I previously mentioned that I acquired a large army of Pretenders, well all 12 of the 'main line' 1988 Pretenders actually and that I will be featuring them individually.
Here I go. First individual feature goes to Pretender Landmine!
Among the 1988, Pretender figures, Landmine ranks very highly in my mind. There is just something about the design and colour-scheme of the figure, his function (asteroid miner, how cool is that?) and his comic appearances that does it for me. For me, Cloudburst and Landmine were the 2 'main' Autobot Pretenders back in the 80s.
It was unbelievably cool that they battled and then bartered with Amazons in an issue that covered by the (back then) soon to be legendary Jim Lee. I was delightfully surprised when I went back to my TF comics in the early 90s (after said Jim Lee's explosion onto the Uncanny X-Men and later X-Men scene) to discover that the Jim had actually pencilled some Transformers covers - one of which featured Landmine.
Nowadays, Pretenders are no longer 'Pretenders'. The Simon 'godfather of Transformers' Furman has reinvented mere 'pretender shells' into what is known as 'polydermal armour' that can be grafted onto Transformers giving the recipients highly enhanced physical attributes and endurance. In Transformers: Revelation, this process was successfully performed on Cloudburst, Waverider, Groundbreaker and of course, Landmine.
I gotta say, that just adds an extra layer of cool to Pretenders.
Some pictures and thoughts about this great figure...
Close up of the Landmine 'polydermal armour'. I can almost imagine Landmine wearing this armour into deep space for exploration and asteroid mining, on his quest to discover new materials and maybe chance across the universe's last eletrum deposits?
Landmine, the Transformer, without his polydermal graft. A very nicely designed robot, who needs to put on a bit of weight.
The Landmine shell and Transformer.
Landmine's vehicle mode. I'd like to imagine this as an all terrain vehicle with wheels made of an enhanced poly-durable alloy for traversing inhospitable alien terrain. Other than Groundbreaker, Landmine is the only 'main line' Pretender to have wheels for his vehicle mode.
Hey dude, didn't realize that you're back. When're you popping by Singapore again?
ReplyDeletehi Dan,
ReplyDeleteI've stayed off acquiring new Transformers from Feb last year to August this year where I sort of started again. Just needed a break from collecting. heh.
How you been?
Pretty fine, other than getting into quite a fair bit of mess with the local fandom (or certain "influential" fans, to be precise)...
ReplyDeleteKinda stayed off collecting lately, since the RotF stuff just doesn't interest me that much for some reason.
Anyway, nice Pretender collection you have there. I'm kinda surprised that the Shells are in such good condition.
By the way, I used to have that Victory promo poster from Li&Fung, it's the one with some sorta soap promo gift at the back right? I threw mine away years ago since it was in a (very) bad state when my uncle passed it to me...
getting in a mess with the SG fandom? Hope its not too distracting (wanted to say serious, but heck, its just the fandom, it can't be that serious)?
ReplyDeleteEver since the 2007 movie, I've been 'boycotting' Hasbro's substandard products. Which means that I won't be buying later years stuff from Hasbro and that includes ROTF toys. The quality is rather disappointing.
I'm really happy with the Pretenders. Like I said, I bought them all from the same seller and so the quality is consistent throughout. Pretenders with bad condition shells and/or bad condition robots with peeling stickers are quite gross and not something I'd want in my collection.
I think I will have paid some sort of premium for buying them as a lot (Decepticon Pretenders cost US$295 for the lot), but in the end its more than worth it!
The fandom is serious business, lol. Heck, some guy even wanted to thrash me like crazy, but then again, it's pretty much just the fandom on one site. 1 person got offended, and soon, more and more people started seeing me as a sort of Unicron. >_< Thank goodness that's over though.
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite a fan of the level of QC in the recent years. Compared to the Beast Wars stuff I have, the newer stuff is obviously of a lower standard... Though G1-wise, I can't say that I'm a fan of the diecast stuff (for some reason my diecast stuff chip A LOT) and the chromed stuff (my TFC Insectrons have yellowing on the chromed bits)... Stuff like Omega Supreme's fine though, since he's mostly plastic.
I saw some "used" Pretender shells on eBay, and they're extremely... unpleasant to look at. I do like the concept of the Mega and Ultra Pretenders though.
By the way, any recommendations on where to shop in HK? I'm heading there this Thurs for a trip.
Hmmm... it's quite disappointing that the Mods on that site didn't put a stop to the unpleasantness before it got out of hand. Anyway, good that its all behind.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, maybe because of the weather conditions in Singapore, its not easy to keep G1 pieces in the pink of health. They tend to degrade quite uncontrollably.
totally agree on the Pretender front. If the shells are not C8.5 and somewhere above, they tend to be quite unpleasant and sometimes not worth keeping.
I can certainly recommend you some places in HK to shop. Would have to email you the material though. So email me and we can go from there. =)
Lol, that's because some of the mods were involved in the lynching too. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of degrading... Even the silver chrome on my Henkei Megatron's chest is starting to yellow, despite it being rather new... So I'm kinda worried about chrome now. Pretty much why I'm avoiding MP Grimlock. Strangely, the chrome on my Transmetals doesnt seem to be worsening at all these few years...
Pretenderwise, I was very disappointed at how "Alice" in ROTF turned out. Mainly because of how unPretenderly she/it was, and how terribly unneccessary she was to a already horrible movie.
P.s: Will do, I'll email you. XD