DE 
EN 
Series: Generations Comic Edition
Year: 2024
Allegiance: Autobot
Class: Deluxe / Voyager
Prelude: Imagine the scene: a wily politician confronts a scientist and tells him that he will never allow him to use his invention. Who would you think is the bad guy in that scenario? Well, for once, it’s not the politician. It’s the mad, cackling scientist who wants to turn the entire planet into a warship and has raised an army of zombies to help him do it. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? That’s the old Marvel UK Comics for you. Now the Generations Comic Edition gives us toys to reenact that scene. Let’s say go!
Emirate Xaaron:
Emirate Xaaron leads the Autobot underground resistance movement. He is an inspiration for the Autobot cause, and many would lay their sparks on the line for him.
Robot Mode: Emirate Xaaron was a character created purely for the comics and never had a toy on the shelves he had to resemble. Hence Xaaron was a rather plain, boxy robot whose only somewhat distinguishing feature was his head design, especially that mouth of his that looks like he’s wearing a muzzle. So in order to give this character a toy, a rather boxy figure was selected to be retooled, namely Siege Refraktor.
The basic robot is pretty much the same as before, only getting a new chest plate and a new paintjob. The head is new, of course. Xaaron retains the good articulation of the figure he was retooled from and while his paintjob is not the most detailed or exciting ever, it fits with how Xaaron was colored in the Marvel Comics (some of the time, at least, depending on who was artist at the time). And looking at just this basic robot, the resemblance to comic book Xaaron is pretty strong.
Now Xaaron never transformed in the comics (more on that below), but you cannot sell a Transformers toy without it transforming into something (at least most of the time). So Xaaron gets some extra kibble for his vehicle mode. This includes two tank track parts on his legs, and a tank turret with a gun on it as a weapon. Xaaron can wear either the entire turret or just the gun barrel on his arm or hold it in his hand. The turret can also store on his back.
So bottom line here: this is the first ever Xaaron figure we got as a toy (not counting a certain combiner that bore some resemblance to him) and it’s doing a decent job. Though one has to say, it looks more like Xaaron without the kibble than with it.
Alternate Mode: Again, Xaaron never transformed in the comic books. It was mentioned that he did in fact have an alternate mode, but that he hadn’t transformed in so long that the stress of it would probably kill him. Now if you remember, the Refraktor figure, apart from becoming a square (or one third of a camera, rather), also had a sort of gun / spaceship / surfboard mode. This is the one which, with the aid of the extra kibble, has been used for Xaaron.
Xaaron is supposed to be some kind of Cybertronian tank, which… yeah, you can kind of see due to the tracks and the gun turret, but still… yeah, it’s mostly a jumble of parts that kind of looks like it could be an armed ground vehicle with a healthy dose of imagination. See the pictures for more details, but bottom line for me: Xaaron never showed his alternate mode in the comics and I am totally fine with never transforming his toy figure ever again, too.
Autobot Flame:
Flame has lost his distinguished reputation as a scientist. He is determined to carry out his master plans, no matter the cost.
Robot Mode: Flame is a retool of Gamers Edition Megatron, a figure I never had in hand at the time of this review, so this is my first experience with it. Let’s put the obvious thing first: Flame totally stole Hot Rod’s look. He is mostly red and orange with some yellow highlights, he’s got a flame motive on his chest with the Autobot symbol front and center, all of which totally screams Hot Rod. And just so we’re clear: Hot Rod came first, as Flame did not appear in the comics until 1988.
Stolen looks aside, Flame looks pretty awesome as a robot. The head sculpt is a pretty close match to his Flame appeared in the comics, the chest plate with the tubes and the sculpted flame motive looks great, and while the arms and legs are pretty much unchanged from this figure’s Megatron usage, they also work pretty well here: Comic book Flame didn’t have visible tank tracks on his legs, but overall it works pretty nicely.
Flame had no robot mode weapon the comics, but the figure carries a repaint of Megatron’s fusion cannon on his arm as a weapon. You can also store this barrel on the back, though, if you want a look closer to the comic books. Like most Gamer Edition figures (or retools of them), Flame can also remove his right forearm and replace it with his weapon, which looks pretty stupid, to be honest. Didn’t take a picture of that. The left-over forearm can be mounted on his butt for storage. Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid, too, doesn’t it?
Now while the figure does look great and the weapon/arm gimmick can be safely ignored, I do have to mention a big flaw. Flame’s articulation is pretty good overall, apart from the knees. Those do not bend more than 45 degrees or so before those yellow tabs in the hollows of his knees stops them. In theory he can bend his knees much further (he bends them 180 degrees during transformation), but you have to halfway disassemble the lower legs in order to do that. Not sure why those tabs are there, as they fulfil no function during the transformation or in altmode. I have read that many people have simply cut them off of their Megatron figures (who shares that flaw) in order to give the figure better knees.
So bottom line: Flame looks amazing in robot mode and apart from the thing with the knees, I really like this figure a lot.
Alternate Mode: Unlike Xaaron, Flame did transform into vehicle mode in the comics, becoming a mobile flame thrower. Or to put it more bluntly, a kind of tank. Now while this figure’s alternate mode somewhat resembles Flame’s comic book tank, it is quite clearly just a recolored version of Megatron’s tank mode from the War for Cybertron games. Or to put it more precisely, the hover tank variant of Megatron’s tank mode. If you remember the original Generations War for Cybertron Megatron figure, you might recall that it was able to fold in its tank tracks to simulate the hover mode Megatron had in the games. Well, this figure here has ONLY the hover mode, it cannot fold the tracks down for a “normal” tank mode. Not sure why this decision was made, to be honest, but it does irk me a bit. I prefer my tanks with tracks on the ground.
Now design choices aside, the hover tank does kind of look like it’s supposed to (like Megatron’s tank, not Flame’s), but the gun is always pointing slightly upward and overall I am not sold on this mode at all, to be honest. Sure, a tank is usually little more than a square box on tracks with a gun turret, but this thing here? It’s like a runaway geometry model that tries and fails to look like a tank in my book. So bottom line, much like with Xaaron, I shall leave Flame in robot mode, I think.
Remarks: Emirate Xaaron was the leader of the Autobot underground movement on Cybertron in the absence of Optimus Prime, the last survivor of Cybertron’s pre-war government. During the “City of Fear” storyline he confronted his former friend, the Autobot scientist Flame - who totally stole Hot Rod’s look - who planned to finish Megatron’s initial plan of turning Cybertron into a space-faring warship. Xaaron, having lost the ability to transform due to his advanced age, only survived due to the interference of the Wreckers and the zombified Impactor, who speared Flame right through the head. Xaaron later became the avatar of Primus and was killed by Unicron.
Apart from being from the same line of comic books, these two figures here have something else in common: they look great in robot mode, but their alternate modes pretty much suck. Which, for both of them, is mainly due to the figures they were retooled from, of course. Still, the fact that the robot modes work pretty well balances out the issues with the alternate modes for me and being a huge fan of the old Marvel Transformers comics (especially the UK ones) means I could not pass on these two. As long as you leave them in robot mode, they are fabulous.
So bottom line: any fans of the old Marvel UK stories need to get these two figures here. If you have no relation to the old comic books, though, I am not sure how appealing these figures will be for you.
Rating: B-
Picture Gallery:
