Next up in our coverage of the Power of the Primes Prime Masters, we bring you a look at the Prime of Lies, Liege Maximo, and the real star of the show, his Skullgrin Decoy Suit.
The original Decepticon Pretenders always stood ahead of their Autobot counterparts, in our view. Humans in spacesuits? Cool. Big freaky monsters? Cooler by a country mile. While the Prime Masters have done a lot for these designs, the likes of Skullgrin still stand out in a crowd. Here, Skullgrin’s design looks more like a mechanical version of his original design, but has lots of good callbacks to the original look, making him a good balance of old and modern looks. The inner Liege Maximo robot looking like the original Skullgrin’s inner bot is icing on the cake. As with the majority of the Primes Masters, the weapon mode is a little weak, but for Skullgrin at least there’s some innovation – it’s not another blaster.
Check out the gallery below to see what you think:
Power of the Primes Skullgrin and Liege Maximo
The set does a fantastic job of evoking the original Skullgrin, and pairing him with Liego Maximo – a villain known for sporting horns – makes absolute sense. If you’re not a fan of that, well, the whole package is a spot-on homage of the original.
Power of the Primes Skullgrin wielded by Generations Skullgrin
Bit of random fun here. The 2010 Generations Skullgrin figure doesn’t hold the modern Skullgrin 100% perfectly, but it’s serviceable.
Fun fact: when I bought Generations Skullgrin, it was with the thought, “well, we’re never going to see Hasbro give us another Skullgrin”. How far we’ve come in eight years!
Generation 1 Skullgrin with Power of the Primes Skullgrin
Here’s the original with the modern iteration. You can see how the rounded edges of the original have been changed to harder edges on the new version, with the rhino hide skin looking more like machine parts. Plus, visible abs on the chest. He’s been hitting the same gym as Metalhawk.
Dranoel
Looks like a Baron of Hell from doom.
ljacone
For what it is worth, the original Pretenders shells can wield the Decoy Suit weapons, because they are 5mm pegs.
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NormanB
These "key chains" are the highlight of the line for me. Potato Po-taw-to.
Skyquake21
Im sure this has been said hundreds of times, but wouldnt it have been nice to have voyagers of the Primes other than these key chains
Cooktimus Prime
I’m a huge fan of the Pretenders (and yes the band too) and I love that Hasbro/Takara are using this as a way to give homage to the originals. That being said I wish the Prime Masters ( the robot inside) where a little more detailed with some paint, they seem a little cheap. But I still love them. I hope one day Hasbro will do a Monstructor.
Cooktimus Prime
I’m a huge fan of the Pretenders (and yes the band too) and I love that Hasbro/Takara are using this as a way to give homage to the originals. That being said I wish the Prime Masters ( the robot inside) where a little more detailed with some paint, they seem a little cheap. But I still love them. I hope one day Hasbro will do a Monstructor.
Tahtorak
Waiting for the TakaraTomy version. 2+ months to go!
primalxconvoy
This new version also hasn\'t got a mouth. The original version was odd, as the mouth was molded into the body, with the top of the head being able to turn, effectively twisting the upper and lower jaws.
galien
The figure was called Darkmount. But it was obviously supposed to be Straxus.
jestermon
Straxus from the Marvel comic
I still haven't seen wave 2 yet.
NGW
What was the original version of the Generations Skullgrin? I had picked it up at some point, it is bound to be in storage somewhere, but I honestly can't remember who it was..was a good figure though.
Sol Fury
Prime of lies. And an awesome homage to the original Skullgrin – all the Primes Masters are awesome, but guys like Skullgrin take it up a notch.
Gallery: Liege Maximo with Skullgrin – Reflector @ TFW2005
News post: TFW2005's Liege Maximo with Skullgrin Gallery – Transformers News – TFW2005
Key pics:
Power of the Primes Skullgrin and Liege Maximo
Power of the Primes Skullgrin wielded by Generations Skullgrin
Generation 1 Skullgrin with Power of the Primes Skullgrin