TakaraTomy has revealed it’s version of Combiner Wars Galvatronus today, and it is a doozy! Here’s a walk through the bits that make up this weird, weird thing!
The torso is, of course, a redeco of Combiner Wars Cyclonus, but in a new, lavender color scheme that more accurately reflects Cyclonus’s appearance in the Generation 1 cartoon. His bio describes how he has been possessed by the spirit of the deceased Galvatron, a reference to the Henkei! Henkei! Transformers manga, in which the same thing happened.
Using the power of Unicron, Cyclonus and Galvatron have gathered warriors from all across space and time who have died and reformat them into new “Scramble” bodies to combine with Cyclonus’s new form. Starscream is an obvious choice - killed by Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie, he returned as a ghost in the Generation 1 episode “Starscream’s Ghost”, and Japanese media loves Starscream’s ghost, using him at every opportunity.His bio notes that he has been restored from a spirit to partially-corporeal living-dead form, which sounds a lot like what Energon Starscream had going on. He’s a retool of Combiner Wars Skydive.
It’s Armada Thrust as a retool of Combiner Wars Air Raid! This schemer got himself caught in Unicron’s shoulder joint and was crushed to death when the planet-eater transformed in the Armada episode “Union”, and now plots to use the new combiner he is part to take revenge. Good luck with that, Squidhead.
WAR! HNNGH! What is it good for? “War” Breakdown is the name TakaraTomy gave to Prime Breakdown when they actually released a friggin’ toy of him thanks VERY much Hasbro. Breakdown died in the Prime episode “Crossfire”, but was resurrected as a zombie in “Thirst”; he seemed deactivated by its end, but his bio describes how he continued to roam the Earth in this undead state. He has been restored by Unicron’s power (in a body that’s a redeco of Combiner Wars Off-Road) and serves Galvatron loyally, but hopes to return to his home dimension and reunite with his “former partner”.
The final member of the team is the real surprise: “Wandering Roller”, a redeco of Combiner Wars Rook, based on the IDW comics More than Meets the Eye character, Roller! An old friend and ally of Optimus Prime’s, Roller was separated from his companions in a battle in More than Meets the Eye #36, and unfortunately, they then underwent a mind-wipe that caused them to forget about him. Roller’s fate has not yet been revealed in the comics, but this toy’s bio offers one outcome: lost in the spaces between dimensions, Roller believed he had been abandoned, and the hatred and malice that grew within him was sensed by Unicron. MTMTE writer James Roberts notes that this isn’t based on anything due to come up in the comics, and is a creation of TakaraTomy’s bio writer!
And lastly, the combiner himself! Newly-decoed in a grey color scheme based on Galvatron’s original toy (including details based on the toy’s stickers), rather than the purple of his animation model, this is “Galvatronus” no more - now he’s “Grand Galvatron”, named after the ridiculous, Unicron-like form Galvatron dreamed of attaining by merging his body with the Earth in The Headmasters anime episode “The Emperor of Destruction Vanishes on an Iceberg”!
reblogging this a second time to highlight the fact that there is a transformers episode legitimately titled “the emperor of destruction vanishes on an iceberg”
What happens in it?
chrismcfeely
