Metagate Air King

Prelude: Beast Wars turns thirty this year and you’d be excused for not knowing that, seeing as Hasbro and Takara have done almost diddly squat to honor this anniversary. You know, like finally bringing out the remaining season 1 cast members as Masterpieces? Well, looks like we’ll have to look at third party options like Air King from Metagate, the Masterpiece Terrorsaur that Takara refuses to release. Let’s say TERRORIZZZZZZZE!

Robot Mode: Let us begin by saying that, of all the various toy versions of Terrorsaur I’ve seen so far, Air King is the one who really looks like he just jumped out of the TV screen (of a 1990s tube TV, naturally). Two major points here: one, his silhouette. TV Terrorsaur never showed the big wings on his back that most of his toy versions had. Air King only has two small wing-like things on his shoulders (which don’t actually become part of his wings), his actual beast mode wings are hidden away in his torso and legs. And two, his paint job, a deep red, slightly shimmering and scaly, which looks awesome.

You’d never know from his rather small Beast Wars toy, but Terrorsaur was actually among the bigger Predacons in the TV series. After the desertion of Dinobot, he was actually the second-biggest of the group after Megatron. So this figure here is quite large, roughly Leader-Class sized I’d say, and feels pretty heavy, too, thanks to having some metal parts. Articulation is pretty great. He even has ankle joints, even though those only have a very limited range of movement. Also, the hands are a bit weird, as the thumb only folds out sideways. Not a big thing, just something that stuck out to me.

Terrorsaur sported a few different weapons during his appearances in the TV show and all of them are present. There is the rather small pistol he uses most of the times (which most of his official toy versions have). Then he has a bigger rifle which I seem to remember he used once, too, but I don’t really remember what episode. Finally, Terrorsaur sported shoulder guns in several episodes and he has those, too. You can also unplug them and use them as hand weapons or combine them into a bigger, bazooka-like gun. So in terms of weapons, there is no room for complaint. Air King also comes with a flight stand and while that one is more for the beast mode, he can use it in robot mode, too.

Now my one true complaint about this otherwise excellent robot mode is the head, or more specifically the neck. The rest of the figure is gorgeously painted, but the head sits on an unpainted white plastic peg, which is also a bit too long, so it’s highly visible. Also, Air King comes with three different, exchangeable faces (serious, angry, and smirking). They do look good but, being mostly white, they also lack a certain sense of depth. Sure, Terrorsaur has a white face in the TV show, but maybe a light grey or at least some lines would have added some depth here.

So bottom line for the robot mode: excellent for the most part, closest we’ve gotten to actually having the character from the TV show as a toy, just the neck and face still has some room for improvement.

Beast Mode: Air King transforms into a more or less organic looking Pteranadon, a flying dinosaur. Now remember, kids: this was the 1990s and we all still believed that dinosaurs had scales instead of feathers and fur. Hence Air King’s rather scaly look (and generally not that much resemblance to an actual Pteranodon). The transformation into his beast mode is complex, but not that difficult. Best to use the instructions the first time as it’s not terribly intuitive but transforming him back once or twice should suffice to have it down.

The resulting Pteranodon does look a lot like he did in the TV show, too. The only difference in terms of look is that TV Terrorsaur simply had a greyish stripe of scales down his chest, while on Air King they look more like shiny armor plates. Otherwise, though, a near perfect match, including the (rather anachronistic) beak with teeth. Putting him on his flight stand, Air King looks quite majestic as he soars over the Beast Wars planet.

Sadly the way the beast mode is put together very much limits the articulation. The wings are made from the robot’s torso and legs and only the outermost tips of the wings can bend (see 18th image in the gallery), the rest is static. The head can turn and the beak can open, but the rear legs can only bend a little due to that grey piece stuck between them. The feet are nicely detailed and feature an opposable claw, but are barely strong enough to have Air King stand up straight in beast mode.

So bottom line for the beast mode: excellent look, but sacrifices most of its articulation to achieve it. Would have been nice to at least have some more wing action here.

Remarks: Terrorsaur was part of the original crew of the Darksyde, the Predacons who travelled to ancient Earth in season 1 of Beast Wars. He was basically the Starscream of the group, an arrogant flyer with a screeching voice who tried numerous times to overthrow his leader Megatron, but never quite succeeded. He died rather unceremoniously at the beginning of season 2 because fans liked Waspinator better than him. But let’s admit it: no other Predacon yelled “TERRORIZE!” with as much enthusiasm as this guy.

Air King is Metagate’s first foray into the world of Beast Wars and for the most part they’ve done a pretty stellar job. Air King could use a better neck (or rather one that doesn’t look like a white stick) and the face sculpts could have used a bit more work, too, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with this guy. Better wing articulation in beast mode would have been the icing on the cake, but you cannot have everything I guess. So until Takara gets around to doing an official Masterpiece Terrorsaur (if they ever do), Air King is the go-to solution for every Beast Wars Masterpiece collector.

Rating: B