Today, we'll be looking at two action figures from the Meats v. Robo franchise: the Meats Protagonist and the Robo Protagonist.
As you can see, the packaging is meant to resemble the Deployment Cylinders utilized throughout the second half of Meats v. Robo known as Meats v. Robo: Final Dialectic.
If you're familiar, then you know that Meats Must Contain Robo, and Robo Must Contain Meats.
For the uninitiated, a Meats Deployment Cylinder contains a Robo Protagonist, and a Robo Deployment Cylinder contains a Meats Protagonist. The Meats Deployment Cylinder is a huge coffin looking thing that looks like it's made out of juicy, tumorous meats. The Robo Deployment Cylinder looks like an ultratech sarcophagus for a space mummy.
This is all due to the big twist that came at the end of the first half of Meats v. Robo titled Meats v. Robo: The Quixote Protocol. Essentially, the Meats and the Robo aspects of the fictional world were unveiled as intertwined yet antagonistic metaphysical principles the clash of which generated via Glory Signal a Cosmo-Terrific Pan-Arousal State which caused all humans and sapient machine intellects to burst out of mundane masks, uniforms, costumes, wrappers, social roles, jobs, antisocial roles, bathrobes, religious ceremonial garb, radioactive safety gear, combat mechsuits, flightsuits, Founding Father cosplay, catsuits, and pajamas to assert new warlike existences in line with the rivaling ideologies of Meats and Robo. These ideologies are championed by Protagonists, who are "born" via Deployment into battle. This might seem like a strange way to be "born," but what you must understand is that this system was worked out between the leadership castes of Meats and Robo long ago. The Meats v. Robo conflict was so bitter and so protracted that a diplomat-identity and side long forgotten-suggested that each party should have as its leader a Protagonist from the enemy camp. Moreover, this Protagonist should be "born" at the moment of Deployment in the hope that they might view the conflict with fresh eyes. This freshness of perspective might result in total victory or total defeat . . . but if the rival Protagonists were ever to meet maybe they would find a peaceful end to the war. Perhaps they would see their own side-Meats or Robo-in the face of their nemesis and somehow be inspired to seek alternatives to absolute victory and/or defeat. This is all further complicated by the fact that spinoff content-such as the interactive fiction novel Meats U In Robo Louis-suggests that the entire conflict spun off from a malfunction within the mind of a Downtown Arts District Revitalization busker who spent his nights programming an elaborate tabletop war game consisting of clashing armies of Steelbots and Meatbots. Basically, this busker thought it would be intriguing to program in a secret "war bride" mechanic which would kick in if the conflict dragged on for too long, but this was met with overwhelming disapproval by the publisher. Essentially, the war bride mechanic involved enemies spontaneously pairing off to leave the field-presumably-in the name of love. The publisher thought this was too strange, and ordered it to be excised from the final product. The busker pretended to comply even while ensuring that the game would ship with the war bride mechanic intact. The implication, ultimately, of Meats U In Robo Louis is that the world of Meats v. Robo exists within the artificially intelligent descendents of the sophisticated programmable playing pieces of the busker's game. Many in the audience were outraged by this revealed lore. This outrage is considered a contributing factor to the onset of both the Seven Hundredth Fandom War of '84 and the Second Suburbia War of '85, but this interpretation is contentious at best.
But that's enough backstory.
Now let's examine the figures themselves.
To start, let's go over the Meats Protagonist born of the Robo Deployment Cylinder.
Face is eyeless, noseless, just lava cooling into pizzarific malignant neoplastic tissues, with a howling mouth below that, a dull red tongue visibly edged by a suggestion of teeth-that mouth's a missile launcher, by the way, easily lay waste to whole city blocks, though it's usually reserved as a finisher for major villains-obviously, you need a big breakfast to fully charge that one.
Much like in the actual show the lava-into-cancer piece leaks down to meatshroud the whole body when it's time for action-nicely evoked by the wavy-melty mold of the plastic. For downtimes you have a floppy hat supplemented with a trench coat that provides civilian cover-all cloth, premium materials for the adult collector's price point.
Right hand shoots, it's got this gun gimmick built into it because on the show it sparks off, and cannon fodder bad guys blast off sparky squibs, writhe, flip all about, explode if the weak points are hit, lots of burning chunks of gristle showering the plate glass sheet in front of the lens. Remember, the Meats Protagonist fights on behalf of Robo which means that the Meats Protag is obliged to kill scores of Meats fodder led by the Robo Protagonist.
Left hand has the option of either fireballs or a fire stream. The fireballs have an explosive effect, usually deployed to blast enemy vehicles and infrastructure, recurring theme of exploding mad science facilities ties into this, re-used footage of shattering vatscat tanks from the previous season-budget cuts went into effect on season two-when the villains were all biosludge abominations-sometimes it gets repeated over and over again in a single episode, but the mad science facility playset's sold separately. The stream option is sticky jelly fire, good for close work, crowd management, lighting an entire gang of last season's vatscat on fire, impressively burning stunt performers leaping and kicking and punching and blasting all over the frame, they never go down easy, do they, even if it's less effective against the Robo Protagonist, who definitely looks cool marching and strutting about with mechanistic arrogance while still aflame.
Accessories are an omelet-it's definitely an omelet themed show-the aforementioned fabric floppy hat and a nice fabric coat, tho' it doesn't look nearly as cool as what gets worn in the show; there's the crowbar which alludes to themes of crime and survivalism, since our creature only has so many calories to burn, you really do need the labor-saving device; and, of course, there's a tiny Door-Into-Monday, which, in the show, began to pay off about halfway through, but it's clearly the Door from the first half of the show, which makes sense, so as to avoid spoilers, even if Second Door is Best Door but I'll live I guess.
Articulation is great, you can punch and kick every which way just so long as you have it out of the coat which can impede movement for sure. Head doesn't really turn since it's this huge cancer meats cascade thing. But that's fine. Just think of it like Batman'89. We don't begrudge Batman'89 for lack of proper head turning action. May as well extend comparable charity to the Meats Protagonist.
Overall, the Meats Protagonist action figure is quality stuff. Lots of detail. Sturdy materials. You'll get a lot of playtime out of it. Well balanced for free standing poses. I'd take points off for the Door-Into-Monday accessory being less-than-optimal, but so it goes. It's certainly not a deal breaker. The omelet is a nice touch, since on the show the Meats Protagonist replenishes its reserves of napalm, missiles, and bullets by eating the popular breakfast item. It's a solid fig.
Now, let us turn our attention to the Robo Protagonist born of the Meats Deployment Cylinder.
Okay, so, uh, let me just get something out of the way right at the start. I do not take any sort of a side in terms of Meats or Robo. Frankly, I think they both have their pluses and their minuses. And I'm not just trying to sit a fence here, okay, I got my scars from the Fandom Wars of '97 and '99. I've been through it. I'm not crazy to go through it again-but I say all that to make a distinction between the ideologies versus the action figures. Okay? This is a product review channel, and not a political commentary channel, okay? I don't do politics here.
So with that out of the way . . . well, just look at it. The Robo Protagonist. It's shiny, I'll give it that. No accessories. Which is fine. Which is thematic. The Robos tend to be self-sufficient. All their powers and special attacks and whatnot basically have to do with energy manipulation. You can see that it's got those three ruby red eyes. On the show it can zap people with a Trinity Eye Beam gimmick. Here, well, obviously it can't shoot actual beams, but if you shine a light down into the crown of its head-see how those eyes light up? So that's a feature, I guess. The articulation is decent, but check out that shoulder gear. See how it impedes arm movement? See how it degrades the range of motion? That's accurate to the look of the show, but for a figure . . . I dunno . . . I might just have to work it out with my hobby knife. I did the same thing with the ridiculous shoulder gear on that one Wolverine figure two months ago.
And, I mean . . . this design? It is strictly Starbucks Basic generic-ass robot bullshit. On the show, it sort of works, 'cause the Robos have this slick'n'shiny always-be-zapping energy thing going on-but I'm already putting visible fingerprints all over this figure-
It's not good. I gotta constantly have my polishing rag to hand. Makes me uptight to even play with it.
And even though the lack of accessories is accurate to the lore . . . you just feel cheated. It's almost like the toy manufacturer is taking the side of Meats against Robo, y'know?
Yep.
So, the Robo Protagonist is a letdown. Doesn't even come with the other Door-Into-Monday. Which it could've easily included. But no dice.
Honestly, this stresses me out. Because this obvious disparity in quality between the Meats Protagonist action figure and the Robo Protagonist action figure is more than likely gonna spark off another Fandom War.
Yep.
I guess that won't be boring, right?
Hoo boy . . .
