Nom nom nom.
I’ve always had a fascination with the cosmic portion of the Transformers mythos. It’s weird, because I’m not like that with, say, Marvel. When it comes to Marvel, I’m more about Spider-Man. I couldn’t care less about Galactus and Thanos. I want to see the mundane. Same with DC, where I prefer the “street-level” Batman stuff to the grander scale stories.
This isn’t to say that I don’t care about the smaller Transformers stories. That’s very far from the truth. The smaller stuff is easily the most important. But the weird part is that I care at all about the cosmic Transformers stuff. I like the “Original Thirteen” crap and the Covenant and anything pertaining to The Fallen. So, of course, I like Unicron.
Mind, for the first few years of Unicron’s existence in my childhood, he was just that big planet guy the Transformers fought in the movie. He was big, he ate things, and he was created by a space monkey. The only thing that could destroy him was some doodad in Optimus Prime‘s chest. For no reason. There wasn’t much to him. He was neat, I guess, but ultimately one-dimensional. It was Simon Furman, the Marvel UK writer, that made me super-interested in Unicron. He retconned Unicron as the ultimate enemy of the Transformers, the Satan to their Creator God, Primus. The Matrix was the only thing that could stop him because it contained a portion of Primus’ life force. This was the context that made Unicron compelling to me.
Somehow 20% (so far) of the multiverse fits inside him.
Unicron continues to be compelling partly because, to me, he’s the one thing that ties all Transformers stories together. There are so many different and crazy continuities out there. Transformers has been rebooted no fewer than a hojillion times. But whenever Unicron shows up, it’s the same guy. There’s only one Unicron, shared by an infinite number of universes. He makes me feel like the Transformers multiverse isn’t so fragmented. There’s something that holds it all together, that it’s just one huge story with smaller parts. Parts that Unicron wants to eat.
And so that’s why I would pay a lot of money to own a special Unicron.
I specifically requested a honeybaked ham!
Behold my special Unicron! Takara’s been celebrating 2010 with toy releases that harken back to the third season of the original cartoon, and this gussied-up Unicron is one of its biggest attractions. It’s largely the original Armada Unicron that I already have, but with many small differences.
The biggest of the small differences is the new head. The Mini-Con-symbol-foreheaded Armada head was actually pretty awesome in its own right, but it took a few liberties that are “corrected” here. Takara basically grabbed the 1986 animated movie’s head and made it three-dee.
This could never happen in fiction.
The rest of the differences are in the deco. 2010 Unicron is a much darker, saturated orange than the Armada version. His dark gray legs skew teal ever so very, very slightly, so you end up with a giant vibrant poster child for the “orange and teal” color treatment every single movie gets these days. He’s amazingly pretty in person because of this. Almost all of him is paint-washed, as well, so his tiny sculpted detail all over his body pops out. But, thankfully, not so much that he looks dirty or muddy. Too much paint wash can just make things look small, rather than large.
Planetary dentata, what a wonderful phrase.
2010 keeps all of his original electronics and gimmickry. The missile still fires out of his giant chest doors when you activate it with his Mini-Con. He still comes with his Mini-Con! His eyes and right fist still light up, too. Oh, and there’s those Mini-Con activated missiles on his legs. And he comes in a gorgeous box.
If I have any complaint with him, it’s this: I can’t imagine how they budgeted for him to be covered in this much paint, with all this paint wash and attention to detail, yet they neglect to paint the gray on the outside of his helmet so that it wraps all the way around his head.
Ethan carried this thing around early last week, if you remember.
How does this happen? Seriously, what in the Hell? They even took the time to paint stuff on his back silver, even though that’s going to be covered up with kibble 99% of the time and facing the wall. But not the sides of his face.
Man.
Other than that glaring oversight, he’s absolutely great. I can sell my old Armada Unicron, now! Not that it’ll go for much, as that version of him was released at least three times to retail, and can sell on eBay for about $20. But mine has Reprolabel upgrade stickers! That’s got to be worth something, right?
Dammit.
I was just thinking how I was perfectly happy with my Armada Unicron, then you go and show off these pictures, and DAMN is he gorgeous.
What did it end up costing?
Personally, I’m just going to stick with the Cybertron version. Neither version actually transforms into anything that looks like a planet, but the Cybertron one is cheaper and easier to fit on a shelf.
Ok, Uni’s cool and all, but I’m still confused… WHY DOES THAT GUY ON TV HAVE LAEDERHOSEN ON?!
Because it’s Pop and Loktoberfest.
Ok. That makes sense.
Sure it could happen in fiction. IT’d just be the same unictron Time-displaced.
Nah. Not possible. Unicron can only exist once per timestream. He’d probably loooove to have that loophole, though.
Really? I can’t see how the “multiversal singularity” issue would effect Time travel. Actually, it makes even less sense if he can’t double via time travel, as that would mean he disappeared in the past if his future self went back in time.
Must research further…
But haven’t multiversal singularities been retconned again so that they’re interlinked beings, in multiple universes at the same time, storing versions of themselves in some universes so that they can be killed in some timelines and then just “respawn”? That’s how I inferred Forrest Tucker’s Spring Hasbro Question and Answer session, particularly since Planet X, according to the Galaxy Force/Japanese Cybertron D.V.D. booklets, was the populated corpse of a parallel universe Unicron that drifted into the Unicron Trilogy universe?
I thought this was settled as a matter of dealing with why The Fallen can keep getting his face ripped off if there’s only one of him. Maybe only corpses can co-exist in a single universe — one or more dead versions and a live one can be in the same time stream (the Unicron Trilogy example mentioned above seems to support this)? Or does it create cosmic feedback like the Blinovitch Limitation Effect in “Doctor Who” and blow a hole in reality?
-Cavan, who should have given her a ring, but couldn’t.
Multiversal singularities all relate to the multiverse in different ways.
Unicron and Vector Prime do so in sequence. Primus does so in parallel. (And presumably Alpha Trion, since he’s linked to Vector Sigma, which is parallel.) The Fallen moves in and out of multiversal nodes or something, existing in small parallel clusters and killing bumblepuppies.
20$ for a Armada Unicron? I never bothered to check but maybe I could get one to lock him into an eternal battle with Cybertron Primus !
An eternal battle for the fate of the Multiverse! On my shelf.
This is pretty great, but I still kinda like Armada Unicron’s head better. Just makes me want to paint my Unicron in g1 colors.
If they’d remolded ther planet chompers to look like the g1 varsions, well, I might have caved on this…
“When it comes to Marvel, I’m more about Spider-Man. I could care less about Galactus and Thanos.”
No, you COULDN’T care less. If you COULD care less, you could still potentially care a great deal.
In fairness, he does appear to care enough to know who this Thanos guy is, which is more than I care, so it is clearly possible to care less.
little things bug me the MOST, I think.. When I was 7 and they put out a supershredder figure, I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t give him his cape.
and yeahh.. cosmic stuff.. it GOES with some things, and really not with others. When I like it, I love it, and the rest of the time it just gets in the way.
Sooooooooooo… If Armada Unicron is only worth 20 dollars, then how much is the black Armada one worth?
The Energon one? That one’s pretty rare, so probably quite a bit more than $20. Part of the reason it’s so rare and the Armada one is so plenty is that partway through the Energon version’s run, the new black version was replaced by old Armada Unicrons.
Mine is on its way. Me am so happy.
Damn…if I didn’t already have Armada Unicron AND the Hard Hero statue of G1 Unicron I’d so buy this. I’m tempted ANYWAY…
Honestly, in general, I dislike multiversal singularities. It kinda makes hash of the idea of a multiverse.
Despite loving purple, and not being terribly fond of orange (sorry, dude), I have to say, this new deco is MUCH more attractive than the Armada one. If for no reason but the relative lack of transparent plastic. (Also, I’m not entirely sure why, but, for some reason, plain grey plastic looks more ‘unfinished’ than plain orange…)
It’s not unfinished gray plastic, though it sort of looks like it in pictures. In person you will see all kinds of little tiny orange details and crap. This is a thing of beauty, though the molds seem a little worn out and my Armada Unicron is more mechanically sound and the gimmicks (chompy jaws, chest missile) et cetera work better on the Armada one.