One's a "city", the other is a military base of operation.

Toy wise, originals are quite different even in size, the Generations and Titans Return are very different, but (thanks to those that posted pictures) I can't even imagine confusing them.

In fiction, I remember FM being used as a regular character for a while in the Marvel series, but Metro was barely touched.

I never had any confusion over them, not even sure how one can as they really are very different, even in black and while, heck their silhouette are absolutely different so you should even identify them by their shadow.

Maybe you never looked at them side by side?

 

Uh ... what?
No.
Not the toys, not the scale charts. Fort Max is bigger, always.

 

Wrong
It’s continuity specific
Marvel G1 had Fort Max as just a regular big guy, not much bigger then powermaster Prime

scorpy too

 

Strange.
I don't remember that, but it's been a while (decades) since I read the series.

 

It was the same for the “main” Dreameave storyline

 

Never, Metroplex has cylinders on his head while Fortress Maximus has horns, they also have different details on them.

 

There have been occasions where I’ve mixed up their names but their appearances have always been quite distinctive.

 

My God, no.

 

And that was after getting a size upgrade during the voyage from Nebulos to Earth. During the Headmasters limited series Fort Max was around the same size as others who became head and target masters.

 

He was still a little bit bigger but not by much

 

Nope. Never. That would be as dumb as mixing up Scorponok and Trypticon’s names.

 

That’s a bit rude! I did mix them up. Plenty of others on this thread do.

 

Doesn’t make what I said incorrect.

 

Doesn’t make you correct either

Not everyone recalls all names with only a visual and there are others that just generally mix names

 

Fortress Maximus isn't supposed to be a city, he's a fortress, it's literally in his name. His head also changes into a regular sized transformer. It makes way more sense for him to be much smaller than Metroplex, as was the case in the American G1 continuity.

The reason his toy was so much bigger than Metroplex's is because of the double headmaster gimmick he was built around. Same reason why Fanstoys is now making such a big Fort Max, they want his head to be the size of a regular TF, who in turn has a head the size of a regular headmaster head.

 

For the record

1987 Toy Catalog





“Fortress That Transforms Into A City”

Instruction manual

You should specify

Fortress was smaller then Metro in the Marvel American Comics G1 Continuity

Fortress was of Comparable size (city bot) in the American G1 Cartoon Continuity

Fun fact, the name “Fortress Maximus” was an original working name for Autobot city in early drafts of the 86 film

 

No. Never confused.

In reference to the Star trek comic, I suppose I might have made an initial double-take, though.

As far as size, I've always thought of Fort Max being larger due to the fact that I grew up with the toys. But I'm okay with the idea of them being about the same size in regards to the Titan figures. The Marvel comics screwed everything up because of a stupid mistake on making Fortress Maximus the size of Cerebros and we've had to live with it like the Frenzy/Rumble color controversy.

 

Well, it’s not like Marvel ever intended on making the character the size of a city bot

so the Cerebros size mistake is Negligible

 

Yes and no. It is shown in Dreamwave comic visions of the future that the Headmaster bosses are giant-sized. Likely they would've been upgraded into their titan-class versions had Dreamwave not tanked.

 

I said.....It was the same for the “main” Dreameave storyline

Visions of the future are almost always not part of the main timeline......They are just possible futures and sometimes a alternate timeline/universe