Originally written August 2019.
It’s always interesting looking at nostalgia that was designed for someone other than me. When the Transformers: Cybertron anime and toyline came out in the mid-2000s, I was out of Transformers (the 2007 movie brought me back in), and so I have no memories or attachment to it. Cybertron is the last installment of the “Unicron Trilogy” that began with Transformers: Armada and Energon. The whole trilogy of stories and toys was considered something of a rough patch for the franchise for a long time, but for a lot of fans, was their first exposure to the franchise, and so it’s remembered fondly by some. Cybertron is usually considered the strongest of the three, and was a space opera where Optimus and his Autobots travelled to different lost Transformers colonies to collect artifacts called the Cyber Planet Keys before the Decepticons, all to stop Cybertron from being consumed by a black hole, as the opening helpfully explains:
The toyline was similarly well-liked, and produced a lot of memorable figures, including a new, giant, winged version of Optimus Prime, pictured here, and still thought of as one of the Trilogy’s strongest figures in general:
The Transformers: Siege toyline has thus far focused mostly on updates of Generation One characters, but decided to throw this specific bone to Unicron Trilogy fans with this new version of Cybertron Optimus. And in order to sell him to people like me, IDW’s new, rebooted Transformers comics by Brian Ruckley cleverly decided to base Optimus’s appearance in its pages on this specific figure, which made me interested in him. Galaxy Upgrade Optimus is actually an extensive retooling of Siege Ultra Magnus (reviewed here), but there’s enough new content to him that I’ll still give him the full writeup. As someone without any Cybertron nostalgia, and who doesn’t own the original to compare, I’ll see how he stacks up on his own merits.
Super Robot Mode
While he’s still technically short like Magnus, the wings and back-mounted guns make this Optimus feel a lot larger, and he looks impressive on the shelf. I can see why the original was a popular figure. He has a great, dynamic design, like a cross between the Optimus we know and love, and a Super Robot out of an anime. From what I can see, he’s also really faithful to the original toy’s design, with all of the important details matching up. The only real point of difference is his legs, which are still mostly Ultra Magnus’s legs in different colors. Still, he’s a new robot from the waist up, and the amount of retooling on him’s impressive (and while you can technically swap their armor, the connection points have been changed in several places, so it only sort of stays on.)
One bit of design weirdness: His shoulders look like they’re made from the halves of his truck mode front, and he’s got wheels sculpted into his wings. However, these are both fake parts, and actually don’t form the things they look like, they’re only there to match details on the original figure. It’s not really a problem, it’s just an odd little quirk.
He’s a colorful figure, decked out in plenty of Prime’s reds, blues and greys, mixed in with some lovely yellow, transparent blue and white highlights, and metallic silver paint on his weapons and other places to make what was dull grey on the original really sparkle. Whereas most Optimuses are mostly red, there’s more of a spread of his colors here, making him look a little bit unique, and I think that silver paint really helps him pop. Of course, even though he’s a homage to a clean figure, they still covered him with the always-controversial Siege grime. In this case, he’s got silver weathering on his feet, forearms and chest, though like most Siege weathering, I’ve found that it looks surprisingly good in person.
Optimus has still got that crazy-good engineering that Magnus does, in that he’s technically a small robot wearing armor, and yet he holds together solid and stable (and still passes the shake test), and is excessively poseable, with everything from ankle tilts to wrist swivels, something formerly unheard of on armored-up figures. He’s got no problems standing up (something the Transformers Wiki notes the original did), and it’s helped by two absolutely massive heel spurs on the back, almost like the designers were overcompensating for the original’s flaws.
Weapon-wise, his biggest feature is the two giant silver guns on his back. They’re on joints, and can swivel around and sling under his arms, becoming a pair of mean-looking cannons that peg into his hands. They look good, though he can’t pose very much while he’s using them. One thing that bugs me about their sculpting is that they’re hollow inside (something Siege tends to avoid), and that when they’re at rest on his back, that hollowness is visible right from the front. A rotating joint to hide it from view might have helped.
On top of those weapons, the front of his right cannon pops off into a silver gun that he can also hold in his hand. Finally, he’s got the same two oversized black pistols Magnus came with, which were actually always intended to be Galaxy Prime’s weapons. He’s meant to mount them on his legs, and point them forwards, as per the original figure, but he can also hold them in his hands, and mount them on weapons mounting points on his lower arms, shoulders, or on the backs of his wings.
Transformation to Inner Robot
Like Magnus, there’s not much to say here. You’re popping off all of his armor, and making a few adjustments to the uncovered inner robot, mainly revealing his smaller head. One slight difference is that he does a bit of partsforming, in that the pipe/wheel bits on his lower arms detach, and clip into his backpack to fill it out.
Inner Robot Mode
Unlike the combined super robot mode, this guy isn’t really sculpted to resemble the original Cybertron Optimus Prime, but is a new Classics-style design. Basically, it’s the same core robot as Ultra Magnus, but with a different chest and backpack.
Like I mentioned above, this is also the form Optimus Prime currently appears in on the pages of IDW’s current Transformers comics. That being said, they streamlined this design a little bit in the comic. In reality, like Magnus, he’s really bulky looking, with a noticeably big, wide torso. He’s kind of awkward compared to the much more dynamic-looking Siege Voyager Optimus, who’s definitely the better robot of the two at this scale.
He’s still really colorful, especially compared to the white Magnus robot he started as, with the same basic colors as the large robot (including the weathering on his arms), capped off with yellow G1-toy-style eyes.
He’s also still impressively poseable in this mode, with ankle and wrist swivels and everything, and manages to stay stable, too. He can still use all of his larger mode’s weapons (well, except the underarm cannons), and the silver gun in particular feels like it’s scaled to this form better.
You can stash weapons on mounting points on his legs, or mount them on his shoulders and lower arms. As a standalone Voyager-sized robot, he’s pretty good, but, unfortunately, pales in comparison to the actual standalone Voyager Optimus in terms of proportions and features, though that one didn’t have to also become a super robot.
One little extra thing while I’m here: Officially, his super mode armor doesn’t do anything in this mode, like with Magnus. However, just from squinting at pictures of the original toy, I was able to finagle a weapons platform mode that’s pretty close to the original toy’s one, seen here:
It’s probably not intended by the designers, but it’s also nice and easy to do.
Transformation to Truck Cab
This is the same transformation as Magnus, which is to say that it’s quick and easy, and includes a really clever move where his backpack slides up and down his spine on rails.
Inner Robot Vehicle Mode
Honestly, this is still kind of a weak vehicle mode, in that it doesn’t do much to avoid looking like a pile of robot parts on wheels. It’s actually worse on this figure than Magnus, since that version sort of hid it with his all-white colorscheme.
Here, though, things like his robot mode hands blatantly hanging out of his back are a lot more obvious.
The front of the truck has an interesting, angular sculpt, though, and reminds me a bit of Transformers: Animated Optimus Prime’s truck mode. In terms of paint and colors, I also appreciate that his wheels are properly painted in this form.
For features, he still has quite a few weapon mounting points on him, namely two on each side of his truck mode, and on his roof.
Transformation to Combined Vehicle Mode
To this figure’s credit, while I still need help figuring out how to combine Magnus’s armor, on Galaxy Prime’s, it’s a lot more intuitive, and I didn’t need the help connecting it. On the other hand, it’s a bit more fiddly getting certain parts lined up and snapped in properly, if you want it to be able to roll his vehicle form. His combined form boots, in particular, did NOT want to stick together until I really forced them. Still, once everything’s properly lined up and snapped together, it holds together well.
Combined Vehicle Mode
One reason this figure fits well with the Siege line is that he didn’t transform into an Earth mode, and instead changed into a futuristic-looking fire truck. Prime’s impressively long and hefty in this form, and it holds together well, considering it’s built out of a bunch of separate parts.
Unfortunately, this mode’s kind of messy when it comes to its design. Then again, so was the original, which it’s still pretty accurate to, which raises the question of whether or not they should have fixed it up more or not. See, on Ultra Magnus, his armor turned into an enclosed, rectangular cage, hiding most of his robot bits in the process. This fire truck has a more open design, and so there isn’t much here stopping it from looking like a jumbled group of robot parts mashed together. The open truck bed also means the awkward-looking back of his cab still isn’t really covered up, another trick used on Magnus.
One particular aesthetic quibble I have is wings wrap around the fire truck’s sides, and the fake pairs of wheels on them go right over the real pairs of wheels he uses to roll. However, the fake wheels are not painted on the side that faces outwards, so you’ve got an odd visual of real, painted wheels getting covered up by unpainted red fake ones. Speaking of that, while he rolls just fine, even at the best of times, with all of his parts lined up, not all of his wheels touch the floor.
In terms of features, his two cannons, now repurposed as water cannons, can raise, lower and swing about freely on his back. His black weapons can be mounted on his sides, though they can’t stash in the middle of his truck bed like on the original. He’s still got some of his cab’s additional weapon mounting ports on his sides and roof, plus two extra ones at the very back of the truck mode.
Overall
This was a really neat idea to do as a homage, and it’s an impressive bit of retooling. He’s got an excellent looking, amazingly engineered combined mode, and a pretty good small robot mode, but they’re let down by a pair of middling vehicle modes. Despite that, if you’re a Cybertron fan, it feels like a must-buy. I don’t know how it stacks up to the original, but on its own, it’s a fun, well-engineered take on that show’s Optimus.
However, outside of that, while he’s well put-together, he kind of suffers in comparison to the current Siege alternatives that you can still find on the shelves, probably easier than him. Firstly, as Optimus Prime, the Siege Voyager figure is the better option. Aside from costing less, it’s a better-looking, better-engineered standalone robot. Secondly, despite the clever retooling, I feel like Ultra Magnus is the stronger Leader-class figure. For one thing, he’s got a more cohesive-looking alternate mode, one that hides his flaws better. Meanwhile, if you’re an IDW 2.0 fan like myself, it could be hard to justify purchasing a figure where half of what’s in the box isn’t relevant to the comic (unless his grand, combined form shows up in its pages, hint hint IDW). So, while this is a pretty good figure, one that I’m having fun with, if you’re not here specifically for what it’s doing (being a Cybertron homage), it isn’t really super-essential. On the other hand, I’m not a Cybertron fan, and I’m having fun with it as a cool-looking anime-ish take on Optimus, so maybe it’ll work for you on that level, too.
(2021 update: Well, in a world where Optimus Prime has gotten several more G1 redos, and Siege Ultra Magnus got an even more G1-ish retool form Kingdom, the uniqueness of this release has made it hold up over time a lot better than I’d expected. There’s not a lot out there like it, and as a different-looking Optimus, it’s got an appeal all to its own that I dig. Still waiting on his super mode to show up in IDW, though.)
