J'onn J'onzz of Mars... Rise

The entire Blackest Night event has been a great deal of fun so far. The lure of free power rings has got me reading books that I might not have bought otherwise--which was the whole point of DC's really great marketing campaign I suppose.



Just as cool is the inevitable line of Blackest Night figures by DC Direct. From series two I picked up the Black Lantern Martian Manhunter figure, and for the most part I'd say it's pretty cool.

I love the Martian Manhunter as both a character, and as subject matter for toys. It's become a minor obsession of mine to collect Martian Manhunter figures, so when they put out a creepy undead take on the big green guy, I can't resist.




I like the sculpt, pose, and included stand, but still need to nail them on a simple inaccuracy: the Black Lantern power ring is on the wrong (left) hand. The price paid at my local comic shop was a little higher than I'd like also, but $16-ish seems to be the average for things like this, so it forces me to pick and choose a bit, rather than snap up each and every wave of figures.

Beast Machines Maximals to the Max!

Transformers fans have mixed feelings about the Beast Machines television show, and in many ways that's been carried over to the toy line as well. Beast Machines continued where Beast Wars left off by using a few core characters, but the toy line set itself apart by introducing a number of unique, and sometimes weird figures. Among others, there's a shark, a cobra, a giant cheetah head that turns into a vehicle, an armadillo that turns into a canon, and a unicorn that was very hard to find... which is no big deal, because it was sort of lame anyway.

Putting all of that aside and focusing on just the main Maximal characters from the show, what you end up with is a lot of fun.




Optimus Primal came in a few different versions, but Blast Punch Optimus Primal was as close to the animated version as we'd get. One of the biggest points of contention for Beast Machines is that none of the toys were extremely show accurate. True or not, what really matters with Transformers toys is that they be fun to play with, and Blast Punch Optimus Primal only rates as being sort of average for a "mega" sized figure.



His articulation is somewhat limited, which doesn't buy him play value points. What Optimus does have are shiny gold knuckles and a somewhat amusing punch gimmick, so I happen to think he's okay.

Rattrap is a perfect example of the toy's proportions not matching the character from the cartoon. But Rattrap it's a lot of fun, so I'm more than willing to overlook the differences with this one.



Featuring three different transformation modes, it's everything that I loved about this line... and all of the "Beast Era" toys really. The transformations from mode to mode are a bit fiddly and somewhat complicated, but each time you end up with a nicely articulated figure that has a great deal of character.

At the other end of the spectrum from Rattrap is Cheetor, who despite all kinds of promising shiny parts, bright colors, and action gimmicks, ends up being more awkward than anything else.



Cheetor is appropriately lanky in beast mode, but once transformed to robot he turns into a difficult balancing act. I wanted to love this one from the beginning, but I suppose I'll never be able to get over just how annoying the arm-slash gimmick is.

Of these four Beast Machines Maximals, Blackarachnia is probably the most successful for the simple reason that it's also the simplest. There isn't a super complicated gimmick, or extremely complex transformation from spider to robot that kills the figure's play value. In fact, the only thing that bothers me about this toy at all, is the completely show inaccurate color scheme, as she should be red rather than purple. Even so, there's nothing surprising about a bright green, purple and gold, female spider/robot in the world of Transformers, so I'm willing to play along and enjoy the toy for what it is.



And what it is, is a figure of a character that represents the end of the line for me when it came to caring about the Transformers shows. The entire Beast Era that had started with Beast Wars and Transmetals, and then finally ended with Beast Machines, was a ton of fun. I did my best to remain interested when Transformers Armada rolled out, but the sketchy show scheduling that has always plagued Transformers, became too much to handle.

The other significant thing that eventually lead to my being burned out on Transformers, was the crazy number of lines and figures that Hasbro started to release. There were Armada and Energon show related figures, there were "classic" reissues, and then, as if Hasbro had started to feel guilty about walking away from the concept of complex and detailed toys, the Alternators line came along to further confuse things.

As I see it, what made the Beast Era fun was the new and original way that they had reworked a classic and simple formula. Decent cartoons with silly but interesting characters is one part. And the shows have to be on television at a time (or times) when someone will actually be able to watch them. The second thing is a figure line that features cleverly designed and well built toys, that can be enjoyed by young children as well as appreciated by ridiculously picky older collectors... who really just want a little consistency when it comes to quality.