There are few areas of Transformers I find as exciting as movie characters-- and by that, I mean the movie from the 1980s. In the first act, most of the cast of the entire franchise gets killed or thrown out into space to be rebuilt as some other character. Scourge was "rebuilt" from the remains of old toys, and his identical henchmen known as the Sweeps were as well. This gives the toy an added boost in collector sales as it's a safe bet some fans may want a small army of the bearded cannon fodder as seen in the film and the subsequent season of the TV series.
The original toy was basically a blocky space boat, but the animation model was a weird mix of parts that didn't fit the aesthetic of the toy line up until that point. Giant wings? Big red painted fingernails/claws? A beard? A handle on his head? It was a really strange design, and almost all of the funky.shtmlects of the original character return in the new toy save for the space boat mode-- now, it's based on a Flying Wing. The robot mode doesn't suffer in the slightest, as there's a big purple Decepticon shield on his chest, a whole lot of blue, and freaky clawed hands complete with Scourge's favorite shade of Revlon or whatever it is they use on Cybertron. He has little problem standing upright, and can easily grip his weapon.
Inspired by an accessory from the 1980s, his gun is actually two guns that can combine. Hasbro deliberately sculpted it to look like the gun mode of Fracas, a 1980s Targetmaster weapon. Individually the weapons work quite well, and store into the open wings on the figure's back. (See below.) It's a nice touch because in the modern era, free-floating accessories really don't cut it. These things need to go somewhere so you're less likely to lose them.
As a vehicle, there's not a lot going on-- he has retractable landing gear, and, on the whole, no real action features. The vehicle looks pretty cool, but just to keep things interesting the designers decided to sneak in some extra head articulation so the robot mode head could peek up from the vehicle as seen in the photo on the left. It's pretty ridiculous, but it's something the character did on the Transformers series during season 3 of the original show. As the Generations line is inspired by the original toys, cartoons, and new elements, this is a heck of a nice touch for long-time fans of the show. If you're the kind of collector to buy an army of these, the option to pop up some of the heads should help add some variety to any dioramas you may decide to build.
With the release of this figure, the main trio of new Decepticons from Transformers: The Movie has been successfully updated. Well, maybe not "successfully." Cyclonus is a damned fine figure, Scourge is pretty wonderful, but Galvatron? Still awful. All together they look adequate as a group, but play with the molds for a few minutes and it's obvious some make better playthings than others. Scourge has all sorts of details and a complex transformation, so he should be a fun addition to the toy box of most adult fans. I rushed out to get him as soon as I heard he was released last January, and I don't regret the time or effort in the slightest-- this is one of my favorite new "classic" Transformers toys. But, as I mentioned, I'm pretty biased toward these characters.
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