Titanium Optimal Optimus

Series: Titanium
Allegiance: Maximal
Year: 2006

Forced by circumstances into a desperate gambit, Optimus Primal takes the Spark of the greatest of his Autobot ancestors into his body. While the Maximal crew works feverishly to repair the destroyed circuitry of Optimus Prime and end the timestorm that threatens to tear their universe apart, their leader struggles to stay alive. His body is wracked by the strain of containing two Sparks - something his bio-mechanical battle frame was never built for.

By the time the Spark of the Autobot leader is returned to its rightful place, Optimus Primal has been mutated by its power into Optimal Optimus, a Maximal of incredible size and astounding might. Armored and equipped like an Autobot warrior from the Golden Age of Cybertron, he casts a formidable shadow, and presents the greatest threat Megatron and his Predacons have ever faced.

Robot Mode: Titanium Optimal Optimus is, of course, a homage to Beast Wars Optimal Optimus and except for being a good deal smaller and a tad slimmer, the figure is the spitting image of its predecessor. He’s missing the handheld rifle and those additional armor plates the bigger Optimus could attach to his shoulders or forearms, but otherwise this is almost a perfect, down-scaled version of the bigger figure. And he does the bigger figure one better, too, as the guns on his shoulders aren’t fixed in place, but can actually flip out and fold back in. Nicely done.

Articulation is pretty good for this figure. Sure, his somewhat exaggerated proportions get in the way at times, but apart from that, he’s pretty bendy. The figure is partially made from die-cast metal, so it feels nicely solid and has a stable stance as well. Some of the joints seem like they might become loose sooner rather than later, but that’s more a feeling than a definite complaint. Overall, a very nice robot mode with no real negative points.

Alternate Mode: The original Optimal Optimus was a quad-changer, able to transform from robot to ape, jet, and ground transport. The Titanium version, being smaller, got rid of one of those alternate modes. Strangely enough they left out the beast mode. Not that it was a great mode or anything, but considering that this is a Beast Wars figure here, it kind of seems silly to get rid of the beast mode of all things. Anyway, we’re left with the jet and ground transport mode.

Now calling the jet and the ground transport two different modes is pushing it a little, I admit. Basically both modes have the robot lying down on his stomach, flipping out wheels from the legs and folding out a cockpit. The only difference is in the positioning of the robot arms. For the ground transport the arms form a V around the cockpit and interlock with the front wheel that folds out from underneath the cockpit. Said wheel stays in for the jet mode and the arms are positioned at the sides with the wings flipping out. Thus the two modes don’t really look that different from another nor, for that matter, can either disguise that it’s really a robot lying on his stomach here. It’s the same with the original Beast Wars figure, of course, so it’s a faithful translation.

Remarks: The Titanium series took characters from just about every version of Transformers and naturally that includes Beast Wars and Optimus Primal is, of course, an easy choice as that series’ representative. The question is, though: why this version of Optimus Primal? Not only is it probably the least-known version, they also left out the beast mode, so the only beast-y thing remaining on this figure is the robot’s feet. That said, the figure is pretty neat, has no real weaknesses (apart from the somewhat less than stellar alternate modes, but those are dictated by the original figure), and I do like the Optimal Optimus version, too. Still, it’s far from spectacular and certainly not very iconic. So I don’t know how many people will be interested in it.

Rating: B-