Bios: Deathsaurus

Function: Emperor of Destruction

Succeeded Overlord as the fifth Destron Leader. Together with Leozack and company, he formed the Breast Force, and has been ravaging through the universe for eons. Savage and cruel, he despises humans, yet has a soft spot for children.

Strength: 10 Intelligence: 10 Speed: 10 Endurance: 10 Rank: 10

Courage: 9 Firepower: 10 Skill: 10

Bios: Deathsaurus

"Glory of death for my enemies, glory of victory for me!"

Function: Decepticon General

Profile: After his defeat centuries ago by the Autobot Star Saber, Deathsaurus was recreated as one of the Generals in the Decepticon army. Having led many successful campaigns, he became frustrated as the Autobots and Maximals began to overwhelm the Decepticon/Predacon Alliance. His ultimate goal is to re-establish his title of Emperor of Destruction and return the Decepticon Empire to its former prominence. Savage, cruel and brilliant, Deathsaurus should never be underestimated. Deathsaurus hopes to use his Insecticon Clones to increase his power base.

Abilities: Deathsaurus' new form was engineered to have six distinct transforms including a dragon mode, an aerial vehicle mode and a high-speed ground mode. These forms, along with his dual Timelines blade weapon make him a formidable foe. Utilizing the unique materials in his wings, he can convert sunlight into dark energy, which will corrode any type of metal upon contact. Deathsaurus is one of the strongest Decepticons.

Weakness: Deathsaurus' arrogance allows him to believe his plans are fool proof, causing him to sometimes overlook potential flaws.

Strength: 9 Intelligence: 8 Speed: 7.6 Endurance: 9.2 Rank: 9 Courage: 8.5 Fireblast: 8.3 Skill: 8.7

Kakuryu's Victory

One of the neat things about Transformers is that it isn't cut and dry. Thirty six years of toys and cartoons has lead to restarts and reboots, but somehow there's usually a thread of connectivity in the oddest places. Powercore Combiners (PCC) was this weird offshoot line that hung around for a little while. It had the usual mix of fans and haters. 

One of the more cool aspects of PCC (or frustrating depending on your viewpoint) was that the line wasn't rooted in one singular continuity. One character might appear in a movie universe story, the other in an IDW G1 comic. They were a varied set of characters that just happened to share a play gimmick. 

Which brings us to Kakuryu.

Kakuryu was a Decepticon in Tranformers Victory. A member of Dinoforce to be exact. The group were a team of Pretenders with dinosaur shells that merged to form Dinoking. The Dinoforce served under the lead of Deathsarus who eventually abandoned them. This lead to the team helping out the Autobots. After all was said and done, Kakuryu ended up working at an amusement park. I hope it was Universal Studios.

If you didn't care about Powercore Combiners, that's a shame, because you probably didn't care about the Takara versions of the toys either. During PCC one of the more popular figures was Grimstone. Grimstone was a Dinobot who's combiner drones were other dinosaurs. He was pretty neat and generally well liked by Transformers fans. 

Unlike the Hasbro releases, Takara's version of PCC got a specific story line setting. Taking place around the same time as Operation Combination, various Autobots and Decepticons used the new Power Core Combination technology developed on Earth. 

Kakuryu by this time had joined the Autobots and became one of the Dinobots. He took part in the Power Core Combination program and became Grimmaster! Grimmaster being the Japanese version of the Grimstone toy. Grimmaster had several more adventures which lead to his part in helping the Dinobots become Volcanicus most recently. It's not a matter of G1 or Beast Wars. It's all Transformers.

Seeing R.E.D Over MEGA SCF

The new Transformers R.E.D figures appearing on store shelves have been drawing a lot of comparisons to Action Masters due to the non-transforming nature of the figures. That's a fair comparison, but Action Masters aren't the only non-transforming Transformers toys (or even the first). I'd compare those more to the ReAction figures by Super7. While an Action Master has a little more articulation, they look similar. 

My mind instantly goes to MEGA SCF when looking at R.E.D figures. They're pretty similar in sculpting and honestly the R.E.D figures seem like an evolution of them more than anything. 

Super Collection Figure (SCF) was a blind box figurine line by Takara in the early 2000's that I was a very big fan of. Great little figurines that were perfect little representations of G1 Transformers based on their cartoon appearance. The line went from the early years to Victory before ending with Legends of the Microns (Armada). 

Hasbro brought the line to America as Heroes of Cybertron and was generally sold in smaller stores. I was in heaven with these figures and was pretty sad when it ended. They were very fun to buy and collect. I still  remember gathering around a table with a few others SCF fans at BotCon 2002 and talking about the different chase figures for what felt like hours. Shortly before the con, a local comic shop had a box of the Masterforce series and I bought the entire thing one Sunday morning. Having that Black Zarak build figure was something I was very proud of at the time.

As the line progressed the MEGA versions came out and they were a pretty big step up. Larger and featuring a good bit of articulation with extra parts for all sorts of scene recreations. Like regular SCF they ranged from various points in G1 and Armada. 

Some people make the comparisons to Revoltech when talking about the R.E.D figures. Those are nice, don't get me wrong, but their sculpting was very different. These look more in line with the sculpting style of R.E.D. Which admittedly is part of the draw to R.E.D for me. They seem like a continuation of a former line I liked a lot.

I'll just have to buy them too. 

Darn.

Victory Saber commercial

I've made my point time and time again about loving the tiny tokusatsu productions in Japanese toy commercials, but this one really uses that production to sell the idea of these two combining. Victory Leo is just running like it's cat crazy time there with all that dramatic lightening. I really appreciate the time taken to animate his legs just going.