Effin yikes.  

 

Yup!

Interesting how close the Zeta is to the toon. They generally don't do that till their 65th reissue.

 

The problem is its size... at over 20 inches tall, it will tower over the 18-inches-tall POTP Predaking and CW Devastator.

Who will he face-off against?

 

Nearly every Combiner or Titan had a rival:

Devastator - Omega Supreme
Menasor - Superion
Bruticus - Defensor
Abominus - Computron
Predaking - Sky Lynx
Liokaiser - Road Caesar
Trypticon - Metroplex

Who would be Raiden's rival? Predaking? Piranacon?

Maybe he can be redeco'd into Astrotrain's Astroforce... something I used to sketch in the 80s. I feel like there's an opportunity here, if it weren't so prohibitively expensive.

 

Against other MP 3rd party combiners.

Toyworld’s Constructor (Devastator)
XTB, DX9 or Fanstoys Menasor, take your pick.
There’s also Zeta’s Bruticus.

Plenty of choices. He’s not meant to be facing off against chug scale “titans”.

 

Other 3p MP 20” combiners. Zeta has a superion and Bruticus, Toyworld has Devestator, XTB and DX9 have Menasor covered. And we now have a defensor from XTB in the way.

He’s MP scaled, not chug scaled so he scales with those figures.

 

Don’t forget that FT has between 55% to 75% done with Superion and Menasor too! If you round up, it’s finished.

 

Raiden's main rival is Devastator, followed by Predaking.

 

Yeah, exactly- his main rivals are TW Devastator, and Cang Toys Predaking.

 

Omega Supreme's and Sky Lynx's toys were licensed from another company (Toy Box) so Takara couldn't release their toys in Japan back in the 80s (ended up merging several companies together and Japan finally got both G1 toys in the 2000s). Devastator and Predaking were without their rivals over there, so the first Japanese exclusive series took care of that. It is thought that the Devastator/Raiden rivalry is a call back to them both being early Diaclone combiners.

Not sure who Piranacon's rival is though.

 

I wonder what the odds of the first two being released before TFcon are.

 

Not really my era of knowledge but didn't he tussle with Ginrai?

 

@928toyslab











DaimChoc Reports - ダイムチョック・リポーツ

 

Yeah, Ginrai was always *slightly* outmatched….. Same with Star Saber. Whether it was Liokaiser, Piranacon, or Overlord. Then he finally gets his power-ups. I think it’s like someone said- in the Japanese continuity, they didn’t necessarily have direct rivals. At least not at first. The Decepticons were almost always bigger. When Road Caesar fought Dinoking, the Autobot was smaller, like a David and Goliath match.

 

It has more articulations that the previous Zeta combiners, which is nice. I'm a bit worried that it seems to partially rely on the leg bots hip joints...better them be as strong as possible.

 

I never knew that, thanks for the info on that.

Did Raiden and Devastator ever actually fight in Headmasters? I would have thought Devastator would have been an old toy by then.

 

This is interesting, because I thought that G1 Season 1 set up the Dinobots as rivals to Devastator, and then Season 2 set up Omega Supreme as his rival. I feel like the Prime Wars toys of Devastator and Omega Supreme kept this rivalry going with them both being Titan-class figures.

For Predaking, the G1 commercial indicated that they were created to rival the Dinobots. Then, Season 3 always showed Sky Lynx handing Predaking his arse. The Sky Lynx Commander figure displayed against Predaking looks good and brings this rivalry to life.

By the time of POTP, we finally got a Dinobot combiner, but Volcanicus really is too small to display against Predaking. However, Volcanicus's recent comic appearance facing off against God Neptune solves the rivalry gap for these two.

The only Decepticon combiner made around the time of Headmasters was Piranacon, who was also left without a rival. I wish Raiden could have been featured in Masterforce facing off against Piranacon, at least once.

If I get the Moon Studios set, I'll have to pit Raiden against Black Zarak, since at least they were both enemies in Zone. If I get the CW-sized Takara set, Raiden will face-off against the lonely Piranacon.

 

Urgh. This looks so good. Tempted to take @Curium 's advice and retro fit him as a pre movie combiner due to his diaclone heritage. Defo makes sense he could have (would have?) been Devastator' s rival had he been brought over to the West.

 

To me, that justifies buying both as I can have the Moon Studios in combined mode and the Takara’s in Bot mode. No big deal to me.