Unite Warriors UW-06 Combiner Haunt Leader Grand Galvatron

Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors have both had a very strange approach to some of their characters. One of the earliest releases was a very G1-styled standalone Leader class Megatron, followed by a Voyager class Optimus Prime who could combine with four other Autobots to become 'Ultra Prime'. We later got a standalone Leader class Ultra Magnus and 'Galvatronus', a gestalt whose limbs could be whichever mind-controlled Autobots or Decepticons he cared to subjugate... neatly removing any need for Hasbro to provide Cyclonus with his armada, or even a ramshackle team of his own. Hurrah for Hasbro and their amazing talent for never releasing enough Decepticons!

As a result, while I had high hopes for Takara Tomy's take on Bruticus, I had been all set to get through Combiner Wars with no other Decepticon gestalts aside from this year's Collectors' Club Subscription Service combiner, Thunder Mayhem. Then Takara Tomy announced their Unite Warriors Grand Galvatron set, with a positively opulent repaint of CW Cyclonus as its centrepiece, and a rag-tag team of cross-continuity limb-bots of his very own, which combined to form a version of Galvatron based heavily on the G1 toy and, as is my wont, I put through a preorder almost immediately because my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2011 (Timelines) Shattered Glass Galvatron

Shattered Glass was a somewhat predictable idea, but executed surprisingly well... and Fun Publications certainly know how to milk a cash cow. Despite the focus of BotCon 2011 being the extended TF Animated story of The Stunti-Con Job, they saw fit to thrown in a couple of off-theme attendee exclusives. One was a bizarre repaint of the Classics Seeker mold as Action Master Thundercracker, while the other was an utterly glorious addition to the Shattered Glass line-up - Megatron resurrected, once again, as Galvatron!

G1 Galvatron

Never in this history of the TransFormers line has a character been so confusing as Galvatron.  The 1986 animated movie introduced him as 'Megatron, Upgraded' and became a long-standing precedent in the associated fiction where, after a crushing defeat at the hands of Optimus Prime, Megatron somehow blags himself an upgrade - most usually only in the form of a palette change, but occasionally he gains a few new alternate modes.

Both the later series of the animated TV show (those following the movie) and the comics, portrayed Galvatron as stark raving bonkers... in the comics, he even travelled back in time in an attempt to destroy Unicron, taking out the present-day Megatron in the process. According to the bio information packaged with the toy, however, Galvatron was merely the 'City Commander' - equal in rank to his Autobot counterpart Ultra Magnus - with no mention of Megatron other than very obliquely, in a reference to Galvatron's determination to lead the Decepticons.

Undoubtedly an iconic character one way or another, how does Galvatron's G1 toy shape up?

Superlink Galvatron General

Once upon a time, when a TransFormers character got an upgrade, it meant a whole new mold. Think Powermaster Optimus Prime or, indeed, G1 Galvatron. In the Unicron Trilogy, however, upgrades came either in the form of one character combining with another, or a simple repaint. While this trilogy didn't start this trend (Robots In Disguise is to blame!), it certainly raised it to an artform, taking each of three different Megatron molds, and giving them a new paint job to create that line's Galvatron.

Strangely, though, Superlink started out with Galvatron rather than Megatron, and his repaint/upgrade gained a suffix to his name along with a very G1-inspired colourscheme.

Note that this is the smaller Japanese version of the model, rather that the upscaled US/European version.

Robots in Disguise Galvatron

Ah, me... Another repaint. I picked this up in Forbidden Planet on the same shopping trip that I bought RiD Ultra Magnus and Megatron. The friend I was with took one look at the packaging and suggested I should only buy one or the other (clearly more concerned about FP's rip-off prices than I was), but I wouldn't listen.

So, exactly how much of a fool was I?

Galaxy Force Master Galvatron

At some point in the history of all things TransFormers, but well after the 1986 animated move that first introduced the Megatron/Galvatron upgrade dynamic, it seems to have been decided that the difference between Megatron and Galvatron can be nothing more than their paintjob. This has been true with Car Robots/Robots in Disguise, Micron Legend/Armada, Superlink/Energon and Galaxy Force/Cybertron, and it's generally a huge disappointment. Considering that G1 Galvatron was an entirely new mold (and, according to his Tech Specs, at least, an entirely different character), and one of the earliest models with lights and sounds (primitive though they may be) to have an official UK release, using the same mold in a different colour scheme seems like a cop out.

The upside with Galaxy Force, then, is that the original colourscheme for Master Megatron is vile - purple, grey, orange... not a great selection - while the Galvatron upgrade is almost entirely silver and black. In fact, this is one of the few occasions where the US/UK Cybertron figure looks slightly better than the Japanese version, as the yellow panel in front of the head on this one is gold on the US/UK release. There may be other superficial differences but, in the main, they're pretty much identical.