Cybertron Cryo Scourge

Prelude: Back in the days of the Beast Wars we had a red dragon bot that was repainted into a blue dragon bot (though that took a few years). Fast forward a decade and Hasbro did the same again, repainting red dragon bot Scourge / Flame Convoy into blue dragon bot Cryo Scourge (with but one year between them this time), one of the final toys to appear in the Cybertron line. Now spewing ice instead of flame, Cryo Scourge has arrived at TFU. And seeing as it’s been seventeen years since my review of Flame Convoy, I think we can take another look at this mold. Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: Cryo Scourge is an Ultra-Class robot from a time when the Ultra-Class still existed and was larger than today’s Leader-Class. Meaning he is quite big, as befits the leader of one of the colony worlds from Cybertron. Exchanging his flame colors for a distinctly polar-themed paintjob consisting of white and various shades of blue, Cryo Scourge looks huge, powerful, and dangerous. The colors are the only change from the original figure, no retooling or new head, but it does make quite a difference.

Apart from his fabulous looks, Cryo Scourge is also quite the contortionist for a figure that originally came out in 2005. Just about the only limitation he has is the lack of twisting wrists. Given that his only weapon is a huge battle axe, twisting wrists would have been great for many cool fighting poses, but it was not to be. Otherwise, though, very nice posing ability, no complaints.

As a Cybertron figure, Cryo Scourge has a Cyberkey gimmick, naturally. Inserting his Jungle Planet Cyberkey (a silver one now, no longer gold) into the slot on his back causes the two smaller dragon heads to flip upwards onto his shoulders and there are also sound effects. Not sure which ones, to be honest, I only dimly remember them from Flame Convoy and never tried them on Cryo Scourge. Not a fan of sound effects, really. Anyway, the two dragon heads are basically shoulder-mounted guns, if you will, and they look pretty cool.

One thing I should mention in closing for the robot mode: he has battle damage. At least mine has, as one of the big horns of the dragon head on the chest broke off. Well, both of them broke off, to be honest, but I managed to glue one of them back on. So if you’re buying this guy mint in box, he should have all the horns, just saying. Overall I still very much like this robot and it looks just as good in polar colors as it does in flame colors. Only complaint is the lack of twisting wrists, apart from that: thumbs up for the robot mode.

Alternate Mode: Long before Game of Thrones showed us an Ice Zombie Dragon, Cryo Scourge pioneered the concept in toy form. Transforming into the same wingless dragon as Scourge / Flame Convoy, Cryo Scourge really rocks the polar colors in this form, too. With the way the dark blue, light blue, and white colors are arranged, it almost looks like Cryo Scourge has a sprinkling of snow on top of his heads and the tips of his horns. Very nicely done.

Apart from the colors, it’s the same awesome dragon mode as before. All four legs remain articulated, the tail can move a little (bend at the middle joint), and while the dragon head is mostly immobile, it can open up its maw, at least. The Cyberkey gimmick works here, too, so you can easily turn a one-headed dragon into a three-headed one (King Ghidorah has informed his lawyers of this, I hear).

So bottom line: still an excellent dragon mode and looking really cool (get it? Get it?) in these colors as well.

Remarks: Scourge aka Flame Convoy appeared in many episodes of Cybertron / Galaxy Force, but he never sported a polar paintjob in any of them and never displayed ice powers, either. Only his profile text hints at the story behind it. I think that would have been a really interesting tangent, having Scourge marooned in space somewhere and instead of dying, the power of the Jungle Planetkey reformats him into a creature of cold and ice. Might have been interesting. Had he appeared in Galaxy Force this way, would they have renamed him Ice Convoy? Polar Convoy? Frozen Convoy? Many possibilities here. Of course this particular repaint was not available from Takara, though the TV Magazin exclusive Flame Convoy Sky Lynx Edition looks somewhat similar.

At the end of the day this figure is nothing more and nothing less than a repaint of Flame Convoy, though the paintjobs work wonders at making them look very different. As mentioned above, zero media presence for this guy, so he cannot score points in that regard. Not that he needs to. The original figure is excellent and so is this one here. So bottom line: Fans of Cybertron, dragons, and cool, chunky beast-mode Transformers will not go wrong with this guy. Just be aware that, given that he arrived at the tail end of the Cybertron toyline, getting one might be a bit expensive.

Rating: A-

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