I’m back in the Figure Friday saddle after some time “abroad.” I’m liberally using the quotation marks there since Canada is technically a different country from where I live, but it’s also a place I can be in 20 minutes if I hit all the green traffic lights.
The Friday that I was at Fan Expo Canada was supposed to be one of my Figure Friday columns, and I had grand, romantic ideas of writing my column on the train as I travelled from Windsor to Toronto. I also had a full e-reader to keep myself entertained for the remaining three hours and 30 minutes that I would have had to kill after finishing my column.
All that went out the window when I was sitting next to a particularly chatty traveller with whom I conversed for the entirety of the voyage. It wasn’t so bothersome to be honest, they were in their 70s and seemed to be delighted to have someone to chat with.
Fan Expo Canada was, as always, a fun time, and I managed to make it to the convention each of the four days, if only for a few minutes. Right now, in this moment, I’m still too close to the experience to even think of going back next year. I walked everywhere, I sweated profusely, I was dead on my feet Friday night, but still managed to make it to the Wordburglar & Cybertronic Spree show.
Additionally, I had dinner with EiC Andy Burns and JP Fallavolita in a smaller-scale recreation of last year’s BBP. writer’s dinner. Andy mentioned that I seemed happier in person than I do by text, which means that 1)the pills are working, and 2) I’m getting better at masking.
Toronto is a heck of a city. There are a million things happening at all times and twice as many things to see. It was also nice to be in a place where there’s not a nonstop torrent of insanity. I do have one final story about my trip, but I’ll save that for the next time I have to write about Spider-Man.
The Transformers: The Movie Studio Series Leader Class Megatron Action Figure
I had been meaning to pick up this figure, but my local toy shop got its order in the day before I left for Fan Expo and sold out of them immediately. While I was prowling the vendor floor at the convention, I spotted one and by the time I did the currency conversion and circled back…it was gone.
There’s scarcely an Optimus Prime figure released that I won’t pick up (overstating for comedic effect), but when it comes to Megatron, I don’t really have a ton of that character. I never had Megatron as a kid (something we’ll come back to), and I just carried that tradition on when I began buying toys for myself.
This is a damn fine Megatron. As part of the Studio Series of toys, the character looks like he just stepped right off the screen after summarily executing most of your favourite Autobots in the classic 1986 film, Transformers: The Movie.
The figure transforms from robot to tank in just 54 steps?! That’s a lot of transforming. “But,” I hear you say, “didn’t Megatron transform into a GUN in the movie?” You’re 100% correct, but given that this is a toy that could potentially wind up in the hands of a child, screen accuracy must be pretty far from Hasbro’s mind these days.
Truth be told, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. In the original cartoon, when Megatron transformed, he would either need to be held and fired by another Decepticon, except on the rare occasion when he’d just float there and fire himself. There are all sorts of subtext I don’t have the space to go into right now.
But, yes, Megatron was a gun in 1984, and then when the Generation 2 toys rolled around several years later, he was a green and purple tank…and no one seemed to care much. Then, around 2007, he was a gun again, but this time he was a gray, purple, and orange Nerf gun-looking thing…and people really didn’t like that.
It’s a weird hill to die on, hating a figure because it’s not slavishly devoted to the original source material. Is it because Optimus Prime has always been some variety of red and blue truck? It’s also a strange thing to be upset about since a lot of G1 Transformers fans are now creeping into their 50s. You can buy a real gun now! Or there’s a wealth of third-party figures that are just as good (or better!) than this figure that will change into the fake gun you so desire.
Back to the actual figure. It’s great, and as a Leader Class figure, it was a bit cheaper than the Commander Class figures like Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, which leads me to one of my minor quibbles with the figure: its lack of accessories.
The figure comes with Megatron’s energy cannon, a tiny gun version of himself that can be held by other figures (Happy nerds? No, of course not), and an energy sword — and that’s about it. Like I mentioned above, it’s a minor quibble. The Hasbro engineers really designed the crap out of this figure to make the robot mode as screen accurate as possible, so it’s a tremendous value for the price. I would have liked to see some additional blast effects included, or maybe Megatron’s energy mace, which, I know, was only used in one episode, but the Optimus Prime figure comes with his energy axe (which was also only used once in the same episode). The box is kind of big and empty, so it feels like you’re not getting that much, even though this is the best widely available Megatron out there. I’m glad they kept this figure at the Leader Class price point because bumping it up to a Commander Class would have taken a lot of superfluous accessories.
It’s a great figure and well worth picking up if only so your Optimus Prime won’t be lonely anymore.
