Quote Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy View Post
When pretenders were out in the shops, I ended up buying a couple of the smaller ones, and they were OK.
The smaller Pretenders came out in 1989 and were actually better than the larger 1988 Pretenders. IMO one problem with the 88 Pretenders isn't just that they're Transformers inside human/monster looking shells, but that the robots inside aren't very good Transformers in their own right. They transform from robots to... umm... folded up robots. Tack on some wheels or wings and call it an alt mode. They're more like Cosplaying contortionists. The 89 Pretenders were generally better because their alt modes looked like alt modes. Bludgeon's alt mode is clearly a tank and Bumblebee is a VW Beetle etc. The very first Pretender that I got was Waverider; it was a birthday present and I remember opening it and playing with it before I bothered to read the tech specs. I honestly thought that the alt mode was a spaceship. You can imagine my surprise when I eventually did read the tech specs and discovered that it's meant to be some kind of sea-faring submersible!