ExoSquad Zentradi Battle Pod

Allegiance: Zentradi
Series: ExoSquad - Robotech Series
Year: 1995

In the mid-80s many Western viewers were introduced to Japanese Anime by way of Robotech, a series spliced together from three different Japanese cartoons. The first and most prominent of them was Super-Dimensional Fortress Macross, which showed an alien spaceship crashing on Earth, the titular SDF-1. Humanity restored the ship, learning about its technology, only to then come under threat by the Zentradi, giants from outer space who wanted to retrieve the ship for their overlords, the Robotech Masters. Matchbox created a bunch of vehicles and figures for the series in the mid-80s and quite a few of them were recycled for the Exo-Squad series ten years later.

The Zentradi Battlepod we have here is basically the TIE Fighter of the Zentradi Fleet. Not terribly threatening by itself, but usually appearing in huge numbers to sweep away all resistance. It’s basically a tank on legs, the egg-shaped main body containing the cockpit for the Zentradi pilot. Now scale is a bit wobbly here, as the Zentradi were giants, roughly ten meters tall each, so this battlepod should actually be at least twice as tall as the Veritech (aka G1 Jetfire) the humans used against them. Of course the vehicle here came without a pilot, but it’s scaled for Exo-Squad figures. Those were a bit smaller than your average GI Joe or Star Wars figure, somewhat larger than your average M.A.S.K. or Dinoriders figure. Since I don’t own any actual Exo-Squad figures, I had Major Tungsten take a seat in the cockpit (Human Alliance figure that came with Dark of the Moon Thunderhead). He fits, though should be a bit bigger still.

The Zentradi mecha did not transform, of course, unlike the vehicles of the Robotech Defense Force, so what you see is pretty much what you get. Two big cannons as “eyes”, two smaller cannons on the “chin”, two more cannons on the back of the “head”, boosters on the side that can be positioned for flight mode, and, of course, the legs. The battlepod can turn at the “hip” and can perform a walking motion with his chicken legs, too. When in flight mode, the feet fold back, so that the battlepod can travel through space. Details are provided by nice-looking stickers.

That’s pretty much it, really. It’s a nice toy vehicle and faithfully portrays the familiar mecha from the first season of the Robotech series. Whether you like it or not will largely depend on whether or not you have fond memories of the Robotech cartoon (or the Japanese Macross Anime, of course). Me, I am a HUGE fan of Robotech (and somewhat a fan of Exo-Sqaud, too), so finding this beauty here was definitely worth it for me.

Rating: B+