Picking up the upgrade sets for Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai had two effects on me. First and foremost, it somewhat restored my confidence in Perfect Effect's output... but, perhaps just as important, it left me wanting to ensure my Legends Godbomber/Super Ginrai combination was as good and 'complete' as it possibly could be.
The stock Godbomber figure is far from perfect and his components, when added to Super Ginrai, leave the figure substantially less stable than he was in his basic form. Given that the PC-16 set puts a little bit more weight onto the robot's back (in the form of Jinrai Prime's legs), his weak ankles leave him even more prone to overbalancing and falling over backward.
With that in mind, to be perfectly honest, the only part of this figure I was really interested in was the ankle supports for the God Ginrai gestalt...
Dropping plastic crack-related litter in the zen garden of your mind since 2008
Showing posts with label Godbomber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Godbomber. Show all posts
Monday, 24 August 2020
Saturday, 16 June 2018
TransFormers Legends (Titans Return) LG42 Godbomber
Certain aspects of Takara Tomy's take on TransFormers nomenclature have always baffled me. Way back in G1, some retained their Hasbro names, while others got weird, monosyllabic replacements, like Gong (Brawn), Gren (Hook) or Sprang (Springer), which almost read like Furman-style sound effect captions from the comics. Some names - Condor (Laserbeak), Jaguar (Ravage), Lambor (Sideswipe) - were descriptive of one mode or the other. Some were even cooler than the Hasbro names (Meister, arguably a more apt name than Jazz)...
...Then there were the crazy names, like Goshooter, Black Zarak, Blue Bacchus, Road Caesar, Killbison... and, of course, Godbomber.
As well as being its own TransFormer - or Partsformer, at least - Godbomber was an upgrade set for Super Ginrai... but while Super Ginrai was released outside Japan in a simplified form as PowerMaster Optimus Prime, the add-on set didn't reach the West until the Commemorative Series set in 2003. For this release, Godbomber was renamed Apex Bomber and packaged with the fully retooled Japanese version of PowerMaster Prime. Whether Godbomber was originally skipped because it wasn't fully compatible with the earlier, cut-down Western market PMOP or simply because Hasbro were concerned that the name might offend religious types, I've no idea... but it's abundantly clear that there's no Titans Return version because TR Powermaster Prime uses too many parts from Combiner Wars/Legends Ultra Magnus - particularly the feet - which make him incompatible with the Legends version of Godbomber. The only compatible option from Hasbro's toyline was Magnus Prime, released as part of the Seige on Cybertron boxed set (though, as far as I'm aware, this never made it to UK retail).
Lucky I'd bought Super Ginrai instead, then, right?
...Then there were the crazy names, like Goshooter, Black Zarak, Blue Bacchus, Road Caesar, Killbison... and, of course, Godbomber.
As well as being its own TransFormer - or Partsformer, at least - Godbomber was an upgrade set for Super Ginrai... but while Super Ginrai was released outside Japan in a simplified form as PowerMaster Optimus Prime, the add-on set didn't reach the West until the Commemorative Series set in 2003. For this release, Godbomber was renamed Apex Bomber and packaged with the fully retooled Japanese version of PowerMaster Prime. Whether Godbomber was originally skipped because it wasn't fully compatible with the earlier, cut-down Western market PMOP or simply because Hasbro were concerned that the name might offend religious types, I've no idea... but it's abundantly clear that there's no Titans Return version because TR Powermaster Prime uses too many parts from Combiner Wars/Legends Ultra Magnus - particularly the feet - which make him incompatible with the Legends version of Godbomber. The only compatible option from Hasbro's toyline was Magnus Prime, released as part of the Seige on Cybertron boxed set (though, as far as I'm aware, this never made it to UK retail).
Lucky I'd bought Super Ginrai instead, then, right?
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