New Gallery: Takara Beast Wars C-5 Rattle (Rattrap)

In a sudden plot twist, that has nothing to do with international political scenarios, we bring you another instalment on Seibertron.com's Beast Wars Tuesdays... on a Wednesday!

Join us this week as we keep fleshing out the Maximal ranks with not one but two galleries from the loveable but deadly mechanical expert and spiritual core to the team: Rhinox. The rhinoceros alt-mode equipped character comes in two versions for the Japanese Takara Tomy Transformers release, both from 1996 - with C-7 as a standalone packaged toy, and V-7 as part of a two-pack with Predacon Shadow Panther. Both identical in their paint changes, which added black eyes and a grey coat to the Deluxe Hasbro release (check it out here). Click on any image below for the full galleries, and check out more Beast Wars Tuesdays news stories here!

Beast Wars Rhinox (168 images) - Deluxe Beasts














Beast Wars Rhinox (134 images) - Deluxe Beasts

I've never liked the two Japanese Rhinox, could never make sense of the gray backs. They look like they were left in a window for too long.

Emerje

I should note that either deco does not indicate a particular version (single vs. 2-pack). Rather, the tan one is the original release, while brown one is a running change.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:I should note that either deco does not indicate a particular version (single vs. 2-pack). Rather, the tan one is the original release, while brown one is a running change.

Not necessarily true. If I understand Takara Rhinox correctly, the US version was originally released as C-7 Rhinox, then the one I have a gallery of here with the green sticker was the "running" change. The VS-7 two pack version is a 3rd version of the toy that was not available in the C-7 package as far as I'm aware. If I recall correctly, Sabrblade Powered Convoy pointed these variants out to me a while back while I was on my hunt for the Scorponok dark purplish/black variant (or just prior to, can't remember exactly): viewtopic.php?f=4&t=100772&p=1746131&hilit=rhinox#p1746131

Today we bring you some more gallery-tastic content on Seibertron.com, and we move over to Beast Wars II for a look at the Predacon Duke of Destruction, brother of Galvatron, and his later upgrade - Megastorm and Gigastorm, with Gigascouter! Part of the Ultra class of the line, Megastorm is a redeco of the G2 Megatron tank toy, the version here being the one from Showdown of Artillery: Apache vs Megastorm box set; the upgraded Arch-Duke of Destruction featuring the Full Tilt redeco into Gigascouter, on the other hand, is the Cyborg Beast Supreme class Trypticon repurposing, with new added nose horn.

Check out the galleries by clicking on any of the images below, and stay tuned for more Trypticon related content coming soon!


Beast Wars II Megastorm (128 images) - Ultra Vehicles














Beast Wars II Gigastorm (175 images) - Supreme Beast
















Beast Wars II Gigascouter (80 images) - Miscellaneous

"We're, uh, totally not Megatron and Trypticon, guys! Look how different we are!"

I hope Reprolabels does a Gigastorm set for TR Trypticon, especially since they now have parts in their conversion sets. Seems like it'd be so easy.

After Trypticon got that sick mohawk.

I had no idea his colours were so much darker than Trypticons! I really like him!

Ah, Megastorm/Gigastorm. The one guy who was more of a Starscream in the series than the actual Starscream.

I always wished that Takara would have done a release of Megastorm retooled from the smaller, more articulated Hero Megatron mold so that he could scale better with the rest of his team instead of towering over all of them, as he was only the second-tallest Predacon in the show, second only to Galvatron in height (who himself was bigger than everyone else but not too much bigger).

Now, that all changed when he became Gigastorm, as by then he did supersede everyone's height, with only Magnaboss and Galvatron's dragon mode able to come near to his height.

In fact, because Gigastorm was so big, the cartoon actually made one of the very first uses of an official in-universe explanation for size-changing, years before Dreamwave or IDW would come up with the "mass-shifting", "parts compression", and "mass-displacement" explanations. In the show, Gigastorm had become so big that he could no longer fit inside the Predacon's fortress mothership. In order to make him fit inside, he would have be subjected to an "Elemental Particle Control Beam", fired at him by the ship, which would shrink him down to a more manageable size (roughly the same height as his brother). The effects of this beam would seemingly remain indefinite, or at least until he'd leave the ship. Whenever he'd be seen back outside the ship, he always be back to his original size, but we were never shown him actually regaining that size onscreen. We can only speculate that the effects either wore off whenever he left the ship, or were reversed by another size-changing method that he needed to be subjected to upon leaving the ship.

Though, one time, in an episode where Gigastorm finally made his ambitions to overthrow Galvatron known to his brother, as he and Galvatron fought each other, Galvatron punished Gigastorm for his treasonous behavior by subjecting him to a much greater dose of the Elemental Particle Control Beam, which shrunk Gigastorm down all the way to toy size. Galvatron picked up his pint-sized brother and starting pulling on his limbs and tail like how a child would improperly play with a toy, as part of further punishing Gigastorm. He was back to his normal height by the next episode, though, evidently having suffered enough punishment to fall back in line under Galvatron's thumb.

Va'al wrote:the upgraded Arch-Duke of Destruction featuring the Full Tilt redeco into Gigascouter, on the other hand, is the Cyborg Beast Supreme class Trypticon repurposing, with new added nose horn.

I recently learned that Gigastorm being a Cyborg Beast is a bit of a misnomer. Though he played a role in upgrading the Combatrons into the Cyborg Beasts, it turns out that he wasn't a Cyborg Beast himself in the original Japanese fiction. Only in the IDW Beast Wars Sourcebook was he declared a Cyborg Beast (or "Cyber Beast", as the Sourcebook called them), based on the longstanding (but mistaken) fan belief that he too was one of them.

Megatron is almost same size as gigtron never had him to know how big he was good scale comparison

From the lenses of Seibertron himself, we have an amazing new set of toy galleries to share with you! These Beast Wars toys are from the second year of the line, and consist of a roly-poly/potato bug, a mantis, a mosquito, a dragonfly, and an earwig! We are, of course, talking about Retrax, Manterror, Transquito, Jetstorm, and Powerpinch. While these galleries have been done for a few years, we're sharing them now, in the ongoing quest to get to 5,000 galleries! Take a look at the preview galleries below, and click on any picture to be taken to the full gallery.

Beast Wars Transquito (128 images) - Mega Beasts
























Beast Wars Jetstorm (84 images) - Deluxe Beasts
















Beast Wars Manterror (84 images) - Deluxe Beasts
















Beast Wars Retrax (104 images) - Deluxe Beasts




















Beast Wars Powerpinch (121 images) - Basic Beasts

Been needing these! Great job, they look awesome.

We thank Razorbeast for his sacrifices for these galleries.

Great pics!

I actually used to own Manterror and Powerpinch back in the day. They look just as good as I remember.

Great figures! (and Retrax...)

Still own Jetstorm (recently sourced his redeco too) and Powerpinch. Although I lost one arm/side of bug head, as his ball joint elbow grew too loose and I didn't know how to fix it back in the day.

Transquito was always a favourite too. I like how he and Jetstorm shared a similar head sculpt. Evoking an association between them, that was never elaborated on.

I got the BWII version of those Deluxe Insects, except for Powerhug/Retrax. Of those, Tonbot is dear to me because I love dragonflies I also adore the Bigmos antlion mode, but sadly I may have to source the original Transquito, as the BWII one has GPS in his teal plastic (and not the bronze, imagine that...)

Jelze Bunnycat wrote: I also adore the Bigmos antlion mode, but sadly I may have to source the original Transquito, as the BWII one has GPS in his teal plastic (and not the bronze, imagine that...)

Oh that's unfortunate. I was considering finally getting into the Transquito mold. GPS, even with the redeco variant, is a deal breaker.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Jelze Bunnycat wrote: I also adore the Bigmos antlion mode, but sadly I may have to source the original Transquito, as the BWII one has GPS in his teal plastic (and not the bronze, imagine that...)

Oh that's unfortunate. I was considering finally getting into the Transquito mold. GPS, even with the redeco variant, is a deal breaker.

I said he has it in his teal plastic, which is purple on Transquito. You should be safe getting him.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:I said he has it in his teal plastic, which is purple on Transquito. You should be safe getting him.

I know. But, I like to collect variant sets. The fact that Bigmos suffers from GPS means I wouldn't bother with either.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:I said he has it in his teal plastic, which is purple on Transquito. You should be safe getting him.

I know. But, I like to collect variant sets. The fact that Bigmos suffers from GPS means I wouldn't bother with either.

Huh. I was unaware of the fragility of Bigmos and yet I luckily completed most of his gallery without any problems. I'll have to be careful going forward. Hopefully he's not broken!

I just need to finish the Beast Wars II group shots in order for those galleries to be finished at long last. Hopefully soon!

Man, I need these guys in some form. the year 1 beasts are the weakest point in my Beast shelf right now.

I'd like the BWII versions though, that's the show right now that is severely lacking compared to the other 2

Seibertron wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Oh man, those eyes on Takara Silverbolt look so good!

Hey Ryan, do you also have the little-known running change variant of Hasbro's Rampage that changed the orange paint apps on his head and torso to a subdued pinkish silver?

Here's a pic of it (not mine, though) that compares it to the first-run Hasbro version (on the right) and the Takara version (on the left):

And this right here is what I love about collecting Transformers 30 years in. I had no idea there was a running change with the Hasbro version of Rampage. THAT is the show accurate version. I was really bummed by the translucent plastic on Takara's Rampage. It looks awesome, don't get me wrong, but I was hoping for a more show accurate Rampage. Takara's paint apps on Hasbro's Rampage looks fantastic. Is the backside different or just the head and chest?

I'm also surprised I haven't come across the variant yet with all of the collections I've been buying for the Seibertron.com store. I have a pile of Rampages in varying degrees of completeness and condition, but all of them are the orange paint variant.

Has anyone else come across this silver paint variant? I find it really odd that there seems to only be one photo and only one sample of this known to date. I just opened the brand new sealed packaging variant that I purchased off eBay last week, and it had the orange painted version in it just like all of the examples that are known to exist. The one I opened was one from 1999 with product code "554455.0300". I believe the "0300" means this is the 3rd packaging variant (preceded by 0000 and 0200 if I recall correctly). If there was a 0305 or a 0400 I would believe that might contain the silver painted variant but it's tough to want to keep chasing down a Rampage variant if there's only 1 example out there.

It's also possible that instead of a running change that it was just a fluke, right? Does anyone know if the Japanese Beast wars Transformers were produced at the same factory as the Hasbro produced ones? If so, it could have just been a one-off that made it through with part of Takara's paint on a Hasbro version, right?

Seven years later (22 years after its original release) and a second copy of this super obscure pinkish silver variant of Rampage has been found - https://www.allspark.com/forums/threads/post-pictures-of-your-transformers.59/post-6104



At first I asked if it was just the Japanese version, but it isn't - https://www.allspark.com/forums/threads/post-pictures-of-your-transformers.59/post-6132

Nope, it's a variant with a silver face and chest, everything else is the same expected domestic release.

Here's a blast from the past! Check out these new galleries from the Beast Wars Return toy line. This line was Takara's 2005 run of Beast Machines, which was sold exclusively at Toys R Us stores in Japan. Beast Wars Return featured many extensive "show-accurate" decos (though debatable) of the primary characters from the Beast Machines cartoon. The new galleries below feature Megahead Megatron, Noble Savage and Vehicon Jetstorm who are redecos of RID Megatron Megabolt, Beast Machines Beast Changer (aka Savage Noble) and Beast Machines Ultra Class Jetstorm.

These galleries, oddly, came out of working on the gallery for the recently released Legacy Laser Optimus Prime. That figure led to Titans Return Laser Prime, which led to doing the galleries for all of the Titans Return Optimus Prime and Megatron molds, including the Transformers Legends Black Convoy and G2 Megatron (who came with a mini version of Noble Savage, which is how I ended up at these galleries).

More galleries are just around the corner. Stay tuned!


Beast Wars Returns Megahead Megatron (105 images) - Deluxe Vehicles


















Beast Wars Returns Noble Savage (115 images) - Deluxe Beasts














Beast Wars Returns Jetstorm (146 images) - Ultra Vehicles

Dang, no shot of Megahead on Fort Max? Thought that was an (unintentional) staple of the design!

Gearslide wrote:Dang, no shot of Megahead on Fort Max? Thought that was an (unintentional) staple of the design!

The shot of Megatron Megabolt on Brave Maximus's body is in the Car Robots Brave Maximus gallery. I did not do it with the Megahead Megatron toy because I really didn't want to pop off the legs on Megahead in order to pull off this shot. I think when I did the Brave Maximus gallery I had a few spare Megatron Megabolts so I wasn't concerned about causing damage to the toy.


Transformers Car Robots Fortress Maximus (Brave Maximus) Gallery


Transformers Car Robots Fortress Maximus (Brave Maximus) Gallery

Seibertron wrote:

Gearslide wrote:Dang, no shot of Megahead on Fort Max? Thought that was an (unintentional) staple of the design!

The shot of Megatron Megabolt on Brave Maximus's body is in the Car Robots Brave Maximus gallery. I did not do it with the Megahead Megatron toy because I really didn't want to pop off the legs on Megahead in order to pull off this shot. I think when I did the Brave Maximus gallery I had a few spare Megatron Megabolts so I wasn't concerned about causing damage to the toy.


Transformers Car Robots Fortress Maximus (Brave Maximus) Gallery


Transformers Car Robots Fortress Maximus (Brave Maximus) Gallery

Oh cool, Thanks!

The decos on those Megahead Megatron and Noble Savage figures are so gorgeous, I get so jealous just looking at them!

How's the chrome on the Takara Jetstorm? The Hasbro one is known as a notorious flaker. How does Takara's hold up?

As for the Megahead on Fort Max body, I've lately taken to sticking my Hasbro Megatron Megabolt on another big body: HasLab Unicron! The legs don't even need to come off. In fact, the legs actually help keep it in place. By rotating the middle and rear legs upside-down it point upward, while lying the front legs flat to point outward left and right, the legs rub snugly against Unicron's collar to make Megatron fit quite nicely. Granted, it does just sit there, with no actual attachment, but the big size of the head does make for a proportionate-imposing and mean-looking figure.

If you have Unicron on display nearby, give it a try and see what you think. I liken it to the idea of the ever-ambitious Beast Era Megatron going so far as to take over and control Unicron's body.

Sabrblade wrote:How's the chrome on the Takara Jetstorm? The Hasbro one is known as a notorious flaker. How does Takara's hold up?

The Takara version of Ultra Class Jetstorm doesn't have the chrome problem. I stopped the chrome paint from chipping on my Beast Machines Ultra Class Jetstorm by adding a layer of clear coat paint over it.


Transformers Beast Wars Returns Jetstorm Gallery

Here's the Hasbro version with the chipping paint (which I stopped by adding a layer of clear coat paint over the cracked paint):


Transformers Beast Wars Returns Jetstorm Gallery

I bought like 3 or 4 MISB Jetstorms on ebay back around 2014, trying to find one suitable enough to try the clear coat on. The first few were flaking right in the package, and then finally I got one where the paint was cracked, but not chipping. I carefully added a layer of clear coat to it. It worked great except I didn't lift up on his chest panels so when I transformed him for comparison pics in BWR Jetstorm's gallery, there's a small flaw on his chest where the clear coat stuck to the chest panel. Ugh. I'm OCD about this stuff so I might try to find another Jetstorm to try this again with ... or I might just call it a day and be happy with the BWR version.

Wow! These are stuff I’ll never find or can never afford now even if I can find them.

New galleries! Nice! That Jetstorm looks pretty cool, shame the Hasbro version has such flaky chrome (I remember I went to a convention once and saw a few of 'em, all of which were suffering from chrome psoriasis).