Don't get me wrong, I love Titans Return Galvatron's jet mode.  I love that jet mode.  It barely looks like a jet, sure, but I like it.  I think it's a good altmode for Galvatron to have if you're not gonna do a space gun.  To quote Marge Simpson, I just think it's neat.  BUT, like, dude, that guy had no head articulation.  And that guy's head looked like one of those tourist-trappy things where they cut a hole in the picture and you put your face through it, but not really threw it, more like a few inches behind it.  It was a crucial blow to that otherwise pretty dang solid Galvatron toy.  

Galvatrons have had trouble over the years, huh?  The first one, honestly, is an amazing toy on its merits -- electronic, incredibly poseable for its time, large and imposing -- but many folks will tell you he's absolutely the wrong colors.  They changed them between toy production and animation.  And then there was the Generations Deluxe, which was just an absolute dogshit toy.  It was neat that it transformed from a gray tank into a purple robot, but, like, at what cost, man, what cost.  And clearly too small for a Galvatron.  Then the Titans Return one, which folks thought was finally gonna be Our Guy, but then the head was immobile and dumb-looking.  And then... I guess he was a Combiner Wars torso.  That was neat, I suppose, but probably not what folks were looking for.

But here, it looks like Hasbro and TakaraTomy knuckled up and decided, okay, we're doing this right.  We're so doing this right that we're gonna do him at Leader Class pricepoint just to make sure he's got the budget we need to do him right.  Throw in some accessories to fill out the packaging window, why not.   

And, hey, I'd say they've mostly succeeded with Kingdom Galvatron.  Folks will have quibbles, for sure.  Some don't like the areas of damage deco on his chest, arms, and ankles.  Some don't like exactly what shade of purple he is.  Some don't like him because he was stolen from factories months ago and photographed by somebody's camera with an extremely unflattering lens focal length.  Some don't like that earlier samples of him have a shoulder misassembly that leaves his arms a half-centimeter lower.  (Personally, I think it just makes him look more like Floro Dery's design -- dude loved dem low shoulders.)

In hand, though?  I'd say this one'll be hard to top.  It has the gravitas you want a Galvatron to have, which is not really something afforded to a Galvatron since Transformers: Energon.  Kingdom Galvatron is a wide, beefy boy, and a head taller than Megatron.  He's got presence.  He doesn't have skinny arms or thin thighs.  He didn't skip any leg days.  Kingdom Galvatron looks like he can fuck you up, which is what you want a Galvatron to look like.

His head turns!  His barrel can mount on either his forearm or his bicep!  (and not inside the elbow, restricting movement)  He's got waist rotation and ankle tilts!  He's got double-jointed elbows (for transformation) that allow for even more poses.  

If Galvatron has a real weakness, it's his cannon mode.  Not because it's bad, because it isn't, but... I dunno, if I weren't into Transformers, I'd wonder what on Earth it is.  It's an extremely faithful-to-the-cartoon cannon mode.  It's just, y'know, kind of a weird thing to behold outside of context.  So he gets down on his elbows, which have treads on them, and moves his cannon from his arm to his torso?  S'just weird.  But it's "accurate," and these toys aren't for kids who don't know who Galvatron is anymore, so whatcha gonna do.  

Galvatron comes with three accessories (if you don't count the two pieces that make up his arm cannon).  First is a Matrix-on-a-chain deal that fits either over his head or over his barrel in cannon mode.  In cannon mode there's even a little tab to help you secure it in place.  He comes with two replicas of his Unicron-granted spaceship, which he can wield as separate blasters or combine into a larger blaster.  You can also attach them on his back in robot mode or on either side of his cannon mode.

I'd be happy to buy this guy in many other decoes.  Toy-accurate gray?  Yes.  The same thing again but a bluer purple?  Sure.  Give him a new head and call him Straxus?  Why the heck not?  This toy is good and I like it.

People have been feeling kinda sore over the last new (non-live-action) Galvatron toy we got, way back in 2008, because that toy was garbage.  It was!  It's one of the few toys I skipped from that line because it just looked terrible all-around.  It was way too short and it looked awkward and it just wasn't very good.  I did end up getting a later redeco of that toy as part of a box set that came with a comic book I wanted.  My feelings did not change.

Since then, folks have been clamouring for a Non Sucky Galvatron, one that was a little more substantial.  And eight years later, lo, there was another Galvatron, a size class higher, who transformed into his classic cannon mode instead of a realistic Earth tank, and also there was a third jet mode, sure, why not.  WILL THIS BE THE GALVATRON WE WERE WAITING FOR???

I waited for the TakaraTomy version of the toy, which had some additional paint apps I wanted, though the plastic colors itself are a little too lilac for me.  The American one's a very dark and vibrant, classic purple.  But, eh, I have plenty of toys in that purple, and at least the lilac's kind of a change of pace.  

In-hand, the toy hits just about everything you'd want in a Galvatron toy.  It's sizeable, it transforms fine from robot to cannon to jet mode (jet mode's more interesting than cannon, I feel), and it has a good presence.  What's wrong?  Well, first of all, the arm cannon kind of gets in the way of itself.  It's so large and bulbous that Galvatron's right arm can't do much at all.  Getting it into positions is either a chore or impossible.  The cannon is easily removable -- it's required for transformation -- but a Galvatron without a cannon is probably on nobody's want list.

But the big deal is his goddamn head.  The Leader Class toys, Blaster and Powermaster Optimus Prime, have big-ol' helmets that deploy from the back and fold over the Little Head Dude, almost completely covering it.  And these helmets are included on the neck rotation hinge, and everything's fine.  Galvatron's little head dude (who is Megatron) plugs into the neck fine enough, but like the Leader Class toys, the part of the head that makes him look like Galvatron is stored elsewhere.  You open the chest, and the front of Galvatron's three-pointed crown helmet spring-load flips out and sort of almost does its job completing the look.  The face itself is buried a few millimeters deep behind the flip-out helmet part, and it looks kind of awful from any angle but head-on.

The real kicker is that the head can no longer move.   Oh, you can get a few degrees of movement left or right, just a fraction of a millimeter or so, but this is an inperceptible difference.  Though the inside of the torso looks like it might accommodate some rotation, it's the connection of the helmet to this rotational stuff that gets in its own way.  Effectively, Galvatron cannot turn his head.  

And so, between that and the very awkward way in which his cannon negatively impacts his arm articulation, there is not much you can do with his robot mode that does not make him look dippy.  It's such an incredibly frustrating problem, that quite a few folks have modded their toys, removing the Galvatron head piece entirely from the flip-up part and gluing it permanently onto the little head dude.  Without the flip-up part contraption, the head can move fine.  But this takes a lot of skilled kitbashing work, and you end up with a little Megatron headmaster dude that no longer fits into the cockpit of his own toy because of the added Galvatron helmet part.  

So if you're cool with a Galvatron toy that only looks good from directly head-on, then this is your guy.  I mean, his other two modes are pretty good, the jet in particular, but goddamn.  

Shattered Glass Megatron was my favorite toy from BotCon's Shattered Glass year.  And because BotCon simultaneously hates me while loving me with great booth real estate, here comes a toy to replace him.  Curses!  I don't want to replace my Megatron!  My Megatron is great!  That is a dumb idea!

But, see, a while ago Fun Publications scribe Jesse Wittenrich painted up his War Within Springer to be Galvatron, and it really really worked.  It was a pretty amazing idea that you have to see to believe, because, dude, who'd believe it otherwise?  A helicopter guy?  Meh!  But it does work.  And I guess it was such a great idea they decided to off Megatron and bring him back as that Galvatron design.  And now there's a toy of it.  A toy of it that came with something I really wanted, Shattered Glass Thundercracker, so it's not like there's any skipping it.

So here he is!  Galvatron's admittedly a very pretty toy, but his prettiness isn't my problem, it's the kicking of Megatron's toy the curb that's my problem.  Evac's always been a good toy, no matter who he's been redecoed into, and Galvatron's no exception.  Galvatron's probably even the prettiest of all of them.

(It's been noted that SG Megatron's Rumbler tank arm cannon thing can still attach to Galvatron's arm.  There's a 5mm peg on Galvatron's right arm and a 5mm screw hole on the underside of Rumbler.  So there's that continuity of arm-cannons going on as well in Galvatron's favor.)

So what I think I'm gonna do, since I'm not prepared to put my Megatron away, is use SG Galvatron as... Galvatron.  The "real" one.  Universe Galvatron's way too tiny and Energon Galvatron, the guy who I'd been repurposing as G1 Galvatron before, is way too big.  SG Galvatron's the right colors (sans the eyes) and he strikes the middle ground, size-wise.  He's neither a midget nor a giant.

Thus, I have not wasted my money, nor have I spurned one of my favorite toys.  Everyone's happy!  Kind of!

Unicron may not fit into my lighting studio, but the lighting ain't so bad on top of our white table against our white wall at about... noon.  With fill-in lights.  And heavy use of Photoshop.

So, hooray!  I was sad because the normal-room-light photos didn't give you a good appraisal of his colors.  Now to transform this guy so I have photos for TFwiki.

Unlike Rodimus and Cyclonus, I didn't have any older versions of the Galvatron mold that was included in the "Challenge at Cybertron" three-pack. There's a pretty good reason! Man, that mold sucks harder than your mom at a nickel convention. He always looked kinda iffy, and I was able to play with my friend Graham's back when he came out, confirming my suspicions.

So, yay, now I have my own, and he isn't much better. I mean, I guess he has a little more paint on him? I'm not actually sure. His robot mode sure has more paint, but his tank mode has practically none except for the treads. They really could have tried to paint something on it. It's not like it had to be accurate to any onscreen cartoon tank or anything! They coulda had fun with it.

Once again, the left (cannonless) arm is painted over. I'm still not sure why! They're going for cartoon accuracy, and Galvatron's cartoon arms are purple. Entirely purple. And yet the purple-plastic arms are covered in gray paint. It's not like that arm shows up in tank mode or anything. It doesn't make a difference. Though in general, I do like the colors. Mostly-white toys with a much darker secondary color are always pretty.

But dude, this toy does not like to be transformed. It's not that it's complicated. The transformation's probably about medium difficulty. Nothing about it is frustrating on paper. But, damn, does he like to pop apart. His arm will pop off and you'll try to fix it and more of the arm will pop off of itself and then the backpack will pop off and then the cannon will pop off as you try to fix the arm and backpack. Later, you will lose both legs during transformation.

See, this is why I skipped him the first time.

Despite this, I may keep him. I use Energon Galvatron as my Galvatron now, and have for a number of years. But he's huge, and space is increasingly a premium. It might be nice to try a smaller Galvatron for a while so I can actually fit in all those Sweeps. And the new Cyclonus's Armada I have.

Some day we'll get a good Voyager Class Galvatron. And he won't suck! These are my hopes and dreams.