 Devastator
Five purchases, one big robot
Transformers Studio Series Deluxe, Voyager, and Commander Class Toys
Item No.: No. n/a
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Includes: One giant blaster, hands, six separate green vehicles, wings, a chest plate, and other elements across 6 products
Action Feature: Transforms from Robot to Tank
Retail: $209.95
Availability: Across 2025
Other: The best Devastator we're likely to get in the US market
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Not going to lie, I was not exactly thrilled to see Hasbro making Studio Series 86 Devastator. There's nothing wrong with this toy - nor was there anything wrong with the bigger, very cool Combiner Wars Devastator that we got about 10 years ago. For such a cool toy I haven't much with it since putting it together. It was fun to combine and play with, I liked the original 'bots, and probably haven't touched it since 2017. That one was sold as a boxed set, and this new one was sold as a $90 two-pack (with kibble) as well as two $25 toys for the arms and two more $35 toys for the legs. The Combiner Wars version was its own beast which borrowed elements from many previous versions of the toys and character to give you an 18-inch tall imposing warrior. The 2025 version is only about 13-inches high and costs more (adjusted for inflation.) But the articulation is better, and there's probably some scale apologizing about to happen.
I don't normally review a toy mode - but it's Christmas, so nobody is reading, and I felt like writing it so here you go. Hasbro and Takara-Tomy opted to go for a Transformers: The Movie-specific take here, which allowed them to use some simpler coloration, a smaller size, and even had some removable parts to get closer to the animation model. In the movie, Devastator throws around the Dinobots like a medium-sized dog and this toy seems to match that scene fairly well. In other shots, a Voyager-class toy would only come up to Devastator's shins. Hasbro can't make a toy that elastic, so you might want both versions if you're making dioramas. Scale is a fungible thing.
The various height charts put Devastator as slightly smaller than Omega Supreme. Hasbro's Siege version of the Autobot base is about two feet tall, nearly twice the height of the combined green menace. I don't assume a downsized Omega is in the cards, but perhaps at some point Hasbro will expand Studio Series to Sunbow in general and we'll get smaller giants. I personally don't think the collector world has the constitution for many more Titan-scale monsters.
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As a kid I had the original Devastator team, and I liked them more than the sum of their parts. The 1980s team didn't hold up to play as a group - the arms would fall off and the various pegged parts would come out, but it had awesome toy features like spring-loaded fists and was one of the first toys to let you know about his head canon. The 2025 merged model is mostly very good as individuals but clearly, they thought about the big guy first. The head matches the movie's "visor" face as opposed to the cartoon's sometimes-eyes, sometimes-visor, and the toy has more sculpted detail than the film counterpart. In many shots, Devastator is just a clump of boxes in the right shades of green and purple - the toy can't do that and also transform. As such you've got fully details construction vehicles here, which is actually a step above the vestigial cab on Combiner Wars' Mixmaster's foot. This new team doesn't play up the sticker detail much, but the basic color shapes from the animation model can be found in a few spots. You have to make some allowances here if you want six transforming robots too - otherwise, Hasbro should just make a big action figure.
Other than the removable vehicle arms, he's a pretty streamlined fellow with a big dumptruck on his back. The folded-up alt mode hangs off and admittedly looks a little silly - but it's on the back. It has to go somewhere.
Articulation is surprisingly robust with lots of moving bits to fiddle with before you just say "upright is fine." Ankle tilts, opening fingers, lateral shoulder movement, ratcheting hips, and other moving points do a pretty good job keeping this guy from collapsing or falling apart like the original. I found the shoulders a little weak - add much additional weight and they'll sag - but they work as-is.
The actual figure is pretty good, but it lopped off a chunk of one of my fingernails when trying to fidget it together. It also has a few holes in the chest behind the wing (like previous versions) and has some kibble, like Mixmaster's arms just sort of hanging off the back. Perhaps the next version would allow for those to be removed - like Hook's crane arm, or Bonecrusher's bucket arm. The animation model lacks either of those features, but they're necessary parts of the toys if you want a vehicle mode. Hasbro making them removable was a pretty swell move, giving fans an option to make it more like the cartoon.
If you don't yet own a Devastator, this is the one to get. If you're happy with one of the Devastators or Devastator-colored other toys, just keep being happy. The upgrade cycle may never end, and even though this one is better I don't doubt someone in Hasbro has concepts for a toy-specific model or a model with the visible eyes and even cartoonier coloring. This toy seems to do a really good job trying to keep the cartoon silhouette (via removable parts) with some toy elements, but you also get the purple crotch from the movie - and a Mixmaster foot that doesn't look like the movie. I find this figure to be the very definition of good enough - but would I buy a Missing Link Devastator? Probably. But another fully-transforming "Classics" take on the team doesn't feel like something I need to own, at least not without a nice discount.
--Adam Pawlus
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