Phil's
Beast Wars Manterror &
Beast Wars II Mantis
Review
Manterror is a green preying mantis with clear blue back limbs and wings. All of these are attached to the body by ball joints. The back limbs are odd - they're attached to a panel, which is hinged to another panel which in turn is hinged to the body. No matter what position you put the panels in it doesn't look quite right. TFU's answer is that the lower panel goes down & the upper one goes out, but you can also have both panels going straight down or upper panel down and the lower one pointing out with the legs coming up. Some sort of better lock to the body would have helped. His head moves up & down as do the antennae on his head and his jaw opens. Onto the arms - lots of joints here The shoulders can move up or down at the body - part of the TF - the shoulder pad is connected to this by a ball joint, then the upper arm is connected to the shoulder pad by a ball joint. Another ball joint at the elbow and then a bending joint at the wrist before the claw. The claws themselves - cast in clear green - have a removable blue wheel under them - press on the top to eject. Why ? The ejection isn't exactly a launching weapon, he doesn't have a disc shooter and can't hold the wheels in his hands - mainly cos the robot doesn't have any. Odd, odd, odd !
TF: Position the rear legs and the leg panels out to the sides. From under the mantis fold the robot legs out, fold out the feet & heel spurs and fold the waist back into the body of the mantis. Fold the mantis head down to form the robot chest and exposing the robot head, Fold the upper leg panel in so the legs are facing forward. Fold the shoulder joints up so they're where they look like they should be for robot mode over the beast leg panels. Fold the beast legs so they all point down, and fold in the legs panels so they meet in the middle and form the robot's chest.
Beast mode is very tall and thin - with arms longer than he is tall. Head is clear green with his rubsign on the top and a mask painted in green. Arms are as per the mantis arms, head is ball jointed as are the robot hips and knees. He has no real hands as such - just the mantis claws which adds to his alien appearance. Wings are now mounted on his back and can be deployed in robot mode.
Interesting beast mode, slightly flawed robot mode - arms too long, no hands. Not a favourite BW toy of mine but far better than many toys in later lines !
Mantis is Manterror released in Japan with some minor colour reworking: The clear blue is darker, the robot head mask is painted dark blue and (I assume) the rubsign is changed. Not really worth bothering with if you already have Manterror. He comes by himself as C-20 or with Autolauncher - the fire engine Autochanger that was unreleased in G2 - as part of VS-20
Email Philip
Phil's TF Review Page