Transformers Power of the Primes Wave 1 Pretenders

If someone ever comes up to you and says that Transformers Generation 1 is something that must be taken 100% seriously at all times, tell them that they're being idiots, because there is a lot, and I mean A LOT that it did that was completely silly, even stupid at times. From transforming tricycles to transforming electric train and race car sets, the Action masters which were basically "what if Transformers didn't transform" (I personally like to think of the super poseable statues as MP Action Masters), Ratbat leading the Decepticons in the comics with his carwash of doom, Warpath in medieval times, and the source of today's subjects, the Pretender Transformers to name a few. The Pretender Transformers were Transformers that fit inside Pretender Shells, almost statue-like figures that were only able to move their shoulders on swivels, though the engineering did improve as more figures were made. There were 39 (according to TF Wiki) of these made for international audiences and while some have transcended from Pretender origins to more traditional transformers like Bludgeon, Thunderwing, Landmine and more, many of them have been lost to history alongside many, many, many more Transformers. I'll admit though that I was kind of surprised to learn that they were coming back in the Power of the Primes toyline as the gimmick looked like one that wouldn't leave the 80's. But, here we are, with at least (though many are thinking the line's going to be canceled early because they didn't show more at NY Toy Fair) 12 of the old pretenders being made anew. I'm going to look over all three of the wave 1 Pretenders now as there isn't much to talk about them. As for where the two Wave 2 figures are, not here in Australia yet.

Skullgrin and Liege Maximo

Wave 1 consisted of three characters. Skullgrin of the Decepticons, Cloudburst, and Metalhawk of the Autobots. And right off the bat, these are basically the exact same Pretender Shells, just smaller. They didn't try and improve the engineering of the original Shells, but I don't find that to be a problem as the shells now are a lot smaller, if they were the same size as the original pretenders or scaled around the current size classes I'd be saying something completely different as I'd at least expect elbows and maybe wrist swivels. but for something about a head taller then a Lego Minifigure, I'm ok with the limited mobility. All of them have a weapon that connects to their backs with little friction nubs that you can take off and plug into their hands... and they are comically oversized for them. The only one who can kind of get away with it is Skullgrin and his claw weapon, but Cloudburst and Metalhawk's gigantic guns are so big that they'd probably blow their whole arms off if they tried firing them. There are reasons why they're so big, but I'll come back to those. There's a lot of really nice sculpting and paint details on these three, with my personal favorite in this department being Metalhawk's nice mix of Red, Blue, and Yellow, with lots of silver and even some metallic blue on the gun. However, these are just the shells, and the shells hide secrets.

Cloudburst and Micronus Prime

One thing Power of the Primes is going for is mashing the two major gimmicks of Combiner Wars and Titans Return. And while the influence of Combiner Wars is pretty obvious at this point, the Titans Return influence might not be until you see these three. The Pretender Shells (now known as Decoy Armour) are the replacement of the Titan Master class toys of Titans Return, a class that came with an extra Titan Master head and a little vehicle the Titan Master interacted with. The Decoy armor replaces the vehicle, and the Prime Master replaces the Titan Master. Liege Maximo, the master manipulator, comes with Skullgrin. Micronus Prime, the first Mini-Con, comes with Cloudburst, and Vector Prime, the guardian of space and time, comes with Metalhawk. These three are repaints of Titan Masters but instead of faces on their backs, they have the symbols of the primes they represent on their backs, and I will admit they are cool little symbols. As a result of them being repaints of Titan Masters, they can do everything a Titan Master can do including:

• Ride on or in any of the Titan Master class vehicles
• Ride in or on Titans Return Legends Class figures and Power of the Primes Legends Class figures (yes this does include Skrapnel though I'll explain that one in a few months when I get back to Transformers)
• Ride inside any Titans Return Deluxe, Voyager or Leader Class figure
• Become the head of any Titans Return Deluxe, Voyager or Leader Class figure
• Interact with the base modes of any Titans Return Leader or Titan Class figure
• Plug into Titans Return Overlord's chest (however like when plugging Titan Masters in, the chest can't close around the Prime Masters
• Be eaten by Titans Return Trypticon
• Plugged into any Power of the Primes Deluxe, Voyager or Leader class figure
• Plug into the hands of any Power of the Primes Combiner that come with the Deluxe Class figures
• Plug into the feet of any Power of the Primes Combiner that comes with the Voyager Class figures
• Plug into the Power of the Primes Combiners instead of the Enigmas that come with the Voyager Class figures
• Replace the matrix core of any Matrix of Leadership that comes with any Power of the Primes Leader Class figure

It should, however, be stated that your mileage will vary with each of these. In testing, I almost had Liege Maximo's head stuck in Astrotrain, and some of the PotP hands don't hold the Prime Masters securely. In most of the tests I did do, the Prime Master heads were a little too big for the Titan Master head ports so they were very tight to attach and remove. One nice bit of attention to detail for the Autobot Shells (its harder to spot for Skullgrin) is that the faces of the Prime Masters can be seen in the helmets of the Pretender Shells. The Shells do have a "Targetmaster mode", allowing the shells to become a gun. How you do this? You take the Prime Master out, fold it up and plug it into two ports on the shells' back, fold the weapon piece the shells can hold over, and flip the handle between the legs of the shell down. The Targetmaster mode proportions depended on who was holding the weapon. For some classes, it's huge, for others its tiny.

Metalhawk and Vector Prime

For the price point they're at, they are fine little toys. They're small, basic, great as small pocket money toys for kids, and it is good to see some older collectors get into the new versions without ripping them a new one (Need I say more then Volcanicus?). Do I think they'll make every Pretender in this new style? Probably not. There are at least over 30 of them, and we only have a promise of 11 at most, 12 if we're lucky and they finally drop the charade about who the 13th Prime is (Onyx Prime comes with Predaking, which is why the numbers might sound off for you doing the math). Still, its a neat idea and it does make me wish they'd go and do Micromasters again (I actually have a pitch idea for that if anyone is curious, or a third party company is looking for something to help it stand out). To see the Mega Man 3 review from the main site, check here: https://mediaholicreviews.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/mini-mega-man-marathon-march-mania-mega_21.html and coming up next week is the first Lego Set review... which while originally was going to be the Sanctum Sanctorum, is now potentially going to change, and what it changes into is up to you! By going here: https://www.strawpoll.me/15336306 you can vote for something to potentially take its place.

Transformers Age of Extinction Voyager Class Grimlock: Better late then never

Things are going to get back in order for the next few weeks, April is going to be a hiatus for this site, but I'll explain that at the end of the review. For now, lets get this guy out of the way, so I can review something other then a Dinobot next week.

Transformers Power of the Primes Voyager Class Grimlock: At least its better then Dinoking?

For the next two weeks, and the previous week, I've got a course on which I'll admit is eating into my time, so for now, let's keep things simple, one bot at a time. I promised a Grimlock, so I'm giving a Grimlock! (Besides, it gets my mind off the amount of troubleshooting I've been doing on a new iPod this week cause someone hacked my account last year. "Thanks for the headaches you've been causing me with your spending habits on Clash of Clans under my name you b!*@#)$". $350 in two months? Seriously?).

Starting off with the dino mode, and good news to generation 1 fans, it's designed to look like the G1 Grimlock, in that it looks awful if you try and put it in a more "realistic" T-rex pose. Don't get me wrong, he can do it, but its designed to look better in the old T-rex pose. Standing somewhat straight up, tail dragging along the ground, kids if you don't know this one, look up kids shows from the 80's and 90's, Rugrats for example with Reptar. A few exceptions excluded, its hard to tell that he does more than the Robo-dino transformation, but those few exceptions are large exceptions. The back is a bit of a mess and while the tail tip tries to hide the combiner ports in what will be the robot legs, there's nothing hidden about the ones on the dino legs. It's been a problem people have had with the toy since he was shown off because people really hate the fact that he has Combiner Boss obligations now, and I have seen a few people online not seem to grasp that they can't have a cheap combiner torso with a hundred step transformation process with no parts forming, perfect paint and have three flawless modes. Sacrifices have to be made, and while some are here, they were focusing on getting two modes as perfect as possible, cause most of the cuts were made to the torso mode.

While limited articulation and slightly bulky proportions at times are problems with the dino, most of the hits come in the torso mode for Volcanicus. In terms of engineering, he's not a bad torso (though he has Menasor Legs which I'm not a fan of), but the mass just isn't there to make it look good. The stomach and waist are just too small cause most of the mass is in his shoulders, He needed to parts from, or even be a six bot combiner team to pull off the mass needed for this to work. Granted, it would be more work then a Combiner Wars combiner normally is, but this guy needed it. A Third Party company is putting out an upgrade kit for Volcanicus, which I plan to get and review when I do a dedicated review for Volcanicus. Unlike a lot of people, I do actually like the head sculpt for Volcanicus, there's more originality here then the last few times Dinobots have combined officially, in that it's not just a bigger version of Grimlock's head, while still being inspired by it. It looks intimidating, which for this combiner, works really well. It's also the only combiner torso I have that has a waist swivel, in fact, the only Voyager that comes to mind off the top of my head that has a waist swivel is Titans Return Galvatron (in terms of what's in my collection). I get what they were going for, but it wasn't quite there yet. While in combined mode though, Grimlock (and all the voyagers for the line) come with the combined mode feat, which serves as the way to plug Prime Masters into them. While its great that they have ratcheted ankle tilts and don't need to be hands, they look awful in the other modes for the Voyagers I own (Grimlock and Starscream), so they're probably going to be stored away when not being used as combined mode feet. Grimlock also comes with the "Dinobot Enigma" which has all the cross-play of a Titan and Prime Master, with a lot more paint and nothing else to do other than exist. It doesn't transform, it's just a spare bit of plastic. Looks cool, but it does nothing on its own. You can stick it into Grimlock's dino mouth though.

In robot mode, slightly to blocky chest excluded, this is a really good looking Grimlock. The combiner ports are still an issue, but they don't look as bad in robot mode and even with the blocky chest, he still looks like a tank. The product shots do make it look worse, but in hand, I don't find it that bad. Granted I'd have liked the love handles to tuck in a little bit, but its something I can look past. One problem I do have with him is the same problem for all the Voyagers and Leaders of the line and the Voyagers and Leaders of Titans Return wave 3 and onwards (overall), the stickers. While on my Grimlock, they're not as bad as they could be, they are still of the same quality. See, the stickers Hasbro's been using are a low grade foil sticker, factory applied, and I've had far, far too many of these peel off in play due to being misapplied in the factory, my Blitzwing had a scrunched up sticker on his wing, the weather here can make them peel off faster, just nothing but pain comes from them. Grimlock gets away with them as they're nowhere near Transformation joints and they're quite small, when I get to Starscream though, he didn't survive the sticker process, and will one day feel my wrath as a result. The reason for this though is because the paint is expensive, but that argument can be counted by the unnecessary paint use on the toys in the line, especially the Dinobots. Every bit of gold you see on the Dinobots so far, that's all clear plastic painted gold on the inside. Don't get me wrong, it looks cool, but did we need it for things like tampographed Autobot and Decepticon insignias on the bigger figures? The articulation on Grimlock (to get back on topic though) is quite good for a combiner boss. Double joint elbows, ratchets in the hips, shoulders and knees, a waist swivel, the only thing he's missing is feet articulation, cause he doesn't have actual feet, he just has tail pieces acting as feet.

I swear when I get time again I'll be going back to taken pictures. Alongside the course, a video is currently in production

Is he the Generations Grimlock Transformer fans have been wanting for a long time? Probably not, this fanbase can be fickle at times, to say the least. Granted, I've seen far, far, far worse fanbases. Does he scratch the itch for someone like me who's never had a G1 inspired Grimlock and to poor to invest in the high-end third-party masterpiece figures and have to make do on what the elitists call "lazy, pathetic, worthless pieces of plastic that only show how lazy Hasblow's been getting"? Yeah, yeah it kinda does. Is it flawless? No. Is it as bad as some people have been making it out to be? No, at least to me. He does need that upgrade kit though for Volcanicus, and I'd appreciate someone giving these guys some better weapons. Cause he was meant to go against AoE Grimlock this week, that Grimlock will be next week, and to check out the review of Super Smash Brothers Melee on the main site, check here: https://mediaholicreviews.blogspot.com.au/2018/02/super-smash-brothers-melee-sorry-to.html and coming up next for the main site, Mega Man 1.