Landmine Nostalgia

I have written a somewhat unfavourable review of Lander, giving the poor chap a rating of just 1 out of 5. Which begs the question: "Why do you own him? Well, I'll tell you.

Though not often of sound mind, I am always of open mind. To which end, even as a young boy, I was always willing to give anything new a chance... especially new ranges of Transformers. I'd never heard of a "Pretender" until reading issue 163 of the Transformers comic back in '88. Aside from the awful story, there was a competition to win a Pretender toy. (I entered but never won.) I was intrigued by the concept and so the next time I had some money saved up and was taken to the toy shop, I had my heart set on getting a Pretender.

At the shops I saw all six Pretenders (remember, in the UK, only six of the twelve original Pretenders were released). All the Pretenders looked the same to me. So what made me decide? I'll be honest, it was down to the tech specs. I had recently acquired Galvatron thanks to a sale in WHSmiths and so was really looking for an Autobot with a high "firepower" rating to outgun him. Oh yes, all my bedroom battles were governed by the little power rating graphs on the backs of the Transformers packaging. It turned out that Landmine had a firepower of 10, the highest I'd ever seen on an Autobot. Job done!

I loved Landmine as a kid. So much so that he ended up with a few bits snapped off and severe paint chipping. As I grew up (and I use that term loosely) from playing with Transformers to collecting Transformers, I always had it in the back of my mind that one day I would replace him. In 2006 I was on holiday in New York and spotted a MISB Lander (who is the Japanese version of Landmine) for a very reasonable price in the Toy Tokyo shop on 2nd Avenue. It was a moment of wistful nostalgic delight. And that's why I own such an apparently poor toy.