Eight years and mine still looks like new. I don’t do anything special to protect it.

 

Idk what I was thinking. I had mine from 2014-2022. So about 8 years. No sunlight.
Blackout curtains. No yellowing whatsoever.

 

Thunderwing today

 

"You taste good, Soundwave"
From The Transformers#49 'Cold War!'

 

"I can't bear to look anymore!" sobbed Clampdown, to the continuing roar of the engines.

Burnout felt it might be kindest not to say anything.

 

Armada Prime today...

 

Not The Fire Ant; It's The Fire Truck.

 

Whatever this beautiful monster Terrorsaur is

No idea

 

Pulling up to the station on the Midnight Express

 

Midnight...Express?

 

Now there's a figure to start the year with.




Mastermind Creations R48P Optus Prominon.

 

I don’t understand why Fanstoys gets so much praise when MMC has been absolutely nailing it these past few years.

 

In a RoadRanger mood

 

With the new head, this guy is without a doubt the only Star Saber I'll ever need! And my favorite of the day.

 

Another day, another Pretender that didn’t get to do much in the comics and turned up too late in the American cartoons. Obviously you could go off and watch Super-god Masterforce and see them make much better use of the monster nature of these guy’s shells.

Bomb-Burst is the ‘air’ one of the three original Decepticon Pretenders, so we get a bat shell! Obviously. I love Bomb-Burst’s shell, particularly the leering face of that monster bat. He has the expression of a total sadist. Someone that probably takes a great pleasure in sharpening his tool in front of you before commencing the torture. Or Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors.

Curiously the inner robot has such a passive expression that I find myself making up some pretentious toss about about the outer shell being the ego and the inner robot being the id. You’ve got to keep yourself entertained somehow. That detail aside, it’s just another ’88 style Pretender inner robot. Though I do give some points for the way the guns plug into the arms.

And it’s just as well they do, as the alt mode would make no sense without the ‘wings’ on those guns. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. This is really no worse than any of the other Pretender alt modes and the detail of the fin that comes out the back of the head and the big turbines is rather nice.

It's 2023. You’re still doing Pretenders all wrong!

Ah, who gives a shit. It’s an utterly messed up concept that never worked in a franchise that was a fundamentally flawed mess from the start (Toy Trukk vs Lifesize Walther). Perhaps I’m only speaking for myself here, but I always thought the thing that made Generations (and the Masterpiece line, before it lost the plot) such fun was the idea we could make everything a little more coherent. So, in short, I don’t care that Bomb-Burst and Skullgrin (we’ll get to Skullgrin) are neither fish nor fowl, but rather I delight that they’re a glorious chimera of the most distinctive parts of the original. Blow me!

Ahem. Ok, out of my system now. Let’s proceed.

This Core class Bomb-Burst (my first ever Core class figure. I like it. It’s no late TR/PotP Legends wonder, but I like it) is simple and fabulous.

What I’m really loving is how faithful to the original G1 shell this little robot is. From the bold magenta chest plate, to the weird claw/fangs hanging round it, to the axe, right down to the weird little belt (that the PotP version got very wrong). I was about to say something about getting some fur molding on the pale grey bits, but I notice they’ve tried to emulate that somewhat on his calves. Kudos!

Ok, so the one thing they couldn’t quite get right is the bat wings off the shoulders. There’s something you can do to get the bat detail on the wings of the guns to show above his shoulder, but involves making his backpack very messy and to very little effect. It’s a bold and admirable attempt, but it’s wack.

In the headsculpt he manages to capture some of the batshit (geddit) mania of the original that the PotP update missed. While it wasn’t a feature of the original, having the jaw slightly open really works wonders. I do really like that they’ve gone for a more authentic bat nose shape. I suppose it falls a little short mon the brow and eyes. I’d have liked more of the scowl, furrowed brow, and leer of the original, but the wide open eyes still mange to make him look unhinged, unlike the PotP version, who looked constipated.

The alt mode is lovely. I’d happily go as far to say it looks more like the G1 version than the G1 version (platonic ideal, M8). All the key detail is there; the gun wings, the magenta cockpit, the VTOL engines. I even love that there’s some weapon storage that gives him a little nose cannon. Very smooth. The arms could maybe tab in a little more securely, but as they are they don’t detract at all from the wooshability of this mode (whooshability is a vital metric on any bot with a jet mode).

I think my only grumble is about the slightly scattershot approach they’re taking to these Pretenders. We’ve had a couple of Core class dude, a Deluxe and, from the next line, a couple of Voyagers leaked. The part of me that likes a nice, coherent set wishes they’d picked a size class and stuck to it. From what we know from the coming line, Core class looks to be dominated by Dinobots, and I’m not seeing listings for anymore Deluxe. I can’t help but feel that in a couple of years time I’m going to be grumbling over the missed opportunity of a complete set of Pretenders. Again.

 

Some vs and op action

 

Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.



Or, The Troll Hunters.  

Masterdominus gets to be a dayfave at last!