Legacy Transmetal II Megatron

Note: Clearly I'm posting this later than intended. Still, even 5 months later, Megatron stands as one of my favorite transformer releases in recent memory, especially in the leader class. Enjoy: 

Happy New Year 2023!

     I received a gift card for Christmas, and after seeing that Legacy Transmetal II Megatron was on sale, I promptly ordered him that evening. I didn't arrive until a few days after the new year, but it has proven more than worth the wait. Even though I recently received Haslab Victory Saber, I haven't felt so impressed with a new transformers figure in such a long time until opening Megatron a couple of days ago. 

     Legacy Megatron (I'll simply refer to him as such from this point onward; the only other Legacy Megatron is the the G2 core class toy, and I'm not discussing him here) is a bit of an anomaly. The previous Generations subline, Kingdom, was largely focused on Beast Wars, but squarely on the characters and designs from season 1. Fans were upset when it became clear that the total S1 cast would not be available as mass retail releases for Kingdom; Terrorsaur (in both decoes) was an exclusive, and both Tarantulus and Inferno would have to wait until Legacy (I myself have yet to find Inferno) for release. However, just as Hasbro completed the S1 characters via Inferno in wave 3 of Legacy, they simultaneously ushered in a S3 transmetal II design, completely bypassing any transmetals from S2. I think this has more to do with a desire to finally give Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus his adversary more than it does any prioritization over the S2 transmetal designs. Either way, I'm happy that Megatron's dragon incarnation got a second look, as it much improves upon the original toy, making the Legacy version much closer to the show model while also incorporating some aspects of the 1999 toy's design along with a few unique traits of its own. Additionally, all previous Kingdom and Legacy Beast Wars characters have had their animal modes redesigned to be more realistic, but with Legacy Megatron having both a transmetal II design with mechanical beast elements along with a fictional/mythical beast mode, any notion of a "realistic" beast mode goes out the window. I don't really mind this much, as the S1 beast modes were already realistic enough (supposed to represent real animals) and the transmetal/transmetal II designs coexisted with them in the original toyline and show. 

     Anyhow, when Legacy Megatron was revealed as part of Hasbro's SDCC 2022 presentation, I was cautiously optimistic. They strangely opted to only reveal robot modes for wave 3, but the back of the box for Megatron was shown regardless, so we at least got to see the dragon mode render. The robot mode picture - singular -  was not totally appealing and didn't do much to sell the figure; the face looks a bit weird viewed straight-on, especially since it's not a direct translation of the show model as they did with Kingdom Megatron. Also, the wings are not unfurled, which is unfortunate as that is when the robot mode looks its best. There was also no way to get a good read on the size of the toy, which is also part of its appeal. Again, the dragon render did a lot to dissuade concerns, but this was not the best introduction for this toy. Thankfully, better pictures soon followed, from both official and unofficial sources, improving our view of the toy; that said, my original lukewarm impression wasn't really shaken. Eventually, when the time for my preorder shipment began to draw near, I even cancelled it as I figured I would just pick it up at retail down the road. 

     To curtail this story, my impression of Legacy Megatron really changed in-hand. My excitement for him built over the days between my gift card order and the delivery, but I was truly surprised to see how much of the box he filled once I opened it. Nearly everything else about the toy impressed as I removed him from the tray and began investing, playing and transforming. 

     I'll get my negatives out of the way first:

• His feet should have some kind of claw/talon joint. These big feet are wonderful stable platforms for either mode, but both modes would also benefit from the front claws being able to angle down relative to the rest of the foot. 
• His right hand needs wrist rotation. The transformation joint does give his wrist a bit of expressiveness with weapons, but he really needs to be able to raise his fist in anger, and he can't do that convincingly. 
• The tail should be a removeable weapon. While less restrictive than on the original toy, the tail still limits what kind of poses can be achieved with the wings and head. Making it a removable weapon makes a lot of sense (his only "weapon" is the flame blast effect, actually advertised as a club). Plus, he already has a helmet-in-a-helmet design, so maybe even making the whole dragon helmet come off and able to plug into the right hand would work.
• The dragon torso backpack does not fold flush in robot mode without popping the head out of place. A simple mod can be done to fix this, but it would have been nice for it to work as intended out of the box. 
• The dragon's mouth port is at too severe of an angle for the flame effect to look good in a straight attack in robot mode. If it could have been done more like that of Kingdom Megatron, that would have been better. 
• Wing rotation tolerances are different for each wing; one is a little tighter than I'd like; the other is a bit looser than I'd like. 
• The gold flap for the base of the dragon neck should secure more solidly - I have to frequently reposition it. 
• Wing claws are assembled in the reverse direction. I think they look fine with the misassembly, so I probably won't change them, but I know this bugged a lot of folks.
• He has no flight stand port, a pretty big crime for a toy with such gorgeous wings.

I think that's it? And that is a long list, but this stuff largely doesn't matter during play or display. The positives far outweigh the negatives. 

The dragon mode is one of the more fun beast modes in recent memory, which is saying something considering Kingdom only ended about a year ago. As mentioned, it benefits from not having to adhere to a realistic animal form, and the leg transformation means that the limbs don't have any movement restrictions like we see with, say, Kingdom Dinobot or Tigatron (the former being worse offender than the latter). It also feels much more like a playable toy in beast mode than the potentially more fragile Kingdom Megatron, as impressive as his tyrannosaur mode appears. The forelimbs have some wonkiness to them, but are still big and expressive enough to get the job done. The tail looks very good, greatly benefited by the transformation allowing the robot head to be mostly hidden in beast mode, which aligns the tail to the body correctly (as compared to the original toy). The wing roots could have more articulation (like an "elbow"), but I don't really have any complaints; the wings will make the dragon mode look good no matter what you do with them. The neck is most people's point of complaint, especially the neck root, which looks fairly complicated and ungainly while also being a little unstable. It's most egregious when you try to pose the neck low using the standard orientation from bot mode with arm at rest). However, given that the dragon is explicitly part mechanical in design, this doesn't bother me too much, though I would likely avoid leaving the dragon mode in a pose that exposed the neck "cowl" too much.