The Energon Pub

Love me some Submaurader/Gilmer
Ohh, Metalhawk

Y'know - I never really cared for Crossblades that much. Sure, mine is missing the accessories, but the vibe I get from him isn't as much as my mourned Roadblock (his end was short and swift, and only a couple of months ago - fell on the floor and under my foot)

Seibertron wrote:The original Pretenders are 6 of my all-time favorite Transformers toys, even to this day. I don't know why I have such affection for those guys, but I do. Maybe it's because my Mom wouldn't let me buy Fortress Maximus at the time because she thought it was too much money for one toy so instead I ended up buying the wave 1 1988 Pretenders. They were featured pretty heavily in the American comics. There was just something about them that I loved.

It also didn't help that before I discovered the Internet, I had found a dealer at the Motor City Comic-Con in Novi, MI that was selling bootleg tapes. He had a Masterforce tape playing on the small TV he had on display. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Japanese cartoons of Pretenders and Powermasters. Unbelievable! The cartoons didn't end, just in America! I bought a couple of the bootleg tapes and quickly became obsessed with finding out as much information as I could about the Japanese cartoons and their exclusive toys. The video tapes I bought were a collection of early Masterforce episodes and some Victory episodes spliced in between. I was quite simply in awe watching animated cartoons of the Pretenders. It was very fascinating to me!

Without having the Internet at the time to read about this stuff, the next year was a pretty wild year of discovery for me about the Transformers. I think that year might have been one of my favorites of the 26/27 years I've been a fan. You couldn't duplicate that year in today's world because of sites like Seibertron.com, YouTube.com, Wikipedia, and events like BotCon. It was a rather priceless and dated moment in my life that eventually lead to the Transformers fanzine (Trans-Forum) that I did from 1996 to 2000 and to Seibertron.com which launched in 2000.

I've wanted to do these galleries for the past 7 years. The fact that it took me 7 years to do galleries of 6 of my personal favorite Transformers demonstrates that I don't take pictures of toys that are only of interest to me. Reflector and the Technobots are another example of more Transformers that I can't wait to do galleries for.

Hey man, I'm with you, just a little behind. I started collecting about 5 years ago heavy. When R.I.D. came out, I went on a rampage digging out old toys. A few years later I found Ebay. As I learned more than I knew as a child fan, I "discovered" that some of the really cool toys I had as a kid that were not in the cartoons, actually WERE in cartoons in Japan (Like Powermaster Prime, Waverider, and Dreadwind)! I was at Megacon in Orlando in 20069on a total whim), and saw bootleg DVD's of Victory, Masterforce and Zone. I bought 'em and realized I had practically zero exposure to the bigger Transformers picture. It was a fun time to constantly make connections to series and figures. I love the obscure, not so popular toys. Personally, I have a very soft spot for Micromasters. I grew up with Micromachines mixed into my Transformers battles so now I just love the little guys. Anyway, I feel ya homie, I feel ya.

Great galleries, as usual, Ryan! I'm with many others here in that the pretenders definitely have a place in my heart. I had T-Wing, Landmine, Grimlock, Starscream, and the 4 air and land 'con Pretenders and all are a whole lot of fun despite their simplicity.

Quick questions in regards to Crossblades - how exactly did you lighten his colors? Did you actually soak the whole toy in hydrogen proxide for a whole week? Does that work on any TF? Have you tried it on G1 Jetfire, who is a notoriously bad yellower?

Optimutt wrote:Great galleries, as usual, Ryan! I'm with many others here in that the pretenders definitely have a place in my heart. I had T-Wing, Landmine, Grimlock, Starscream, and the 4 air and land 'con Pretenders and all are a whole lot of fun despite their simplicity.

Quick questions in regards to Crossblades - how exactly did you lighten his colors? Did you actually soak the whole toy in hydrogen proxide for a whole week? Does that work on any TF? Have you tried it on G1 Jetfire, who is a notoriously bad yellower?

Thanks for the compliments about the galleries guys.

Apparently it works on any of the plastic that has yellowed. I submerged the entire shell and mini-robot in a clear container of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide (which you can buy at just about any store -- it's just regular Hydrogen Peroxide) for a week next to a window that gets the most sun every day in my house. I started to notice a difference after a few days, but left it for an entire week since I didn't notice any damage happening. There are a lot of different theories about how it gets fixed, but if you read about the science behind it ... you'll realize all you need is hydrogen peroxide and some ultra violet light to reverse the yellowing caused by the bromine gas used in the fire retardant that's in the plastic.

Here's the science behind fixing your yellowed Transformers: http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Ultra+Violet+Energy

I didn't make the retr0bright, I just used regular ol Hydrogen Peroxide in a clear container that sat in the sun. Please note that it will slightly rust the metal screws or diecast pieces. You should either take a figure like Jetfire apart OR make that Retr0bright stuff so that you only have to apply it to the pieces that need it. Let us know how things turn out for you!

Or maybe that CLR you can get at the store would fix the rust on the metal pieces. Hmm ...

Great galleries as always. I find these particularly helpful since the Pretenders are the current G1 figures I'm collecting. Right now I only have Skullgrin, Bludgeon, and the Monstructor crew.

I think the Pretender concept could be reborn. I would like to see it in reverse. The Transformers could have synthetic human bodies they could either download themselves into or remotely control allowing them to interact with humans undetected. The toys would essentially be human alliance figures though, which could be a good thing I guess.

A little off topic but as per the H2O2 converstation. I really like the results i've gotten from this method but stumbling through the hardware store i found a product that is meant to take the yellow out of the headlights of your car and make them clear again.

I totally forget the name and just remembered it now.

Maybe i'll buy it and post the results if they're positive.

Oh....and as for the retrObright formula. You just need to add a laundry booster to the H2O2 to power up the solution so you get the desired results in just a day instead of a a few. Borax is cheap, natural and is safe to add to H2O2 as a booster.

El Duque wrote:Great galleries as always. I find these particularly helpful since the Pretenders are the current G1 figures I'm collecting. Right now I only have Skullgrin, Bludgeon, and the Monstructor crew.

I love Pretenders too. I'll be putting mine on eBay in the next few weeks if you're looking for a chance to get Metalhawk and the others.

Expanding on the galleries of the Masterforce Pretenders, Seibertron.com is proud to present galleries of six more Pretenders, this time Marvel, Dreamwave, and IDW Comic Veterans: Bugly, Iguanus, Finback, Groundbreaker, Sky High, and Slashdown.

Bugly



Iguanus



Finback



Groundbreaker



Sky High



Slashdown



Keep your optics locked on Seibertron.com for galleries of Thunderwing, Crossblades, and many more in our quest for 2,500 galleries in 2011!

Thanks for posting these Razorclaw0000. You and Blurrz both found my favorite shot I did of each of these. It feels great to finally have these 12 figures as part of the galleries after 7 years. Can't believe it took that long, but they're here now. Thank you to both of you for getting these news stories up so promptly. I really appreciate it.

Now to decide between finishing the galleries up for the Hasbro and Takara Tomy Masterpiece Grimlocks or the G1 Mega Pretenders. Hmm ...

Mega Pretenders!

Also, do you have the beast Pretenders, like Snarler and Catilla?

I had Groundbreaker and Iguanus as a kid and really loved them.

Razorclaw0000 wrote:Mega Pretenders!

Also, do you have the beast Pretenders, like Snarler and Catilla?

I had Groundbreaker and Iguanus as a kid and really loved them.

Snarler, Catilla, Carnivac, and Chainclaw are some of the older galleries on the site.

Bugly... you are so ugly, yet so spectacular.

Mega Pretenders.

I've been reluctant to buy anymore Pretenders. Nearly half the ones from my childhood have spotting (like in Bugly's gallery) and sticky, melty paint. They're kinda gross to touch and look at. The only ones that managed to avoid it are the small 1989 Pretenders (Bludgeon, Pincher, etc.). It's all Florida's fault.

Posted back in May 2005 ...

Carnivac


Snarler


Catilla


Chainclaw

It Is Him wrote:Mega Pretenders.

I've been reluctant to buy anymore Pretenders. Nearly half the ones from my childhood have spotting (like in Bugly's gallery) and sticky, melty paint. They're kinda gross to touch and look at. The only ones that managed to avoid it are the small 1989 Pretenders (Bludgeon, Pincher, etc.). It's all Florida's fault.

Hot soapy water did wonders for the "sticky" feeling that the Pretender shells had. I put some dish soap on the toy, rubbed the soap in with my hands, and then rinsed them off with hot water. Took care of the problem! It was just a sticky film that formed on the shells which washed off with the soap and water.

I have a feeling that the "spotting" is the same problem as the yellowing. I bet that's just the bromine gas from the fire retardant in the plastic that's coming to the surface, or collecting beneath the surface. I bet a hydrogen peroxide bath for a week or so with some UV light would take care of that problem as well. Going to have to experiment on my extra Waverider and Skullgrin in the near future.

Seibertron wrote:

It Is Him wrote:Mega Pretenders.

I've been reluctant to buy anymore Pretenders. Nearly half the ones from my childhood have spotting (like in Bugly's gallery) and sticky, melty paint. They're kinda gross to touch and look at. The only ones that managed to avoid it are the small 1989 Pretenders (Bludgeon, Pincher, etc.). It's all Florida's fault.

Hot soapy water did wonders for the "sticky" feeling that the Pretender shells had. I put some dish soap on the toy, rubbed the soap in with my hands, and then rinsed them off with hot water. Took care of the problem!

I have a feeling that the "spotting" is the same problem as the yellowing. I bet that's just the bromine gas from the fire retardant in the plastic that's coming to the surface, or collecting beneath the surface. I bet a hydrogen peroxide bath for a week or so with some UV light would take care of that problem as well. Going to have to experiment on my extra Waverider and Skullgrin in the near future.

That's excellent! I'll have to try the soap trick next time I pull them out of storage. Hydrogen Peroxide baths are a little too extreme in my case. I'd rather live with yellowing than risk melting my toy.

Speaking of fixes, I just heard about the hair dryer trick to fix stress marks. I don't know if you've tried it, but it worked wonders on my Blitzwing's wing tip after he fell off the top of my shelves. The hair dryer isn't a 100% fix, but the stress mark is nearly impossible to see now. And strangely, his wing leg that wasn't very good at catching in place, now works flawlessly. Go figure.

D'oh!

It Is Him wrote:That's excellent! I'll have to try the soap trick next time I pull them out of storage. Hydrogen Peroxide baths are a little too extreme in my case. I'd rather live with yellowing than risk melting my toy.

Hydrogen Peroxide, especially the 3% solution that you can get at any store like Walgreens, Target, Walmart, etc, shouldn't melt the plastic. I don't even think the 30%+ stuff would do that. Here's what a 3% H2O2 bath did for my Crossblades that sit next to a window for a week.

It Is Him wrote:Speaking of fixes, I just heard about the hair dryer trick to fix stress marks. I don't know if you've tried it, but it worked wonders on my Blitzwing's wing tip after he fell off the top of my shelves. The hair dryer isn't a 100% fix, but the stress mark is nearly impossible to see now. And strangely, his wing leg that wasn't very good at catching in place, now works flawlessly. Go figure.

Hm ... i'll have to give this a try. I'm having the stressmark problem with the small wing tips on my Masterpiece Seekers from being in storage. Not sure how to store their wings without damaging them or without putting them back in their boxes.

Noideaforaname wrote:
Hey, it's these guys. And Skullgrin.

And with Bludgeon, Thunderwing, and Alice, we've been getting a lot of Pretender references lately.
...Just without the Pretender concept (except for Alice, but she didn't get a toy).
Here's hoping for more.

I don't know why everyone refers to Alice as a Pretender - she's much more like a Predacon, or maybe like Animated Sari. If you take into account her off-screen back story she's really just a normal Decepticon.

Really, I like the Japanese version with mass-shifting pretenders (why not? If the two techs are there, why wouldn't you combine them?) and the IDW version with the pretender suits being essentially Mjolnir or Iron-Man armor for Transformers. It's just the G1 Marvel version that got silly.

I also really thought they should have availed themselves of the opportunity to include a Transformer that turned into a human during Beast Wars. The second & third season set up the possibility rather well. In fact, the **** in Beast Wars would have allowed for some human/animal hybrid alternate modes, many of which might look remarkably similar to some of the Pretender shells. And gee, if you add in the Transmetal gimmick, you could have robots organic-looking robots that change into armored mythological creatures (e.g. armored lizard-man fuzor) and quasi-vehicles (e.g. transmetal motorcycle). You could basically hit all the gimmicks of Beast Wars and highlights of the Pretender genre without the cheap Pretender shells.

Seibertron wrote:

It Is Him wrote:That's excellent! I'll have to try the soap trick next time I pull them out of storage. Hydrogen Peroxide baths are a little too extreme in my case. I'd rather live with yellowing than risk melting my toy.

Hydrogen Peroxide, especially the 3% solution that you can get at any store like Walgreens, Target, Walmart, etc, shouldn't melt the plastic. I don't even think the 30%+ stuff would do that. Here's what a 3% H2O2 bath did for my Crossblades that sit next to a window for a week.

That's pretty amazing. You know, my beat up G1 Jetfire could definitely use an H202 bath, and I don't think I would mind if I accidentally ruin it, even if it is that rare sticker variant. I'll have to think about it some more.

Seibertron wrote:

It Is Him wrote:Speaking of fixes, I just heard about the hair dryer trick to fix stress marks. I don't know if you've tried it, but it worked wonders on my Blitzwing's wing tip after he fell off the top of my shelves. The hair dryer isn't a 100% fix, but the stress mark is nearly impossible to see now. And strangely, his wing leg that wasn't very good at catching in place, now works flawlessly. Go figure.

Hm ... i'll have to give this a try. I'm having the stressmark problem with the small wing tips on my Masterpiece Seekers from being in storage. Not sure how to store their wings without damaging them or without putting them back in their boxes.

It's easy. Just borrow your wife's hair dryer, set it to high heat and low blast, or whatever settings those things have, and let'er'rip. Hopefully you'll see a difference after a minute or so. The trick also worked decently well on Animated Arcee's hands. As for storing them, try a little bit of bubble wrap.

It Is Him wrote:That's pretty amazing. You know, my beat up G1 Jetfire could definitely use an H202 bath, and I don't think I would mind if I accidentally ruin it, even if it is that rare sticker variant. I'll have to think about it some more.

It might be worth taking him apart instead of damaging those Robotech stickers. The H202 will rust the metal / die cast on the figure slightly (which might be removed with a rust remover but i haven't tried that yet). Alternatively, you could try to make this Retr0brite stuff at http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/ and then apply it only to the pieces that need some TLC. I wouldn't damage the near unreplacable sticker variants, especially if it's a carryover Robotech sticker(s) on the wings.

It Is Him wrote:It's easy. Just borrow your wife's hair dryer, set it to high heat and low blast, or whatever settings those things have, and let'er'rip. Hopefully you'll see a difference after a minute or so. The trick also worked decently well on Animated Arcee's hands. As for storing them, try a little bit of bubble wrap.

That's a decent suggestion, or maybe i store the wings in some small rubbermaid kitchen storage pieces or something like that.

No meet up Ryan, heard u couldnt make it at the last minute, was looking forward to meeting you in person.

I love the Pretender galleries. Might have to try the soap wash on the few I have as well. I can't believe how that Crossblades u have came out, looks great for a before and after deal.

I can admit to anyone here thinking that a clean up can't do wonders, start busting out 20+ yr old figures u have and played with when u were a kid and put them on display now. I think a few of mine changed colors when I did it over the summer. Warm water with a little soap and then just warm water and nice towels to dry them with(not soaking them obviously)

Pretenders aren't my favorites by far, but I don't understand all the hate poured on them. Everyone wants to army build, now u get two for one

Oh yeah, the original stickers for the Pretenders really sucked it, are those repro labels or whose? I'd be amazed if you say original? Even new the ones I have never stuck well.

3.8TransAM wrote:No meet up Ryan, heard u couldnt make it at the last minute, was looking forward to meeting you in person.

One day my friend, one day. Just didn't work out that I could go after I found out a few weeks ago that my Dad was coming in from Michigan for the weekend and then my wife worked on Sunday night which made attending the meetup near impossible.

3.8TransAM wrote:I love the Pretender galleries. Might have to try the soap wash on the few I have as well. I can't believe how that Crossblades u have came out, looks great for a before and after deal.

Crossblades came out very well. The paint on his face is slightly pinkish from the sun damage, but if I didn't tell you that and if you didn't have one side-by-side you wouldn't know the difference. I was going to swap heads with another Crossblades shell that I bought last week but upon trying to take out the pin I slammed the piece I was trying to hammer into the pin right through the other shell's face. I decided that after spending so much time giving Crossblades an H202 bath that it wasn't worth damaging it until I could figure out how to knock out the pin without damaging the shell.

H202 is my friend.

3.8TransAM wrote:I can admit to anyone here thinking that a clean up can't do wonders, start busting out 20+ yr old figures u have and played with when u were a kid and put them on display now. I think a few of mine changed colors when I did it over the summer. Warm water with a little soap and then just warm water and nice towels to dry them with(not soaking them obviously)

Apparently the older figures just need a little TLC. After all of the money I've spent on having a complete US collection minus Costco Prime and the 3rd wave G2 Dinobots, I've decided that some of these figures are just going to need some love instead of being replaced.

3.8TransAM wrote:Pretenders aren't my favorites by far, but I don't understand all the hate poured on them. Everyone wants to army build, now u get two for one

I agree 100%. I remember back-in-the-day when I was a kid that I counted Pretenders as two toys in my figure count. Maybe that's part of why I liked them so much when I was little.

3.8TransAM wrote:Oh yeah, the original stickers for the Pretenders really sucked it, are those repro labels or whose? I'd be amazed if you say original? Even new the ones I have never stuck well.

The Masterforce Pretender stickers were applied right before the galleries and I didn't have a problem with any of them. Bomb-Burst already had his stickers applied, as did Landmine (who got a few touch-ups from an additional U.S. sticker sheet that I had for him.

Groundbreaker, Sky High, and Splashdown didn't have their stickers applied until a couple of weeks ago but their stickers were more challenging. I received them in their bubbles sans boxes. I have a feeling that those three figures I received from the Philippines might have suffered water damage at some point or high moisture exposure which is why their boxes were missing. They used to be pretty common on eBay in their bubbles with sealed instructions/stickers/paperwork as were their Decepticon counterparts -- and you used to be able to buy them all for relatively cheap (Groundbreaker for $83, Sky High for $62, and Splashdown for $83). I thought they'd be plentiful for years, but since I bought those Autobots in 2006 you can't find any of those guys for cheap anymore. Some of their stickers didn't want to stick that well so I just used a little 3M Spray Adhesive to get them to stick. Worked like a charm!

As for the Decepticons Finback, Iguanus, and Bugly, their stickers are more like what you'd expect from 23+ year old Transformers toys. Those are the only 3 that were my originals from when I was a kid that made it to the galleries. One of the pegs on one of Bugly's guns had snapped off in his hand at some point so I had to figure out how to get that out and super glue it back together. If you didn't know I had glued it, you probably couldn't tell that there was a problem. If you look on Iguanus' belly (lower torso), you'll see that the hole for the gun peg was shattered at some point so that got superglued as well. Some of their stickers were in pretty bad shape so I removed a couple of them, heated them up with a hair dryer, applied spray adhesive and then reapplied their bad stickers. It worked OK ... not really happy with the results but it was better than nothing for the time being.

It Is Him wrote:It's easy. Just borrow your wife's hair dryer, set it to high heat and low blast, or whatever settings those things have, and let'er'rip. Hopefully you'll see a difference after a minute or so. The trick also worked decently well on Animated Arcee's hands. As for storing them, try a little bit of bubble wrap.

Um wow. Thanks for the tip. My Masterpiece rear wing tips look like nothing was ever wrong with them. And the one Skywarp tip doesn't look bent at all any more after this. Amazing! Is this a widely known fix for plastic stress?

I also tried this on my Classics Rodimus where the shoulder ball joint connects. I fixed one side with this but the other side was taking too long. I was getting worried about the hair dryer causing damage to the plastic so I decided not to continue.

Definitely want to try this on Henkei Wildrider's shoulder ball joints at some point as well as TFA Arcee.

Great tip!