Lord Straxus (aka Darkmount)

[BWprowl]

Well, shit. Who else is supposed to be in his wave, then? He's not in the Straxus/Megatron wave.

He sort of is. Megatron and Straxus first shipped in limited quantities with all the Wave 1 guys. Then they moved on to a more balanced all-new-stuff wave with Straxus, Megatron, Soundwave, and Red Alert.

[Dominic]

Erg. There are few figures I want, but I want multiples of all the figures I plan to get.


Dom
-needs at least 2 Dirges.

[donosaur]

You know... I think I want to wait for Skullgrin. I don't really care about Straxus as a character, and Skullgrin's colors are more appealing to me. Plus, he'll go with Bludgeon better, don't you think?

[Onslaught Six]

You...don't like Straxus's character? I mean, okay, he's kind of just a duplicate Megatron (big tyrannical Decepticon leader) but the dude lived inside what we thought was Megatron's head for like half the UK run (which, objectively speaking, fits into US continuity with minor flubs) and, in some cases, may actually have become Galvatron. That 'demands' respect. Plus, he's got an *awesome* head.

Half of me is like, "Skip Skullgrin, you don't care about Skullgrin," and half of me is like "But what if the toy *makes* you care about Skullgrin?"

[Dominic]

"Time Wars" all but says "Straxus=Galvatron".

But, I can see what Don is saying.

Dom
-will likely get at least one or the other.

[Dominic]

Darkmount (aka Straxus):
One thing that Hasbro has to be given credit for in recent years is their aggressive mining of the TF franchise's 25+ year history. Besides the hoardes of legacy characters, (Optimus Prime, Megatron, etc), there are plenty of characters that have been around for years that have never been made as toys. The recent Drift figure proved Hasbro's willingness to make characters that were new and originated in the comics, (rather than being defined by the comics after being created by Hasbro). Darkmount is a call back to an obscure character from years ago.

"Darkmount" is a place-holder name for "Straxus", a throw-away character from the early Marvel run. (Straxus hung around for a bit longer in the UK comics, replacing Megatron for a time and, by virtue of a retcon, arguably becoming Galvatron.) Like "Silverstreak" and "Tankor", replacing "Bluestreak" and "Octane", "Darkmount" is the sort of work-around name that some people are likely to ignore either out of stubboness or laziness. (I am pretty well in the latter category.) "Darkmount" was the name of Straxus' fortress in the original comics, making the name appropriate in a feudal sense. The character notes on the back of the package are pretty clearly about the character from the old Marvel run.

Like most new iterations of old character, Darxus takes liberties with the original character model while retaining certain defining traits. In this case, the Stramount figure largely resembles the original character's robot mode, and is armed with his scythe, but has a different alternate mode.

Straxus' alternate mode as a cannon, similar to Galvatron's cannon mode. Like many non-toy alternate modes, Straxus' was not designed to work anywhere but on the page or screen it appeared on. (Remember, in the 80s, it was common for toys to look nothing like the characters they represented on screen. There was little practical incentive for artists to worry about making a character's design workable as a toy.)

The "Generations" Darkmount figure is packaged as a half-track vehicle. Oddly, despite clearly having an Earth based alternate mode, Darkmount's profile refers to his actions on Cybertron before coming to Earth. While there is no objective rule mandating that TF figures be made to any scale, the half-track definitely feel under-sized at the Deluxe scale. (Of course, even a larger Voyager or Ultra scale, one can find under-sized toys. So it does not do to make too much of this problem.)

The instructions include steps to convert Darkmount to a sort of artillery station. (The artillery station does not meaningfully resemble the cannon form seen in the old comics.) Hasbro's track record with triple-changers is spotty at best. (Even TFU Octane/Tankor is badly executed.) Darkmount is no different in this regard. The cannon form is either the result of an idea that was abandoned early in the planning stage or a hasty after thought. Either way, I have seen better fan-modes for other toys.

The robot form more than compensates for a failed 3rd mode. While not an exact translation of the original character model for Straxus, the robot mode strongly resembles the character seen in the original comics and makes good use of half-track parts. There are a few bits that could have been improved if Hasbro had designed DarkStraxus at a larger scale, but nothing that sinks the toy.

One thing that is especially note-worthy about Darkmount is the design on the hands. Every so often, (usually 2 or 3 times a decade), toys make a jump in sophistication. Sometimes, the advances are in design. Other times, they advances are in execution. Transformers, being more comlext than most other toys, have more prospects for this sort of change.

Darkmount's hands are, put simply, amazing. For roughly a decade now, it has generally been assumed that a TF figure would either have nicely sculpted hands that could not hold anything, (BW Tigerhawk, UT Demolishor or Cyclonus come to mind here), or would have a standardized peg-hole bored into a closed fist. There were exceptions of course. But, those were rare.

Darkmount's hands are a big step towards combining the best of both options, and adding articulation to the mix. Darkmount can hold weapons with standard 3mm peg handles and has articulated fingers. The compromise is not perfect, but it is a huge step in the right direction.

Dom
-still has to review the second wave of PCC combiner sets.

[Onslaught Six]

Wait, he can hold the clippy guns?!

Oh dude he totally can! Sweet!

I've been trying to make him hold his scythe as a big rifle or something but I don't think the handle is long enough. Also, I've got a sweet trident going on with it, might do that for Skullgrin.

[Dominic]

The pegs on what Straxus holds have to be long enough to fit securely into the hands though. I have not tried it with the clip-weapons yet.

[Shockwave]

Stuff always seems to get here months after it's anywhere else. I finally have one, I haven't transformed it yet, but even when I do I doubt there'll be anything of substance that I could offer that hasn't been said already. This is kind why I said what I said that's in Scourge's sig. I mean, I did say that mostly for hilarity and I'm glad someone other than me thought it was, but it is to some extent true. It's one of two reasons why you don't see many reviews from me. One, I don't assume anyone else cares about my opinion (I feel that for me to think that would be arrogant presumtion on my part and I usually feel awkward when actually typing one). Two, even if I do have something to say, it's usually been said by the time I'd be reviewing it anyway. Such reviews would basically amount to "what JT said" or "What Dom said" and so on, so why bother? There are exceptions obviously such as Battle Blade Bumblebee which we had all been eagerly anticipating for months. As I seemed to have been the first one here to get one I figured I would offer an analysis in hand. And even then it was only because I was so impressed with it that I thought it relevant to the previous discussion that the figure had lived up to it's anticipation (incidently I'm hoping you all have one. It's awesome.) I would post a review if I find something so terrible it should be avoided like the plague, that's just a public service.

Wow, I went on a bit of a rant there. Dunno where that came from. Anyway, if I find anything worth adding, I'll post it. So far, I'm pretty happy I found one.

[Shockwave]

Ok, so I've fiddled and I have a few things that weren't covered. There has been discussion about Straxus being able to hold the cannon like a rifle. He can do it, but the peg doesn't quite fit into his hand. It doesn't really matter though because he can grab the front end with the other arm and take a pose like the Titans do in WFC (holding the cannon with both hands, across the chest). Also, this bastard's hard to revert back to vehicle mode. I'm not really in love with the feet only being attatched by the small ball joints, but the figure is surprisingly sturdy in spite of this. Overall, I'm really pleased with this figure, it certainly has lived up to my expectations and I like how versatile it is. In the grander scheme of things, the fact that we got Straxus as a toy opens the door for Hasbro to do other comic only characters. Who knows? Maybe someday we'll get Scrounge, Emerite Xaaron, or Impactor.