Transformers Legacy: Bomb-Burst

When I learned that Hasbro was making another attempt at bringing the Generation 1 Pretender characters into the Legacy line, I was beside myself with excitement. The G1 Pretenders have always been some of my favorite toys and characters, despite missing out on them when they were originally on retail shelves. When I first started to re-build my G1 collection the Pretenders were the first I went after. I always found the monster like Decepticon Pretenders to be more interesting and the monster vampire, Bomb-Burst, is a great example.

Bomb-Burst is part of the Core Class size of Transformers in the Legacy series. While I would have preferred him to be a deluxe class size, I'll take modern version of these characters however I can get them.

Pulling off a G1 Pretender type shell with modern toy making could be done I suppose, but Hasbro decided to go a different route and basically merge the shell and the inner robot together. Bomb-Burst retains the look of his outer monster vampire shell look, complete with large bat ears, snub nose and sharp teeth. The back of the figure does give you a peek at the inner robot's vehicle mode. I'm not wild about this "backpack", however I can live with it as the rest of the package is pretty awesome.

One of Bomb-Burst's pack in weapons just happens to be a smaller version of his classic sword.

The other included weapons are two blue, arm mounted lasers. On the G1 version these guns were wielded by the inner robot and a part of the robot's alt mode. With the Legacy version these guns double as the bat wings that were originally attached to the shell's shoulders. One side of the guns' fins are painted like wings. These attach to the nose cone "backpack", however said nose cone has to be positioned outward from the body, and well just looks a little odd. Looking straight on its not that bad, but viewing the figure from an angle or the rear you can see the flaw. The nose cone can also store the sword accessory which is a nice touch.

Hasbro nearly nailed the look of the G1 inner robot's alt mode, which you'll see more in some comparison pics below. It's not an exact 1:1, but it retains most of the look. From the maroon cockpit, to the VTOL engines on the top of the aircraft, it's still a jet that is formed by literally folding up a robot. By the way, the sword's hilt makes the gun for the ship's cockpit, wasn't expecting that.

I know that the original G1 toys aren't everyone's cup of tea. Some of them aren't that great and some of the toys haven't aged that well, however some of the designs and characters found in the original 80's series are fantastic. Hasbro found a way to bring one of the more obscure characters into modern form, and while I wish it was larger this is still a great toy. I hope we see more of the Pretenders brought back to life (in either scale), whether that be in the Legacy line or in a future Transformers series. 

Transformers Power of the Primes: Vector Prime w/ Metalhawk

When Hasbro first leaked the images of their Prime Master toys online my heart leaped for joy. You see, it wasn't that I was excited about the Prime Masters themselves, but the fact that they are essentially Pretenders.

The Pretenders are one of the few "gimmicks" if you will from the original 80's Generation One toyline that hasn't been revisted in modern Transformers...that is until now. If the idea of having small Pretender armor suits for the Prime Masters wasn't cool enough, Hasbro (and Takara Tomy) decided to treat us North Americans with the first official non-Japanese release of the Pretender character, Metalhawk.

If you don't know who he is, pause your reading and open another browser window and Google Metalhawk and read up on him. It's OK, I'll wait.

Are you back? Yes? Good! Now that you know a little of the character, let's look at this highly anticipated toy from the packaging down to the figure itself...and perhaps a few photos with his G1 namesake.

The packaging for the Prime Masters basically takes the place of the Titan Master packaging from the previous Titans Return series. You've got a nice character artwork on the top of the card with the black vertical bar on the right side with the large red block letter Transformers modern logo.

The back of the card shows how the toy essentially works, that it can contain the Prime Master, Vector Prime while also being able to trasform into a weapon. Like with most modern Transformers, the cool bios aren't printed on the packaging.

Out of the package Metalhawk is awesome. He's small, only a few inches tall, but he packs a punch for such as small toy. The level of detail in the mold is truly impressive. The designers did a good job at capturing the likeness of Metalhawk's armor. From the large crest on his helmet, to the ornmate look of his chest armor.

It may be hard to see, but unlike the original Pretenders, these don't have a human(oid) face, but a hole for the Prime Master head. It's very hard to see the tiny robot head inside, but upclose you can see it. While I would have preferred an actual face (human or robot doesn't matter), I'm so tickled with this toy that I can give them a pass.

The armor only has two points of articulation. His arms can rotate a full 360 degrees. This is pretty much identical to the G1 Pretenders so that shouldn't come a surprise to long time Transformers fans and collectors.

The front half of the armor simply folds down forward, revealing the Prime Master figure inside...in this case Vector Prime. The tiny robot fits snuggly in the armor, but comes out with a little effort. I almost wish the original G1 Pretenders opened up to reveal the robot inside in this fashion.

The small Prime Master figure scales well with the "pretender" armor. The Prime Master features all the same points of articulation that the Titan Master figures had.

The Prime Master figures are essentially Titan Master figures, without a head mode. Instead they transform into a spark (or is it a vessel containing the actual spark inside?) of one of the 12 legendary Prime characters. 

To be honest I'm not too sure how I feel about these at this point in time. This is my first exposure to a Prime Master figure. While I don't mind the concept, the actual toy just seems odd. I mean, all I see is a faceless Headmaster / Titan Master.

To add to the actual play value of the toy, the Pretender armor can also transform into a weapon. In this case Metalhawk converts into a gun, similiar to a Targetmaster. Sice it's just the armor laid down on his chest with a gun barrel, but I can appreciate this extra mode. There is a peg in between the feet that rotates out to let a larger Transformer wield the weapon. I believe it's a standard 5 mm peg so most modern Transformers should be able to hold these.

 

The original Generation One Metalhawk toy is highly sought after by many collectors, but thankfully I've had this guy in my Transformers collection for a very long time. I couldn't wait to pull him out of the glass cabinet to compare against this new, smaller version. As you can see, he's pretty spot on.

I wish his helmet crest had been painted red like the original, but dang it if they didn't nail just about every other aspect of the character. There are some small differences here and there, but overall I couldn't be happier with the final outcome.

I was really surprised to see that the peg on the Prime Master armor snuggly fit into the peg hole on G1 Metalhawk's hand. Yes, he can wield himself in battle!! I love it!

I have been super impressed thus far with the Transformers Power of the Primes line. So far many of the modern upgrades these classic characters have received are excellent. I picked up the other two Prime Masters in this wave with Metalhawk (Micronus w/ Cloudburst & Liege Maximo w/ Skullgrin) and I cannot wait to see which other classic Pretender characters get this treatment. 

If you are a fan of the other original Pretenders I simply can't see how you would not enjoy this figure. From the intricate detailing, to the homage itself, Hasbro has a huge winner on their hands with Vector Prime and Metalhawk.

Transformers G1: Grimlock (Classic Pretender)

Towards the end the the 80's, it seemed as if Hasbro was running out of ideas to keep the Transformers brand afloat. The Pretenders were created, humanoid (or monster) disguises/shells in order to aid themselves in battle...or just to disguise themselves.

In 1989, Hasbro introduced four new Pretenders - the Classic Pretenders, Transformers that had been around previously: Bumblebee, Grimlock, Jazz and Starscream.

While I love the Pretenders and those were some of the first G1 toys I sought out when I started to collect again, I have never cared for the Classic Pretenders. When I finally got around to upgrading my method of displaying my G1 collection, I decided there were a few G1 toys that I just no longer cared to own. Classic Pretender Grimlock was one of those.

I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about this Pretender shell that I don't like...perhaps all of it?! Perhaps its the large fin on top of the helmet? Or the armor of the shell? I just haven't ever cared for his look. 

He comes with two weapons. The large rifle is an Atom-Smashing submachine gun and the inner robot's little tail also doubles as a rocket launcher.

The designers did a good job at trying to keep the elements of the original Dinobot toy, from the head sculpt to the look of the robot chest. He can wield his tail as a weapon just as the Pretender shell can.

Grimlock still retains his original Dinobot Tyrannasaurus Rex form, but now the toy is much smaller and more simplified. The dinosaur arms can rotate a full 360 degrees, as can the back legs.

If you like the Pretender toys then you know what you are getting here, I just don't care for it. Perhaps it's because it's based off of an existing character that I don't like. I didn't care for the Action Master toys either that were based on earlier G1 characters. Needless to say that when I added this guy to my eBay store, he didn't sit there long before someone scooped him up. I'll just stick to the "original" Pretenders.

KO Korner: Dinosaur Corps Tyrannosaur FS-204 "Goryu D-322"

One of the hard things about collecting vintage toys for myself is knowing that in some cases I have chunks of plastic sitting on my shelves that can bring in a decent amount of money. The vintage Japanese Transformers G1 Dinoforce toys are just one example of toys I bought for song and eventually sold.

I was planning to do something really nice for my wife and I's 10th wedding anniversary a few years ago, but like any father with kids I was low on money. My wife really wanted to go on another cruise so we started to price them out and it was clear I was going to need to make some sacrifices in order for this to become a reality. As much as it pained me to sell my complete, individually boxed set of Dinoforce Pretenders I knew they would fetch enough for me to pull off a really nice gift for my wife.

A few years later I really got the itch to replace them, but like many things I've sold in the past the current prices were just too prohibitive of me doing anything. After all, it's hard enough at times to keep up w/ the current Transformers toys and my other hobbies, yet alone go out a chase some hard to find elusive TFs like the Dinoforce toys. I was aware that there were at least two different KO versions of these toys that were produced in the 90's that share the same size and a very similar color scheme to the originals. With a little searching I found that these toys appeared to be originally available in parts of Italy, particularly Greece. I eventually found a Greek eBay seller that had one of the boxed specimens for sale. These toys also came packaged in a blister card, but many of the colors on the dinosaur shells had been altered whereas the boxed version seemed to resemble the original color scheme more. After I moved some items in my own eBay store, I finally pulled the trigger and purchased my first Dinoforce KO, Tyrannosaur FS-204...or better known as Goryu.

Ironically enough Goryu was the last Dinoforce member I purchased to complete the set and now he's the first of the KO versions to be bought. I'm still unsure of the company that made, or should I say knocked-offed this figure. I was surprised however at the quality of the packaging and overall quality of the toys themselves. That made swallowing the 3 digit price tag a little easier!

You can refer back to my original review of the vintage Goryu Transformer to compare the two, but you should see that this packaging somewhat mirrors the original. While the art for "Dinoking" is very striking, I do miss the individual art the authentic packaging offered.

Instead of an actual instruction booklet enclosed in the box, the simple transformation sequence was printed on the back of the box. Towards the bottom the rest of the Dinosaur Corps team was displayed. As a reminder, you can click on these pictures for an enlarged view.

Here's a close up of the sticker on the back of the box, I'm assuming Zaharias is the company responsible for these Dinosaur Corps? Notice how the R is backwards, just like the R in Toys R Us. Coincidence?

Additional shots of the packaging

Long gone are the days when Transformers, or even KOs were packaged in styrofoam. These Dinosaur Corps figures come a very cheap, flimsy plastic tray. One end started to rip as I tried to pull the tray out for the first time. The figure and the dinosaur shell are housed in their own compartment in the tray, along with a section for the weapon, combiner part and sticker sheet.

Contents

The first thing I notice upon removing the toy from it's packaging is that the dinosaur Pretender shell wasn't oily to the touch! While many Transformers collectors may not have had the chance to own or even handle the Dinoforce toys, collectors should be familiar with how certain pieces on G1 Pretender toys (Monster Pretender shells) are oily to the touch. Sometimes it's just the arms of the humanoid/monster Pretender shells, but the Dinoforce shells are notoriously for having that oily or sticky feel to them. I suppose this is due to some sort of chemical breakdown of the plastic or the chemicals in the plastic reacting to the oil in our skin. Whatever the case, this t-rex shell wasn't oily or sticky at all.

The other thing I noticed pretty quickly too is the excess plastic on the horn of the shell's armor headpiece. I'm not surprised, after all this is a KO. From what I can tell from my own pictures and from my memory, this toy is pretty spot on for the original. The colors of both the robot and the shell match well. However the chest of the shell isn't painted gold like the original. Even the stickers match the originals, minus the Destron symbol of course.

The shell functions the same as the original. The combiner foot pegs onto the back of the dinosaur. There is also a smaller peg hole for the hand gun if you wish to plug that in. The figure itself fits inside the shell just fine and is just as snug as I remember the original being. The hard plastic cover is a tough fit however on the shell, but I never at any time felt the side tabs were going to break as I put the cover on or removed it.

 

The robot itself is pretty underwhelming...just like the original. Plastic quality is rather good and I didn't find any defects on the figure. Even the splash of red paint on the robot's face was applied pretty good. To this day however I'm still unsure of what the alt mode is supposed to be.

Just like the original, "Goryu" forms the left leg of "Dinoking". I couldn't find anywhere on the packaging if the combined form was given a new name like the individual members have.

Since I purchased this figure, I've been able to acquire two more boxed versions of the Dinosaur Corps. They don't appear to pop up for sale very often so it may be sometime before I'm able to complete the set, but it sure is nice to know that I've purchased 50% of this pretty cool combiner team for about the same cost as one of the vintage pieces commands now on the secondary market.

Is it the same as owning the original? Well, no. However there are times when you as a collector just has to make sacrifices and cut corners where you can. I don't regret selling the original vintage pieces as it was worth the gift to my wife and the time we spent together...but I do have to admit it's nice to "almost" have these toys back on display in the collection.

KO Korner: Dinosaur Corps Astrodon FS-209 "Raiyu D-327"

Most of my readers know that I enjoy collecting KO toys of Generation One Transformers, however most of what I collect are the old colored toys that couldn't easily be mistaken for the real deal. I'm not talking about those Easter basket Devastator and Superion sets. The problem with collecting vintage Transformers KOs is finding them. The market seems to be flooded with current G1 KOs with little to no change over the originals, or the cheap KOs you find in dollar type stores. To find the vintage G1 KOs you have to hunt for them and usually that means looking outside the US.

Long before I ever put together my own set of individual boxed Dinoforce toys, I knew of the KO set often referred to as the Biological Chemistry Dinosaur Corps. I had found pictures online of these toys being sold in a giftset form, but never packaged individually. Later I found the individual toys, but they were packaged on blister cards. Eventually I found them boxed and they had that classic G1 feel to the packaging layout. However just about every time I found some version of these toys they were being sold by sellers in Italy or Greece.

About a year and half ago I had to sell my vintage Dinoking set and while I don't regret the decision, I do miss the toys. When I started to see some of the G1 style individual packaged "Dinoforce" Pretenders start showing up online, I made the decision to go against my own collecting rule. These Dinosaur Corps toys don't vary too far from the original deco and at times I've seen these being passed off as originals (willingly or not, I don't know). I fell in love with these toys my first go around and I knew I wanted to own them again...but I really didn't want to pay what the vintage toys go for these days on the secondary market. That meant I was about to dive in to collecting all 6 Dinosaur Corps toys. The hunt is officially on!!

One of the first Dinosaur Corps figures I found for sale was Astrodon, or better known as Rairyu (D-327). Since I've already reviewed this mold, refer to the original post if this is your first exposure to the toy. Otherwise I'll just be pointing out the differences between the vintage Takara toy and this KO.

I know a lot of people could care less when it comes to the packaging of a toy, yet alone the packaging for a KO toy. These boxes look quite nice in person and actually feel like they are well made. It's got an extra window for the combiner parts that the vintage box doesn't have. Sadly there isn't any artwork for the individual characters, only Dinnoking. Yes, that isn't a typo...the combined form's KO name is Dinnoking!

When the packaged arrived from Greece I was surprised that 1) it was packaged so well to prevent damage during shipping and 2) the box flap was almost completely crease free and stood up straight. On the top you get a small image of the toy and on the box flap a nice group shot of the dinosaur team.

The sides of the box feature the same images on each end...nothing special here. The back of the box differs quite drastically from the original. I'll also take a moment to remind everyone that you can click on the pictures for a larger view.

While the box flap was crease free in the sense it can stand up on it's own, if you look carefully at the "D" in the logo you'll see several stress marks to the cardboard. 

There isn't any sort of paperwork included inside the packaging as the instructions and cross sell are printed on the back of the box. In additional to transformation instructions it gives you sticker placement as well.

I present to you, the Dinosaur Corps!

Finally, enough of the packaging - let's get to the toys! Not surprisingly the toy pieces are held in place inside the box in a very cheap, thin plastic tray. Rairyu's end tail piece was not attached so I find it interesting that whoever made these opted to package the Pretender shell fully intact.

KO

vintage

Astrodon actually differs quite a bit from his vintage companion, Rairyu. First the skin on the KO was changed from gray to green. The color of his armor also has been changed. The blue bits on Astrodon are black on Rairyu. Lastly the armor on the neck and head of the dinosaur was all bronze on the KO. It's hard to tell on the vintage version, but it too had some bronze but it was very common for it to wear off.

I am very happy to report that these shells don't have that slimy feel to them that the originals had (or at least mine had). These dinosaur Pretender shells are made a very nice plastic. Not too hard, not too rubbery. I had a little bit of a hard time getting the top part off the shell, but never did any part feel brittle.

Just like the original, the combiner part pegs onto the shell. The hand gun can be attached as well, but as you can see I forgot to peg in the gun. I actually like the look of the combiner's waist piece plugged in as it gives the dinosaur a more menacing look. I imagine this piece was meant to double as rocket launchers.

KO

vintage

I still don't know what this alt mode is supposed to be, do you? The really aren't any variances between the two versions that I can see. The shades of white are nearly identical, I just had different set up when I took pictures of my vintage set.

KO vs vintage

Upon my first inspection I didn't know that the color of the robot's face had been changed from red on the vintage to green on the KO.

Astrodon attaches to the waist piece just like the original. It's neat the way all of these Micromaster sized toys attach to form the combined gestalt form.

I am very impressed with this toy and I'm actually glad to see there are some slight variances to the original toy. For a KO the quality of both the packaging and the plastic used is really nice. Some of the paint apps are a little off, but that is to be expected. Some may want to argue with me, but I think these Dinoforce KOs are harder to find than the Takara versions. Thankfully though I only had to pay about a third of what an authentic Rairyu would probably cost me these days.

As of this post, I've tracked down three of the six. Not sure how long it'll take me to find the last three, but I'm determined to complete this set.