For more pictures, click on the image above

Robot Mode: As a Pretender Submarauder is composed of an actual robot, who can fit inside a hollow Pretender shell. Let's look at the robot first. The Pretender robots suffer from the limitation of having to fit inside the shell, so it is very slim. Said slim robot is rather posable for a G1 figure, though much sadly his knee joints can only move sideways. The robot is armed with a big rifle, though he can't hold the big sword he comes with. That is reserved for the Pretender shell. He also has a really big head which, combined with his purple and baby blue paint job, makes him look... strange. He scares me a bit, but not in the good way.

The Pretender shell is patterned after an aquatic monster, somewhat resembling the Creature from the Black Lagoon, if said creature was mostly baby blue. The detail work on the shell looks pretty nice, but posability is, of course, pretty much nil. The Pretender shell can move its arms at the shoulders and that's it. But it can use all of Submarauder's weapons and plug in the shield he carries on either shoulder, too. So the bottom line is, Submarauder is much prettier and far more impressive when inside his Pretender shell.

Alternate Mode: Submarauder transforms from robot to... well, a folded-up robot. It's supposed to be a submarine and with a lot of imagination one might interpret it as such (or any other nondescript science fiction style vehicle for that matter) but really: It's just a folded up robot. This was the main problem of the Pretender gimmick in my view. It left no room for any but the most basic alternate modes. Some Pretenders at least managed half-way interesting vehicles, but Submarauder... not so much.

Remarks: Submarauder didn't see much in-media action in the Western part of the world. Some short appearances in the old Marvel comics and a cameo or two in the Dreamwave comics, that's pretty much it. He did feature much more prominently in the Japanese-exclusive Masterforce cartoon. Here he was called Gilmer and part of the Destron forces from the start of the series (along with Blood and Dauros) right up to the end. He wasn't exactly a stand-out character here, either, but he did appear pretty regularly.

As a toy Submarauder is pretty much a typical Pretender. A not very impressive inner robot hidden inside a nicely sculpted Pretender shell and a pretty useless vehicle mode. I'm not a big Pretenders fan and now that I've completed my collection of those Decepticon/Destron Pretenders who appeared in the Japanese Masterforce series, I doubt I'll collect all that many others. So unless you're a Pretenders fan or have a faible for monsters, I don't think Submarauder is one for you. But he does have one of the coolest names in all of Transformer history, I'll give him that.

Rating: C-

 

A lot of these pretenders seem the same, at least early on. I had Waverider for awhile, then sold it. The bot looks good, but the vehicle is one of those "because we say it's X" type of vehicles.

I do think the Pretenders improved later, but Submarauder's not all that impressive.