The Year of the Really Big Autobots, Part Three. Generations Metroplex!

Metroplex was always my favourite city-bot, this probably had most to do with the fact that he was the only one I owned as a kid. To have this really big Autobot that could turn into an entire city was just too awesome.

Now, Omega Supreme was cool, but he was a rocket launching platform with a mechanized tank patrol, not really a base and certainly not a city. The only thing that would eventually outshine Metroplex was the release of the largest Autobot, Fortress Maximus and I only got my hands on him with this year’s Encore release. Therefore it is fitting that the only thing that could do the unthinkable and outshine in a year that saw a reissue of Fortress Maximus and an update to the mighty Omega Supreme would be a Generations update to Metroplex. To ensure his place as king of the hill, he even took the title of “Largest Transformers Toy Ever” away from Fort Max. In the Year of the Really Big Autobots, he is the biggest — or “Biggest Ever!” as the box informs us.

This guy is a dream come true, nothing could possibly dent the awesomeness that was this release… or rather almost nothing.

Stickers. A whoooooole lot of them.

Ugh.

Poor, partially naked Metroplex sat in his place in my display for a while before I decided to take the plunge and invest the two hours it would take to put the 100+ stickers on him.

There have been some complaints regarding his stickers; such as stickers 31 and 77 are swapped in the instructions and the instructions themselves are not too specific in depicting the sticker placement. Even without knowing which two stickers were swapped, it was pretty obvious when I got to them and the stickers mostly had a very specific shape to fit into, so I really didn’t have a problem with them. I couldn’t bring myself to put the three stickers on the bridge in front of his head because they all depict painfully bad, randomly Dreamwave-like images of Transformers.

Pushing down the bridge activates his soundbox as well as lights both in his chest and his eyes. One of the most remarkable things about this release is that he actually has articulated eyes. You can only see it when they are lit up (making them crazy amounts of difficult to photograph), but moving a lever on the back of his head moves his eyes back and forth.

Not sure what’s off to his right, but Metroplex looks a little worried about it.

For those that prefer a more cartoon faithful look, a red visor can be lowered over his eyes.

“Deal with it.”

The same problem I had with the Unicron toys, rather than just lighting up, the lights flash; which makes the gimmick kinda lame.  The voice gimmick is slightly better than the lights gimmick, with phrases from the Fall of Cybertron game such as “Metroplex heeds the call of the last Prime” and the very funny, “These Decepticons scatter like cowards.” It is slightly hampered by overwrought transformation/battle sounds in between the lines from the game, but all that is made up for when he says my favourite, “‘Til All Are One.” In that tremendously deep voice of his, that one gives me goosebumps.

Measuring a solid two feet he only beats Fortress Maximus by a couple inches, but when you put him up against the original, he just towers over his G1 incarnation.

As to be expected, he also has considerably more articulation than the G1 toys.

“Now you’re just being mean.”

True to the original toy, his shoulder cannons can be removed and held in his hands.

He can also hold the large red gun that otherwise perches on his shoulder.

He shares his G1 toy’s fold-out shoulder gun and missles on his chest but he takes it a step further and adds another fold-out cannon on his right arm. Both gun placements can be manned by legends class toys.

Speaking of legends class toys, he comes with an update for Metroplex’s little buddy, Scamper, now with a much more detailed deco.

“I somehow feel inadequate.”

For some reason, the Hasbro release has the tiniest little Autobot symbol sticker for his chest. This needed to be rectified, so I pulled out the Repro Labels and matched the size of the symbol on G1 Scamper.

Much better, now he looks like a proper Scamper update. I just wish there had been Six-gun and Slammer updates included too.

Scamper’s alt mode looks like the G1 car hopped up on cyber-steroids.

Metroplex himself retains his three modes, including a pretty spot-on recreation of “Aircraft Carrier on Wheels” Vehicle mode.

Adding a very cool repair arm to the deck of his alt mode,

He also one ups the G1 toy by actually transforming the head into a turret.

City mode incorporates the turret head, but sadly doesn’t include the repair arm.

It does actually form usable roads out of his unfolded leg pieces, which is spectacular.

With all the grand updating, one place the G1 toy does a far, far better job is the ramp that folds out of his chest. Generations Metroplex’s ramp doesn’t reach all the way. The instructions say to have it drop down into the leg piece but even that is awkward and doesn’t quite fit. All of this is moot because thanks to a flat piece at the inside end of the ramp, the whole ramp is rendered useless when it is pulled out anyway.

Ramp fail.

Ignoring the ramp issue, like his predecessor, he still makes a much better city when he’s inhabited.

The San Diego Comicon/Hong Kong ACG-Con releases add chrome to his face and hips, mimicking G1, with the Takara release keeping the chrome face and then replacing a good portion of the black plastic on his legs with white. The exclusive box art, by Phil Jiminez and Romulo Fajardo Jr., is phenomenal.

I like the Hasbro box art a lot, it reminds me of all the slavishly toy-accurate G1 box art with the reverse side just showing an actual photo of the toy. The massive toy now joins the display above my computer; who, as I’ve stated before, is named Metroplex.

So that’s it, part three of three of the Year of the Really Big Autobots. Omega Supreme started the year off strong with an awesome War for Cybertron feel; Fortress Maximus bringing home a collection holy grail for so many, myself included.

However, it’s Generations Metroplex that gets the last word in.

‘Til All Are One!