I was thrilled to find these Transformers Universe "Robot Heroes" figures, featuring characters from the old Beast Wars series. I've been spreading Beast Wars love on the Internet for years, but it's worth repeating. The series began in 1996 and was absurdly good, with its terrific CG animation outmatched only by the amazing scripts.
Like most shows of its type, Beast Wars was primarily crafted to help sell toys. Hasbro wasn't paying too close attention to the show's storylines (let alone its canon), and threw plenty of wrenches at the writers whenever they laid out plans for the next batch of figures. In retrospect, it's incredible how these writers so cleverly fielded all of that.
Here's a good example: After the series had established itself and the toys were selling well, Hasbro decided to revamp the most popular characters with improved transformations and shinier pieces of plastic. They called 'em "Transmetals." On the series, the writers were urged to match this change in the characters' appearance, and did so by fashioning this totally fucked up plot where the stranded Transformers were mutated by radiation given off by some kind of laser. They had to deal with these wacky Hasbro mandates all the time, but instead of letting them kill the story, they actually found ways to improve it.
And, while many revived kiddy franchises throw bones to older fans only by using the same character names and general themes, Beast Wars was completely in sync with the original series...despite taking place millions of years before then in storyline terms. Just a great show that's totally worth whatever they're charging for the DVDs.
As for these new toys...they rock.
I don't think anyone could argue that a lot the stuff in today's toy market isn't catering almost exclusively to collectors and never-gonna-grow-ups. I mean, how many of today's little kids would even know who Rattrap is? And wouldn't they be confused to find Megatron with the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex replacing one of his hands?
These Robot Heroes figures are just one of many sets, spanning a seemingly endless number of franchises, all sharing a scale, scope and style of packaging with one another. Hasbro really lucked into something big on this concept, and I'm definitely noticing an overall improvement in these figures over the ones from even a year or two ago. They're far more detailed, more intricately posed, and pretty much as good as action figures under three inches tall could possibly be without the aid of forbidden magic.
They're not just doing Beast Wars, either. Hasbro is offering plenty of options for strict Generation 1 enthusiasts, and they aren't just sticking to the top ten list, either. According to the photo spread on the back of the package, I'm just one toy store run away from my very own three-inch Blitzwing. Blitzwing!
Full disclosure: I'm gushing, but I do have one gripe. The Megatron figure cannot stand. He's built to, and they definitely intended for him to, but no, absolutely not. Not capable of standing. Though this negative is mostly made up for by the fact that Megatron's hand is actually a dinosaur's head, the no-standing thing is pretty grating. I'm hoping that I just got some glitched figure, but keep this in mind if you're the type of person who would blow your head off after buying a dinosaur-handed Megatron and finding out that he can't stand up.
Posted by Matt on 07/13/2008. E-mail me!
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