This is Bruticus:
I owned two-fifths of him when I was a child. I had Onslaught, a fantastic toy and the main body, and I had Blast Off, one of the limbs -- usually an arm -- and a neat little space shuttle. Alas, I did not have the rest of the Combaticons. I did have a couple of other combiners -- Blot and Nautilator -- so I could assemble most of a hybrid, mutated Bruticus, missing a limb. Probably an arm.
At least they were all Decepticons, but it was Bruticus Compromised, at best, and it always niggled at me.
Later, in 2001, I was surprised to discover that the toys had been re-released with different colours and under different names, so flush with student loan money -- ha ha -- I bought them all and at last could assemble Bruticus.
Except it wasn't Bruticus. It was Ruination. This shouldn't matter, but it did, and anyway, I have somehow since lost Rollbar/Swindle, so even if it didn't matter I'm back to four-fifths.
I missed out on the various revamps and reimaginings of the toys -- including this beast -- but just a few weeks ago they released a new Vortex toy. Here he is:
(That's his 2001 incarnation there, "Ro-Tor".)
We will be getting his team-mates Blast Off and Brawl -- probably a leg -- and leader Onslaught in 2026. Maybe I will have a complete Bruticus before I'm 50.
*(I do have other ambitions. I'm not a total loser. Of course, those ambitions include such lofty goals as "finish painting my Eldar army" so...)
I had 1/5 of Defensor (Hot Spot)! Never managed to get my mother to buy the rest of the lot, since the toys were expensive, so I had to make do with the adverts at the back of the Transformers magazines (remember how they used to line them up?).
ReplyDeleteI remember them well!
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