MakeToys Galaxy Meteor

Prelude: It’s a rare thing to see third party companies such as MakeToys produce figures that aren’t in some way related to the Generation 1 Transformers. Sure, there is the occasional Beast Wars figure, Movie figures are seeing a bit of a rise, but examples of other series from the vast history of Transformers are very, very rare. So it’s all the nicer to see a figure inspired by Galaxy Force, better known as Cybertron. Galaxy Meteor is, of course, meant to be Galaxy Force Starscream, but can’t be called that name for legal reasons. Here we go!

Robot Mode: The official Galaxy Force Starscream toy was already a pretty good figure and very close to the TV counterpart, so there was never a need to completely redesign or reinvent it. Instead MakeToys went ahead and improved upon the original toy. For one thing Galaxy Meteor is bigger, roughly Ultra-sized, and now of a more fitting scale when compared to Cybertron Galvatron, for example. The two guns on his chest have moving barrels now. He has extra plates filling up the hollow thighs of the original figure. Also, a lot of work has been done to improve the figure’s articulation. Galaxy Meteor has a twisting hip, hands with individual fingers (or rather, an individual thumb and index finger), double-jointed knees and elbows, and the big pods on his shoulders can extend outwards and move independent of the arms. Very nicely done.

Speaking of those big pods, they contain Starscream’s two big purple blades, his signature weapons in Galaxy Force. The blades flip out upon pushing the black buttons on the pods and all sorts of very cool blade fighting poses are possible here. Galaxy Meteor also has the Force Chip slot on the back of his neck (or Cyber Key slot, if you prefer the Western name) and comes with a purple Force Chip. You don’t need to enter the Force Chip to flip out the blades, though. Also, the chip is a bit thicker than the Force Chips / Cyber Keys from the official toyline, so they aren’t interchangeable. Galaxy Meteor also comes with a black rifle, somewhat resembling the one the original toy had, but he never used it in the cartoon, so it’s not really all that important.

Finally, Galaxy Meteor comes with three interchangeable faces. Just pull off Meteor’s black helmet and switch them out. He has a serious-looking face, a smirking face, and one with a broad grin (and very luscious lips). Personally I prefer the smirk, it’s just very Starscream, but if memory serves GF Starscream was a rather stern-looking guy most of the time, so the serious face might actually be more cartoon accurate.

Bottom line for the robot mode: just brilliant. The design of Galaxy Force Starscream is already very good and the MakeToys robot improves upon it in subtle, yet very effective ways. Better articulation, bigger, and I just love that smirking face. Two thumbs up for the robot mode, no complaints.

Alternate Modes: Galaxy Meteor transforms into the same kind of Cybertronian star fighter that Galaxy Force Starscream did. In this mode the similarities between official and third party toy are even more pronounced. Galaxy Meteor’s jet mode is bigger, that’s pretty much the only real difference here. The rifle under the cockpit is longer than the missile launcher of the official toy, but that’s it. I very much like the design and there wasn’t really anything you could improve here, so I’m down with the jet mode being basically unchanged.

Remarks: Let’s leave aside the fact that Cybertron / Galaxy Force is supposed to be a sequel to Energon / Superlink (it’s really not!) and just look at Starscream’s role in the series. He started out as Megatron’s second-in-command as usual, but rather quickly went ahead with betraying him (also as usual) and lead his own Decepticon faction in pursuit of the Cyber Planet Keys. He actually ended up acquiring three of them by battling his way through the entire Autobot line-up single-handedly and absorbed a portion of the power of Primus, growing to gargantuan proportions. Of course the moment he got god-like powers he stopped being the very competent warrior he had been so far and didn’t win so much as a single fight anymore, but that’s another story. He did survive past the end of the series, though, and remained a threat to the Autobots.

Side note: It’s hard to believe nowadays, but when Starscream starred in Armada, the first series of the Unicron Trilogy, he hadn’t been part of any Transformers series for nearly 15 years. Sure, he had that brief cameo in Beast Wars, but that was it.

The Unicron Trilogy is more or less forgotten these days, but it does hold a special place for me. It was the Armada toy line that brought me back into Transformers collecting after I had sold off nearly all of my childhood toys as a teenager. And Armada Starscream was the first Transformers toy I bought as an adult. I liked pretty much all the Starscream toys from the Unicron Trilogy toylines, but the Galaxy Force version was my favorite. So I was very glad to see an improved Third Party version of it. Which is what Galaxy Meteor is: an improved version of the official toy, nothing more, nothing less. So if you like the design of Galaxy Force Starscream, Galaxy Meteor is definitely worth a look. A great figure with no flaws worth mentioning. Now I’m hoping that MakeToys or another Third Party company will give the same treatment to Armada Starscream and Energon Starscream.

Rating: A