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.
