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Why Grimlock look like out of shape old guy?
Series: Generation 1
Year: 1989
Allegiance: Autobot
Class: Pretender Classics 
Function: Lieutenant Commander

 

Among the winners, there is no room for the weak.
A raging, reckless robot. The most fearsome and powerful Dinobot ever. Particularly nasty when he is reminded that he now resembles a human. Outer shell equipped with jet pack and atom smashing submachine gun that pierces all forms of armor and eats away enemy fortifications. Inner robot armed with double-barrelled, self-propelled rocket launcher. In dinosaur mode, serrated steel jaws can tear through solid rock. Jet boosters in legs also provide flight capabilities.

 

Prelude: During a rather weird Marvel Comics storyline that involved Micromasters, Pretenders, Unicron, Primus, Thunderwing, an Alien rip-off creature and the Matrix of Leadership, everyone’s favorite Dinobot Grimlock got outfitted with a Pretender shell. Because Pretenders were all the rage during that oh so brief time in the late 80s before people realized that the gimmick might have been milked a little too extensively. Anyway, Grimlock was once a Pretender. If you’ve forgotten that, you can be forgiven. Let’s say go!

Many thanks to my buddy Jörg Zimmermann, who loaned me Grimlock for this review.

Robot Mode: As an Autobot Pretender, Grimlock’s outer shell naturally resembles a human in armor. Now when you are thinking Grimlock, is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think how’d he look like as a human a somewhat portly-looking middle-aged guy who looks like he’d more at home on a couch than on a battle field? No? Well, apparently someone at Hasbro thought that way, though, because that is what we’ve got. Grimlock as a Pretender looks like that 50-year-old former soldier, who has been drafted back into service despite having let himself go for the past decade or so. And his facial expression does seem to say “I’m getting too old for this sh**!”.

Apart from the somewhat weird design, Grimlock’s Pretender shell is more or less the same as all Autobot Pretenders. A Human in armor, able to rotate his arms at the shoulders and take off his helmet, but a statue otherwise. He comes with a “submachine gun” that doubles as a sword, and carries the tail of his dinosaur mode as a (non-firing) rocket launcher. So pretty standard all things considered. When he stands among the other four Classic Pretenders, though (see 22nd picture in the gallery), he does seem a bit depressed with a “what am I even doing here?” look.

Opening up the shell reveals Grimlock in robot mode and… yeah, he’s really, really small. I mean, even the original Grimlock toy was not nearly as big as it should have been, considering the scale used in the cartoon and comics, but this one here? About the size of a Legends-Class figure, if that. And remember how Pretender Bumblebee’s inner robot actually managed to be more cartoon-accurate than the original Bumblebee toy? Yeah, not so for Grimlock. You can still sort-of recognize that it’s supposed to be Grimlock, yes, but a very simplified version of him.

The inner robot is moderately well articulated for a figure from that size, able to swivel its shoulders and separately bend its knees, but a lot of Pretender robots do better than that, too. The only weapon he can carry in this mode is his dinosaur-tail / rocket launcher, the black rifle / sword thing doesn’t fit into his tiny hand. So bottom line: a Pretender shell that looks like a grouchy middle-aged man and an inner robot that looks like Grimlock went through a China KO process. Yeah, not that great.

Alternate Mode: Unsurprisingly Grimlock still transforms into a robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex, though the transformation scheme is a bit different than it was for the original figure. The hand-held tail weapon goes over the robot head to form the lower body and the legs fold in to become the upper body. The robot arms still form the T-Rex legs, but that’s the only thing remaining from the original design.

The resulting T-Rex is… well, not so much scary, more cute. You kind of want to coo at him and go “who’s a scary little T-Rex? Of course you are, Grimmy!” In T-Rex mode Grimlock is less than half the size of his original toy in that mode, but the proportions are pretty weird. His T-Rex arms are actually bigger than the original’s and the head is almost the same size. The cute little T-Rex can swivel both arms and legs, but that’s it in terms of articulation. No opening jaws, either. So bottom line for the dino mode: while it’s one of the more intricate alternate modes for a Pretender’s inner robot, it doesn’t really work that well as a Grimlock in my book.

Remarks: After Grimlock had been sent offline by an Underbase-powered Starscream, he remained dormant until Ratchet was captured by Micromasters working for Megatron. Forced to revive Starscream as a Pretender, Ratchet secretly used the Pretender technology to revive his fellow Autobots Jazz, Bumblebee, and Grimlock, too. Shaken by his time offline, Grimlock participated in several important missions, including the quest to find the Matrix of Leadership to defeat Unicron, before he ditched his Pretender shell for good, becoming a Nucleon-infused Actionmaster shortly thereafter.

While the comic stories starring Pretender Grimlock were some of the best of the Marvel US run, the toy itself is below average even among the Pretenders. In the comics Grimlock’s shell looked like a bad-ass warrior, at least, not like a middle-aged man with a beer belly. Add an inner robot that looks more like a cheap KO version of Grimlock, and this is one figure that’s only for Pretender fans and people who MUST have every single incarnation of Grimlock, no matter how silly.

Rating: C-

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