So, I had a dream the other night that there were a bunch of new Transformers toys that had come out, but somehow I had missed them. In the dream, I began to panic because they had been released a while back and I was suddenly worried I'd never be able to find them.

After I woke up, I began to wonder if my subconscious was trying to tell me something, so I scrolled through my pre-orders and discovered that I did not have "Toy Colors" Galvatron on pre-order. Further inspection revealed that I had in fact pre-ordered him on July 6th, only to turn around on July 19th and cancel the order. I don't know why I did this. I have no memory of it. Perhaps I had been planning to order him on BBTS instead. Or, perhaps I, like Galvatron, was having a crazy moment, and there is no discerning any method to my madness.

Suffice to say, I ended up ordering the toy again, for what would be the second time, early last week and just got it today.

The idea for the toy, of course, is that he's decked out in the colors of the original Hasbro toy from 1986, instead of the very different-looking animation colors. For whatever reason, Galvatron was originally envisioned as being a grey-colored character (more like Megatron), and that's the color scheme in which Hasbro produced the toy. Later, after the Transformers: the Movie toys were already designed, the character designs were modified and Galvatron became purple. They only remembered to change his robot-mode design, though, so he still switches to grey any time he transforms to cannon mode in animation. Oops!

However, the colors used by Marvel Comics were based more closely on the Hasbro toy. The grey color of the toy was rendered in light blue due to printing limitations, but this is still a bit more of a Marvelesque version of Galvatron than the Kingdom or Legacy versions. I would probably buy this toy yet again if they went all in with an official Marvel Comics Galvatron in blue plastic. However, as previously established, I am crazy.

He comes in a huge box. He's off-center, as if they had been planning to include many more accessories in the box, but at the last minute just... didn't. He comes with his arm cannon, a Matrix-on-a-chain, and the two guns shaped like the Decepticon mothership, only in black plastic this time. I'm sure they made that decision to pay tribute to the black rifle that came with G1 Galvatron that actually was black, but the mothership guns look nothing like the G1 Galvatron rifle.

As with all current toys, he's stuffed into a cardboard tray, with the accessories wedged into cut-out cardboard flaps. At least they're easier to get out of the box than they used to be. Thye did still use two clear rubber bands to secure him together.

The actual toy is predominantly grey plastic, with dark purple used for the upper legs and the arms and the cannon mount (and the crest of the helmet, too, due to the way some parts were molded together). The feet are painted entirely black, and they even tried to find a spot to paint black that approximated the crotch trigger on the G1 toy (it activated the electronic features). The shoulder pauldrons are painted entirely red. The color mapping is very reminiscent of the G1 toy. It's not perfect (the belt should be red instead of grey; the forearms should be grey instead of purple; the eyes could have been made orange instead of red; the kneecaps and collar should be chrome) but it's pretty close.

Would I have loved to see some additional remolding done to this toy? Sure.. A sandcastle crown would have been amazing. A big, bulky clip-on arm cannon would have been very toyetic. But, ultimately this was just one way of reselling us the same toy to recoup costs, and extensive remolding would have defeated the point.

The orange barrel is still translucent plastic, but it's also got glittery metallic specks embedded within the plastic, which was also a design element of the original G1 toy. It's a nice touch. It does kind of make me wish that some version of Galvatron had been given an opaque orange barrel (maybe the Legends redeco), since the only reason the G1 toy had a see-through barrel in the first place was in service of the electronic light-up gimmick..

The green-colored Matrix seems to be a tribute to the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Transformers: the Movie, in which it appears in this color. It could also be a reference to the early version of the Matrix that appears in test animation, before its design was finalized and it resembles a big, glowing green football. I see this green Matrix accessory and I suddenly find myself longing for a Voyager-class neo-G1 Thunderwing to hold it!

Transforming the toy reveals a surprise—he's got a rub symbol! It's on his side in cannon mode, same as the G1 toy, and it's the same style and design as the one they've been putting on the Walmart G1 reissues, so it changes to a purple color. How nifty!

He also comes with a sheet of metallic foil stickers so you can make him REALLY toyetic if you want to. They really go a long way towards selling this as an authentic tribute to the G1 toy. There are even silver stickers that go on top of the purple helmet crest that help mitigate the color discrepancy to an extent. There are also stickers for the belt and belt buckle that seem to be a last-minute addition, as they don't have assigned numbers, or corresponding instructions on where to apply them. But, based on their color and shape, they're clearly meant for the belt area. There's also a fun Unicron head graphic that isn't meant to be applied anywhere to the Galvatron toy, but could probably decorate your phone case or your laptop or something.

One could argue that part of the transformation genius behind this toy's design is largely lost with this color scheme, since the color-changing trick from Kingdom where the robot's purple upper chest is replaced with an all-grey cannon body. Going to all that trouble to replace a grey part with another grey part is arguably a lot less impressive.

Well, I couldn't not buy this toy. I'm a bigger fan of Galvatron than I am of most characters (he's easily in the top three), and the difference in appearance using the G1 toy colors was a huge draw for me. Even though the old Hasbro toy was not colored like his media appearance, I'm immensely nostalgic about the G1 toy (so many fun memories). Like I said, I honestly wouldn't hate a blue Marvel Comics version of this toy, too. But that's probably not realistically going to happen.

Zob (haven't put the stickers on yet, but I think I'm definitely going to have to)