Transformers Animated Megatron (Leader Class)

One of the interesting story elements from the first season of Transformers: Animated was the fact that Megatron was more or less out of the picture. He showed up at the beginning, was blown up, and then spent more of the season as a head in Isaac Sumdac's lab. Sure, he was able to slightly influence events, such as inspiring the Dinobot's creation, making the Autobots think their new HQ was haunted/trying to kill them, and becoming a voice in Lugnut's head, among other things. It freed up the writers to create stories different from previous TF series, including using a lot of human supervillains. But, in the season finale (appropriately titled Megatron Rising) when Megatron got his new body, it was awesome.

This is the third Animated Megatron toy, and the first with his new, Earth mode body. It was released a few months after the first bunch of Animated toys (And the two toys of Megs's Cybertron mode), which seems to have been planned to not spoil the big reveal of the new and improved Decepticon Emperor of Destruction's body, but, given the long delay of the toy's release, it was pointless, as everyone had seen Megatron rising already. Anyways, this is a beautiful toy. Megatron's Earth mode was based off Super/Ultra Megatron from the Japanese G1 manga, which were upgraded forms of G1 megs, so TFA Megatron here looks very much like the original, yet is still very distinct. As a Leader hetowers ovetr most TF toys, like he towered over everyone in the show. His overall look is accurate to the cartoon. Like most TFs, Megatron is mostly molded in color, but what paint there is has basically no errors, other than a stray bit of red on the helicopter cockpit piece. It's worth noting that I love the red used for his highlights. It's not particularly bright, but has a nice sort of purpleish tint to it. His 'Con symbol is red because of the lights, but I have since painted it purple.

Luckily, Megatron is no slouch in the articulation department (He has articulation! If you didn't get that, you suck and should talk to Darth as he never shuts up about that JaAm comic). He has swivel/pin shoulders, hips, and knees, swivel head, biceps, and wrists, ratcheted hinge elbows, and very nice rocker ankles (You can also use the conversion joints in his feet a little for posing). He can't raise his arms up a high as most TFs, because his big, tall shoulders, which house the pin joint, block them. Luckily, his shoulders aren't tall enough to hit the wings on his back. His elbows are a bit odd. Like a lot of Animated toys, the "default" position for his arms are with the elbows sideways, so you have to swivel hi arms to bend them properly. But, his wrists mean this isn't really a problem, like it is with Starscream and Blackarachnia. There's also a conversion joint that you can use to give his elbows a bit larger range of motion.

Conversion is simple, but still pretty good (I ten to like the tougher ones, but I do appreciate the simple conversions, if they're well done). His legs are particularly innovative, with the outer shell of his lower legs flipping around and moving up. Make sure you push the wings (With the rotors) down and his arms out. That little step was left out of the instructions.

His helicopter mode is nicely huge, and very cool looking. It is, of course, a completely made up model, but still looks like it would actually fly in the real world. The 'copter has various nice details, like the jet engines (Which are used on some advanced attack helicopters) and even a seat in the cockpit. There's landing gear, with working wheels on the underside of the fusion cannon, and on the bottom of the tail. You can also remove the fusion cannon, and flip down another set of landing gear under the cockpit.

Megatron's main weapon is, of course, his fusion cannon. It's nice and large, and has some parallels to the G1 cannon, with the larger bits on the end and in the middle. It's removable due to the conversion process, so it can be put on either arm, though the right is the default place. Unfortunately the base of the cannon is rather large, butIt does look sort of like extra armor to protect Megatron's arm from the recoil such a large, powerful gun would surely produce.

But wait! There's more! Megatron's helicopter rotors can fold up to become twin sowrds. The hilt uses the standard TF 5 mm handle size. You can also leave the words where they go in vehicle mode, storing them on his back.

Like all Leader TFs, Megatron has lights and sounds, plus a few other gimmicks. But, instead of telling you about them, I made this (very low quality) video:



I love that evil laugh.

Now that the movie stuff has come out, and the Animated cartoon has ended, the TFA Leader toys are going on clearance in many places (I got Megatron for half price), but even if you only find him for full price, I still HIGHLY recommend him.