Before my Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus shipped, we got word that TakaraTomy over in Japan was doing their own Magnus, and it was going to have a bunch of additional paint applications I probably would have done myself (but badly).  In fact, it basically looked perfect.  It had the red legs I prefer my Ultra Magnuses have (a detail from the original toy and the first "season" of More Than Meets The Eye), it painted blue across the pelvis and parts of the shins instead of leaving them bare... there was not a lot to argue with.  It would have to be mine, saving me a lot of time painting my own toy.  

But there was one snag.  

It didn't come with Minimus Ambus!  Japan doesn't *really* get IDW comics over there, even though they're still very popular amongst Japanese fans, and so Minimus Ambus is not really a thing for them.  Instead, TakaraTomy decided to deco up Minimus Ambus as... Alpha Trion, the other bearded Autobot guy in the mythos.  And I guess he pilots Ultra Magnus now for some reason!  Who knows!  There's a two-page comic included, but I am monolingual.  

This is a fun contradiction, in that while Japan's Ultra Magnus is specifically detailed like his MTMTE "season one" IDW comic appearances, he does not come with Minimus Ambus, which is definitely a dealbreaker for me.  

Do I get the perfect Magnus or do I get the pretty-good Magnus who comes with Minimus Ambus?  

I decided to mix and match and get the best of both worlds!  My second Magnus is now here, and I've gifted him the first Magnus's Minimus Ambus, plus all the first Magnus's accessories, so that he gets to have his assembled hammer weapon at the same time as his shoulder missiles and rifles.  (one becomes the other, otherwise)  I have my cake, I'm eating it, I'm living the motherfuckin' Magnus dream.

While American Magnus is in the 1986 Ultra Magnus colors (minus the important-to-me red thighs), with a tealer blue and a milkier white, Japanese Magnus is a darker blue and bleachier white that looks more like the colors from the original cartoon.  His rifles are now white instead of black.  In car carrier mode, his trailer is almost entirely blue, which is truer to the original cartoon's model, rather than the patchwork red and blue of the original toy's.  That I'm sort of lukewarm on, but it's a very weak personal preference as to be negligible.  

The important thing are those red thighs.  

And now I have this spare tiny Alpha Trion to hang out with my other tiny toys!  Maybe he can say hello to The Fallen.  "Hey, in some continuities, we're brothers!" he'll say.  And The Fallen will be like "I wish I were on fire, why aren't I on fire anymore."

But I ramble.

There was a lotta stuff at Toy Fair this year, from the giant-ass Devastator to the Combiner Wars guys to a buttload of Kre-O stuff that'll never come out, but this friggin' Ultra Magnus was at the top of my list.  This friggin'  Ultra Magnus!

When we first got store listings that hinted at a Leader Class Ultra Magnus, there were a lot of different ways the toy could have panned out, and there were even a "he tell me" folks around who were insistant that this Magnus would go those ways.  But naw, dudes, this guy ended up being everything I personally wanted.  He's no strictly 1984/5ish redesign like the Megatron and Jetfire before him, he's a purposeful translation of Ultra Magnus as currently seen in the IDW comics, down to having a little tiny Minimus Ambus friend to go with him.  That last part, especially, I wasn't expecting to see in a toy -- not only because production costs are rising and parts counts falling to match, but also because it's celebrating a very specifically current unorthodox treatment of Ultra Magnus.  Sure, we get a lot of white cab Optimus Primes here and there in lieue of an Ultra Magnus, but actually getting our little mustachioed reimagining of that concept I thought was unlikely.

And so I am amazingly pleased.

Minimus Ambus himself is very very small.  He's about half the size of a Legends Class figure, so he's amazingly dainty.  Even at this size, though, he's not as simple as he could be.  His car roof and robot backpack is on this hinged arrangement that seems too rich for this toy's size's blood.  In Ultra Magnus's robot mode, he fits inside the chest, all mech pilot like, with his fistholes pegging onto control joysticks.  Because this is where the larger robot's head fits into during car carrier mode, Minimus can't stay here when you transform Ultra Magnus, but Minimus transforms into a car, and so I think there might be a place for him in vehicle mode, if you think about it.  

(Japan is apparently going to do him in white and purple and red and pretend he's Alpha Trion, while painting the larger Magnus robot more like how he is in the IDW comics, because I don't know why.)

The larger Ultra Magnus part of the toy's had a lot of thought put into it as well.  His shoulder missile thingies and his two rifles combine into an axe, which is a callback to his Animated counterpart.  (Which obviously also makes me amazingly pleased.)   Articulation abounds, despite the way Ultra Magnus's design usually being a stumbling block to such.  His head turns, despite it being part of a mask that goes over Minimus Ambus's head.  His arms manage to articulate outward from the torso, despite those tall shoulder pylons.  The shoulder missile launchers are even on hinged tabs so they can move out of the way of his outward bicep articulation.  And Magnus has, like, has actual working thighs, despite that whole area needing to be a flat plane for cars to ride on in vehicle mode. 

A lot of these ideas are shared by the Masterpiece Ultra Magnus that came out earlier this year, but concentrated in this less-expensive form.  The walling of the trailer mode piling up on the back of his legs is another, as is the way his forearm armor accordions around his fists.    The result is a very playable robot figure with a number of weapon configurations, who transforms into a vehicle mode that can carry your other Transformers, who also includes a little pilot guy.  This toy goes down my list and checks everything off.  

Surplus to all this is the little sculpting details all over him that suggest he transforms into a truck cab that's several stories tall.  There's tiny ladders and tiny doors everywhere.  Each of his wheels would be larger than my apartment.  This doesn't distract from the toy at all, and really only creates a conversation starter, but what?