Legacy United Animated Motormaster

Series: Legacy United
Year: 2024
Allegiance: Decepticon
Class: Voyager

Prelude: The name is “THE Motor Master”, dig it? Oh yeah! The cream of the crop! The tower of power, too sweet to be sour! The Decepticon with the most angular head of all time, the one true king of the road! And can I just say that getting a new version of a 2011 Botcon exclusive figure as part of a regular mainline is fantastic? So here we are, Bots, Legacy United Animated Universe Motormaster, a string of words I never expected to see in that particular order. Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: Motormaster (should be THE Motor Master, really) is a retool of Legacy United Animated Optimus Prime, whom I have previously reviewed. So this review here will focus on the differences between the two figures.

Much like his predecessor, Botcon 2011 Motormaster, Legacy Motormaster reuses the mold of Optimus Prime, just replacing the colors and the head. Motormaster is mostly black where Prime was red, and purple where Prime was blue. The yellow headlights and such were replaced with sickly green ones and finally, there is the new head. Just like in 2011, Motormaster gets a new noggin’ that’s basically a highly exaggerated rendition of G1 Motormaster’s head, meaning it’s a head in a box. Animated Motormaster adds a hilarious mustache and goatee to that boxed-in face and it’s glorious. I love that head.

The rest of the body is unchanged apart from the colors and Motormaster carries the same weapon as Prime, too, an extendable ax. Articulation is also unchanged, unsurprisingly, so Motormaster can pose very nicely without any limitations.

So bottom line for the robot mode: very nice. The Botcon Animated Stunticons were among my favorite exclusive repaints of all time and seeing one of them as part of a normal retail assortment is just fabulous.

Alternate Mode: Naturally Motormaster transforms into the same kind of fire truck tractor as Optimus does, exaggerated proportions, sculpted interior of the driver’s cabin, and everything else. The color change is the same here as in robot mode, of course, the robot feet are still visible, and there still isn’t a good place to store the ax, either. So, no real changes here apart from the colors. Still a great truck mode, but with some room for improvement.

Remarks: The Motor Master and his Stunticon team never appeared in the Animated TV series, but were the stars of the 2011 Botcon exclusive set, which continued the story of Animated after the series’ end. Posing as Autobots pretending to be Decepticons for a Stunt Show, the Stunticons attempted to break Megatron out of Trypticon prison and bring down Sentinel Magnus in the process. Thankfully two Autobot security officers, Sideswipe and Cheetor, together with Optimus Prime, foiled their plans. The Motor Master and his crew ended up occupying cells right next to Megatron.

Just in case you are a bit confused about the prelude of this review, Derrick Wyatt went on record that The Motor Master sounds like “Macho Man” Randy Savage and is based on a bad guy wrestler archetype.

Now I guess the odds of seeing the rest of the Animated Stunticons again is rather small, but then again I’d never have expected to see Animated Motormaster again, either, so who knows? Now objectively this is the exact same figure we got as Optimus Prime, of course, so I should give it the same rating, really, as the truck mode hasn’t really improved. Still, it’s Animated Motormaster! One of my all-time favorite exclusives has returned! To hell with it, I have to give this guy an A-rating, even if it’s not a terribly objective one! Fully recommended to everyone who like me still misses Animated to this very day.

Rating: A-