design, and at least his wings and shoulder fins can be moved out of the way, if need be.

Even with the sticky-out wings, he’s still just as stable and poseable as he was before, with the additional feature of his tri-barreled shoulder cannon being able to rotate, raise and lower.

Ultra Megatron has an additional gimmick meant to be accessed in this mode (though Super Megs can use it, too), where you can swap his entire face, and not just his forehead, via the same “flip back the head, unclip the chin, rotate, and replace” system.

This new face is dark black, with silver and red highlights, and looks less humanoid, and more monstrous, with a pair of tusks on either side of its mouthplate. It’s a newly-added look not present in his 90s appearances, and seems to specifically be based on Megatron’s battle mask from The Last Knight.

There’s a new online manga being put out alongside Generations Selects by Takara, and in those stories, this alternate face actually represents an entirely separate form called “Megatron Omega.” I don’t know that I buy it as a whole other form, but I do like how it further differentiates this mode from his Super form, and it aesthetically fits well with how he’s been slightly bulked up.

Transformation to Ultra Megatron Tank Mode

This is the least fun of all of his transformations. One big problem here is that the backs of his kneepads are supposed to plug into the sides of his arms, and the pegs just…don’t want to fit, frequently sliding out.

This isn’t helped by the fact that it’s a little ambiguous how the whole front of this mode (which is made of legs) is supposed to rest. On the upside, it’s really not a difficult transformation, and his weapons, again, combine in a neat way.

Ultra Megatron Tank Mode

I feel like the designers of this figure used some kind of arcane ritual to take the usual problems with Extreme Takara Retools and remove them from the other modes, with the monkey’s paw being that they were all shunted into this tank form.

 

Design-wise, it does what the spaceship mode avoided, and is pretty clearly just a pile of robot parts in a tank shape, without a coherent aesthetic, with an emphasis on the “pile.” Granted, this means that it reminds me of Revenge of the Fallen Megatron’s rickety Cybertronian tank mode, but that altmode was textually supposed to look like a hacked-together improvisation, unlike this one.

Speaking of that, we’re finally hit by the instability problems that tend to come with these retools. As mentioned before, his lower legs don’t want to stay attached to his folded-up arms. That’s combined with how it seems like no matter how I try, I can’t get the front of the tank mode, formed by his awkwardly folded up legs, to sit evenly, with there being no clear correct position for his legs.

Not only that, but unlike the other modes, this is a pretty big departure from his appearance in the 90’s story pages, where he transformed into a more spaceship-like flying tank.

Despite all of these problems, he does have one interesting thing going for him, and it’s the sheer range of motion his turret and barrel has. The turret itself can move side to side, and also raise and lower. On top of that, the triple-barrel can also independently move side to side and raise and lower. Combine these two bits of motion with the fact that the yellow bits on the sides of the turret kind of look like eyes, and it comes across as some kind of elephant-like living creature, which is admittedly a cool visual.

Once again, he’s very different from Galvatron’s alternate mode, with an entirely different transformation. Those aren’t even the same tank treads!

For gimmicks, you really only have that super-poseable tank turret, as, unfortunately, he doesn’t have any wheels to roll with. One thing he does have, though (and it’s something I didn’t notice until after my photoshoot) is pegs on the front of his tank mode (two on either side of the gap outfront, just above his feat) that are compatible with Titan Masters, meaning several of them can take a ride on the front of him.

Bonus Mode: Megatron Omega Perfect Form

So, that Generations Selects manga I mentioned earlier also has a habit of depicting additional forms for the characters that appear in its pages, and in Megatron’s case, they gave him an additional robot mode, in the form of Megatron Omega Perfect Form. The instructions don’t show you how to do this, but it’s easy enough to figure out from the manga’s visuals, since it’s basically just a rearrangement of his wings and accessories. His backpack made up of his weapons is probably the trickiest part, so here’s a back view.

So, I don’t know if this was made up for the manga, or intended from the start, but certain aspects of it, like actually making use of his alternate face, and the way his shoulder wings flip back and angle, almost make me think it was planned from the get-go, but mostly because it looks very good on him.

What you get is a much more imposing, monstrous robot with a star-shaped splay of wings sticking out of his back, evoking some kind of JRPG final boss, or the alien leader in a sci-fi anime (including some of the Transformers ones). It’s pretty cool-looking, and while he doesn’t actually have any weapons anymore, you can imagine this guy getting by on brute strength, or some kind of abstract energy attack. Plus, it makes good use of his more monstrous face.

Official or not, I think it adds to the figure, and if it wasn’t planned into the sculpt, speaks  to his complexity and customization factor.

Overall

It’s incredibly strange to say, but this whole figure makes me think of a tweet I once saw about Phil Collins and the Disney version of Tarzan: “Phil Collins didn’t have to go THAT hard for the Tarzan soundtrack, but he did that, he did that for us.” Similarly, they didn’t have to go that hard on this guy. There never was a Super Megatron before this, and he’s been MIA since 1990, so we all would have accepted “janky but adequate,” like with Star Convoy, who, by the way, he makes look bad by comparison.

What else can I say? This is an incredibly, surprisingly solid figure, especially considering where it came from. It’s got a good design, good construction, and good presence, and is just really fun in a way that’s hard to properly explain. I highly recommend tracking one down, even if you don’t have a Star Convoy for him to beat up on. He’s many Megatrons at once, so there’s plenty of shelves you can put him on. No one was expecting him to be as good as he was, and yet, here he is.