G1 Protectobots/Defensor

Back in the days of Generation 1, I wasn't very successful in completing gestalt sets. I picked up all the Stunticons, Terrorcons, and all of Piranacon's limb-bots, but only acquired Snaptrap comparatively recently, on the secondary market, having already bought the Collectors' Club's boxed set back in 2008... On the Autobots' side, I didn't manage to obtain a full set of Protectobots, and didn't even start the Aerialbots or the Technobots.

Since I was closest to completing the Protectobots, I made a point of trying to obtain the two missing components - Streetwise and Hot Spot - as soon as it became practical. Both are reasonably easy to find on eBay, but the former is frequently broken, while the latter is normally missing some, if not all of his accessories - particularly the 'arms' for his base mode. I got lucky eventually, though, and even managed to get my hands on Streetwise complete with his packaging and a Hot Spot who was complete apart from missing stickers...

Still, Defensor is as good as complete, so let's now - finally - take a look at... The Protectobots!

Combiner Wars Blades

Pretty much the moment images of the Slingshot-substitute Alpha Bravo appeared online, everyone knew he was Hasbro's way of delivering Blades and, most likely, Vortex by reusing parts from an existing mold. Considering both Hasbro and Takara later released Slingshot as a repaint of Firefly, one has to wonder why they bothered... but I guess it gave them a non-critical character on whom to test the Combiner Wars Helicopter mold.

So, let's kick off the Protectobots with the first major mold re-usage in the Combiner Wars series...