The only bad guy Battle Charger to get a toy is, appropriately enough, ol' Megs. What's rather surprising about Megatron's tank mode is that, even given the "superdeformed" proportions parts of it have (the turret, in particular), it actually does a better job of looking like a tank than all the "actual" transforming toys of the character. The turret is far too shallow and doesn't "stick up" from the main body nearly as much as it should, but really other than that it's unmistakably a tank-- albeit a futuristic one, of course. For a Battle Charger Megatron has quite a bit of mold detailing on-- pretty much all the major details are there, without going overboard and making him so chock full of circuitry and little armor plates and whatnot that it looks like overly "evil". The gun doesn't fire-- given the very young age these things are aimed at, of course-- but the end of the turret is made of rubber, so no safety concerns there. (I do wish the turret could turn, but understand why it can't given the target audience.) What is really cool is that the wheels on the bottom of Megatron's plastic tank treads actually turn clockwork-like gears on the sides of the vehicle. The hideously cute pseudo-robot face on the front end that serves as Megatron's "bumper" is just wrong, though. There's cutesying something up for little kids and then there's THAT. Ick.
    The whole Battle Charger gimmick has to do with pulling the toy back and letting it go-- it'll travel forward for a while, and if it bumps into a wall (or if
you just press in on the front bumper), the upper part of the vehicle will rotate around, revealing the upper half of Megatron's robot mode. What's rather odd is that as over-the-top cutesy as the made Megatron's face in vehicle mode, other than being a bit bigger proportionally his robot head and detailing is pretty darn accurate to the movie design! He's definitely the Battle Charger character to recieve the least-obvious cute-sification, here. This is emphasized by a REALLY nice black paint wash over his head and main body, revealing all the great little details packed into his robot mode, making his vehicle mode look simplistic in comparison. It honestly would surprise me if it was revealed the same sculpted both the vehicle and robot parts, the overall look is so different. His right arm is, appropriately, his arm-cannon while his left arm is more normal. Unfortunately his robot parts are that blah light milky gray that's so common with TFs nowadays, as opposed to the much more eye-pleasing duller metallic gunmetal gray used for most of the vehicle mode (which goes quite well with the black and bronze, too). As far as articulation goes, like other Battle Chargers, due to the transformation Megatron can move his lower arms inwards a little and his head down a little, but they immediately spring back to their default position once you let go.
    Megatron is probably the strongest Battle Charger mold there is, although given how similar the design is for all of them that's not saying much. If you particularly like the bump 'n go gimmick, or your young one needs a bad guy Battle Charger, Megs might be worth a look, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend even the best mold in this sub-line to your average Transfan, given its target age range.

Review by Beastbot

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