Beast Wars Transmetals Depth Charge

Along with Rampage, Depth Charge was one of the only two ultra sized Transmetals made. It's no wonder Hasbro wanted them in the show, with so much stock being invested in them. Also, if you think about it, the majority of mega sized toys made show appearances (Scorponok, Inferno, TM2 Blackarachnia, TM Megatron and TM Optimus)and all the ultra and super sized toys were in the show. So of course, enter Depth Charge.

Depth Charge was one of my favorite characters on the show. He only appeared in eleven episodes in season three, but his character was a great one. He was a hate-driven Maximal, something not often seen. And appropriately his rage was caused by the other ultra TM toy, Rampage (or rather, his character in the show, not the actual toy). But enough with show analysis, on to the toy review!

So Depth Charge is a manta ray in beast mode. This is pretty neat considering the lack of aquatic beast modes in the series. It also added a new element to the show, but I said I wouldn't do any more show stuff, so back to the toy. Anywho, the manta ray is pretty friggin huge, and very cool looking. It also has some cool articulation in the wings and tail, which is oddly more articulation than a lot of beast modes with legs. At any rate, the beast mode is really cool.

The standard transmetal vehicle mode is pretty weak on Depth Charge. All you do is disconnect his wings and flip them around. It's really pretty sad to look at. It doesn't even seem like a new mode either, just like they realized after it was done that they needed a vehicle mode so they figured out this junk. Ah well, I guess I was spoiled by Rampage's vehicle mode which beats down the vehicle modes of all the other transmetals.

Transformation is pretty durn complicated, but I was able to do it without the directions the first time. I won't really go into it because you need to flip and rotate a lot of things, and his manta ray eyes end up being his shins but his manta ray mouth is at his chest with a new set of eyes.

Speaking of the robot chest, the fire these plastic discs which is a pretty nice bonus. Not often you get a transformer who can fire stuff not only from his gun, but from elsewhere. Robot mode is cool looking from the front, and the animators of the show did a good job with the translation, though as far as I remember they left off Depth Charge's weird backpack.

I'll get to his backpack in a second. So the major problem with robot mode is the trouble it has standing. I believe the directions want his wings positioned further back, but if you position them forward more so they line up with his back then his center of gravity is shifted a bit, allowing him to stand without aid of his tail. Also if you put his shark gun in his hand and his sword in the other it adds some weight and he stands even better.

The major problem for his bad standing skills is his very weird backpack. I'd have to say Depth Charge has the weirdest backpack that a Beast Wars toy ever had. It's the entire spine of the beast mode which is there because of the chest firing mechanism. I guess they could have made it fold down with some trouble, but you'd lose the power pizza's, so it's all a matter of gimmicks. Ah well.

All in all Depth Charge is a very cool toy. His beast mode is stellar, his robot mode pretty cool, bad balance aside, and the vehicle mode, well, that pretty much sucks, but it's canceled out by the other two cool modes. I got this off eBay for $20 (plus shipping of course), and if you can get one for that much or so I'd recommend it unless you really hate backpacks (which is a bad quality to have when you like Beast Wars). If that's the case I'd recommend not picking up Rampage either.