Back in June, it was announced that the Japanese Encore line was going to continue with the release of Devastator. I was quite surprised as it had been said in the past that the original toy molds for this figure had been either lost or damaged beyond repair. I also figured that if he was going to get a rerelease that it would have happened when the 2nd Transformers Movie, Revenge of the Fallen, was released as a new version of this character played a fairly prominent role.
It was also surprising as the last Encore figure, #19, had been released almost a year and a half ago. I was beginning to think the entire reissue line had been cancelled, but this is certainly a great way to kickstart it off again.
Here’s a little bit of history on the figure. Before he became a Transformer, he was part of the Japanese Diaclone line of toys. The vehicles in the set had a color scheme that included orange, red, and blue. Hasbro imported him to the U.S. in 1985 for the Transformers line and went with a mostly all green color scheme. He was the first of many “gestalt” combiners and is the most recognizable of them to anyone who grew up in the 80’s. He consists of 6 construction vehicles that also transform to individual robots. The unique aspect, is that all 6 of these vehicles together combine into a huge robot, Devastator. Each constructicon vehicle was available individually on card or if you were really lucky, you got the gift set box which had all 6. I never had any of these, but they were certainly on my want list. I can’t blame my parents though as I certainly had plenty of Transformers. (Thanks Dad!) I remember a friend having one or two of the 6 figures, but I never got to see the full Devastator.
In the early 90’s Transformers: Generation 2 started. In the beginning they reissued a lot of the original toys, but used colors very different from the originals. The Contructicons were released on cards in yellow and orange colors rather than the green from before, but were never released packaged together as a gift set. This was the last official versions until now.
During the 2000’s a version of Devastator showed up at cheap toy outlets. These versions were Knock Offs and not official in anyway. They were made of cheap plastic and broke easily. They were still interesting to see and I even picked one of these up at a local toy store in St. George. A few years ago now, another knock off was released, but this time much higher quality parts were used and it even came in a replica gift set box. I was certainly tempted to get one of these, but still held out hope that an official version might see the light of day again.
Fast forward to November 2011 and the official reissue version is released in Japan. I was ready to buy it for myself as a birthday present, but Sarah told me not to. 😉 She got me one for Christmas, so now here we are, 26 years later, with my very own Devastator.
