Transformers Generations – Power of the Primes: Liege Maximo w/Skullgrin

The last few years of Transformers Generations have been fantastic fun. Combiners have returned, Headmasters showed up in full force, and even a couple of Targetmasters have made cheeky appearances. Which brings us to the theme for 2018 – Power of the Primes.

Drawing on elements of Combiner Wars and Titan Masters (albeit indirectly), Power of the Primes also sees the return of the Pretenders, one of the more unusual gimmicks of the late G1 run. Now Headmasters, Targetmasters and Combiners are easy enough to slot into a canon explanation – but Pretenders really defy the (admittedly loose) in-universe logic. In the old storyline, a bunch of Transformers decided to kit themselves out in semi-articulated shells to better fit in and pass in human society. In principle this is fine, but I’m pretty sure no human was ever fooled by these designs.

Power of the Primes appears to have retained the names of the old Pretenders characters – but now the suits are repurposed as armour for the Prime Masters, as opposed to being independent entities. Who are the Prime Masters, you ask? Well, they’re similar in play pattern terms to Titan Masters; the Legends-, Deluxe- and Leader-class figures in the lines have slots that the Prime Masters can slot into, in order to provide a power boost. I guess it’s not totally dissimilar to the role of Mini-Cons in the Armada and Energon lines, though they don’t unlock new action features; it’s more cosmetic. In theory, you could pop the head off a Titans Return character and put a Prime Master in its place, though it would look a little weird.

In the mythos, they’re miniature robots that harness the power of the Primes, who are sort of the progenitors – gods even – of the Transformers race. Size really doesn’t matter, I guess.

Liege Maximo here is sort of a new character – there’s quite a mythos to the name itself, but it’s not totally clear how much of it applies to this toy. Presumably some of the tie-in media will fill these gaps in, but to me he seems a little small to be quite so…grand.

The Skullgrin armour was the bigger draw for me. It’s purple, which already puts it on my to-buy list, but it’s also one of the most heavy metal designs a Transformer has had in recent memory. A gigantic horned skull for a head, battle armour and a gigantic claw are all winning elements, and definitely help the figure pop on the shelf. There’s an impressive attention to detail on the sculpt too; even the interior panel has been decorated. If it had been totally blank, I don’t think anyone would have minded, and it’s little touches like this that keep me coming back to the line.  

That said, he’s not perfect. Articulation is limited to the arms swinging up and down, and the gun handle at his feet isn’t ideal for the look. The gun mode itself (not pictured) is kind of weak too, looking exactly like a Transformer lying on its face.   

Liege Maximo/Skullgrin is ultimately okay, and has left me with mixed feelings about the return of Pretenders. It hardly seems to have been a much-loved gimmick among the fanbase, and one must ask if design time and tooling might have been better spent elsewhere.

While I picked up a whole bunch of Titan Masters based on a mix of nice pricepoint, fun play pattern and good visual design, these figures are a much more mixed bag. The other two figures in this wave look horrendously ugly. Future waves? I’ll have to wait until I see them in person to make purchase decisions.