Zob's Thoughts on Titans Return Overlord

[Zobovor (the Man with All the Toys)]

So, uh, I had absolutely no business buying this toy.  I'm not a fan of the Transformers cartoon shows from Japan (I gave up on Headmasters about halfway through, and I've only seen a handful of Masterforce and Victory episodes), and I tend to ignore characters who weren't part of my childhood experience.  That's just how I roll.  I felt silly buying the Heroes of Cybertron figurine of Gigatron, honestly, but I needed it for the build-a-figure piece.  (Sometimes I think there is a subset of the fandom who perceives the Japanese stuff as uber-cool just because it's mysterious and unattainable.  Hasbro spoon-feeds you the domestic toys and cartoons, but you really have to go out of your way to collect the Japanese toys or watch the Japanese shows.)

Despite this, Titans Return has been my favorite Transformers toy line in a good, long while.  I've really enjoyed the play pattern and the toy designs, and it's awakened something in me that I can even appreciate toys of all-new characters that I know absolutely nothing about.  When I opened Overlord, I was reminded of Christmas in 1989 when I got Skystalker.  Who is he?  What's his relationship to the other Decepticons?  Where does he fit in the hierarchy?  I have absolutely no idea!  And, maybe, I don't absolutely need to.  (It remains to be seen whether, in a few years' time, I will be glad that I own him, or whether he ends up relegated to the bottom of a toy box and I ask myself why I ever spent money on him.  I'll let you know in 2022 or thereabouts.)

Also, to be blunt, I work super hard.  I work harder right now than anybody else I know.  I push myself non-stop every day, and by the end of my shift my muscles are sore and my joints ache.  I'm not saying this to brag.  I just feel like I deserve something for working so damn hard.

Note that this toy is a remold of Black Shadow, a toy that I never saw at retail anywhere.  Its design was arguably meant to be Overlord, though.  (I feel very strongly that Black Shadow will eventually get released as Thunderwing, though I guess we'll see.)

So, the original Overlord was exclusive to the Japanese market, released in 1988 with the other Godmaster (Powermaster) toys (he was eventually released for the European market in 1992).  He was one of the biggest toys of the period, about the same height as the Megazarak (Scorponok) toy.  While the American fiction treated the Powermasters as being simialr to the Headmasters—robots who partnered with Nebulans who could transform and connect to them—in Japan, the Godmasters were lifeless machines, called transtectors, who were controlled entirely by the humans who turned into their engines.  Overlord was a double Godmaster, controlled by the husband-and-wife team known as Giga and Mega, and his robot configuration could separate into two separate vehicles, Duocon-style, the Megajet and the Gigatank.  In addition to the normal Godmaster gimmick of the engines unlocking the vehicles for transformation, attaching them to Overlord's chest in robot mode also unlocked the weapons in his abdomen.  He also turned into a base mode that included a tiny roller car that a Powermaster figure could sit in as well as mutliple radar dish accessories.

The Titans Return version is smaller, but it's better proportioned than the G1 toy, and has significantly better articulation.  He's lost some of his gimmicks like the pop-open guns in the abdomen, but his color mapping is authentic and he's clearly recognizable as the original character.  He wears the nose of his jet mode as a shield, like the 1988 toy, though you can plug it into his back if you don't care for the partsformer look.  He has two opening chest panels that can accommodate Titan Master mini-figures (or, I presume, Prime Master mini-figures) though I have trouble getting the chest panels to close afterwards, and a couple of breast-mounted random robot faces staring at you ("Hey, dude, my eyes are up here") is a little weird-looking.  This is one instance where the Powermaster gimmick makes a lot more sense.  He comes with a single purple handheld rifle, which also forms the main cannon for his tank mode.  Weirdly, he doesn't come with an infant car seat of any kind.

To transform him to his two vehicle modes, the legs separate from the upper body.  The nose of the jet either unfolds from his back or snaps in place, depending on how you configured his robot mode, and his arms form the wings and turbines.  He reminds me a lot of Headmaster Horrorcon Snapdragon in this mode.  His jet canopy opens to accommodate a pilot, and   Each half of the tank turret folds out from panels within the lower legs, and the upper legs tuck away.  The shape of the tank is cute and cuddly and a little bit super-deformed.  The turret does not rotate or pivot, but there's an opening orange canopy on one side for a Titan Master mini-figure.  The tank does absolutely nothing, but it's a success because it's solid, doesn't fall apart, and is not H-shaped.

When his components are reunited, he can also change to a base mode, one which doesn't quite have the level of amenities as the G1 toy (there are no radar dishes or roller cars here).  Normally, I feel like the base modes of the Titans Return toys are kind of silly, but in this case at least there's an historical precedent.  It looks a little like a rocket launching station, like maybe what would have happened in an alternate universe where Micromaster Countdown was a Decepticon.  Lots of mini-pegs that serve as places for Titan Master mini-figures to stand.  

His Titan Master buddy is named Dreadnaut, ostensibly Hasbro's way of getting around whether it's supposed to be Mega or Giga. It's evidently a remolded version of the head that came with Sky Shadow, with some new parts. Like Six Shot and Quickswitch, it really only makes sense inside the Overlord helmet, and looks silly as a robot head on its own.

The Japanese version of this toy actually does come with two heads to represent Mega and Giga, and they can transform into either a masculine or more feminine-looking face for Overlord.  (It's strange to me that after an entire toy line's worth of modifying the Hasbro releases to meet their exacting standards for Titans Return, suddenly for Power of the Primes they're seemingly content to just release the entire Hasbro toy line as is.)

I think one of the reasons I like this toy so much is because it's specifically molded to look like Overlord.  It's not just some random "hey, if we produce this toy in different colors we can sell it all over again" which is kind of what happened with Tidal Wave and Metalhawk (never was able to unload those two on eBay, either, so I guess I'm stuck with them).  I have enough familairity with Overlord that I know what he's supposed to look like, so it pleases me on some level that they didn't just try to offer Black Shadow in different colors and call it good.  Also, despite my lack of love for the source material, I've been buying the tributes to the Japanese characters when they do them (the Deluxe-class Generations version of Black Shadow, Titans Return Sawblade, Shuffler, and the aforementioned Metalhawk) so why stop now?


Zob (completist?  Moi?)

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 5:12:48 PM UTC-8, Zobovor (the Man with All the Toys) wrote:
>  (Sometimes I think there is a subset of the fandom who perceives the Japanese stuff as uber-cool just because it's mysterious and unattainable.  Hasbro spoon-feeds you the domestic toys and cartoons, but you really have to go out of your way to collect the Japanese toys or watch the Japanese shows.)

I think that's true for some people, but for others it is just a desire for Transformers to have continued past The Rebirth, and for others the Japanese toys are an excuse to integrate something new into G1 -- something with just a sketch of character, where you have to create something new and of yourself.

> Despite this, Titans Return has been my favorite Transformers toy line in a good, long while.  I've really enjoyed the play pattern and the toy designs, and it's awakened something in me that I can even appreciate toys of all-new characters that I know absolutely nothing about.

Are you ok? This doesn't seem like you.

> When I opened Overlord, I was reminded of Christmas in 1989 when I got Skystalker.  Who is he?  What's his relationship to the other Decepticons?  Where does he fit in the hierarchy?  I have absolutely no idea!  And, maybe, I don't absolutely need to.

I have watched Masterforce, and quite like it. But I don't feel constrained by it. Who is Overlord? It depends on context.

> Also, to be blunt, I work super hard.  I work harder right now than anybody else I know.  I push myself non-stop every day, and by the end of my shift my muscles are sore and my joints ache.  I'm not saying this to brag.  I just feel like I deserve something for working so damn hard.

Sometimes I wish I worked a job where the muscles would ache at the end of a shift, rather than the brain continuing to spin for hours or days at the end of the week, whether I want it to or not. I'd like a feeling of accomplishment, and the feeling of just being done, at least for a little while.

> Note that this toy is a remold of Black Shadow, a toy that I never saw at retail anywhere.  Its design was arguably meant to be Overlord, though.  (I feel very strongly that Black Shadow will eventually get released as Thunderwing, though I guess we'll see.)

It's a pretty substantial remold, by the way, so Black Shadow and Overlord feel sort of like different toys.

> While the American fiction treated the Powermasters as being simialr to the Headmasters—robots who partnered with Nebulans who could transform and connect to them—in Japan, the Godmasters were lifeless machines, called transtectors, who were controlled entirely by the humans who turned into their engines.

It's a little more complicated than that ... the Transectors do come to life, if I recall correctly.

> Overlord was a double Godmaster, controlled by the husband-and-wife team known as Giga and Mega, and his robot configuration could separate into two separate vehicles, Duocon-style, the Megajet and the Gigatank.

I don't remember them being husband and wife -- it's been a long time since I've watched Masterforce, and I only watched it once. Subtitling requires a bit more patience than Transformers can muster sometimes.

> The Titans Return version is smaller, but it's better proportioned than the G1 toy, and has significantly better articulation.  He's lost some of his gimmicks like the pop-open guns in the abdomen, but his color mapping is authentic and he's clearly recognizable as the original character.  He wears the nose of his jet mode as a shield, like the 1988 toy, though you can plug it into his back if you don't care for the partsformer look.  He has two opening chest panels that can accommodate Titan Master mini-figures (or, I presume, Prime Master mini-figures) though I have trouble getting the chest panels to close afterwards, and a couple of breast-mounted random robot faces staring at you ("Hey, dude, my eyes are up here") is a little weird-looking.

I suspect that the Japanese release will come with Mega and Giga without giant faces on their backs -- just two Titan Master sized robots who fit into the slots better.

> To transform him to his two vehicle modes, the legs separate from the upper body.  The nose of the jet either unfolds from his back or snaps in place, depending on how you configured his robot mode, and his arms form the wings and turbines.  He reminds me a lot of Headmaster Horrorcon Snapdragon in this mode.  His jet canopy opens to accommodate a pilot, and   Each half of the tank turret folds out from panels within the lower legs, and the upper legs tuck away.  The shape of the tank is cute and cuddly and a little bit super-deformed.  The turret does not rotate or pivot, but there's an opening orange canopy on one side for a Titan Master mini-figure.  The tank does absolutely nothing, but it's a success because it's solid, doesn't fall apart, and is not H-shaped.

Both the plane and the tank are a little superdeformed. I've decided that they are futuristic vehicles that depend on a more compact power source and engines than we have now.

> When his components are reunited, he can also change to a base mode, one which doesn't quite have the level of amenities as the G1 toy (there are no radar dishes or roller cars here).  Normally, I feel like the base modes of the Titans Return toys are kind of silly, but in this case at least there's an historical precedent.  It looks a little like a rocket launching station, like maybe what would have happened in an alternate universe where Micromaster Countdown was a Decepticon.  Lots of mini-pegs that serve as places for Titan Master mini-figures to stand.  

I prefer the Black Shadow release, in an Overlordish base mode -- the unified color scheme helps a lot. But overall, it's a decent base mode. It looks functional, even if I can't figure out what the function is.

> The Japanese version of this toy actually does come with two heads to represent Mega and Giga, and they can transform into either a masculine or more feminine-looking face for Overlord.

Ok, I've been out of the loop... I had no idea the Japanese release was already announced and previewed or released.

> (It's strange to me that after an entire toy line's worth of modifying the Hasbro releases to meet their exacting standards for Titans Return, suddenly for Power of the Primes they're seemingly content to just release the entire Hasbro toy line as is.)

Maybe Takara just took the lead on Power O' The Primes, and Hasbro is just releasing the Japanese line as is? It always seemed weird that the Hasbro releases were different, when we have never seen any evidence that the Hasbro folks really cared.

> Also, despite my lack of love for the source material, I've been buying the tributes to the Japanese characters when they do them (the Deluxe-class Generations version of Black Shadow, Titans Return Sawblade, Shuffler, and the aforementioned Metalhawk) so why stop now?

Sawblade? Have I missed someone?

Also, Black Shadow does have an American character -- a wildly mistranslated tech spec that is somehow better than the original. Space Mafia is awesome.

[Zobovor (the Man with All the Toys)]

On Tuesday, December 19, 2017 at 12:28:15 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Are you ok? This doesn't seem like you.

No, it's not like me at all. Overlord did sort of sneak into my collection through the proverbial backdoor when I got the PVC figure of him, so in some ways he was already familiar to me. But, I also have PVC figures of Metalhawk, Minerva, etc. and I don't have any overwhelming compulsions to track down their G1 toys. (I do have the Titans Return Metalhawk toy, though. Hmm.)

What's weird is that despite Overlord being a character I basically have no familiarity with at all, or any kind of love for, I still think the toy is great. He's simple enough that you can get him transformed quickly, which makes him fun to fiddle with. He also just looks damn cool. It's so uncharacteristic of me to love a toy like this, and yet I do.

> It's a pretty substantial remold, by the way, so Black Shadow and Overlord
> feel sort of like different toys.

I've never seen Black Shadow anywhere and it's extremely unlikely I'll seek him out. I would buy a Thunderwing version, though.

> Both the plane and the tank are a little superdeformed. I've decided that
> they are futuristic vehicles that depend on a more compact power source and
> engines than we have now.

I think they're adorable. It taps into a very specific Throttlebot aesthetic that I've always liked.

> Maybe Takara just took the lead on Power O' The Primes, and Hasbro is just
> releasing the Japanese line as is? It always seemed weird that the Hasbro
> releases were different, when we have never seen any evidence that the Hasbro
> folks really cared.

I guess that's possible. Some of the stuff they've been doing lately really makes me question what I thought I knew. Before, I always thought that if there was a difference between the Takara and Hasbro releases, it was because Takara was dissatisfied with the Hasbro version and wanted to improve on it. The impression I've always gotten was that Hasbro is concerned with coming in under budget and so they have to be pretty strict, but Takara is willing to spend a little more money to include additional paint applications or accessories.

The lack of Takara changes to Power of the Primes could mean that Takara is completely satisfied with the planned Hasbro releases and see no reason to make changes. That seems unlikely to me, though. You'd think they would want to release Buster and Hydra for the Japanese market instead of Dreadwind and Darkwing, if nothing else. So, there may be another reason. Perhaps they're having a lean fiscal year and can't commit to the extra paint apps and accessories this time.

> Sawblade? Have I missed someone?

Oh, I meant Sawback. The stupid little yellow lion who turns into a shield. I always forget his name. I keep wanting to call him Lione.


Zob (my first Japanese toy was Ravage X-9 and it was all downhill from there)