Mastermind Creations: Magna

 

 Let’s just be honest here to start this read: Magna is the bottom half of Mastermind Creations’ Magna Inventa, a Third Party SkyLynx. And it is the least part of SkyLynx as well. With that said, Magna is actually a pretty good figure all on its own.

You would be totally forgiven for not being terribly impressed with ol’ Magna here, given what it is: a flat cat that transforms into a shuttle gantry. That’s actually being pretty kind in my description: Magna transforms into a rectangle that has some sculpted details on it. Released as the first part of the eventual SkyLynx, Magna offers a whole lot of good fun packed into its totally unassuming package.

To switch things up, let’s talk about the alt mode first, since that should be pretty quick. It is a literal rectangle. That’s it. There are no flip out parts or weapons, no fake cockpit or windows to fudge some kind of independent vehicle mode, nothing. Some molded or painted windows could have made this a lunar transport or something, ANYTHING, other than what it is. It is so hard to say anything about this alt mode that it is literally giving me a headache trying. All of the normal phrases fail here: I can’t even say that it looks nice, because it’s just a box. Sure, it is a fairly nice looking one as boxes or rectangles go, but there is honestly nothing to say about the alt mode here. If, and this is a fairly big if, as it spoils the “surprise” of this actually being a robot in disguise and not a whatever the alt mode is, you are really craving an alt mode that you can recognize, allow a second to consider this fan mode, made by yours truly:

By flipping out the animal head, Magna kinda transforms into the Thundertank from Thundercats. That’s both cool and cute. Or, if that’s too much for you, might I remind of the earlier idea that this could be some large lunar transport vehicle, an idea that would be pretty consistent with its actual function of having a space shuttle sit on top of it. But I mean a sci-fi transport, like the Jawa Sandcrawler in real life kind of thing.

* scratch scratch scratch *

Robot mode is a lot cooler than one might think, taking the form of a large cat or . . . lynx . . . and doing a pretty solid job of it. The alt mode is pretty small, but the robot mode is a long and tall beast, which is pretty neat. The length of the body materializes via pulling the front and rear of the alt mode away from each other, revealing a third body segment that connects to the other parts via joints, so the beast mode is surprisingly poseable. The body becomes three segmented parts with four very jointed legs. The legs attach to the body via full on shoulders, which pull away from the body just enough to allow the figure to kind of crouch, as well as provide that taller shoulder look that the big cats like lions and tigers have. The thighs have a 360 degree swivel which we’ll talk about in a minute, as well as a two-way hinge the lower legs connect to, and an ankle joint, so Magna can strike a lot of animal poses fairly easily. The thigh swivel basically allows the feet to be deployed in two different fashions, either with a single large and unified toe or with two independent and poseable toes, I suppose depending on which look you prefer. I think that one foot arrangement is intended for the combined form, while the other is for this individual mode, but it could also be an animation model or comic or original G1 toy look as well and I’m just not aware of that. The lower legs bend behind the thighs in an effort to hit that animal leg appearance, and they work from a mechanical perspective, but I could see how people would not care for the look, and they really only approximate a knee or an elbow. I feel that this would be a real bland nitpick for a person to hang on to, the way the knees come together, but I’m also sure there are people out there who are appalled by them. The feet move upwards and downwards relative to a surface, as well as inwards and outwards relative to the body, so Magna can stand on a bunch of surfaces. And the feet are molded in such a way that they will fit on top of a number of raised surfaces or obstacles, so Magna is not a toy that requires a perfectly flat surface to stand on. The rear of the animal displays its dual tail, and each link in each tail is jointed, so they can also be posed; however, they are both pretty short, so they can’t pose all that much.

Magna doesn’t come with anything in the way of accessories, but it does come with a replacement head. The lynx head is generally great, nicely sculpted with translucent blue eyes and an opening mouth. Inside the mouth is a laser cannon, and a tiny button that activates an LED in the head which illuminates the eyes. The standard head is molded in a bright in tone but matte gold plastic, and the replacement head is covered in gold chrome. The replacement head also has the opening mouth and laser and translucent eyes and LED, but the two heads are also different sculpts: the standard head is a bit more animation modely, and the chromed head is a bit more original toyish. I prefer the standard head, but replacing them is really just a matter of popping the balljointed part off and then sticking the other one on.

Magna is HEAVY. Deceptively so, as the body and legs are all plastic. But all four of the feet are metal, which makes the figure shockingly weighty. One can assume that the metal feet and ankles are to help Magna hold up the weight of the combined mode, but with Inventa still pending, we’re really just theorizing at this point.I don't know where else to mention this, so I'll do it here, but the build and material qualities of Magna are outstanding. My only other experience with Mastermind Creations products had left me a little skeptical on this front.

The general summary of this figure is that it is surprisingly fun and playable by itself, despite it clearly being the bottom half of something greater. And, let me tell you, having seen a fully assembled version of this at TFCon Chicago, it is really set to be something GREATER. Inventa is gigantic and has a huge wingspan and a real long neck, so a sturdy undercarriage is going to be an absolute must.

Cats do this when they're totally comfortable.

Magna is a surprisingly good and fun toy. My personal relationship with it is a fairly rocky road. When Magna and Inventa were first announced, I’d preordered Magna almost instantly. Then a whole bunch of time went by, and there had been no new news about either part. Beginning to think the project was cancelled, I cancelled my Magna preorder. My thinking was essentially that, if the project were cancelled as I’d begun thinking given the lack of updates on Inventa, I didn’t want to be stuck with a figure that transforms into a brick and is the lesser section of a total toy. Made sense at the time. But then came news of Mastermind Creation’s pending Deathsaurus, which I preordered. While I was preordering that, color photos of Inventa began surfacing, and a preorder for that went live. So I preordered Inventa, and placed an order for Magna, which shipped like, later that day. Again, at TFCon a few weekends ago, I saw the combined form in person, and am super excited for Inventa to release. If you’ve been on the fence about this figure, or this set, I’d say you should order them. They are going to be outstanding together, and Magna is pretty fun in the meantime.