Transformers: Unite Warriors Grand Galvatron

  

Here’s something that’s pretty interesting.

Unite Warriors is the Takara version of Combiner Wars, and is responsible for bringing us in the US the left out combiner team members like Slingshot, Wildrider and Groove. Essentially, Unite Warriors is only releasing box sets of full combiner teams, generally with improved or ‘more accurate’ paint schemes. The general release schedule has been following the US releases or announcements of teams, so there is something of a 1 to 1 ratio between Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors. Hasbro does Superion; Takara does Superion. Hasbro does Defensor; Takara does Defensor. Hasbro released a seemingly random and superfluous Cyclonus, serving as the torso of a limbless, teamless combiner called “Galvatronous”; Takara releases….Grand Galvatron, the Cybertronian Haunt Commander.

What?

Well, interesting story. It seems that after his defeat during the Japan-only G1 cartoon Headmasters, the spirit of Galvatron contacted Cyclonus, recruiting him to travel to the remains of Unicron yet again, where he was united with his new team of interdimensional and cross-continuity Decepticons: Armada Thrust, a reanimated Prime Breakdown, named Zombie War Breakdown, the Ghost of Starscream (yay!) and “Wandering Roller,” who is a disgruntled and abandoned Roller. Yes, Roller. The little car guy that came with G1 Optimus Prime. By their powers combined, they are more or less possessed by the spirit of Galvatron, although they all have some ulterior motive or personal motivations that, as you can certainly imagine, will more or less keep them from working together. So, Grand Galvatron is a ghost . . . kind of . . . thing. 

The box for this set is incredibly nice. A window box with magnets under the flap to hold the window closed, the front flap is decorated with some really great art that shows Grand Galvatron in his combined mode marching through a burning Cybertronian city, with the five individual members in vehicle modes in the background. The five figures and their accessories are all visible through the window of the box, as well as being pictured on the back. I am not really a fan of packaging, but when a nice one comes along I always take notice. A good, impressive package makes a toy seem more special, more worthy of serious collector consideration. It makes me as a collector look at the toys inside with a little more of a refined eye: I have Combiner Wars Offroad, and he’s a toy; but Unite Warriors Breakdown, he is a collector’s figure. 

 

The Grand Galvatron set is entirely composed of repaints, although it is an interesting assortment and a really, really nice set of repaints. Both Ghost Starscream and Thrust are Aerialbot repaints with new heads; Breakdown is a straight repaint of Offroad; Roller is a totally gorgeous Rook repaint, and Cylconus is a really stunning repaint of VoyagerCyclonus.  Most of these figures, in their base forms, I’ve written about already, so you can check here for information on Cyclonus, Roller, and Zombie War Breakdown. 

As for these specific uses, let’s start with the easiest ones, and talk about Breakdown and Roller. Breakdown is a straight repaint of Offroad, but looks really nice. Apparently the Offroad mold was never released in Japan, as they skipped the individual releases in favor of the box sets, and excluded the new guys in favor of adhering to the G1 team members. One again wonders why the First Aid mold wasn’t used, since it has the covered truck bed and thus would be a little more Prime Breakdowny, and this is absolutely Prime Breakdown. His ulterior motive for working with the Galvatron team is to get back to his own universe, where he can be reunited with his dear friend, Knock Out. Aw! It’s just like Golden Earing says: One more robot lover gone. Anyway, being the toy that is least changed and yet, is still incredibly good looking is nothing to scoff at here. Breakdown may be the least impressive member of the set, but that is by no means a slight.

Wandering Roller is apparently Roller, left behind on some mission or after a battle or something, who subsequently became so angry at the Autobots for ditching him that he’s become crazed with revenge. Roller is, in fact, an Autobot, and is another mold that was apparently never released in Japan. Rook is a tragically bland toy, basically being a block of white plastic, and so Roller here is painted to the nines. The vehicle shell is a metallic silver, and that really makes the vehicle look impressive. The robot mode is largely a dark green, brown and orange, and it is incredible what this toy looks like with some color on it. Now this guy actually looks like something, whereas before, with the Hasbro release, so much of figure is lost in a totally plain and nondescript white all over paint job. Boring as hell. Here, he’s kind of exciting. His character motivation is apparently to get revenge, because that’s always a good plot line. 

Cyclonus is good toy. This much, we already knew. He makes a great torso, but the Hasbro one is so deep of a purple that there aren’t really any Combiner Wars figures that go with him. I have mine combined with the Deluxe Autobots of Wave 4, and it is a jarring look, to say the least. Unite Warriors took the figure and lightened up the purple A LOT, better matching the G1 cartoon Cyclonus shade, and then made that metallic as well, threw in some metallic greyish highlights along the edges of wings and such, and again, it’s like a brand new toy. When it was first announced, Combiner Wars Cyclonus was a real oddity: it didn’t fit the character at all, there was no announced team for it, what the hell was it? In a line where Optimus Prime was now a combiner, it was supposed that anything was possible. But the designers of Combiner Wars seemed so caught up in whether or not they could that they never stopped to ask if they should. This figure proves that yes, they should. It’s almost as if Combiner Wars Cyclonus was made to facilitate Unite Warriors Cyclonus, when in reality, we pretty much know that it was the guys at Takara who sat around and wondered “What the hell are we going to do with Cyclonus?”

Shredder?! What have you done with my body??

Cyclonus’ gun has been recast in translucent orange, so that now, it is the signature Galvatron arm cannon. There’ not much more that I can say about Cyclonus that isn’t going to start bleeding over into Galvatron commentary, so I’m just going to move on and save the rest for Galvatron. 

Thrust is Armada Thrust, treacherous agent of Unicron, and is a repaint of the Aerialbot Air Raid with a new head. The paint on Thrust is excellent, and that neon style green is real bright, just as the Armada figures’. What is really interesting about Thrust is that he has a new head, a fairly Conehead-like head; paired with the more traditional Seeker-type head on the Ghost Starscream figure, one wonders why a Seeker combiner was never released, and if there could be one in the future, if not as a domestic Hasbro release, then perhaps directly from Takara. 

Finally, the Ghost Starscream from this set was the reason I ordered it. The minute I saw a picture of the full team, I was set on getting that figure, at least. A translucent version of the Aerialbot Skydive with a new head, this is an all-translucent Starscream, minus the combiner peg. That was something that caught my concern immediately, even from the very first images. If that combiner peg was made of translucent plastic, this figure would probably never survive a single combination. Fortunately, it is not; it’s a good, strong Seeker cockpit yellow plastic, sitting right in the center of the chest, right where a Seeker cockpit should go, giving G1 Seeker Realness all the way. All that’s missing are some arm mounted null rays. Even the tailfins and nosecone are translucent! Oh, the terror of transforming him! He is a little floppy, but holds together in arm mode just fine. He is the mounting arm for Galvatron’s cannon, which is probably not a good idea, seeing as it’s Starscream, and Galvatron is the one who reduced him to an unstable grey statue. You know what his personal motives are.

 

The combined mode is really good looking. Breakdown and Roller act as legs, Starscream mounts the cannon, Thrust is the other arm. The silhouette of Grand Galvatron is nice, with the forward swept Cyclonus wings pointing downward, giving the impression of a cape from certain angles. The Galvatron chest has been painted in the most beautiful of ways, with color on the grey plastic and silver on the abs. It reminds of the G1 Galvatron torso, which is certainly the intention. The head looks very Galvatron like, which shouldn’t be a compliment or a criticism but rather a simple statement. The cannon mounts on Starscream and while it is different, more slender than the chunky and robust original, it looks the part, which is what really counts. 

The legs are something of an issue. The lower legs being made up of two fairly stout ‘bots makes the thighs look all the more skinny. This isn’t a thing with Superion, as all the Aerialbots are a bit more slender than any of the land vehicles. On Grand Galvatron, it’s not so much Breakdown that highlights this, but Roller, who is probably the widest of the Deluxe figure by quite a bit. This is not really a big deal, and by the time this set was released there were very few surprises awaiting us in Combiner Wars, so I doubt there are too many people who’d have an interest in this set that wouldn’t be at least slightly aware of the leg issue here. 

This set is a perfect example of the things combiner toys are capable of. The Combiner Wars line has shown itself to be really versatile and the individual figures have proven themselves to have a nearly endless possibility in terms of reuses. And the Hasbro line has shown that it doesn’t have a problem putting out a bunch of repaints with new heads to attach to another, pretty random torso (Prime, Prime again, Scattershot, Sky Lynx); so why was there not a team of limb figures repainted and released for the Hasbro Cyclonus? It could have been a totally random group, like this one, with no need for an explanation, since Hasbro doesn’t really try to be creative with anything toy bio wise. Combiner Wars Cyclonus can “mind control” Autobots to combine with him, since there aren’t even any other Decepticon figures, a lazy attempt at the absolute best. No, not every toy has to have some extensive or comprehensive backstory, but Grand Galvatron at least has some kind of a story to explain an otherwise totally random and bizarre collection of toys, and it makes sense and is satisfying.

Overall I think Grand Galvatron is a totally niche set, but if it strikes your interest, it is super interesting. For me, everything about this set is a win: I love the look, I love the character choices/explanations, I love the wtf nature of the overall set. Recently, the silhouette of Unite Warriors whatever they’re going to use Sky Lynx for was released, and it has me curious as hell. Grand Galvatron worked out so well, and is so strange, that if the Sky Lynx use is anywhere near as weird, I may have to go for that one as well. I would be totally down with another set like this one.