Marvel UK is responsible for my love of Pretenders

Carnivac, Catilla, Snarler, Bludgeon, Stranglehold, Octopunch, and Thunderwing, all defined by those comics. I was so upset my mom wouldn't get me Thunderwing back in the day.

 

Got Waverider and Cloudburst from the Ebay. Got a chance to open them up and check them out last night, and I have to say that they are both really nice pieces -- with the presumption that you like Pretenders. I don't think either of these guys will convince a non-fan.

That having been said, the armored humanoid shells are both cool in a Centurions sort of way. The suits themselves have interesting detailing, and the weapons for both are a nice assortment (still missing Cloudburst's whip, which should be here this week). Waverider's look is more generic -- there is not much about him which says "Naval Ops" or "Deep Sea Diver" to me. I like him but the better of the two shells is Cloudburst. The detailing on his shell really evokes the image of an armored flight suit, down to the sculpting on the chest which suggest a re-breather. I can picture him armoring up, then jetting around after the Decepticons. Both shells have belts which actually help hold the shell together -- luckily, these two samples are in good shape.

Cloudburst has the nicer shell, but the robot I give to Waverider. His altmode is one of the best of all of the Pretender altmodes I have seen if only because his head folds out of the way. His colors are pretty severe, being mostly black, but the stickers do help add some bursts of color. I also like that if you use the official transformation, his gun can be aimed 360 degrees without interference -- the same cannot be said of his rival Submarauder. Cloudburst has a a cool altmode as well -- the integrated wings are nice and the fact that he looks good both with and without his gun attached is a plus. The colors are sharp on him as well, since the red really "pops" without being a "Stop sign red" shade. Like all of the Regular Pretenders, the robots are nicely proportioned and decently articulated. Both hold their guns with sideways grips so they look different from when they are being held by the shells, a nice touch.

I am very glad to have added them both to my collection. Putting myself into my 8 year old brain, I would have really loved fighting these guys against the Decepticon monsters. As it stands I think they look really nice on the shelf next to their mortal enemies.

Definitely will be keeping my eye out for a good price on Landmine now.

 

I had Octopunch and Roadblock as a kid. Octopunch was fun enough--I mostly liked the inner-robot crab guy and the shell was a novelty I messed with now and then.

Roadblock was one of my favorite TFs of all. I love all the different modes and combinations.

 

Never understood the point besides a toy gimmick.

 

Cybernetic power armour with recharge and repair functionality as well as limited AI. Fashion the outside into the shape of strange alien beasts for psychological impact and you've got a very appealing option for at least the smaller and weaker transformers. The ones that already are tough might not be as tolerant of the modifications needed to use organic technology. Bonus points if the shell can fly or swim and the inner robot is a land vehicle.

Pretty ok background justification for what is a decent toy idea that just hasn't been done as well as it could.

 

always thought that they were pretty stupid but every body has there own opinion on the matter

 

My boys (5 and 3) just spent the last 30 minutes or so playing with Waverider and Cloudburst. This makes me very happy!  

For the record, the oldest took both shells while the younger played with the robots. They were exploring for deep sea treasure. Heeee!

 

Personally, I think of the Pretenders as an experiment to see how far Hasbro could push the designs for a main "bipedal" mode or, in the case of the non-bipedal shells, something more organic than blocky machines (later more fully realized with Beast Wars). What made the character designs for the shells (seriously, the inner-robots are painfully generic even for their time) stick was how they were presented in the comics - Bludgeon arguably being the poster boy for the whole concept since a zombie samurai made no sense in context but still worked.

With today's production capabilities, I'd love to see more toys like what excellence we got from ROTF Bludgeon - combination of pretender shell uniqueness with the actual inner robot's alt. mode. The crazier/cooler the robot mode the better!

 

Just scored a complete Landmine off of eBay! Can't wait to get all 6 of the "original" Pretenders displayed together.

 

Good idea, horrible execution. At least on the Autobot front. Whereas the Decepticons and Pretender Beasts had the right idea by becoming monsters.

 

Nice... I just got a complete Groundbreaker, so now I have all 6 of the "original" Autobot Pretenders as well. I just need a couple more parts like Landmine's helmet, Cloudburst's gun and Waverider's belt.

 

I didn't like the ROTF Bludgeon mold (mostly for the hands) but I liked the idea behind it. I think Generations Thunderwing nailed what I was looking for in modern Pretenders.

 

Those "second wave" Autobots are an interesting bunch, with the animal motif shells. I like that there is a recognizable difference between them and the "first wave" trio, as they are more superheroic looking, and have full faces as well. I also like that we get a unique vehicle in Sky High's helicopter, which always makes me think of Gyro Robo/Cop-tur from Machine Robo/Gobots.

For now I have decided to end my collection at the 6 "first wave" guys, but those "second" six are high on my list.

How is Groundbreaker? His vehicle mode seems really basic, even for this group of guys, but I do like the two attachments which go on the roof.

And I hear you about parts -- I ended up buying a cheap Cloudburst shell just for the whip, then re-selling the shell... and I still need to pick up Skullgrin's belt!

 

Yeah, Sky High is actually the only one of the '88 Pretenders that I owned as a kid. His 'copter mode is great, and I like that the blade can double up as a weapon for his Pretender Shell

Yeah, he basically holds up his arms and folds up his legs to transform. I thought he would have made a better jet than a ground vehicle, seeing as how his black weapon looks like two wings. I guess they would have had to have given him a different name than "Ground"breaker though.

I've found that the Decepticon Pretenders weapons have been a lot harder to track down, at least for reasonable prices. Iguanus and Finback are the two that I'm having the most trouble getting parts for. Bomb-burst's shoulder pads are also fairly elusive.

 

I like that they mixed it up and didn't just make all different types of jets for the four fliers (same as throwing in a motorcycle for the ground guys). He would benefit from having his head fold into his chest like Waverider but that is a common criticism of this style figure. His legs look a little odd, though. Like they are splayed out.

I think if he could have been changed to have his arms fold into his back like Submarauder it would have helped. But then the weapons would have needed a longer peg to reach the hole in his back. Alternately you could have folded the arms in front of the chest and segmented his legs to wrap around them. That would have made him look less "ground hugging" than the final product, though. I do dig the cockpit, it definitely evokes the "rocket car" motif.

His robot mode looks sharp with the "V" on his back, though. I like the detailing on the side of the chest as well.

Yeah, those shoulder pads on Bomb-burst are insane. I don't know that I have ever seen them loose on eBay. I made sure that the one I got had both of those shoulder pads!

In the last few months, it has been my experience that all of the "second wave" Decepticons -- Finback, Iguanus, and Bugly -- are more expensive across the board than the other three. Iguanus especially. I can only assume that they are less common than the others. I have not looked at the "second wave" Autobots compared to the others so I do not know how they are running.

 

I was never really a fan of the pretenders. I collected them mostly out of loyalty to the brand. I continued my collection even through micromasters. But only dabbled in G2 because many were re-colored versions, no longer had diecast parts, and it got to a point where you no longer needed the instructions. The cartoon couldn’t keep up with all the personalities/spark, whatever you want to call them. i digress.
3 decades later I finally got hands on Japanese dvd box set which included masterforce, victory, etc.- and I gotta say, I could finally appreciate them. The storyline is quite entertaining, I mean they made them to appeal to kids which, the plan, was to to get the kids to drag their parents to the store to buy, buy, buy. The original love was for G1 cartoon. Can anyone remember the commercials every time they released a new bot? Or even the action sequences during the opening credits. The animation was so much better than the cartoon itself. The storyline that stayed exclusive to Japanese viewers contained better action sequences. The thing that started to suck was that it started to lose its earth-centric appeal. The disguise part was no longer the concept. After the movie, the alternate forms started to serve as functional forms. Could you really say, “aw, that’s a city hidden amongst then landscape”, but never mistaken it for trypticon or metroplex? Can you really mistaken any one of the predacons at the zoo or a farm? so the Pretenders were kind of like the McDLT for McDonald’s. A gimmick. It didn’t have any holding power, but some will take to it. Enough will spend the money to try it out. It served its purpose.
But if they can con some good writers, to explain all instances of even the embarrassing blocks of the timeline, they can probably make use of another run at Pretenders.
Marvel has the spider verse and end game, CW has flashpoint and crisis in the multiverse. I hated that Michael Bay’s TF’s had a universe saving spark, but up to the 1st Unicron event, the matrix of leadership was THE THING. Beast wars had some discs. The most recent series now has all that rolled up into one. Megaton and Galvatron and the tyrannosaurus Megz are all side by side. I’ve been thinking of making the pretenders a gestalt instance and explain their humanoid forms as more of higher tech of holograms, but with a physical interactive state, borrowing the M Bay’s trans-“morpher”(not really transformer) explanation. because I hate that Bumblebee could be VW bug, or a Camaro. And their robot sizes, scale wise, was even more ridiculous than the G1 toys. Can a cab section, unfolded and stretched out really tower a 2 story family home?