Retro Bot Reviews: Transformers: Generations Selects Combat Megatron

Buckle up, because this is going to be a history lesson. So, from around 2004 to 2016, there used to be this thing called the Transformers Collector’s Club. It spun out of BotCon, the official Transformers convention that began in the 90s. For most of its life, it was run by a third-party company called Fun Publications, and its main purpose was to offer exclusive Transformers figures to club members.

These figures, which, thanks to their limited runs, were always recolors and retoolings of mainline figures, represented the deepest, most obscure cuts from Transformers lore that only the most hardcore fans would know (for example, the boxset pictured below), and were often very popular in their obscureness, and occasionally, wild ideas. They were, however, extremely expensive and difficult to get, since you needed to be a member of the club, with membership fees (though you got a monthly magazine, at least), and the methods of getting them were a bit archaic, like dropping hundreds of dollars for a “figure subscription service” where you were mailed a whole series of exclusives over a year. And FunPub was an American company, so if you lived in Canada or anywhere else non-American, the costs only grew higher and higher (believe me, I checked, and decided not to join).

In 2016, Hasbro decided that they wanted to start handling this stuff in-house, and pulled the license, disbanding the Club (and ending BotCon, which is why unofficial gatherings like TFcon have only gotten more popular in the years since). On the merch side of things, they seem to have finally found their alternative: Hasbro Pulse, an online store where, aside from being able to purchase recent waves of mainline figures, you can also purchase exclusives from a line called Generations Selects. Combat Megatron is the first offering in this line, and it definitely feels like a successor to the old Collector’s Club mandate of deep Transformers cuts: A reference an obscure, cancelled toy from a colourful past era of Transformers history.

 

So, what’s the deal with Combat Megatron? Let’s go back to the 90s, to Transformers: Generation 2, the first attempt to revive the franchise after G1 ended. It consisted of reruns of the original cartoon, a new Marvel comic, and a new, full-scale toyline, consisting partially of re-releases of old G1 figures in new colors, and partially of new figures. And let me tell you, this toyline was incredibly early 90s. Every figure was painted up in a nonsensical rainbow of bright, clashing colors, with a favorite motif being “camouflage deco, if you were trying to hide inside an acid trip:

Here’s the thing: Many collectors, including myself, have a soft spot for this era (and I know I’m not the only one, because the old Collector’s Club once did an entire convention set dedicated to it, which I included a picture of earlier). For me, it’s the era where I first got into Transformers. Anywho, there were a few Megatrons released in this era, including this figure, Hero Megatron, in a typically gaudy shade of purple:

This figure has been homaged multiple times since then, most recently by Takara in their Transformers: Legends line through a repaint of Titans Return Megatron, to the point of even including a “Megatron Rules” sticker, which I absolutely adore:

Generation 2 was cancelled in 1995 due to flagging sales, and a number of solicited figures never saw release. One of them was a recoloring of Hero Megatron, now named Combat Hero Megatron:

If there’s one thing fans pine after more than obscure references, it’s cancelled things they can’t have, so naturally, the inaugural figure in the Generations Selects line is a redeco and retooling of Siege Voyager Megatron, in references to this long-lost, unreleased toy. So, how’s he actually stack up? Well, since I already reviewed Siege Voyager Megatron (Thanks to complicated circumstances, this link now warps to you the future. Spooky!), I’ll refer you to that review, and make my comments here briefer (making up for this long intro, I hope). Oh, and, another cool note: As the first Generations Selects figure, he came with a letter from John Warden, who basically runs Transformers over at Hasbro (2020 update: Until earlier this year), which was really nice. Apparently only the first run of these guys comes with one.

 

Robot Mode

The sculpting on Combat Megatron’s body is still clearly based on the original cartoon and comics character model for Megatron, but his head is actually a different sculpt from the original Siege release.

 

The new head looks to be modelled after early “pre-war” Megatron from some of IDW’s comics.

 

It coincidentally looks more like Combat Hero Megatron’s old head than the Siege head does, so it helps.

He’s got the same great poseability and same solid construction as the original figure, and it actually fixes a quality control error, in that his ankles both now snap in properly, instead of it being a struggle to get them to click into place, though this may be quality control luck instead of a fix.

The main event, of course, is the new colors. They’re not as loud as some of the other excesses of Generation 2, but they’re still really gaudy. The whole motif is sort of an arctic camo thing, like he’s going to blend into the tundra. It’s bright, solid white, mixed with grey, and dark green camo stripes, with black parts, and a few red accents. He’s got his name on his chest, with lightning bolts, because it was 1995. He’s also got a badge on his arm. His black face and white helmet combo means his facial detail gets lost, unfortunately.

Despite not having any of Siege’s trademark battle damage, there is a LOT of paint on this guy, in order to match the color breakdown of the original. Parts like his pelvis and fists are entirely dipped in white paint, and areas like the front of his arms, and his chest, are heavily painted to match parts that are just uncolored plastic. It is far beyond the budget of a retail release.

If I’ve got one complaint, it’s that, unlike the last few Generations Megatrons, this is really explicitly a G1 Cartoon Megatron Sculpt, instead of something more generalized, which means it doesn’t do as good of a job of looking like the Generation 2 original than, say, the Takara Legends repaint did. This is most obvious with the accessories.

He still comes with a converting sword, and a fusion cannon. They did a cool thing with the paint on them: To replicate the green rockets with black tips the original was going to have, both are painted with a gradient that goes from green to black (they also get painted red details).

 

The original Generation 2 figure included a big, non-removable shoulder cannon, a couple of rockets you could store on his arm, and a smaller handheld gun. Legends Megatron could somewhat imitate the shoulder cannon by mounting his fusion cannon on his shoulder, and holding his other weapon in his hand. There’s no real good way to do that with Combat Megatron, though. You can mount his fusion cannon on his shoulder, but he’s still left with a sword that the original didn’t have, and that you can’t really turn into anything like the original accessories.

 

It’s a tiny complaint, but on the upside, it has motivated me to try and find some new weapon configurations for him, as you’ve been seeing.

Transformation

While they fixed one quality control problem, another one reared its head during transformation: Because his pelvis is totally coated in white paint, his legs/treads are a struggle to plug in now, thanks to certain tabs being thickened with paint. It’s a minor issue though, and the transformation is just as good as last time.

Tank Mode

This is more accurate to the original Generation 2 figure simply by virtue of a tank being a tank. It’s still solid, and it still rolls.

 

In terms of his colours, they obviously prioritized the robot mode layout, since the original Generation 2 figure turned into a tank with a mostly unbroken camo deco, while this one has an extremely broken up mixture of colours.

 

Still, his Generation 2 Decepticon logo ends up on the right side, and his white forearms seem to evoke the bellows on the original. You can even kind of imitate the rocket launcher of the original by plugging the sword in to create a giant bayonette-type thing.

 

Overall

Whether or not this guy is worth it really, really depends on how down you are with his whole core premise. The core figure this was made from is excellent, solid, poseable and fun. The question is, do his intentionally-garish, kind of ugly colors look bad to you, or do they interest you? They’re my kind of jam, but not everyone will be on board with this idea. I will say one thing, they went all out with making this homage work as well as they could within the confines of the tooling. So, it depends on whether “intentionally garish homage to a cancelled 90s toy” is a thing you like.

Hasbro Pulse in General

On one hand, Hasbro Pulse was really easy and convenient to use, unlike pretty much every aspect of the old Collector’s Club. Especially appreciated was the fact that they went above and beyond when it came to tracking my package

However, as a Canadian, the exchange rate, and especially the shipping really nailed me in terms of pricing. Premium paint job or not, that stung a bit. I’m hoping they launch a Canadian division, or make future Generations Selects (or even this one) available through other venues. The Ghostbusters Ecto-1 crossover figure, for example, will be carried by EB Games in Canada. (2020 edit: These days, Toys R Us and EB Games regularly stock Generations Selects releases, though it’s a toss-up as to which store gets which release, and there’s no real preordering system. On the upshot, it’s cheaper than Pulse!)