MorphBots Final Battle Megabolt vs Hell Cat (aka Flamefeather vs Carroll)

Like most collectors, it's a rare occasion (and/or a special case) that I will intentionally buy a knockoff, but some seem too good to pass up. It was a few years ago that I first saw Meng Badi's 'AlteraTion Man' Carroll, knockoff of the first live action movie Arcee mold, released both in the original colours and in blue, possibly in reference to the newer TransFormers Prime incarnation. I was never able to find the individual versions, but recently discovered that the blue version was repackaged in a two-pack with a knockoff of live action movie Swindle, a mold I never bothered picking up because it looked a bit crappy.

Then, more recently, I found the 2-pack (which turned up in Thew Adams' Knockoff Beatdown IV) was available on Amazon and on eBay. Finding a suitably low price (£16 including shipping!), I ordered the set hoping that at least one of the figures would be of reasonably decent quality... but that's the thing with knockoffs: however low your expectations, there's always room for disappointment.

Beast Machines Megatron Megabolt

This toy was released as part of the Robots in Disguise line, but it's perfectly obvious to anyone that it doesn't fit that line. The closest it comes to RiD, supposedly, is that it fits into the HeadMaster space on Fortress/Brave Maximus but, with no actual connector piece, it seems unlikely that this was intentional.

The design is actually based upon Megatron's battleship from the final few episodes of Beast Machines, and the overall aesthetic - not to mention the rather garish colourscheme - suits that range far more closely. Scale is a bit of an issue... Considering the battleship was huge - almost a city in itself - and this thing is the equivalent of a Deluxe toy. Had it been made to fit its original scale, its robot mode would be colossal... but Megatron's battleship never actually transformed in Beast Machines, nor was there any real indication that it could. Nevertheless, robot mode's head design most closely resembles Megatron's Beast Machines appearance, particularly when the mask - attached to the missile launcher - is engaged.