Iguanus (Predacon) - 1996

Starting right at the start of the Beast Wars' lifespan, Iguanus was one of the very first of the Basics assortment to be released back in 1996, and so is a fantastic kicking off point for proceedings. It would seem though that straight away there's an issue - poor Iguanus is not an Iguana, rather a frilled lizard! It's not certain why, but people seem to think that the toy should have been on before the decision was somehow made to go with the frilly lad instead. Either way, it's a great name.

The art for Iguanus' robot mode actually isn't one of the freakiest we're going to see as we go along, in fact, it looks as normal as you'll get for Beast Wars (which was always going to be on the quirky side - these are animals that turn into robots and vice versa, after all!) - it's actually not a bad representation of the toy within, with the brown and yellow colour scheme coming out quite nicely, it has to be said. The glowing hand also is suggestive of strange powers the character might have, in fact his toy bio also seems to suggest he has the ability to alter devices to self-destruct if he so wishes, in his role as "Demolition Robot" - perhaps he was intended to be Rattrap's opposite number? As he never appeared in the show, we will never know.

The back of the box is a standard affair - in effect a toy catalogue for the other toys in the line, the instructions (VERY reminiscent of the old Mini-Autobot line) and the toy bio, something that all Hasbro and Kenner toys prided themselves on, and a big reason that Transformers had bested the Gobots all those years ago. The art again is show here, as Kenner would have expected most kids to have clipped and saved the bio, rather than keep the card all mint for future bloggers like me to eulogise. Also note the blurb in the top left corner, attempting to tell the story so far, which would soon get contradicted by the cartoon.

The toy itself is great; the Basic 1996 assortment was pretty revolutionary, with it's proto-automorphing and easy transformation. Perfect pocket money toys to grab the attention and get the kids collecting this new era of Transformers. I can certainly say from my perspective that this was pretty mindblowing stuff, not only were these not the Transformers I'd known as a kid myself, these were really well made and well thought out toys, taking the best from the latter years of the vehicle robots and turning them into something wholly new. But this was just the start, and things were going to get a whole lot cooler, AND a whole lot weirder...

(All pictures courtesy of Seibertron.com unless otherwise stated)