Titanium Megatron (War Within)

Series: Titanium
Allegiance: Decepticon
Year: 2006

Deep within Cybertron, in chambers long lost and longer forgotten, two of the mightiest warriors the universe has ever seen battle for supremacy in a struggle that will forever define the future. One is a leader newly made, a simple archivist infused with the power of the Matrix and pushed unwilling into greatness. The other is an ancient warrior, washed in the oil of fallen foes, whose plans have been years in the making.

Here, at the very heart of their home world, the power of the Matrix flares into life as none before have witnessed, and both warriors are given glimpses of what will be. They see themselves, ages hence, locked in a strange echo of their current struggle. THey see the wasteland their war will make of their world, and the long chain of Spark-less shells in their wake. They see the shape of things to come and know that what they fight for is not just victory, but the future itself.

Robot Mode: Megatron as he appeared in the War Within comic has quite a bit of resemblance to his G1 incarnation (more the Masterpiece version rather than the actual G1 figure), though his alternate mode is obviously not a gun, but rather a tank, evident by the tank threads on his arms and legs. He is also quite heavily armed, featuring a shoulder-mounted cannon and a hand weapon he can either hold separately or mounted on the 'shield' he also carries. The hand weapon is made of rather soft rubber and tends to point down a bit, but it's not a big problem.

Judging by looks alone, Megatron is pretty cool. His forearms are a tad small and I think his head could also be a tiny bit bigger, but that's just minor stuff. He doesn't look out of proportion because of it. His posability is also quite good, he can throw himself into all kinds of poses. So objectively I can't really find anything wrong with him, but still... I can't really get behind this version of Megatron. He somehow manages to look... unfinished. But that's just my subjective view on him. As I said, objectively there is absolutely nothing wrong with this robot mode.

Alternate Mode: Let's not beat around the bush here. Megatron is supposed to be some kind of Cybertronian tank in this mode and there are certain angles where he looks pretty good. But from most angles he just looks like a robot lying on his stomach. Which essentially he is. Megatron pretty much just lies down, twists his upper body around, puts his 'shield' on top of his head, and that's it. So what should be an imposing military vehicle is just Megatron doing push-ups. Some elements of the tank do look good, the overall detailing is quite nice and he offers lots of firepower, but again: It's a robot lying on his stomach. There is simply no getting around that, sorry.

Remarks: The War Within series went the sensible way of making this early version of Megatron a tank instead of a handgun, but the end product was a character that tried to much. He's supposed to be this big tank, but still look like the gun-Transformer we know from G1. The result is something that just doesn't look right to me. That's talking about the robot mode, of course. The vehicle mode is pretty much a total loss. It's not necessarily Titanium's fault, the comic book design they tried to be faithful to left something to be desired already. So despite the fact that I adore the War Within series (Dreamwave's best comic book by far), I can't really put this figure here any higher than a good average.

Rating: C+