King
Atlas
King Atlas, just like
the rest of Universe, is a repaint of an earlier toy, but I don't have
the previous version of this toy, so I'll be reviewing him in full here.
He's a repaint of Machine Wars Starscream, which was itself a repaint of
an earlier Japanese toy.
Vehicle mode is a large
jet of some kind. This mode is very nice, and I actually have no problems
with it whatsoever. It's got a nice color scheme, for one- white as a main
color is fitting for an aerial Autobot, and he's got several accent colors-
like yellow, black, and blue- to break it up. The paint apps work very
well when taken as a whole. King Atlas' "energon radiation" pattern is
the light charcoal paint dusting he's got in this mode, to make him look
more "worn". It looks very nice, especially on the front of the jet. He's
also got three retractable landing gear, and some pretty cool gimmicks.
rotate the light blue parts of his engines to have him drop little bombs
on unsuspecting Decepticons! It's a very cool gimmick, and I'm surprised
that I haven't seen it on later Transformers. The little bombs can also
be mounted on the underside of his wings if so desired. His rear engine
also works nicely with this gimmick- by turning the black tail fins so
that they're at a vertical position and then looking into the rear thruster,
a mirror inside reflects the area directly below King Atlas, so you can
have a "scope" to know where you're dropping the bombs! This is one of
the best gimmicks ever implemented in a Transformer, and it's King Atlas'
main selling point, if you ask me. Another gimmick is that, if you slide
the lever on the middle of the plane body, black panels all over that section
will lift up to reveal transparent dark red panels. The dark red plastic,
however, is TOO dark to make this transparent "glowing plastic" gimmick
work very well, so all it really does is change the color of some of the
main body of the plane. Don't worry about any robot parts showing up in
this mode- they're not poking out at all.
King Atlas' robot mode
I am definitely less impressed with than his vehicle mode. For one thing,
the entire rear two-thirds of the plane mode essentially just hangs off
his back. However, even this wouldn't be so bad if the robot himself were
really cool, but he's not. Oh, he's got nice detailing and proportions
for the most part, but his articulation is crummy even by G1 standards.
He can move back-and-forth at the shoulders. That's it. So he looks VERY
stiff and VERY unnaturally posed no matter how you position him. His lower
legs are also rather oddly shaped, with overly tiny feet, but this still
pales in comparison to his articulation problem. Looking at his robot head,
you can definitely tell King Atlas' Japanese origins- it's definitely your
typical Japanese mecha-style head. That doesn't mean it doesn't look nice,
though- the head crests and the colors are very nice, even though I would
have made the faceplate a little bigger. As this, it just looks like he's
got his mouth closed.
King Atlas has a superb
vehicle mode and very fun gimmicks, but his robot mode has incredibly poor
articulation and looks far too stiff, not to mention all the stuff hanging
off the back of it. So this mold is definitely showing its age. He's a
VERY large toy for $20, though- if you're going by mass alone, he's easily
the size of a $30 Transformer of today. If you like display pieces or the
idea of his missile-dropping gimmick a lot, I'd get him. Otherwise, pass.
No Stats
Review by Beastbot