Some say happiness is having a brother, and Fans Hobby is happy to oblige with MB-24 Lernaean, their take on Buster’s brother; Hydra from Transformers Super-God Masterforce. Clever naming on this one, leaning into Greek mythology of the Lernaean Hydra, for a double whammy homage. This Human turned Decepticon has arrived with his Transtector to round out the team with Double Evil (Overlord) and his brother Destroyer (Buster) to help overwhelm the Autobots and their human allies. Let’s see how he turned out!

This review is based on a sample provided by Fans Hobby.

Vehicle Mode

Hydra’s alt mode is supposed to be a Panavia Tornado GR1 fighter jet. I don’t truly know enough about the real vehicle to tell you if this alt mode is accurate, but it is an incredible re-creation of the original G1 toy design. The proportions are excellent, integrated landing gear and weapon storage work wonderfully, and it is infinitely swooshable. It just feels great to pick up and handle with a satisfying weight and balance. The wings can be swept back or deployed to your tastes.

There is a hidden compartment just behind the cockpit that opens up to store the included Power Pilot in engine mode. The double door design hides it well if you don’t want to integrate the pilot into the alt mode, and has some nice sculpted detail on the inside of the panel to add visual interest when the pilot is engaged.

Combined Vehicle Mode

Lernaean and Destroyer can combine to form a super jet mode, to homage the “Dark Wings” form that Buster and Hydra can assume in the anime. The combination requires you to flip the front nose of Lernaean back onto the top of the jet, and unfold the back half of Destroyer, to expose the combination features. The combination can be a bit tricky to achieve, but thankfully Fans Hobby provides a link in the manual to a secondary set of instructions that you can check out here.

The combined form is huge, around 18” from nose to tail. It holds together well, once you finally get everything locked in together properly. The stand adapters that are included with the individual releases can be used on the combined mode as well, however the combined jet is incredibly heavy and requires 2 FEXT utility stands in order to achieve a flight mode display.

Robot Mode

Lernaean’s transformation is a bit more on the complex side, for those used to the more straightforward conversions that Fans Hobby faithfuls are used to. In fact, for the first time, Fans Hobby has provided a video tutorial for the transformation in addition to the included paper manual. There are a lot of small hidden sliders and hinged panels to fill in gaps that might not be immediately apparent if you try to figure out the transformation on your own.

Lernaean is a fantastic visual representation of Hydra, with his trademark brilliant blue and reds providing contrast in colours, and a gorgeous helmeted head sculpt. The aesthetic choices Fans Hobby made for this guy's paint and sculpted details are brilliant, but the articulation is again a bit lacking, in similar ways to Destroyer. Single jointed elbows and knees, lack of proper ankle rockers/tilt, and an intrusive backpack make handling him in bot-mode less satisfactory than I expected. My main issue is how tight the wing/backpack clearance is, leaving very little room to move the arms backward for dynamic posing. There’s a ton of sculpted and painted details that makes Lernaean a visual treat but posing him is not nearly as fun as so many previous Fans Hobby releases.

Articulation (Top to Bottom)

- Ball jointed neck
- Forward butterfly shoulders (these will however cause the chest to collapse)
- 360º shoulder rotation (until you hit the backpack)
- Ratchet jointed shoulder hinges that go one click past 90º (hinged shoulder armour)
- Bicep swivel
- Wrist swivel
- Articulated hands
- Waist swivel (limited by backpack)
- Universal ratchet joint hips (limited by backpack)
- Thigh swivel
- Ratchet knee joint to 90º (the joint is very stiff, be careful not to separate the lower leg)
- Toe tilt/swivel

Accessories

1x Power Pilot (Hydra) and 1x Replacement Torso for Destroyer (Buster)

Fans Hobby’s tried and trusted pilot design that they have been using since Power Baser. Swivel neck joint, ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, multi hinge/ball joint thighs and a knee hinge. Surprisingly articulate for how small they are.

There is an included thinner torso for Destroyer’s pilot, to allow it to fit better in the combined jet mode. Just pop the ball jointed arms and legs off the original pilot and snap them into this new torso.

2x Blaster Rifles

Similar in design to Destroyers twin rifles. There is some dark gunmetal paint on some of the details. Slot and tab design to fit securely into the hands, or tab in under the wings.

2x Flight Mode Adapters

1x Instructions and Trading Card

Final Thoughts

Lernaean is an adequate release, and I am happy to have the pair (Destroyer and Lernaean) as part of my Masterforce display. The articulation could be better, but the overall aesthetics and presence of Lernaean on the shelf make up for it a bit. If you are a big Transformers Masterforce fan, and want to fill out your Decepticon Godmaster/Powermaster ranks, you could certainly do worse than to add MB-24 Lernaean to your collection.

If you just want a fun bot to mess with, and you don’t have a huge connection to the character, then I might caution you to think whether the limitations presented in this review would affect your enjoyment of this release. It’s not in the top tier of Fans Hobby releases, but still fun to mess with and built well with good quality materials. You can get your own directly from Fans Hobby here, or from your favourite vendor of third party robot goodness.