Phil's Beast Wars & Universe Depth Charge Review


Depth Charge

Depth Charge is the Maximal Ultra for 1998 - the Transmetal Year (1999 in the UK) He's a Manta Ray - a mixture of blue wings, grey tail and chromed silver body. He's got two grey rubber barbs projecting out the front. Sadly over time these have become rather distorted on my toy. The tail bends to the sides in two places and each wing bends up & down in two places. All of his modes can use his built in weapon - a disc launcher that fires out of the fishes mouth when you push down on the fin on his back. To reload you open the chromed panel on the top of fish and drop the discs in. I count seven of them in the toy at the moment but there's room for one more so I may well have lost one at some point ! Attached to his underside is a dark blue shark that we'll talk about in robot mode.

He has a vehicle mode: Fold the entire wing down halfway along it's length, straighten out the struts it's attached to and turn the wing so the curved edge is facing down. It's labelled Transportation Mode, but it's effectively a Depth Charge Tie Fighter !

TF (from beast to robot) Start by TF'ing to vehicle mode, then remove the very end of the tail - it pulls out - and the shark underneath. Unhitch the sides of the beast head with the eyes on from the main body. Find the back of each side and fold the top of both sides forward to form legs. Pull the disc cover up & forward via some hinged struts on the side of the toy so that the cover 's hinge is in front of the beast mouth. Fold the panel behind the disc storage forward to reveal the robot head. Pick the entire toy up and allow the legs and flap to dangle underneath it. The struts attached to them are in turn attached to a piece under the beast that needs to be rotated through 180 degrees. Bring the robot hips together and then fold the struts up behind the robot's waist and lock the waist into the underside of the beast. Fold down the feet and heel spurs. Fold the disc cover down behind the legs as a sort of shirt (think original BSG Cylon Centurion or SW:ESB Snowtrooper) There's a pair of engines pointing out the back of the beast now that end in silver chromed cones. Bend these down slightly then fold forward to form the robot arms. The forearms then come apart down each side which causes the underside to drop back at the elbow and allowing the cone to be folded back in turn revealing a chromed hand. Fold the remainder of the tail down as extra support for the body which is a tad back heavy ! Pose the wings according to personal preference. Place tail end in one hand as a sword and the shark in the other as double barrelled missile launcher.

Robot is big and imposing - great colour mix with the grey, chromed silver, some blue and a surprisingly large amount of purple which is rare for a Maximal/Autobot. The last time these colours cropped up on an Autobot (Gobot Ironhide) it looked awful, here it looks great suiting his role as an undersea warrior. His ankle articulation comes from the folding down of the feet during TF, the knees bend above and bellow the kneecap - which is complete with the barbs sticking out the front of them. The hips are ball jointed, he turns above the waist and at the neck. The shoulders move forwards & back, and swing to the sides. He's got a bicep swivel joint and a bending elbow on the arm. The wings have a multijointed connection to the back of the body - the strut rotates where it meets the body, bends, rotates again, bends again and rotates for a third time allowing a surprising degree of movement and flexibility to the wings - either out to the sides tie fighter style or folded in like a glider spring to mind immediately.

I've not had Depth Charge out of his box in at least five years but I may have been mistaken - it's a great toy, very good looking, very poseable, with weapons and a decent built in action feature. Well worth a look.

When Depth Charge was released in Japan he was BW Metals toy D-46 and also appeared in VS-46 with Transmetal Scavenger


Universe Depth Charge

Depth Charge's shot at repaint glory came early on in Universe According to information I have he's the fourth Ultra released in Universe and one of the first success stories to my eyes. The yellow of the missiles and discs becomes blue. The blue of the wings and shark become grey. The blue of the shoulders, forearms and waist becomes white. Purple becomes red, chromed silver becomes black and grey becomes a dark sea green. It's not quite as good as Depth Charge but works, especially in Beast Mode.


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