Scourge

Oh, I just got the joke: he's the Scourge of the seven seas! Cyberworld is a cartoon "airing" on YouTube, in which the Autobots and Decepticons find themselves transported to a mysterious digital realm, where they all find they have videogame stats that go up or down with victories in battle. They have no idea how they got there, or who's controlling it. Following videogame logic, the Cyberworld is divided into dictinct environments, with the Transformers taking on different aspects depending on which biome they're in: Jungle, Desert, City, Ice, or, as you may be able to guess from this figure, Water. Cyberworld doesn't have any bios, but the characters are all pretty much as you remember them from every other incarnation of the franchise. So Scourge is probably a skilled tracker and may possibly lead a group of underlings. A lot of hypotheticals in that sentence, because Scourge is a Season 2 character, and Season 1 only ended, like, two weeks ago? It's hard to tell, they release it in the most pointlessly convoluted ways imaginable. While he's got Scourge's traditional mustache, he's also got an eyepatch and a pirate hat, giving away his theme early. Scourge has never really had any "iconic" body elements, like Optimus Prime's window-boobs or Starscream's shoulder pylons, so there really isn't anything that says this has to be Scourge below the upper lip. He has some vestigial wings on his upper arms, but in a line where Megatron turns into a bull, those could belong to anybody. He does have a play feature in this mode, where you press a section of the abdomen and the chest pops open, revealing a purple skull and crossbones motif. Cyberworld is the "let's get the kids into Transformers" line, so Scourge doesn't have much articulation: hinged knees, balljointed hips, and balljointed shoulders. That's it. But then, the figure stands nearly 6¾" tall, and only costs around $22 - compare that to dinky little disappointing Deluxes that retail for almost $30, and it suddenly doesn't seem too bad. Scourge's weapons are a cannon and a sword. The cannon can plug into either arm or be held in the hands, and the sword can be wielded on either side. It's molded from translucent purple plastic and then has the center painted in glow-in-the-dark paint. The theme of Cyberworld Season 2 is going to be "Energon Surge," so he also gets four pieces of... crystal? Flame? Something. Energon something. that can plug into his arms and legs to make him look more powerful. The instructions show them plugging onto the sword, as well, but while you can do that, it blocks the hilt and means he can no longer hold it. Converting the figure is simple. Push the legs together, raise the arms to the side, and then fold the waist up, which auto-morphs the arms back and the head down into the body. That's all! You just need to take the cannon off the arm and plug it into the top of the vehicle, where it functions as a sail. Since Scourge is a pirate, his altmode is logically a pirate ship. So cool! Definitely not something we've seen before. The colors are not ones used very heavily in Transformers, either, all purples and teal and minty green. There's a Decepticon logo on the sail, even though factions don't really matter much in the story (and are in fact downplayed on the toys' packaging). The sculpt is more detailed than the paint would lead you to believe, with the planks that make up the body of the ship, openings for cannons to poke out the sides, and even some random chains to make it look more sinister. The translucent purple Energon effects can attach in this mode as well, either coming off the sides like flames, or plugging onto the sail to act as odd handlebars for a smaller figure to hold onto as though they're riding on him. The sword can plug into the deck, sticking out over the prow, and the spring-loaded chest feature still works in this mode. Each episode of Cyberworld is only about five minutes long, but they still manage to have an ongoing story through the whole season. I won't necessarily be hunting these figures very hard, but Captain Scourge proves that it's possible to find a lot of fun in something when you dare to go beyond just homaging ideas from 40 years ago. And that being clever and fun can make up for shortcomings in other areas. -- 08/04/26 What other inventive redesigns do you want to see? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.