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| "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Air Raid included for scale. Look how big this guy is! |
Company: Hasbro
Series: Generations – Combiner Wars
Year: 2015
I have been putting this particular review off for quite a
while. The better part of a year in fact. Not because I thought it was going to
be a bad one – not by any means – but because I just didn’t quite know how to
approach it; it was going to be a massive one whichever way I sliced it. This quite possibly the biggest figure I’ve ever reviewed, and
certainly the most complex. This is a childhood dream come true – DEVASTATOR!
The Devastator toys I knew as a kid were in G2 colours –
yellow and purple. I liked this, and still do; real life construction vehicles
tend to be yellow, so it makes sense that the Constructicons would be too. I
never owned all six figures, but at various stages owned Long Haul (who met his
end in a urinal trough in Kindergarten) and Bonecrusher (who I still owned
until somewhere round late high school). After doing some research over at TFWiki, and
considering the timeframe of owning these guys, I suspect that they may have
even been part of a European release of the Constructicons that were cast in
yellow and did not actually combine
(heresy!) – but with the passage of time and the original items lost, I just
can’t be sure.
(Incidentally, at this stage, I don’t think I’ll be doing
individual reviews of his component bots – there are plenty out there online
already, though. OAFE’s are particularly comprehensive)
But enough about my own, disappointingly limited encounters
with the character. Suffice to say I’ve come to love the original green and
purple look, and when I discovered this release was happening, Devastator
immediately went on my must-have list. It took a couple of months of waiting,
as I waited for stock to actually arrive, and then having to pay the thing off –
but eventually, he was mine. And I
was thrilled.
Now at this point, I should mention that I bought the
regular Hasbro release, which some people will no doubt tell you is for chumps.
I buy enough Transformers to know that the Hasbro vs Takara wars are likely to
rage until the sun burns out and takes Earth with it – possibly even longer, to
be honest. From a more neutral perspective, though, there are three different
versions of Devastator doing the rounds. The one you see in pics here is the “vanilla”
one, which I believe was the only one that released in Australia. There was
also a version released for SDCC 2015 and sold on the Hasbro Toy Shop website –
this utilised the same sculpt, but came in a different box, incorporated a
number of additional paint apps, had some vac-metallised parts and also
featured a visor-less head sculpt. Pretty cool! But SDCC Exclusives come with a
premium…and I’m not huge on vac-metallised toys, so it was never really an
option for me. However, the Takara version – released under the Unite Warriors banner – may be worth
springing for if you can get it at a reasonable price. The paint apps are
different, and arguably better, as tends to be the case with Takara releases.
But perhaps most importantly, the individual bots have been slightly retooled
from their Hasbro incarnations to include additional articulation. The combined
form has also been given ratchet joints in the shoulders, which is a nice
additional source of stability for the figure. Each individual bot also gets
its own gun, as the original figures did.
Now to the combined form of Devastator itself/himself. This
is one big toy. It’s not as big as Metroplex, granted, but it’s no slouch in
the height department. Scale may be relatively non-existent when it comes to
Transformers of any vintage, but you can rest assured that he will
appropriately tower over any of your other figures – as he should. He totally
dwarfs the original Devastator too, and makes it look terrible by comparison. I
understand nostalgia very well and everything, but if you think Transformers
toys from the 1980s were better than the ones we have today, you need to get with
the program.
That said, he takes a lot of cues from the vintage toy and
the G1 cartoon. He’s still made up of six robots, and clicks together in the
same formation – though obviously attaching everything together is a bit more
convoluted. And he actually stays
together this time, too! What a world we live in.
I mentioned earlier that I didn’t plan to do individual
reviews of his components, and the G1-ish nature is partially why. The
individual bots are very cool, but as someone who doesn’t have a strong
attachment to the cartoon, I think they should have opted for a slightly
updated look to their head sculpts, rather than going for cartoon accuracy. It
wasn’t a deal-breaker by any means, but I was slightly surprised, given the
primarily more modern aesthetic of the Combiner Wars figures. While the core
design of Devastator’s head is definitely pretty 80s-tastic (those
sunglasses!), it’s been given enough detailing to bring it into the 21st
century.
More importantly, he now has articulation. Though not as
agile as some of his smaller brethren, his ratcheted hips and knees, combined
with a good centre of gravity mean that you can get him into plenty of awesome
poses. There’s even some neatly concealed ankle articulation, though be careful
when you access it – you don’t want to pull it the wrong way and accidentally
break something. His shoulders feel a little flimsier, but they won’t pop off
without you meaning them too or anything; you may just need to do some
rearranging of the treads that make up the “sockets” after you move the arms. I
would note here though that every time you move the ratcheted thigh joints, it
sounds and feels like it’s going to break. It won’t – at least mine hasn’t yet –
but I try to be pretty gentle. If this bad boy broke I would be furious.
Amazing as a collector’s piece or kid’s toy, Devastator is
an essential addition to ANY Transformers collection – or a great excuse to
start one! I bought a bunch of toys in 2015, and Devastator here is easily one
of the best toys I bought during that time. Possibly the best, even. Having been
out for in Australia for almost a year now, you may need to do a bit of legwork
to track him down – but he’s well worth it.
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