Bot Reviews: Transformers: Haslab Omega Prime, Part 2: Ultra Magnus

We’re back, continuing my multi-part look at HasLab Omega Prime, a big box of figures that I never thought I’d get a chance to own, based on characters from the 2001 Robots in Disguise anime and toyline. If you want more of the schpiel about what this big box’s deal is, read the intro to part 1! 

Now that I’ve looked at the smaller figures in the set, I’ll continue with a look at one of the set’s two big bots. Well, the smaller and the simpler of the two, at least. 

In terms of characterization, the Robots in Disguise version of Ultra Magnus (called God Magnus in Japan) was a pretty big departure from the stalwart soldier we know and love. As portrayed in the Robots in Disguise anime, Ultra Magnus was a bitter, edgy renegade, who actually acted as a bad guy for a lot of his screentime. In this universe, Magnus was Optimus Prime’s brother, who was passed over for the Matrix of Leadership, and felt like he deserved it more than Prime, in an interesting inversion of their G1 Transformers: The Movie relationship.

This Magnus’s story had him come to Earth, and repeatedly try to take the Matrix from Prime by force. That said, Magnus had no love for the Predacons, and eventually, reluctantly, came around to joining the heroes.

Back in the day, this was the figure my brother had (I had the Optimus), so he’s one I’m a little less familiar with, which makes me no less excited for this update.

Unboxing, Assembly, and a General Gripe

To start with, Ultra Magnus requires a bit of assembly out of the box. His chromed bumper comes separately, and needs to be attached underneath his chromed Autobot symbol on his truck front.

In addition, you need to transform him a bit and install gold chrome horns onto the final Omega Prime head that the truck front contains, which introduces some problems, because it’s incredibly difficult to get that head back down in there with the horns on.

You need to push the head as far forward as it’ll go, then fold the horns back, and then try to squeeze it into place. It’s stressful, because of those gold chromed horns, and, honestly, it’s the chrome more than the assembly that’s a problem.

See, I don’t like chrome. As a kid, I had figures from Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and the original Robots in Disguise toyline, all of which featured shiny chrome parts. The thing about this chrome is that it chipped, cracked, and flaked over time, a problem pretty much every vintage figure from that era has, including the Transmetal 2 Prowl pictured above (and reviewed here), and, more critically, the original Robots in Disguise Optimus and Magnus figures. Now, I’ve heard that Action Figure Chrome technology has improved since then, and that newer stuff is less likely to wear out, but still, I’m startled that they’d include it at all here, on this expensive premium figure. I’d have been fine with some shiny paint, and I wouldn’t be stressing as hard as I currently am every time I try to fit that Omega Prime head in, hoping I don’t wreck the horns. Maybe I’m better off just leaving the horns off of the head, since they detach pretty easily. 

Vehicle Mode

Finish the assembly, and you’ve got a big, long car carrier. And here’s the value proposition of a HasLab laid bare: Ultra Magnus is about the exact same length as Kingdom Commander Rodimus Prime in vehicle mode, and, somehow, actually heavier in my hands, despite how hollow the car carrier is (which is fine, because it’s literally a car carrier, that space is for carrying cars). Either way, that’s what you paid for if you backed this HasLab: Two Commander-Class figures, and some friends.

So, while Magnus is a car carrier, he’s a noticeably different design from the Ultra Magnus of G1. He doesn’t have a detached truck cab, for one thing. And the truck front has a kind of scrunched-in “face” to it, which might look familiar if you own Siege Ultra Magnus, since his truck front was designed to resemble this guy.

Between that, and other detailing across him, like the visible feet at the back of the carrier, and the thruster pack barely visible through the scaffolding, it’s ambiguous if this is supposed to be a Cybertronian altmode, or an Earth one (I don’t think he scanned an Earth mode on the show).

Either way, it’s his chunkitude that you notice more than anything else, especially when you pick him up, and feel that heft.

For colors, he’s pretty traditionally Magnus-coded, just a lot less red, and a lot more gray. Pretty much all of his scaffolding is light gray plastic, most of his interior is the darker of the two blues on Bluebolts, and there’s some white in there, mostly on his truck front. There’s also a ton of other little bits of color, since they had an infinite budget here. There’s that dreaded chrome bumper, in shiny blue, silver, and black, with a gold Autobrand, translucent blue windows with painted gray windshield wipers, painted blue windows beyond them, a silver grill, orange lights on the roof….it goes on and on. He doesn’t seem lushly painted at a glance, but you get closer, and keep noticing stuff, like how his robot feet at the back have painted silver, yellow, and red bits. 

One thing he’s conspicuously missing are the big red Autobrands on either side of his truck mode, but those were an addition to the North American release of the toy, whereas this one’s aiming for Takara Accuracy. For build quality, outside of how hefty he is, he manages to be very stable…if you properly peg and tab all his scaffolding together, that is. Out of the box, you have to untab a bunch of it to get at the Omega Prime noggin, and it’ll all hang loose and unsecured unless you find every place it pegs in. So, if it feels unstable, make sure you plugged it all in, because once you do, it stays together. 

While I’m not happy about the front being made of chrome, I am happy the tires on his ten wheels (black, with painted siler wheel rims) are just made of hard plastic, and not rubber, since the vintage figures had rubber tires that would split and crack.  And for features, firstly, those tires do roll nicely. But his big feature is his ability to carry cars, specifically Deluxe-scale cars. So few Magnuses (Magnii?) can do this, that it’s good to see a car carrier that can actually do the thing.

You can put two on the roof, and one in the cage.

To get a car inside, you flip down the feet, and swing open a couple panels at the sides.

And, in an additional step, you can unclip and lower the tracks on the roof, letting a car realistically roll up there, too. That feature alone feels surprisingly lush.

Next up, he’s got his accessory, Bluebolts, who, when in weapon mode…

…is meant to pop onto two pegs near the front of Magnus’s roof, for an attack mode. 

And beyond that, he’s got a lot more 5-millimeter potential, with two more pegs on either side of his vehicle mode, and five ports on each side, plus an extra two on his roof, so you can really arm him up.

Transformation

I’ll rip the band-aid off right here: Ultra Magnus is a partsformer, meaning you’ve got to tear him apart, transform the pieces separately, and then fit him back together.

That’s how the original worked, a consequence of him (spoiler alert) forming the outer armor of Omega Prime. I’m sure someone probably has a problem with the fact that he’s still a partsformer, and they didn’t use their Infinite Haslab Budget to re-engineer a version where he sticks together. I’m not bothered, partsforming’s never bugged me. It’s the fact that he’s got a really complicated transformation that bugs me!

Maybe it’s because I don’t have built-in knowledge of how the original worked, but intuiting how this guy goes is a challenge to me.

There’s a lot of little flipping panels, stuff that compresses and unfolds, all kinds of stuff. I don’t think I’m ever going to fully grok the way his jetpack assembly inverts on itself.

Speaking of that assembly, the car tracks on the top of the truck fold up into wings for the robot mode, and putting them into their robot position involves pushing down on a pair of tabs that are extremely tight, and require a lot of force. And when you’re changing him back into altmode, you’ve got to yank them really hard to get them back out, too. I’ve noticed some paint rub on the tabs, and I’ve heard of people disassembling and sanding them, but I don’t think I’ll bother, since it doesn’t feel like a potential breakage point.

Robot Mode

Here’s where a bunch of the money’s going, because this is a tall, tall robot, clocking in a little bit shorter than a Combiner Wars combiner, with a bunch of extra height and width added from his fold-out anime-looking wings. He towers over most things in my collection. 

Here’s the thing about this bot, though. He’s fundamentally weird-looking, largely due to his proportions. He’s got these gigantic, long, thick shins, beneath miniscule little thighs, which are attached to a torso that’s similarly too short, but really wide in every direction, thanks to a backpack sculpted to look like a jetpack. And attached to that torso are skinny little upper arms, and ludicrously beefy forearms. 

The reason behind his proportions is threefold: This is what the original toy looked like, this is also what he looked like in the cartoon, which animated its characters very toy-accurately, and this is all thanks to the fact that he splits apart into armor to make Omega Prime. I suppose this update could have aimed to tweak his proportions, redesign him a bit, and make him more person-shaped, but that goes against the mission statement here, for better or for worse. 

Another issue he has to deal with is hollowness, which it really feels like something you shouldn’t have on a HasLab. Now, there IS a way to fix this, I’ll get into it later, but it has its own caveats. But when he’s out and transformed, those massive shins of his are completely hollow, and are outright missing two of their four sides, kind of like Authentics Bravo Optimus, which is never a comparison you want to make.

Uptop, his torso is completely empty, that emptiness visible from above, with his head supported by a single long plank over the abyss.

This is one instance where I wish they’d just used their infinite budget to, say, engineer some flip-out panels and at least hide the gaps. 

One bright spot is his headsculpt, featuring a chiselled, stern face, beneath a helmet with antenna on the sides, and an Autobrand for a crest. It’s not your usual Magnus look, but it’s well-made. Well, okay, I think he looks too nice and polite to be the aggro edgelord of the show, but that’s just me.

For colors, it’s a remix of his robot mode layout of light and dark blue, white, and gray, with tons of other little bits of color here and there, thanks to that HasLab budget. He’s got a white face and dark blue helmet uptop, with his Autobrand picked out in gold, and gold chrome eyes, thankfully the only chrome addition to this form. 

Now, onto some unqualified positives: His build quality is really impressive, especially considering that he breaks apart to make armor. Nothing on him feels like it’s going to separate, and he passes the “stand up and shake him” test with flying colors, as well as the “stand on one foot” test, thanks to his big feet.

That stability is something he shares with Bluebolts.

Also, despite his visible hollowness, he’s actually really hefty when you pick him up, so there’s still a ton of plastic in him. Plus, several of his leg joints are sturdy ratchets, that move with very loud clicks, while still managing to feel buttery smooth in your hands. 

Another unqualified positive is his articulation. In fact, I’d say his articulation is good enough that it can make his proportions look less weird. Going bottom-to-top, he’s got tilting ankles, with heels on his feet that fold in, letting you do a running pose really well. Moving on up, he’s got loud ratcheting knees, thigh swivels, universal hips (also on loud ratchets), universal shoulders (with shoulderpads that can also swivel, in case the shoulders somehow weren’t universal enough) bicep and elbow swivels, and hands that can open up on mitten-style joints, with opposable thumbs, too, letting him gesture and emote really effectively. Finally, his head’s on a generous balljoint, so he can look up when leaning forward, but not down, thanks to his chin.

There’s an obvious thing he’s missing here, though: A waist joint, seemingly due to the fact that a) his waist detaches as part of his partsforming, and b) his bulbous torso-backpack is in the way. Still, it’s disappointing that on this infinite-budget crowdfunded item, they couldn’t find a way to engineer one in. They figured out how to give Legacy Tigerhawk a waist joint, and that was a mainline figure!

For features, it’s mostly all about how he interacts with Bluebolts, who forms his weapon. So, the default configuration here is to take the weapon-moded Bluebolts, and flip the handles on the very back of her into an upright position, instead of sideways. From there, you plug them into 5-millimeter ports beneath Magnus’s armpits, to attach the weapon to his chest. From there, you have him hold the little red handles on either side of the weapon, slotting his thumbs into the 5-millimeter ports on said handles. At the end of it, you’ve got a mean-looking attack mode, almost like he’s using the energies of his body to fuel the weapon that’s attached to him. 

The problem is that this configuration is kind of a pain to set up. Rotating those rear handles unclips them from the weapon’s central body, and the 5-millimeter pegs that otherwise keep the side-guns attached aren’t that strong, so popping the weapon into him usually breaks it into three chunks most of the time. You’re better off just breaking it apart in advance, plugging the side-guns in, and re-assembling it when you’re done.

And you’re better off unplugging the fronts of each side-gun, too, because getting his thumbs in there while holding the whole thing together is similarly difficult! It’s a nice result, but a pain getting there.

Luckily, there’s other stuff you can do with Bluebolts. That broken-apart turret mode configuration I mentioned back in her review was, in fact, for Magnus in this mode.

In a clever bit of engineering, there’s a couple slots on Magnus’s rocket pack that Bluebolts’s upside-down torso can slot into, turning her turret mode into a pair of shoulder cannons.

Meanwhile, the two side-cannons can pop into 5-Millimeter ports on Maggy’s forearms, and fit into his hands as two separate weapons.

Again, it’s a pain to get them in there, though, because the pegs on the guns are made from Bluebolt’s shoulder joints, and they love to fold back into the handles, instead of going into the ports on his forearms, so you’ve got to finagle it with your fingernails. Still less of a pain than plugging in the united Bluebolts weapon, though

The third thing you can do with Bluebolts is the most interesting: Break her into parts, and turn her into Magnus gap-filler, as a sort of storage mode.

Basically, you cram her torso into Magnus’s torso, and then stash her legs and arms in the backs of Magnus’s shins. And then you add the missiles back there, too, in a sideways configuration I’m not fond of, mostly because of how tightly they fit into the assigned 5-millimeter ports.

It’s neat, and it does make his gaps less gappy, but also, it doesn’t totally eliminate those gaps, and now Bluebolts can’t be either a weapon or a bot. Again, I’d rather HasTak used their HasLab budget to add some flip-out panels, or something. Bluebolts could even still fit underneath them!

By the way, Magnus has got really good Weaponizing potential. I count 24 different 5-millimeter ports across his body, plus 6 pegs, and I’m probably missing some of them. Wiser Toy Scientists than I have somehow counted 48 ports. So, instead of complaining, the onus is on me to find some more cool configurations for Bluebolts, or just cover him with other people’s weapons.

His last feature is really interesting from a narrative perspective. See, Magnus’s whole character arc was that he believed he should have gotten the Matrix. Well, this version of the toy gives him one. Flip down his chest panel, and you’ll see a little translucent green rectangle, with a bit of silver paint, and an orb in the middle.

It’s not a traditional Matrix, but that’s what it looked like on the Robots In Disguise show, kind of like a big computer chip. And you can pop it out of its location, too! It can’t really do much, there’s no ports on it or anything, but he can hold onto it in his mitten hands.

Between including it with him, and his extra features with a now-sentient Bluebolts, this feels like a post-TV-series Ultra Magnus, who’s gotten some character development. 

Overall

Haslab Ultra Magnus is a weirdo, I’ll say that much, if only because of how he looks in his robot mode. Still, there’s also something to be said for the fact that a lot of his jankiness is baked into the design, and HasTak were just following the original figure and cartoon’s footsteps. To be clear, he’s not a bad figure at all. His vehicle mode is basically flawless, aside from the chrome parts (seriously, whyyyyyy), plus it’s really nifty that it can carry Deluxe-sized cars. It’s equally impressive that his robot mode, despite the break-apart features, is so solidly built and well-articulated, and that he doesn’t feel hamstrung by his need to basically be a big power-up for another guy, outside of how he looks.

But at the same time, with an infinite HasLab budget, I can’t help but look at things like how gappy that robot mode is, how he doesn’t have a waist joint, how all of his interactions with Bluebolts are a little frustrating, and think about how I expected a little bit more with him. He’s not bad, it’s just odd that he has these problems, considering the designers hypothetically didn’t have a budget ceiling.

Still, there’s something I keep coming back to with Ultra Magnus: Out of all the figures in the Omega Prime box, he’s the one who really needed to be a HasLab in order to exist. See, Robots In Disguise Optimus (who I’ll get to next time) could have been released as a normal mainline Commander-Class figure, like Legacy Armada Optimus and Studio Series 86 Optimus were, maybe with a few less bells and whistles, if anything. Bluebolts, meanwhile, could have been released as a regular Deluxe (and should be, in my opinion), while Titan Master Cerebros could have seen release as one of those random campaign item Takara exclusives. But not Magnus. There’s only two Commander-class figures a year (discounting repaints), and someone who mostly exists to split apart and make armor for another Commander probably wouldn’t be something HasTak would want to use a slot on. Consider, for example, how neither of the two guys Armada Optimus combines with have gotten updates to go along with the new figure of him. So, despite Ultra Magnus’s problems, I salute this weirdo, and I’m happy he gets to exist, even if he’s a bit of a mess. Who isn’t?  That said, if you’re buying this set piecemeal, I ultimately can’t see someone grabbing this guy without Optimus, if only because all of the oddness about him wouldn’t then have the payoff of the final combination. 

Coming Up!

Optimus Prime, the complicated, stressful repair job, the final Omega Prime Assembly, some roads and stands, and a really big sword! They’ll still be split across multiple entries, because I’ve still got a lot of ground to cover! And if you’re interested in seeing me encounter all that stuff on livestream, I did a full unboxing and assembly over four entire episodes of Children of Primus, over on the “Live” tab of our YouTube Channel.

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