When I first saw the Magna Defender figure at SDCC, not being familiar with Lost Galaxy, I thought perhaps he was a villain. His armor does have a certain Stormtrooper meets Darth Vader meets Transformer flair to it after all, but he’s actually more an anti-hero. A hero so bent on revenge against the villains that he puts innocent people at risk. It’s a trope I enjoy and a fun looking design, so let’s take a look at the Lightning Collection Magna Defender!
Magna Defender comes in a nice white box with a snazzy graphic representation of the Magna Defender on the front and sides.
The figure comes with two extra hands, two versions of his weapon and a blast effect.
In the show, the weapon transforms from sword to blaster and the figure accomplishes this by giving you the two modes as seperate pieces. The Magna Sword piece includes a shiny black scabbard that the sword fits in to solidly.
The scabbard has a peg that hooks onto the soft plastic belt securely and it also swaps out easily. The sword itself has fairly sharp sculpting for a mass market line with nice detail.
There is some paint detail missing from the weapon, mostly pinstriping along the handle, but there’s a diamond shaped section of the holster that is completely missing the gold that stands out to me.
The blaster is similarly well detailed in sculpting, but missing some paint details from the show.
It can also attach to the belt if you want, though it looks a little weird.
The translucent blue blast effect is designed to attach to the front of the Magna Blaster and it fits on there snugly and looks good.
The four hands include a trigger finger right hand, a grip left hand, an open right hand and slightly more open grip left hand.
The slightly more open hand works well for holding the blaster in a two-handed grip. The hands swap out easily, though they have these super long pegs that I’m concerned will bend.
Sculpting on this guy looks great as far as I can tell and matches the details and proportions from the show well for the most part. I especially like how there is a slight hammered metal texture in the armor and the cape has a very realistic feeling wrinkly sculpt to it.
To be fair, I don’t notice the hammered metal texture on the show, so that might be a stickler for some fans. One weird thing for me is that his Charlie Brown squiggle design on the belt is broke up somewhat by the articulation cut and I think that would have looked better as a separate piece. I also think the gem in the center of the chest is a little flat and would have benefited from a raised translucent green gem piece.
He’s a bit of a chunky armored guy, but moves surprisingly well for all of the bulk. The articulation is what we expect from the Lightning collection with:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, head, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Ball and socket upper torso
- Single hinged lower torso and shoulder armor
- Butterfly hinged pecs
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Swivel thighs, boot, and biceps
The head has limited downward movement due to the shape of the neck piece and the helmet, but the articulation is otherwise good. I do kind of wish the trigger finger had up/down articulation rather than in/out.
The shoulder armor attaches to the body with hinge joints so the arms are not restricted, though they can look a little silly hinged all the way up. The hips are a little loose on my figure.
The paint is okay on this figure. I do like the contrast of the gloss black helmet and the flat black armor and clothes and the metallic paints are appropriately shiny. However it is missing a few details here and there like the panel lining on the armor should extend to the hands and feet and does not.
I like the reflective green used for the center gem piece because it makes it stand out, but it can end up looking straight up white depending on how the light hits it. I do wish there was a think translucent green gem sculpt over that center armor section.
Overall this guy is a very cool figure despite the missing paint details. The design is really my cup of tea and recalls a lot of ’70s and ’80s sci-fi stuff that I enjoy and he moves really well.
I bought this figure based on liking the design, but I decided to watch a little of him in action on the show on one of those youtube compilations and now I love him. He’s got a fairly standard revenge storyline, but the execution of it is so strangely bizarre and touching at the same time. He’s after revenge for the death of his son, and when the flashback plays it’s appropriately tragic, but we also see that his son is basically a toddler fully armored up in an outfit similar to Magna Defender’s armor. The effect is absurdly sublime and now I want a figure of the kid!
