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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/ToaArcan on 2025-09-23 02:59:29+00:00.
Alright, no point in preamble, let’s get right into it.
Generations (But Mostly the First One)
Following the juggernaut that was the Revenge of the Fallen toyline of 2009 (awful movie, incredible toys), the nostalgia line returned to store shelves in 2010, in the form of Generations, the name it would go on to bear until today. Or at least, it should’ve been that simple.
Instead, Generations was only the main Hasbro line. Takara had its own, United (who doesn’t get to be in the acronym) and Hasbro also had an additional toyline that was shared between the Bayverse “Hunt for the Decepticons” and the Generations-adjacent “Reveal the Shield,” which was based around heat-sensitive rubsigns but otherwise was basically “Generations 2.”
Generations started off strong, with a new face. 2010 saw the release of Transformers: War for Cybertron, a game made by High Moon Studios before they got tragically Activision’d (in that they were owned by the Activision, but hadn’t suffered the fate of every studio owned by Activision yet). Set before the Transformers ever left their homeworld, and focusing on the early stages of the war, the game was intended by its creators as a standalone entity based mostly on G1.
Hasbro themselves would decide to make it a part of their new “Aligned Continuity,” and thus a prequel to their new Transformers: Prime show, and the game’s 2012 sequel (which we won’t talk about much because there were no Megatron toys for it) made an effort to align (ha) more closely with the cartoon. Meanwhile, Prime’s writers seemed to be actively trying to disconnect themselves from the games as much as possible, creating a bunch of continuity holes in what should be a cohesive universe.
Still, because the games are so heavily inspired by G1, and because Takara treated the toys for the games as part of G1, I’ll be including the Megatron toys based on it in this writeup.
The first of them was 2010’s Generations Deluxe-class Cybertronian Megatron, and this toy is fantastic. He poses well, he transforms well, he looks excellent. That said, I’m a big fan of the aesthetics of these games, so that’s a personal preference matter. I know several fans who hate the look, so it’s far from universal.
His alternate mode is very Space Whatever, being an alien self-propelled gun that mostly manages to look like a cannon atop some indistinct space technology. But hey, he can be both a floating Space Whatever and a rolling Space Whatever.
Unfortunately, some copies of the toy were misassembled, with the left shoulder strut being inverted from its correct orientation, and again required partial disassembly to fix. Additionally, he was again kept away from the top of the tree by being undersized, and the aforementioned potential aesthetic clash. He’s not specifically the G1 Megatron design, even if he looks great.
Takara released their own version of this toy in their United line, casting him in darker, metallic grey plastic, and giving him darker red paint.
Not done, Takara also rereleased the 2007 Voyager, this time painted to be as cartoon-accurate as possible. No chrome, no extra paint details. He’s as close as he can be to the show, and he wears it pretty well. This is, spoiler alert, the closest either company will ever come to a proper, full-size G1 Gun Megs in mainline.
But hey, good news for G1 purists, in 2011, Hasbro decided that they were brave enough to try and do a G1-style gun Megatron again!
You’re okay with him being tiny, right?
2010 Reveal the Shield Legends-class Megatron is the second (and last) Hasbro update of the G1 alternate mode. He has a great transformation, solid articulation for his size, and is the only Gun Megatron that is specifically designed to be wielded by other Transformers toys, as his handle has notches that allow him to be plugged into the hand of a Masterpiece MP-11 Seeker, and that’s just cool as hell.
Of course, he has an orange tip on his barrel, despite the tiny size. Apparently functioning guns that small do exist, so he’s subject to some of the same rules as his larger counterpart. That said, initial samples and Hasbro stock photos (including the one of him beng held by Acid Storm) depict him with the tip painted grey.
As part of Reveal the Shield, Megatron has a rubsign instead of a traditional faction badge. You’ll never guess what side Megatron’s on. Then again, this figure draws from the design in IDW’s All Hail Megatron storyline, so if this IDW Megs, maybe the rubsign has some merit after all.
Still, if orange tips and rubsigns aren’t your thing, Takara again comes to the rescue with their EZ Collection release of Megatron. The same line offered a repaint of the Legends-class G2 Megatron in purple, this time with the actual G2 badge. However, it’s not all good news, as Takara released this particular set of EZ Collection in blind-boxes. So, good luck hunting, should you be able to travel back to 2011 Japan.
2011 also brought two more repaints of the War for Cybertron toy. Hasbro’s “Rage over Cybertron” three-pack featured redecoes of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Megatron. Megatron in particular featured new purple paint apps and transparent purple plastic, apparently representing him wielding the power of Dark Energon, the game’s central plot device that Megatron constantly yells about.
Takara, meanwhile, went back to their old favourite: Black repaints! Because every toy looks cooler in black. It just does. Darkside Megatron is a black and purple version of the toy who is apparently [checks notes] Megatron’s insanity given physical form. However that works. Probably Dark Energon-related. He was sold in a two-pack with Darkside Optimus Prime, who is definitely not Nemesis Prime.
2012 would be something of a dry year for Megatron. Takara’s United line provided the last repaint of the Classics Deluxe, in the form of ThunderTank Megatron, this time sporting the G2 Hero Megatron colours. He had the G1 badge again. Also, if there’s no ”MEGATRON RULES!” tattoo, is this technically Archforce?
They also released a metallic version of the purple Legends-class toy in their EZ Collection Gum line. He comes with some lemon-flavoured chewing gum.
Hasbro’s Generations finally gave him another Voyager-class toy… and it was another repaint with a new head. Alas. Initially exclusive to Hasbro’s Asian markets, before being brought to the rest of the world as Toys ‘R’ Us exclusives for the holiday season, Generations Voyager-class Megatron was a G2-inspired repaint of Revenge of the Fallen Bludgeon. And man this is a weird one to discuss.
The toy is good, at least in theory. But as Megatron, there’s a lot to dissuade the nerds of the fandom from making him their definitive figure. Bludgeon is a skeletal robot with a samurai aesthetic, and that was preserved for his movie counterpart (largely because he wasn’t actually in the films, so the toy designers were free to give him things like “iconic parts of his character” and “colours that aren’t grey!”). If anything the skeletal part was actually enhanced by the movie design language. And this is very much “Megatron’s head on Bludgeon’s undead samurai robot body.” He really looks like he’s cosplaying as someone else.
Also, he’s a G2-styled Megatron with the G1 badge. Again.
But the real, fatal flaw of this toy is one that’s endemic to every version of it. The figure has rubber tank treads (they don’t actually work, as they have to break up for transformation, but they are rubber!), and while normally rubber treads or tyres are seen as an indication of being a premium product, Hasbro… wasn’t particularly good at it in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Their rubber has an annoying tendency to decay over time. And when it does, it melts and corrodes any plastic it’s in contact with. Most copies of this figure are time bombs.
As 2013 and 2014 dawned, Transformers began its thirtieth birthday party with the Thrilling 30 subline. They really wanted that alliteration, and nothing was going to stop them getting it. T30 brought some changes to Generations. Having spent the first three years of its life with most new figures being Deluxe-class, with almost all larger toys…
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