Zobovor
2024-05-13 19:39:38 UTC
I think the popularity of Transformers when I was growing up existed on a sliding scale. In 1984 and 1985, pretty much every kid in school that I knew was into them. By 1988, I had only two friends I knew of who were still into the toy line, but it certainly wasn't the full multimedia experience like it was when where was still a cartoon on TV to also watch. (By 1990, I was the only person I knew who was still buying the toys at all. It was a sad time!)
So, I had a buddy named Richie Sargo who had bought Landmine, and it was an odd experience for somebody else to have a G1 toy that I didn't own yet. So, when we got together, our collections would temporarily intermingle, so I have childhood memories of Landmine without actually owning him. To be honest, as a kid, I wasn't a huge fan of the Pretenders concept. It was so far removed from what we'd come to expect from Transformers up to that point, and for my money, I was more interested in toys like the Seacons or Powermaster Optimus Prime. Looking back, 1988 was the product year from which I owned the fewest number of toys. I was getting older and more sophisticated, but the toys as a whole were getting simpler and more kid-friendly. It was a weird juxtaposition.
Also, it has always bothered me a little that Landmine came out during the same product year as a character with a similar-sounding name, Landfill. It gave the impression that they were simply running out of ideas for character names.
So, I've been actively building my vintage G1 collection since late 2019 or so, and I was probably missing more Pretenders than any other individual sub-group. Month to month, I never quite know which toys I'm going to be going after. I try to stay fairly flexible, confident in the knowledge that the right eBay auction will eventually avail itself. I came close to going after a Targetmaster Cyclonus that had a broken Nebulan partner that would need replacing, but then I came across this beautiful Landmine which the seller had described as "minty" and I knew I had to have it. I want the vintage items I acquire to be in as good condition as I can possibly find them, without necessarily breaking the bank.
So, Landmine is from the first wave of original Pretenders, and the second batch had design cues slightly different from the first, with slightly smaller inner robots and more visible heads and faces for the outer Pretender shells. But, not Landmine. No, sir. His Pretender shell is big and beefy, with the contention that he's heavily-armored, but the reality being that he's shaped this way to maximize the ability for his inner robot to fit inside.
The outer shell is a vibrant yellow color, accented with light grey arms, dark grey boots, and paint that suggests a red-colored bodysuit in evidence under all that armor. His Pretender guise is a Causasian human male with brown hair and brown eyes, but the only human aspect that's plainly visible is the top half of his head. His mouth and chin are ostensibly covered in armor. It's like he's hiding, or playing peek-a-boo. The sculpted details on the back of his Pretender shell suggest the presence of thrusters of some sort, as if this were a space suit and he has the ability to propel himself through the cosmic seas.
He wears a dark grey helmet and a dark grey belt, both of which help lock the front and back halves of his outer shell together (particularly the belt, which hugs the locking clips on his hips). He's also armed with a sword, described in his instructions as a "laser saber," which is the same dark grey color as the helmet and belt, and made of the same slightly rubbery, semi-flexible plastic. He also carries a light grey "astro blaster" gun. The dark grey parts tend to suffer slightly from blotching as a result of the plastic chemicals breaking down over time, but it's not as obvious as it is on, say, the ugly banana splotches on the white parts on Waverider.
The shell is about 6.25" tall without the helmet and 6.75" in height with the helmet in place. He's roughly the size of what we would consider a Voyager-class toy today, but with far less complexity. Only the arms can move, with the rest completely immobile.
Inside the shell is the inner robot, standing at around 5.25" tall. He's almost entirely light grey, with black upper legs and shoulder connectors, red wheels embedded in his shoulders and hips, and a yellow-painted cockpit and robot face. There's a color relationship between Landmine's inner robot and his outer shell, and you can tell by the overall color scheme that they're the same character despite the different color mapping. You didn't always get this with later characters... there's nothing about the Pretender shell for Starscream, for example, that suggests Starscream based on the color scheme.
The robot styling is so different from the heavily-armored Transformers robot modes we had usually gotten up to this point. He's stripped down to the bare mechanisms, practically, with none of the car parts hanging off his body or bulky squared-off body parts we usually get. He's like a robotic skeleton, practically. He has more articulation than a lot of G1 toys, with a swiveling head, shoulders that can both swivel and pivot towards each other, legs that rotate at the hips, ankles that move, and knees that will bend slightly. All of this is required for the transformation, and the knees can only bend backwards, so it's not articulation that corresponds to human anatomy.
The inner robot can carry the astro blaster gun, but the only peg-holes are in the sides of his hands, like Protectobot Groove or Triple Changer Blitzwing, so he has to grip the weapon by its side, and aesthetically it doesn't really look like he's meant to hold it. The red paint from the outer shell's glove tends to transfer to the weapon grip of the gun, unfortunately.
Landmine's transformation to vehicle mode is rather abstract, and as with all the first-year Pretenders, he kind of just looks like a folded-up robot. He folds in half like a Jumpstarter, with his legs swinging up, his arms pointing behind him, and his head rotating so you can't see his face. His instructions call him an all-terrrain vehicle, though this exact same configuration has also been called a jet or a submarine or a helicopter by Hasbro, depending on how they accessorize! Landmine is described in his tech specs as an asteroid miner, with his vehicle mode presumably well-suited for this type of work.
For vehicle mode, the astro blaster fits into a hole on the back of his head, and presumably this is what enables him to do most of his asteroid mining. The instructions show a slightly different design for him, with separated eyes rather than the goggles on the final toy, and a design for the back of his head like an outboard six-cylinder engine. Vehicle mode is roughly 3.5" in length.
When combining Landmine's inner robot with his outer shell, his robot shoulders need to fold to the sides to allow him to fit inside. Nearly all the real estate inside the outer shell is utilized and filled up by the presence of the inner robot, and it informed design choices for the inner robot like the way he stands with such a wide stance on those spindly little legs, or the reason his elbows are bent slightly. Later Pretenders would abandon these design ideas and cheat slightly, no longer requiring the legs of the inner robots to actually fit into the legs of the outer shells.
The consumer-applied labels were all printed on clear stock, like the Deluxe Autobots or Deluxe Insecticons, and it makes the edges of the stickers virtually disappear, leaving only the colored decal visible. It's a cool idea that makes the stickers act more like the water transfer decals on model kits. Landmine's outer shell gets stickers on the shoulders and one on the chest, while Landmine gets a few for his body and legs, and a single Autobot symbol on his cockpit. (The outer shell doesn't get an insignia, which I think is at least partly supposed to help with the disguise aspect.)
One of the cool things about Transformers, originally, was the idea that any car on the road you saw, or jet flying overhead, could theoretically be a robot in disguise. Going to fantasy vehicles for much of 1987-1989 nmeant the toy line was no longer grounded in reality in the same way as 1984-85, but it also meant less innovation was required for the vehicle modes, because an all-terrain asteroid mining vehicle is anything that Hasbro says it is. The fact that it's got patently obvious robot arms and legs poking out is entirely incidental, you understand! So, the impact is gone of this familiar-looking truck or helicopter or whatever unfolding into a strange, alien robot is largely absent.
Despite this, the idea of the Pretenders was innovative, and Hasbro placed enough faith in it to continue it for a second product year in 1989. It remains a much-maligned aspect of G1 that has its share of detractors. The Pretenders were never my all-time favorite G1 toys, but I don't hate them, either, as others seem to.
So I paid $85 for Landmine, who came complete with gorgeous, unblemished paint. Samples where the factory paint is coming off the toes of the other shell are particularly ugly to me, due to the bare yellow plastic that is exposed underneath, so I'm happy to get a copy that is in great condition. When I was pricing some of the G1 toys, I noticed that Splashdown and Groundbreaker tend to command much higher prices, so it will be interesting to see what I end up paying for them in the future.
Zob (no, I didn't call in sick from work today just because I was expecting this in the mail, I don't know what you're talking about)
So, I had a buddy named Richie Sargo who had bought Landmine, and it was an odd experience for somebody else to have a G1 toy that I didn't own yet. So, when we got together, our collections would temporarily intermingle, so I have childhood memories of Landmine without actually owning him. To be honest, as a kid, I wasn't a huge fan of the Pretenders concept. It was so far removed from what we'd come to expect from Transformers up to that point, and for my money, I was more interested in toys like the Seacons or Powermaster Optimus Prime. Looking back, 1988 was the product year from which I owned the fewest number of toys. I was getting older and more sophisticated, but the toys as a whole were getting simpler and more kid-friendly. It was a weird juxtaposition.
Also, it has always bothered me a little that Landmine came out during the same product year as a character with a similar-sounding name, Landfill. It gave the impression that they were simply running out of ideas for character names.
So, I've been actively building my vintage G1 collection since late 2019 or so, and I was probably missing more Pretenders than any other individual sub-group. Month to month, I never quite know which toys I'm going to be going after. I try to stay fairly flexible, confident in the knowledge that the right eBay auction will eventually avail itself. I came close to going after a Targetmaster Cyclonus that had a broken Nebulan partner that would need replacing, but then I came across this beautiful Landmine which the seller had described as "minty" and I knew I had to have it. I want the vintage items I acquire to be in as good condition as I can possibly find them, without necessarily breaking the bank.
So, Landmine is from the first wave of original Pretenders, and the second batch had design cues slightly different from the first, with slightly smaller inner robots and more visible heads and faces for the outer Pretender shells. But, not Landmine. No, sir. His Pretender shell is big and beefy, with the contention that he's heavily-armored, but the reality being that he's shaped this way to maximize the ability for his inner robot to fit inside.
The outer shell is a vibrant yellow color, accented with light grey arms, dark grey boots, and paint that suggests a red-colored bodysuit in evidence under all that armor. His Pretender guise is a Causasian human male with brown hair and brown eyes, but the only human aspect that's plainly visible is the top half of his head. His mouth and chin are ostensibly covered in armor. It's like he's hiding, or playing peek-a-boo. The sculpted details on the back of his Pretender shell suggest the presence of thrusters of some sort, as if this were a space suit and he has the ability to propel himself through the cosmic seas.
He wears a dark grey helmet and a dark grey belt, both of which help lock the front and back halves of his outer shell together (particularly the belt, which hugs the locking clips on his hips). He's also armed with a sword, described in his instructions as a "laser saber," which is the same dark grey color as the helmet and belt, and made of the same slightly rubbery, semi-flexible plastic. He also carries a light grey "astro blaster" gun. The dark grey parts tend to suffer slightly from blotching as a result of the plastic chemicals breaking down over time, but it's not as obvious as it is on, say, the ugly banana splotches on the white parts on Waverider.
The shell is about 6.25" tall without the helmet and 6.75" in height with the helmet in place. He's roughly the size of what we would consider a Voyager-class toy today, but with far less complexity. Only the arms can move, with the rest completely immobile.
Inside the shell is the inner robot, standing at around 5.25" tall. He's almost entirely light grey, with black upper legs and shoulder connectors, red wheels embedded in his shoulders and hips, and a yellow-painted cockpit and robot face. There's a color relationship between Landmine's inner robot and his outer shell, and you can tell by the overall color scheme that they're the same character despite the different color mapping. You didn't always get this with later characters... there's nothing about the Pretender shell for Starscream, for example, that suggests Starscream based on the color scheme.
The robot styling is so different from the heavily-armored Transformers robot modes we had usually gotten up to this point. He's stripped down to the bare mechanisms, practically, with none of the car parts hanging off his body or bulky squared-off body parts we usually get. He's like a robotic skeleton, practically. He has more articulation than a lot of G1 toys, with a swiveling head, shoulders that can both swivel and pivot towards each other, legs that rotate at the hips, ankles that move, and knees that will bend slightly. All of this is required for the transformation, and the knees can only bend backwards, so it's not articulation that corresponds to human anatomy.
The inner robot can carry the astro blaster gun, but the only peg-holes are in the sides of his hands, like Protectobot Groove or Triple Changer Blitzwing, so he has to grip the weapon by its side, and aesthetically it doesn't really look like he's meant to hold it. The red paint from the outer shell's glove tends to transfer to the weapon grip of the gun, unfortunately.
Landmine's transformation to vehicle mode is rather abstract, and as with all the first-year Pretenders, he kind of just looks like a folded-up robot. He folds in half like a Jumpstarter, with his legs swinging up, his arms pointing behind him, and his head rotating so you can't see his face. His instructions call him an all-terrrain vehicle, though this exact same configuration has also been called a jet or a submarine or a helicopter by Hasbro, depending on how they accessorize! Landmine is described in his tech specs as an asteroid miner, with his vehicle mode presumably well-suited for this type of work.
For vehicle mode, the astro blaster fits into a hole on the back of his head, and presumably this is what enables him to do most of his asteroid mining. The instructions show a slightly different design for him, with separated eyes rather than the goggles on the final toy, and a design for the back of his head like an outboard six-cylinder engine. Vehicle mode is roughly 3.5" in length.
When combining Landmine's inner robot with his outer shell, his robot shoulders need to fold to the sides to allow him to fit inside. Nearly all the real estate inside the outer shell is utilized and filled up by the presence of the inner robot, and it informed design choices for the inner robot like the way he stands with such a wide stance on those spindly little legs, or the reason his elbows are bent slightly. Later Pretenders would abandon these design ideas and cheat slightly, no longer requiring the legs of the inner robots to actually fit into the legs of the outer shells.
The consumer-applied labels were all printed on clear stock, like the Deluxe Autobots or Deluxe Insecticons, and it makes the edges of the stickers virtually disappear, leaving only the colored decal visible. It's a cool idea that makes the stickers act more like the water transfer decals on model kits. Landmine's outer shell gets stickers on the shoulders and one on the chest, while Landmine gets a few for his body and legs, and a single Autobot symbol on his cockpit. (The outer shell doesn't get an insignia, which I think is at least partly supposed to help with the disguise aspect.)
One of the cool things about Transformers, originally, was the idea that any car on the road you saw, or jet flying overhead, could theoretically be a robot in disguise. Going to fantasy vehicles for much of 1987-1989 nmeant the toy line was no longer grounded in reality in the same way as 1984-85, but it also meant less innovation was required for the vehicle modes, because an all-terrain asteroid mining vehicle is anything that Hasbro says it is. The fact that it's got patently obvious robot arms and legs poking out is entirely incidental, you understand! So, the impact is gone of this familiar-looking truck or helicopter or whatever unfolding into a strange, alien robot is largely absent.
Despite this, the idea of the Pretenders was innovative, and Hasbro placed enough faith in it to continue it for a second product year in 1989. It remains a much-maligned aspect of G1 that has its share of detractors. The Pretenders were never my all-time favorite G1 toys, but I don't hate them, either, as others seem to.
So I paid $85 for Landmine, who came complete with gorgeous, unblemished paint. Samples where the factory paint is coming off the toes of the other shell are particularly ugly to me, due to the bare yellow plastic that is exposed underneath, so I'm happy to get a copy that is in great condition. When I was pricing some of the G1 toys, I noticed that Splashdown and Groundbreaker tend to command much higher prices, so it will be interesting to see what I end up paying for them in the future.
Zob (no, I didn't call in sick from work today just because I was expecting this in the mail, I don't know what you're talking about)