At long last, Takara’s Masterpiece Ultra Magnus has been revealed and it’s a thing of beauty. If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the past week, then you’ve no doubt been treated to multiple posts expounding on the awesomeness of that initial resin sculpt, and the message boards have been lit up with posts detailing exactly where and how to get the best deal on this guy once his release date hits in December. Folks are stoked.
However, this figure, as awesome as it looks, is not without controversy, of course.
The designers endeavored to make this an all-in-one transformation to better resemble the character as he was depicted on the original G1 cartoon and animated movie. This came as a shock to more than a few fans because, as anyone who had/has the original G1 figure knows, the original figure was a white Optimus Prime that basically suited up in red and blue armor to become “Ultra Magnus.”
Now, that white Prime was never acknowledged or even hinted at in the cartoon, so the designers’ dodging it in this fashion shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise, but there has been a steady and pointed outcry of “Now, you wait just one darned second!” from those who were expecting and counting on seeing that white Prime, coupled with an equally loud din of “Thank Primus! No white Prime!” from the cartoon loyalists.
Fortunately, the dust is mostly settled by this point, but some sour grapes do remain.
Ultra Magnus has evolved into quite a complex character in Transformers fiction since the G1 days (take a look at IDW’s More Than Meets the Eye), but, the thing is, the Masterpiece figure is meant to commemorate the G1 cartoon character, so someone was bound to not get what they wanted from this figure. But if we take a second to examine both sides of this debate, it’s easy to see both arguments do have merit.
The Argument Against the Inner White ‘Bot.
The Masterpiece line’s purpose is to give fans screen/comic-accurate versions of beloved G1 characters (among others when repaints work) in toy form. These are the versions of the characters we wished we had 30 years ago as we watched the cartoon or read the comic while we played with toys that barely resembled their on-screen counterparts.
With that in mind, this figure looks to totally rectify that, even though the G1 Ultra Magnus toy wasn’t that far off from what we saw on screen, but there was lots of room for improvement — particularly his mobility.
There was no inner ‘bot in the cartoon – the white cab integrated instantly and smoothly into the larger robot form. There was no hint that Ultra Magnus was a smaller robot wearing an elaborate armored suit. Ultra Magnus was just … “Ultra Magnus.” He was the straight-faced successor to Optimus Prime who couldn’t get the Matrix to open – that will forever be the poor guy’s legacy from the G1 fiction.
Sure, the original toy had a white Prime inside, but that was just because there wasn’t a better way to engineer the character at the time, so the inner robot was just a necessary evil, a means to an end; it wasn’t a character in and of itself. Now that the designers have found a way to better integrate that white cab into the larger robot without having to utilize that awkward in-between step of placing the cab’s robot mode in the larger figure, we’re all the better for it. They nailed this figure; it’s perfect. And it totally makes up for Takara trying to sell us that white MP-01 a few years ago (which some of us, ahem, bought).
The Argument in Favor of the Inner White ‘Bot
Regardless of what the cartoon and comic chose to use or ignore, that white Prime was not something to cast off and pretend never existed. In the G1 days, the fiction followed the toys, so for those of us who had the Ultra Magnus toy before we saw him in the cartoon, that white Prime was already an established part of the character in our own personal Transformers adventures. I treated him like a superhero; when things got too hectic, that white ‘bot could power-up and become “Ultra Magnus,” Autobot superhero (I seldom paid attention to the character descriptions in the tech specs and made up my own).
When the movie hit theaters and G1 seasons 3 and 4 aired, I never understood why we never saw the white ‘bot. I waited for it and waited for it, but … nothing. It annoyed me. It never stopped me from factoring the white ‘bot into the fiction I created for my own Transformers, but it disappointed me that Marvel and the cartoon team never made use of this aspect of the character.
So when Dreamwave came along and did this …
… I went bananas. It was a long time coming, but Ultra Magnus’ inner white ‘bot was finally having its day. I loved it. Takara and Hasbro also loved it, evidently, since we started seeing more and more white Primes named “Ultra Magnus” unleashed into the market.
That was short-lived, of course, and once Transformers Animated hit the airwaves, Ultra Magnus was back to being a single, larger ‘bot and not a smaller ‘bot in armor. This would continue on into Transformers: Prime and Fall of Cybertron, so it seems the days of the inner white Prime are over, and this has been inadvertently confirmed by the design and impending release of this new Masterpiece figure. So If we want a white version of Masterpiece Optimus Prime now, we’ll have to see if Takara takes a chance on it (they do love repaints, so it’s possible), or perhaps wait for a knock-off to come around.
Conclusion
I’ll be the first to admit I’m disappointed that there is no white ‘bot incorporated into the Masterpiece figure because it doesn’t fully represent “my” vision of the G1 Ultra Magnus. My ideal Ultra Magnus has been shaped by the toy, the G1 cartoon, and all the comics, so “my” Masterpiece Ultra Magnus is an armored ‘bot that will hopefully see the light of day in the form of a third-party release, should one such industrious team decide to tackle the project. I appreciate that Takara’s designers are factoring in a nod to the original toy by making a removable face plate that will reveal the head of the white Prime, and that is definitely cool, but it’s no full inner ‘bot.
This upcoming Masterpiece figure, simply put, is for the fans of the G1 cartoon and comic who only need the figure to have a single alt mode and a single ‘bot mode — both straight from the G1 fiction. And they’re getting it. And it looks awesome. I’m in, but I fully expect to miss that inner ‘bot. But you know what?
I’ll probably get over it.
