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Remarks: Landshark is a straight-up repaint of Energon Landmine. Now it's been over four years since I wrote the review for Landmine, so I considered writing another full review for this guy here. But then I read through Landmine's review and, though it's shorter than most of my current ones, it's still pretty much spot on and mentions all the important facts. So no full review here. Go look at Landmine for the basics and I'll touch on the differences here.

Unlike the other figures in the Botcon 2009 set, Landshark isn't based on any previously existing Transformer, so he's under no particular restrictions regarding his look. The Landmine figure was repainted in military green with some orange highlights, somewhat reminiscent of Roadbuster. Instead of a simple Autobot symbol, he's got the symbol with the Elite Guard wings on the side on his chest. No changes have been made to the actual sculp of the figure (unless you count the engraved Elite Guard wings), but the new coat of paint fits him pretty well.

Landshark was the funny tough guy in the original Elite Guard, as seen in the Wings of Honor comic book. His main contributions to the story where that he managed to more or less safely land the Autobot ship Eight Track despite serious battle damage, and that he took down Leozack and Hooligan near the end of the battle. Still, despite being "just" a repaint, his appearance in the comic gave him more character depth than Landmine's pitifully brief appearance in the Energon cartoon series (not that anyone had much character depth in Energon). So to me he's actually more "real" than the figure he's based on. Which is an excellent figure, by the way. So all in all, Landshark is a very good Transformers toy. Recommended to anyone who can afford his hefty price tag.

Rating: A

 

I've been wanting the Landquake version of this mold, but the colors on this guy make me lean more to this version now. Guess I'll hafta keep an eye out for a good deal on him.